734 



much superior to the manufacture imported here. There 

 is a beautiful native Ribes here which grows 40 or 50 feet 

 hbh, on which I have budded both the Gooseberry ana 

 the Currant, both of which have taken well and are 

 growing amazingly. I have budded also the Pear upon 

 the White Thorn, which is also doing well. In fact, 

 budding and grafting may be carried on here all the year 

 round. All sorts of provisions are cheaper here than in 

 England, and wages above double ; but I am sorry to 

 inform you that high wages have caused a great deal or 

 drunkenness and idleness in the colony. I am keeping 

 a journal of the weather, which I will send to you by-and- 

 by. We have had several earthquakes lately ; one of 

 them was a tremendous shock. There is a great deal of 

 rain here in the winter season ; but often we have as 

 fine days as in the middle of summer. Our winter is just 

 beginning now ; but vegetables grow better in some in- 

 stances in the winter time than in summer. I shall 

 embrace every opportunity of writing to you, and it a 

 reeular correspondence will be agreeable to you, I shall 

 be most happy to keep it up. Owing to the unsettled 

 state of first coming into a strange place, I have not been 

 able to gather much information worth putting in your 

 Magazine J but I hope that when fully established in a 

 place of my own, I shall be able to send you some good 

 botanical subjects worthy of inserting. I have sent up- 

 wards of 100 native plants to a gentleman m Van 

 Piemen's Land, who has promised to send me fruit trees 

 in return. Give my best respects to Mrs. Loudon and 

 Mr. Wakefield, to whom I shall write soon. I hope you 

 will write me soon, and if you can inclose a little of the 

 best Calceolaria seed from Mr. Snow in it, I should feel 

 greatly obliged to you, as there is not one single plant of 

 it in the colony ; also a few Rose seeds, or in fact any- 

 thing that you think is worth sending. Wishing you all 

 health and happiness, I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 

 Wm. Tro'tcr. [ Verbatim copy of a letter addressed to 

 the late J. C Loudon, Esq., and kindly communicated 

 by Mrs. Loudon. 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[Nov. 2, 



mm to this rule: this plant bears an ample crop .of little 

 bulb* which fall off and germinate freely, like the little black 



uuw , _u;i« Qr rho camf timP_ t.hft lrOIUl 



10« 



£ 



octttfts. 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 

 FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



y Continued from page 7>9 ) 



The President stated, that notice had been given of 

 a Paper by Mr. Fox Strangways, on the Phosphorescence 

 of Mosses, but the Paper had been lost, and he would 

 merely refer to it as a subject of discussion.— Mr. 

 Babington stated, that in company with Mr. Borrer, 

 he had witnessed the peculiar luminosity of the Moss 



Schistosteea pennata. — Dr. Lankester then gave . 



a short account of the present state of our knowledge account of some of the more remarkable species. 



with regard to the various kinds of luminosity in (To be continued.) 



tubers from the Tiger Lily; while, at the same time, the trond 

 is covered on the under side with sporules. Asplenium vivi- 

 parumand Woodwardia radicans have never fructified m my 

 possession. Another instance occurs in Aspuhum thelyp- 

 teris- we have one locality in this neighbourhood where it 

 grows under wood, in an open peaty soil, and where we may 

 find it scattered over acres, and scarcely find a single fertile 

 trond. In another locality, where the rhizoma has not so free a 

 ranee it fructifies freely ; andinmy own garden, in a stiff soil, 

 almost every frond is fertile ; while in a peat bed, about three 

 vard off, almost every frond is sterile. I know not whether 

 botanists fa flame to which I have no pretension, though 

 offermg a Paper in the Botanical Section) would expect to find 

 cTosses or new varieties spring up from seed ma class of plants 

 which have no recognisable organs of generation ; nut we find it 

 Tin practice. I posfess a species of Gvmnogramma which was 

 obtained from seed by Jas. Henderson, gardener to Earl F.tz- 

 wilham, at Milton; it is different from any previously culti- 

 vated Tpecies. I also have a plant of my own which appears to 

 be-and I have no doubt it is-a Ptei.'S, unlike any plant I before 

 Possessed, or that I recollect to have seen. From its appear- 

 ance i should take it to be a cross between Ptens hirta and 

 nexuosa, but unfortunately thelatter beautiful plant has never 

 fructified with me. I find a great difference in the frequency 

 with which the Ferns propagate themselves spontaneously from 

 seed: the genus Pteris is amongthe most frequent, and springs 

 up of various species in all directions. Blechnum, Doodia, 

 and Gymnogramma also spring up freely, and joaje species 

 of Diplazium, Cheilanthes, and Dicksonia frequently occur. Of 

 Polypodiums 1 have had very fine seedlings ; the same maybe 

 said of exotic Aspidiums ; and only a few Aspleniums. 1 have 

 this year adopted what I believe to be a new method in rals- 

 in K Ferns from seed, and, as far as I can at present judge, with 

 complete success. The plan I have adopted is to obtain a block 

 of peat turf, such as is sold in York for the purpose of lighting 

 fires ; that I thoroughly soak in water, and then place in a Cu- 

 cumber-frame. On these torfs I sow the seed, and, keeping 

 them shaded from the sun, I Have a good crop of plants ; but l 

 am yet unable to determine whether they will prove to be the 

 species sown, three of which have not before been, as I believe, 

 cultivated in England j the species are Polypodiummembranzc- 

 folium, Asplenium varieefolium, and Alsophila excelsa, al from 

 Norfolk Island. The seed of Ferns is so volatile, and so fills the 

 air that though I have used a good deal of care to prevent 

 seed from my pinery finding its way to my seed-beds, lam 

 as yet unable to assure myself of possessing the new species. 

 In the work on Australia, from the pen of my friend and relative 

 James Backhouse, there is notice of the occurrence of many 

 species of Ferns; and from his observations on the native habits 

 and habitats of several species, 1 have derived great advantage, 

 especially so by planting a considerable number on decayed 

 trunks of trees, where they grow with a vigour such as I never be- 

 fore experienced : a particular instance is the beautiful Asplenium 

 nidus, a plant I have had for years, but which was always in so 

 feeble and rickety a state, that it was scarcely able to maintain 

 existence, and I had sent it out to nurse, under the care of our 

 experienced curator, in the Orchidaceous stove in these pre- 

 mises : still it never put on a healthy appearance till I planted 

 it in part of the stump of an old Willow, where it now flourishes 

 in the greatest vigour, and is putting forth its fertile fronds." 



After the reading of this Paper, the President and 

 members of the Section repaired to the tent in which Mr. 

 Allis's collection was placed, where he gave a further 



ible species. — L. E. 



(To be continued.) 



feet high, from the top of which spreads an umbrdltj 

 branches, each of which is terminated by long clusters ofiS^ 



In the same part of the reDlfl 



^» ^ ■■-■■ ■ ■- ■ ■ y 1 — — wi 



its beautiful crimson flowers. 



V* ob 



\v. 



Oik. 



Ditto 



Ditto 



:.:*o 



Ditto 





plant*, being the substance of some communications 

 he had made to the Gardeners' Chronicle shortly after the 

 subject was discussed at the meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Cork.— Mr. Sciiomburgk. had often observed 

 luminosity in plants in the forests of Guiana, more par- 

 ticularly of the Fungi. He had also seen phosphores- 

 cence given out from the decomposing roots of Cassava. 

 — Professor Balfour did not think that Meyen's 

 theory of a slow combustion being the cause of the light 

 could be admitted, because if it were, the light would be 

 greatest where combustion was most active ; and thi3 

 was known to be greatest in the Aracese, where there had 

 been observed no light. — Professor Allman repeated 

 the statement he had made last year, that the light ob- 

 served on highly-coloured flowers was an optical illusion. 

 If it were a real light from combustion or phosphorescence, 

 it would be seen best in the dark ; but the luminosity re- 

 ferred to was best seen at twilight. 



Mr. Robert Patterson, having observed that all the 

 churchyards which he had seen in York were profusely 

 covered with Marigolds, inquired if there was any super- 

 stition connected with this practice. — Mr. Schombtjrgk 

 observed, that it was much more customary in Germany 

 to deck the tombs of the dead with flowers than in this 

 country, and there they planted the Marigold because 

 it bloomed later than most plants. 



A Paper was then read by Mr. T. Allis, on some of 



the rarer forms of Ferns in his own collection, and on 



their mode of cultivation, &c. The collection of Ferns 



which had been brought from Mr. Allis's house, and 



placed in a tent in the Museum grounds, contained 



several rare species of Ferns, and amongst others, Dansea 



chrysophylla, Pteris rotundifolia, Cibotium Billardiasi, 



Gymnosphsera chaerophylla, and a species of Didy- 



mochlsena. 



" In the cultivation of Ferns, I find many that arc of con- 

 stant character; they may be more or less vigorous, but the 

 characters remain unaltered, and the eye at once recognises 

 them. Others, again, are subject to considerable alteration, 

 as in some of the Adianta. Affine has usually only three 

 digits, but I have plants in a vigorous state of growth with the 

 number of digits iocreased, and quite undistinguishable from 

 the allied speci.es pubescens. In Newman's " British Ferns," 

 Polypodiutu Dryopteris and calcareura are considered as one ; 

 with me they retain their distinct characters under all circum- 

 stances of growth. I have grown them in peat beds within a 

 few feet of each other ; there calcareum retains its peculiar 

 hue from the first appearance of the frond abdve ground; its 

 greener and more chaffy stem, and its more rigid appearance; 

 and I always find that it sends up fewer fronds than Dryopteris, 

 which are almost always fertile. These distinctions have been 

 retained growing in a peat bed, in common garden soil, in pits 

 in the house, and when raised from seed, as a general rule, 

 though liable to exceptions, I find that plants which have 

 other means of propagation than from seed, fructify less freely 

 than those which grow by an extension of the rhizoma, or 

 which propagate themselves by sending out young plants at the 

 extremity of the frond, as is the case with Asplenium flabellifo- 

 lium, Danaia, and Asplenium rhizophyllum, which generate a 

 youc'g plant near the under extremity of the frond, as Wood- 

 wardia radicans, or which have young plants sprouting from 

 the upper surface of the frond, as is the case with Aspicnium 

 viviparum. On the other hand, Aspidium bulbifeium is an ex- 



COUNTRY SHOW. 



Staines Celery Show, Oct. 22.— At this Exhibition some excel- 

 lent samples of Celery were produced, and several prizes were 

 awarded; but we have only been furnished with a list of awards, 

 without the sorts of Celery being specified for which these awards 

 were given. 



SiUbfctos. 



Elements of Agricultural Chemistry. By Sir H. Davy, 

 Bart. A New Edition, with Instructions for the Analy- 

 sis of Soils, and Copious Notes. By John Shier. 8vo. 



Glasgow. 1844. 

 This book is a reprint of Davy's well-known Lectures, 

 delivered before the Board of Agriculture, with a com- 

 mentary of notes by Mr. Shier. The Editor has evidently 

 taken great pains to collect as much useful information 

 as he could, and the notes are for the most part clear and 

 intelligible. It is, however, not very evident for what 

 class of readers the book is intended. For chemical 

 students, the details are frequently very meagre and in- 

 complete ; if, on the other hand, it is intended for farmers, 

 we fear that a great deal of it will be quite unintelligible. 

 All nse of chemical symbols must be avoided in books in- 

 tended for farmers, if it is desired that they should 

 understand what they read. ♦ 



plant, covered with beautiful specimens of a golden Lici**- Ji^ 

 which appears to be Dufourea flammea. This curioj e*^' 

 specimen, which has not been recognised as yet by u* tf jtltf D 

 botanist, was sent to his Grace the Duke of DevonshjJ 

 from one of the most arid parts on the west of Tropin 

 Africa. 



Glasnevin Gardens. — The splendid Grass, Gyneri^ 

 argenteum, which, if at all known, is extremely rare'* 

 British collections, is now in full flower in these gardens 

 where it has stood, without any protection, during tit 

 last three winters. Mr. Tweedie, who sent the seeds fro* 

 Buenos Ayres, after stating the dimensions to which it 

 attains on the extensive pampas of that eountry, furtW 

 adds, that " it is the most showy plant of any clas* 

 This is no doubt saying rather much for it, though it isc*. 

 tainly a splendid object as it occurs here at present, wife 

 the culms rising to a height of nearly 10 feet. TW 

 flowering panicles are 18 inches long, compact and wdU 

 formed ; both in shape and apparent texture resembli^ 

 the white feathers worn in military capB. — D. M. 



, ; Dlt«° 



Miscellaneous. 



Transplanting Trees. — When all was clear and the 

 tree ready for transplanting, it was raised out of the] 

 hole in which it grew, by bringing the head down on one 

 side by means of ropes and throwing earth under the bot- 

 tom of the ball and roots, then doing the same on the op 

 posite side, again filling in with earth and repeating til 

 on alternate sides until the bottom of the ball was level wita 

 the surface of the ground. In the next place, care vu 

 taken to choose the flat or hollow side of the tree to wt 

 upon the bolster when lowered ; for if the tree shifts or 

 turns during its carriage, the bark will be injured andtae 

 head and roots broken ; the wheels were then put in lech p 

 a position that the top of the bolster was close to the Wl 

 of earth at the foot of the tree, the pole or bean i rai*d, 

 and the ring and top fastened with flat rope to the body 

 of the treef the latter having been previously wr.p«d 

 with matting to keep the ring from bruising the bark. J ^ 

 The bottom of the tree was well secured to the bolster b, 

 Jopes and diains passing under the ball the bark b^ 



S TL made ^y for removal The «- - 



ground. It is absolutely ««J^ * Y*£will .hray, 



should ^^X^i^t^olu except ia ven 

 be the case if the above j dan maintamed by one 01 m 



light sandy soils. Uquuumu trce 



more men who acted as balancers m the top o 

 so that by shifting their situation a so ccas 4 _ 



Che whole' weight wm thrown ^*^ h g^. T bi j 



roots and *™t«*%^^lri*o&«to 

 tree was guided by the aire f °% f t above the top o 

 tened to the bole of the tree a fowfee^ ^ ^ ^ 



Ditto 

 Ditto 



. ft 



I 



. :. 



Ql 



Hit 



Z po of Machine, and carried between 

 extremity of the branches where ^ ^ k h £ ^ 

 thus was enabled to gu.de the machmemt,^ J^ 





accural On arriving at the side of ^ pit , ; h£ha 

 been previously prepared ft» the ^P™ tbe c0 , c l 



^ e d , b t e wbe°e U of rSn^rVgraduai.y iower, 

 road), the wneeis ui *> D urpose from ta 



d ° W f aee he of in tt $£? '»&£<* <>' # ' * «2 

 surface of the g^ ^ ^ of ^ . 



m achine removed, and the roots carefully adj 



Dil 

 Dil 



Bit 

 Di< 

 Dil 



Di 



Di 



was 



Garden Memoranda. 



Chatsworth.— The works at this seat of magnificence 

 are proceeding with unabated activity. During the 

 summer two new fountains have been set in action, of 

 which one, called tbe Emperor, from a single jet 

 throws a column of water nearly 300 feet high. The 

 force of this fountain may be imagined when we state, 

 that in an hour it lowers an acre of water to the depth 

 of a foot. The other, quite unique in design, consists of 

 several jets, whose copious streams rise and fall alter- 

 nately, producing the appearance of dancing water, and 

 an effect perfectly enchanting. In addition to these, 

 huge masses of rock are collecting and forming into a 

 rockwork, the like of which has never before been seen. 

 Some of these masses weigh upwards of 370 tons. In 

 one place they are put together in exact imitation of the 

 Strid — a rocky stream at Bolton Abbey — and when 

 completed will form a wild mountain torrent some 

 300 feet long, with banks full 13 feet high. Such gigantic 

 works are necessary at Chatsworth, where smaller things 

 would be lost amidst the grandeur of the place. The 

 great Conservatory now contains some most beautiful 

 specimens of Zamias, which find themselves in better 

 quarters than if they were at home, and Ficus repens has 

 almost covered a mass of rockwork with a tropical screen ; 

 Bougainviilea spectabilis was in flower too upon the 

 roof, the first time we believe that its beautiful heads of 

 rose-coloured blossoms have been produced in England. 

 Those who would know what Fuchsia corymbiflora may 

 be, should visit the gardens near Mr. Paxtou's resi- 

 dence. They will there find it with a strong stem, 10 



1C e of the grouna to wuc , , [t ee t uprierht, th 

 then placed in the centre of the ^ , ^ ^ ^ 



hine removed, ™ d £ e ^°£e7tnd rammed arou? 

 the soil was thrown in, waterea ^ 



them until the tree , was , weU fi^ U the^ ^ 



ture for the smaller tree, ui P ^ 





large 

 post, 

 same mix 



cubic yarns oi gu^ — , « 



post, and one of siftld "J^™ £!*£ 

 mixture for the smaller trees in v 



every case care was ^^^1^ *£« 

 than it grew before The «tuai ^^ ^ 



a brook to be turned over the ^gr ^ 



it was well soaked once ^^/^ yea r, and e* 

 and summer, every nine day .the ec j ^^ 

 fortnight the third year ; it was a 1. oc ^ 



straw, &c, for the same period tc ^ P ^^ > 



I 



a s 

 the 



straw, &c, ior u« * T — r roue ht in summer. - 

 roots from frost in winter and *™*Z™ . ds f any 

 prig was intentionally taken .rf £ hee ^ ^ 

 tu o trees, nor was any one ^ m J t ^ h the situa 

 with ropes when first trans p anted altho g 



iTmuch exposed to the ™^*fZ*** "H 

 upon Sir H. Steuart's plan h *s ^> a lar watt 



has been partly owing to the manure ana r ft „ 



S X fact, the method has ^cef -Uo w* ^ aC 

 J seen by a comparison made with two O _ , 



h 



ft 

 I 



D 

 D 

 D 



hich the first four 





S 



growing in the field from which the «« -^ ^ ; 

 g 1a in 183 9 that No. 1 removed has exec t 



^ removed and No. 3. which was 70 years f 

 time of its removal, has increased m „ J 



garter of an inch of No. 2 not remov -i b^ « 

 very similar in appearance. This result : is ^ „ ^ 

 Ordinary, as no large tree increases in .£ f ^ j W^ 

 two years after its removal ; therefore ^^ -*, 



increased as much in nine years as those n ^ c ,t 

 eleven years. It is gener «»T «PP 0, b e * \fais is *bo 

 removing large trees must be great, 



