298 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[May 11, 



among which are views of the Conservatory at Chats* 

 worth. 



It did not strike us, when we knew Paris five-and- 

 twenty years ago, that we had much to learn from our 

 clever neighbours in this department of gardening ; nor 

 does the perusal of If, Neumann's work alter that 

 opinion, or the reports made to us by our corres- 

 pondents. Good gardening under glass is essentially 

 English ; and so, we suipect, it is likely to remain. 

 The Dutch, indeed, beat us hollow in forcing Lettuces 

 and winter vegetables : nor is it much to our credit 

 that they do so ; and the private collections of the Con- 

 tinent contain more tpeeies than those of England ; but, 

 as a general fact, i.obody can doubt that the Horticul- 

 ture of artificial climate is better understood in this 

 country than elsewhere. In this sense M. Neumann's 

 work is of more importance to his own countrymen than 

 to us. It is, however, interesting to examine the views 

 respecting cultivation, of so well informed a man as the 

 author ; and, therefore, we shall make a few extracts 



from his work. 



What M. Neumann says about repotting, affords a 

 clue to the whole of his views of what hothouse cultiva- 

 tion is to do. He considers the process necessary in 

 most cases every year, not for the purpose of renewing 

 the soil, but to keep the plants within bounds ; and 

 accordingly he directs the roots and branches to be 

 annually reduced. By this means plants will doubtless 

 be kept small, and a crowd of specimens may be pre- 

 served in a hothouse ; but it is the practice of mere 

 botanic gardeners, and is at variance with good gar- 

 dening. He directs the process of re-potting to take 

 place after winter, at the very moment when plants are be- 

 ginning to push ; and particularly insists upon the ne- 

 cessity of preserving a due balance between the roots 

 and the head. The strongest plants, he observes, are 

 liable to die if the roots, reduced to half their former 

 quantity, are left to support an undiminished head. The 

 plants which bear root- pruning worst he finds to be 



Clusias, Chrysophyllums, Lauraceous plants, Cloves, and 

 Nutmegs. 



In speaking of watering plants, we find no allusion to 

 the use of evaporating-pans ; but great importance is 

 very properly attached to using the water in a warm 

 state. We also find the following fact, which may be 

 new to some: — " It has frequently happened that gar- 

 deners, having washed in a tank of water their pruning- 

 knife and hands, after having been dressing certain 

 poisonous plants, the fish in the tanks have immediately 

 died, and the water has speedily become putrid. This 

 has been more especially observed with the Hippomane 

 biglandulosa, the Manchineel, the Tanghin, Sapiura 

 laurocerasus, and Comocladia dentata. These plants 

 are as dangerous to man as to fish. Gardeners fre- 

 quently, after merely rubbing the leaves of Comocladia 

 between the fingers, have had their whole bodv swelled 

 the next day, and been struck with temporary blindness. 

 The juice of such plants is excessively dangerous; the 

 slightest scratch with a pruning-knife smeared with it 

 may be as fatal as the wound of a poisoned arrow. One 



of the old gardeners at Malmaison lost an eye by the 

 Sapium." 



The water of storms and thundershowers is preferred 

 to all others— an additional reason for catching what 

 falls on the roofs of garden buildings ; next comes snow- 

 water ; then the water of rivers and running streams ; 

 the worst is well-water. 



M. Neumann is of opinion that pots should never be 

 plunged, but should trust for the necessary warmth to 

 the air that surrounds them, instead of receiving it from 

 the soil heated by artificial means. He insists strongly 

 (p. 18) upon the advantage of this practice, for reasons 

 which to our mind are singularly inconclusive. But our 

 narrow space compels us to defer the consideration of 

 that most important question. 



some others, it forms a small group of species, which are very 

 GiflVrenf in habit from such plants as E. pannea, armeniaca,&c , 

 It is a Move plant, and succeeds best when pot;« d in urfy peat, 

 mixed with a few potsherds. During: the summer a liberal 

 supply of water should be riven, and the house be kept as mobr 

 as possible. In funny weather the plant will be much l>enented 

 if slightly shaded, for although it enjoys a high temperature, yet 

 its leaves will become pale and contracted if too much exposed 

 to the rays of the sun. In winter very little water is required, 

 especially if the house can be filled with steam once a day, which 

 is always preferable to syringing.— Botanicul Register. 



GARDEN MEMORANDA. 



Pendarves near Truro. — There is now in flower here a 

 most beautiful plant of Clianthus puniceus, occupying a 

 wall 35 ft. long, and 12 It. high. It is one sheet of 

 crimson, and forms as magnificent an object as can well 

 be imagined. This specimen was out in the winter of 

 1837-8, when it was much damaged by frost, and by 

 mice, who made a feast upon the branches. 



Mr. Groom's, Clapham lime. — The magnificent col- 

 lection of Tulips at this establishment is now in great 

 perfection ; the protected bed, containing about 2000 

 bulbs, makes a splendid show, and seldom have they 

 been seen in finer condition. In point of colour they 

 are very superior, and there is less flushing or running 

 in this respect than we have been accustomed to see in 

 so large a bed. Among the Roses — Rosa blanca, we no- 

 ticed in unusually fine condition ; Aglaia, a lovely flower ; 

 and Cerise a belle forme, good throughout the bed. 

 This is the case also with a superior strain of Triumph 

 Royale, Lady Crewe, a very delicate flower, with several 

 other Roses of Mr. Groom's breaking,such as the Duchess 

 of Sutherland, Lady Douro, the Countess of Blessington, 

 Sec. I n By bloemens, Victoria Regiua appears to be the most 

 perfect, the cup is so beautiful in form, and the marking 

 so precise and uniform. The Duchess of Buccleugh, 

 Ambassadeur de Hollande, -Lawrence's Friend, Bijou 

 d' Amateurs, Perle Blanche, and Michael Angelo, we 

 noticed as being very superior in this class. Platoff, the 

 Duke of Norfolk, and Duke of Devonshire, are three 

 fine bizarres, and Everard, a high-coloured and bright 

 flower, forms a very desirable variety. Pompe Funebre 

 is grand; Polyphemus is very fine throughout, and 

 Nourri Effendi, with its bright ground and intensely dark 

 marking, is particularly striking ; a single visit is not 

 sufficient for this bed : the flowers require stricter exa- 

 mination than can be given at one time* The Pelargo- 

 niums are looking well, and the Japan Lilies are in 

 vigorous health and condition. 



Mr. Dickson s 9 Acre Lane — This bed, though small, 

 contains very choice varieties. They are well grown, 

 and bloomed in very fine condition ; the cups are larger 

 than usual, but the ground-colour is fine and clear, and 

 the markings very clean and decided. One of the first 

 flowers that attracted our attention was a fine bloom of 

 Pandora, with its perfect cup and rich flower; this is still 

 a very scarce variety. It is most amusing to visit 

 collections of this elegant flower ; independent of 

 the pleasure derived from viewing such beautiful ob- 

 jects, every bed contains beauties of its own, and 

 varieties that are poorly bloomed at one place, in 

 another are seen in perfection. Among the choice Roses, 

 Catalani, Claudiana, Andromache, and Mason's Matilda 

 and Rose Charlotte, a superior strain of Triumph 

 Royale, were particularly fine. Holmes' King, byb., is 

 always first-rate in this bed, full of colour: this is a most 

 desirable flower, being constant and perfectly distinct. 

 Violet Quarto is also a very superior variety. The 

 Bizarres are very choice : that noble variety, the Duke 

 of Devonshire, broke by Mr. Dickson, is a grand speci- 

 men, large and fine. Glencoe Charbooier Noir and 

 Platoff are attractive varieties. These are a few of the 

 choice sorts particularly worthy attention. The bed is 

 altogether unusually fine; and its condition reflects 

 great credit upon its owner. 



the 



Cuckoo, baker-boy, 

 Tell me true 



who asks the question to live. In other places 

 saying is as follows : — 



Kukuk, beckenknecht, 



Sag mir recht, ^^^ 



Wie viel Jahr ich leben soil? How many years shall I Mj_] 



The bird is said to be a bewitched baker or miller-bov 

 and thus has pale or meal-coloured feathers. In a dear 

 season he robbed poor folks of their dough, and when 

 God blessed the dough in the oven, drew it out, plucked 

 some off, and every time cried out as he did so 

 "Gukuk!" (Look, look!) God therefore punished 

 him, and turned him into a thievish bird, who continually 

 peats this cry. This legend, which is of great anti- 



re 



NOTICES of NE W PLANTS WHICH are EITHER 



USEFUL OR ORNAMENTAL. 



Bromhradia pall'stris. Marsh Hrnmheadia. (Stove Epi- 

 phyte.) OichidACiae. Oy nandria Mortandria. — •* When Mr. 

 Finlayson was in the Malay Archipelago, he found a curious 

 Orchidaceous plant at Sincapore, with the habit of Epidendrum 

 elongatum ; and from specimens of it, almost destroyed by in- 

 sects, which 1 examined some years since in Dr. Wallich's her- 

 barium, 1 referred it with great doubt to (iiammatophyllum, 

 under the name of 0. ? Fini;<vs<>niaiiurn, (Gen. and Sp. Orch. t. 

 1/3.) This plant has flowered at Penllergaie, in South Wales, 

 with J. D. Llewelyn, Esq., who received it fro.n Cuming, with 

 the memorandum that it hud been ' dug out of a bog in Sumatra.' 

 Having now had the advantage < f examining a perfect specimen 

 in flower, I find that although nearly allied io Grammatophyllurn, 

 it is in fact very distinct. 1 therefore avail myself ol the oppor- 

 tunity of adding to the list of genera the name of Sir Edward 

 Ffrench Brnmhesd, Bait.. F.R.S., whose investigations of the 

 natural affinities of plants are well known to systematical 

 Botanists." In appearance the ,-Unthastheaspect of Epidendrum 

 elongation, as has been already stated ; and like it has the whole 

 of the upper part of the stem provided with ciosely pressed dis- 

 tant sheaths, instead of leaves, on which the spike of dowers is 

 arranged. The latter is very rigid, between two and three inches 

 long, regularly zigzag, with a short hard tooth-like bract at each 

 bend, so that theapike without the flower* resembles a coarsely- 

 toothed narrow double-- ■ d saw. The flowers are about an 

 inch long, white, and rather drooping, spreading quite open. 

 The labellum, in which alone any colour rei is straw- 



coloured on the middle lobe, and volet at the tips of the lateral 

 obes ; along the middle, as far as the separation of the lobes, it 

 is convex aud covt-red with purple down; wniU> the disk ot the 

 middle lobe is broken up into yellow grauulaiions.— Botanical 

 Register. 



Eria rr.oaiBUNPA. Many-flowered Eria. {Stare Epiphyte.) 

 Orchidaeeae. G> nandria Moitandrta.— Although the flowers of 

 his plant cannot boast of large size and rich Colours, they are by 

 no means destitute of beauty. Arranged as they are in \ttu% 

 drooping racemes, glassy in texture, and delicately touched with 

 crimson, they are among the uretl est of th • smaller kinds, It 

 s a native of Sincapore, whence it has been received by Messrs. 

 Loddiges. Along will E. polycera, bipunctata, pr^iusa, and 



Miscellaneous. 



The Cuckoo. — To no bird is the gift of prophecy more 

 commonly attributed than to the Cuckoo, whose loud 

 measured voice resounds in the woods just clad with 

 fresh verdure. The old German saying, " Wann der 

 nauch guket" denotes the beginning of the spring • just 

 as, according to Hesiod, the song of the Cuckoo an- 

 nounces the time of the spring rains. Two old poems 

 describe the contention of Spring and Winter about the 

 Cuckoo, and the lament of the herdsmen for him ; the 

 Spring praises, slow Winter— tarda hiems— reproaches 

 the bird ; the herdsmen represent him as taken away or 

 drowned : the line is remarkable : — 



Tempus adest veris, cucuius modo rumpe soporem.t 

 He announces by his song the loveliest season of the 

 year, but it is not stated in these poems that he predicts 

 to man. The Anglo-Saxon Codex Exoniensis, 146, 27, 

 lately published by Mr. Thorpe, ascribes likewise to this 

 bird the announcing of the year: — 



geacas gear budon; cuculi annum nuntiavere. 

 The popular belief sill exists that whoever hears the 

 cry «.f the Cuckoo for the first time in the spring, may 

 ask him how many more years he has to live. In Swit- 

 zerland the children cry, '• Gugyer y wie lang lebi no?" 

 In Lower Saxony, 



*' Kukuk vam haven 



Wo lauge sail ik leven? »* 



and then they listen and count; as many times as the 

 bird cries alter it is questioned, so many years has he 



* Looking forward to the return of fine weather in spring, the 

 Norfolk people say, " When the Cuckoo has picked uu the 

 dirt."-R. T. 



t Both poems are ascribed to Bede in Dornavii Amphitheatrum. 



quity, and resembles that of the Woodpecker, may at an 

 earlier period have been otherwise told ; and connected 

 with it may have been the notion that the cry of the 

 Cuckoo, if heard after St. John's Day, betokens scarcity. 

 In Sweden he prophecies to unmarried lasses how many 

 years they shall remain single. 



Gok, Gok, sitt pa quist, &c. 



Cuckoo, Cuckoo, that sits on a bough, &c. 



If he cries oftener than ten times they say that he sits 

 upon a silly bough, and give no heed to his prophecies. 

 Much depends upon the direction in which the Cuckoo 

 is first heard ; if from the north (that is the unlucky side) 

 you will have mourning during the year : from the east or 

 west his cry portends good fortune. In Goethe's " Fruh- 

 lingsorakel" the prophetic bird announces to a pair of 

 lovers their approaching marriage and the number of 

 children. It is remarkable enough that our poets of the 

 13th century do not mention the cuckoo as prophesying ; 

 the thing was doubtless commonly known, for we find in 

 Rentier, 11,340, 



Daz weiz der gouch, der im fur war 

 H&t gegutzet hundert jar. 



And we have a story related by the abbot Theobald of t 

 certain novice who, assuring himself of living 22 yeari 

 longer, from having heard the Cuckoo repeat its cry just 

 so many times, concluded that it was needless for him to 

 pass so long a period in mortification, and resolved tore- 

 turn and lead a jolly life for 20 years, thinking the remain- 

 ing two quite enough for penitence. From the regularity of 

 the time of his appearance, the Cuckoo is probably the 

 bird designated z'dvogel in an old proverb, in accordance 

 with the passage of Pliny, " Cantus alitis temporarii quem 

 cuculum vocant." It is said that he never cries before 

 the 3d of April, and never after the festival of St. John. 

 But he cannot cry before he has devoured a bird's egg. 

 If you have money in your purse when he first cries, all 

 will go well during the year ; and if you were fasting, 

 you will be hungry the whole year. When the Cackoo 

 has eaten his fill of Cherries three times he ceases to sing. 

 It portends misfortune to the Servian haiduken when the 

 kukavitza appears early and comes out of the blackwood, 

 but good luck when his cry comes from the greenwood. 

 The froth in the meadows caused by the Cicada spn maris 

 is called Cuckoo spittle ; Germ. Kukkukspeichel ; Swiss, 

 Guggerspeu; Dan. Giogespyt; otherwise Hexenspeichel, 

 Witches-spit ; Norw. Troldkiiiringspye ; thus connect- 

 ing the bird with supernatural beings. The names of 

 some plants confirm its mythic character : Oxalis aceto- 

 sella ; Old German, Gouches-ampfera ; Swiss, Gugger- 

 sauer; Anglo-Saxon, Geaces-sure; Dan. Giogemad, 

 Giogesyre. It was believed that the bird liked to eat 

 these: Modem German, Kukkuksbrot ; Fr. Pain de 

 Coucou, Panis cuculi. Cuckoo-flower, Lychnis FIos- 

 cuculi, Germ. Kukkuksblume. The Slavonians do not 

 attribute anything bad or devilish to this bird, which 

 they always represent as a female. Zezhulice, sitting on 

 an Oak, bewails the transitoriness of spring. The Ser- 

 vian kukavitza was a maiden who long bewailed her 

 brother's death, until she was changed into the bird, 

 " Sinja kukavitza " (the gray) : so also in Russian song* 

 it is a bird of mourning and melancholy; and Kussl *° 

 traditions speak of her as a young maiden changed DT 

 an enchantress.— The A nnals and Magazine of Xaturo* 



History. rp 



Chemistry of Cultivation. By Professor Liebig. li>on 

 tinued from p. 247.]— The quantity of aliments of plsnw 

 contained in the atmosphere is limited ; but it should on 

 quite sufficient for covering the whole surface ot in 

 earth with a rich vegetation. Let us consider, in« 

 under the tropics, and in the countries of the earth wne 

 the most general conditions of fertility— moisture, an p 

 propriate soil, light and an elevated temperature— ^ 

 united, that in these places vegetation is 8Car f ly Tin* 

 by space, that when the soil is inefficient, the P Un |» TgJ 

 itself with its bark and branches become a pa" t 



soil. It is clear that the plants of these countries cai 

 be deficient in atmospheric aliment* neither are our 

 vated plants deficient. It is the continual motion o 

 atmosphere that furnishes to all plants an equal qusn , j 

 of the aeriform aliments necessary to their deveiopm ^ 

 The air at the tropics does not contain more than i 

 at the torrid zones ; and yet, what a difference is sn ^ 

 in the power of the production of equal surfaces oi i» 

 these different countries ! All plants of the tropics"* 

 gions, the wax and oils, palms and the sugar cane, con 

 compared with our cultivated plants, only a sma u 4 ^ 

 tity of the principles of the blood, properly so ca e .^ 

 cessary for the nourishment of the animal. 1 he d 



of the Chili Potato,which resembles a high sn r » ft '*" one 

 from ft whole acre of land, would scarcely suffice ' ^ 

 d*y for the sustenance of an Irish family (P™.*™)' tn e 

 plants which serve for nourishment, and which tor 

 object of culture, are only intermedia for the pro 

 of these principles of the blood. In the absence ■ of 

 elements which the soils should furnish for their proa ^ 

 tion. wood, sugar, and starch, may, perhaps, be or _ 

 the plant, but it IS not the same with the principle* o 

 blood. 11 we wish to produce more of them on a g 



