Pec. 8,1855.] 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



80 



) 



« Fainting the gutta percha tubing white to prevent 

 its melting in Bummer by the heat of the sun. 



"Inserting corrugated joints, at intervals of 18 feet, 

 to enable the gutta percha tubing to curve without 

 i knuckling.' 



"Improving the draught and setting of my steam- 

 boiler, by a strict adherence to the rules laid down in 

 Jtr. W. Williams's admirable work • On the Combustion 

 of Coal and the Prevention of Smoke,' which every 

 owner of a steam-engine would find it profitable to read. 



" There is no reason why the sewage of our towns 

 should not be applied to the fertilisation of the soil, 

 except that prejudice and disbelief will obstruct all new 

 undertakings. 



"An examination of the Croydon Water Works, 

 where 650,000 gallons are raised daily 150 feet, and 

 pumped a mile for 1 3s. 6d. worth of dust coal, will show 



how cheaply our irrigation might be effected by a proper 

 investment of capital. 



« Mr. Whitworth, in his Special Report on America, 

 states that the Navy Dock, New York, containing 

 6J0,000 cubic feet of water, is converted into a dry 

 dock in four hours and a half by a steam pump, which 

 shows how easily the contents of our London sewers 

 might be applied to the soil instead of poisoning our 

 river ; but then you must pet farmers and landlords to 

 believe that it is profitable for them to economise and 

 pay for this precious ingredient, or they will not make 

 the necessary arrangements for its application. 



li In conclusion, those who desire to save themselves 

 trouble in this matter may send their engineers to 

 examine my works at Tip tree, or come themselves. 



"Mr. Walker pays 50J. a year for the sewage of 

 Rugby, and applies it to his land. The Earl of Essex 

 takes the sewage of Watford for 10/. per annum. 



u The Edinburgh meadows (once barren waste) have, 

 by irrigation with the town sewage, been converted into 

 rich Grass lauds, let annually by tender to the Edin- 

 burgh cowkeepers at an average rental of 21Z. per 

 Scotch acre I ! ! 



" N.B. This operation can only be carried out where 

 water is obtainable in sufficient quantity. In my case 

 I obtained a constant supply of pure water by drain- 

 ing a piece of boggy laud 12 feet deep. Water 

 that will produce the Water Cress is considered by 

 Devonshire men well Buited for irrigation. Mine is of 

 that quality." 



toil that his strength may be restored, so Nature in if placed in a temperature of iron* 60 

 autumn is preparing for that sleep of winter which weeks previous to using. * 

 will give it renovated luxuriance in the coming spring. 

 As the animal slumbers after its food so does the tree 



' if 



» 





or flower, and autumn is a fitting symbol of that Provi- 

 dence which careth for " every creeping thing." Long 

 before the green leaves have faded, the swallow and 

 most of the songsters of our summer have been guided 

 away to a warmer land — the dormouse has made its nest 

 and the insect has sought its hole, and man looks on 

 with no wonder, and, alas, too often with no thought, 

 for such things * always were. 



And autumn is in another aspect a proof of the finite 

 nature of the human mind. " No man can find out the 

 work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." 

 We know that the life of the world becomes dormant for 

 a season; but who shall say what that life is, the current 

 of which is checked by the autumnal frost ! The 

 operation is evident, the fact is clear, but the moving 

 spring is hidden from our gaze among the grand and 

 sublime attributes of infinity. 



Still once more, autumn is the storing season of the 

 world. " And also that every man should eat and drink 

 and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of I iod." 

 The squirrel stores his nuts in the high trees, the beaver 

 fills his granaries, the " wee mousey" drags the Chesnut 

 into its nest, and man gathers his golden corn into his 

 stackyard. 



These and many more are the facts which give, to my 

 mind, a peculiar charm to autumn, but as we think and 

 ponder upon them all. the subject opens out into a yet 

 wider and grander field of contemplation ; the brook no 

 longer ripples in the ear — the passing bird no longer 

 startles the thinker from his reverie — the leaves crisping 

 at his feet no more tinge his memory with thoughts of 

 the past and gone — the mellow tints are changed, for the 



mind has passed onwards, and has pierced the gloom of note £ M / S \ lM] wno hag ma a e inquiry in the Garden*, 

 winter, seeing in the far distance the awakening again 



10 M" tor 



Its principal merit, however, 

 is as a stewing Pear, for which purpose it ie found to be 

 excellent, and acquiring a fine roue colour Without the 

 aid of cochineal. In this way it may be used all 

 through the winter and tdl Ma v. 



The tree is hardy, forming a round spreading head, 

 and bears abundantly. Shoots moderately strong, dark 

 olive, sprinkled with both round and linear grey specks. 

 Leaves middle-sized, somewhat obovate, acuminate 

 slightly serrated ; petioles slender, about 1 i inch in 

 length. A variety of Pear that is hardy, an abundant 

 bearer as a standard, and which keeps sound like iiie 

 above, must be considered a valuable acquisition. JL T. 



Home Correspondence. 



Longevity of Seeds. — The following may interest you. 

 Whilst the Great Northern Railway was making 

 through the fens of Hunts the workmen came to a 

 parcel of Nuts and Acorns. One of the Acorns had 

 vitality, but, unfortunately, the n.vw who found it cut 



it asunder to ascertain the fact ; the chaplain, however, 

 was in time to save the Nut, which he sowed in a pot 

 It vegetated, and is now in the Kew Gardens^ and show- 

 ing in its growth all the indications of age. The annual 

 shoots are, or at least were when 1 saw it, short and 

 jagged. The fen in which these fruits were found is 

 full of treei several feet below the surface, black and 

 hard so that no tools can work them, showing that it 

 was once covered with wood, though certainly not within 

 the last eight centuries, and probably man\ more. 



Thos. Richard Hooper. PPW ffitt, Ih ton. [We have 



requested Dr. Hooker to have the I idnees to inquire 

 into this case, and he has done so, as the following 

 highly interesting memorandum shows,] 



Longevity of Seeds. — I have referred Mr. Rooper'i 



AUTUMN. 



of that which but seemed to die, and the type of his 

 own existence again looms forth — speaking of the 

 Eternal, of that which lives for ever. 



And the dead leaves are gone and new buds spring 

 forth, and again the sound of life is heard, and the birds 

 sing and the insects hum and the Grass grows green, 

 and Nature rises once more into life, and the thinker 

 reads the history of a human soul which shall never die. 

 And so I love all the seasons which God has given us 

 for our happiness, but above all I love to linger upon 

 the mellow tints of autumn. C. £. Bree. 



How beautiful is autumn, with its varied tints of rich 

 brown and deep green, its fading Oak and Beech, whose 

 leaves se,em to linger on the branches where they have 

 waved so merrily during the long warm past summer ! 

 And the wind as it rustles through the crisp foliage, 

 scattering about our path the emblems of the life and 

 fertility of another season now gathering into the filling 

 tomb of the past — how clearly it speaks the object of its 

 mission and falls upon the ear as a soft moan of grief 

 over the dying and the dead ! Spring with its renewed 

 life — its sunny days, its gladdening hopeful happy face, 

 has many and varied varieties. Summer has perhaps 

 more substantial elements of Nature's power and the 

 wisdom and love of Nature's Creator. But I must con- 

 fess a weakness in favour of autumn as a season in which, 

 above all others, the mind acquires that calm and happy 

 tone which befits it best to contemplate the wonderful 

 world around us. Where is the busy life — the myriads 

 of insects — the birds with their varied notes and joyful 

 songs ? They do not now, it is true, enliven the soli- 

 tude of the forest or cover its u babbling brooks" with 

 their gay and graceful motion. 



But the very fact that they are gone, and all around 

 is silent, save the chance caw of the passing rook, the 

 screech of the startled jay, or the " wood sprite," or 

 may be my old friend the tom-tit cracking the stone of 

 the Hawberry on a neighbouring branch, gives a 

 feeling of awe to the thoughtful, and adds another charm 

 to the mind's eye of Nature's student. In The Book 

 we are told there is ** a time to weep and a time to 

 laugh ; a time to mourn and a time to dance." 

 Emphatically I would add that autumn is, par 

 excellence, a " time to think." Because, do as you 

 will — say as you will — argue as you will — to the con- 

 clusion you must come that no one can look upon the 

 rich tints of autumn, listen to its falling leaves and 

 think of the busy life that has fulfilled its purpose and 

 passed away, without feeling in his inward soul that he 

 is reading a type of his own destiny among created 

 things. His joy, and hope, and affection, and love — 

 were they not the attributes of his spring ? And the 

 busy, crowded, active thoughts and actions of life— do 

 they not tell of his summer ? How easy then is the 

 transition to that period when in the calm of life, his 

 remembrance of those who are gone from the bright 

 ^orld for ever brings him to the mellow autumn of his 

 own existence—and the falling leaf, and the fading 

 landscape, and the stillness of all around him, 

 do not these things raise within hira thoughts too 

 11 eloquent to speak," and give a sanctity to that which 

 is the type of his own mortality— the shadow of his 

 own doom ? 



And yet again the thoughts which this season excite 

 are not alone of self. « He hath made everything beau- 

 tiful in His time." And there is nothing more beautiful 

 than the design which He has imprinted upon all that 

 He has made. The stupid Pantheist who localises his 

 God in each leaf or stone or flower on the face of the 



THE VERULAM PEAR. 



St/n. Buchanan's Spring Beurbe. 

 Under the latter of these names a tree was received 

 into the collection of the Horticultural Society, from 

 the nursery of Mr. Buchanan, of Camberwell, in 1828. 

 The name, however, is objectionable, inasmuch as the 

 fruit is not properly a Beurre, nor is it asserted that the 



variety was raised by Mr. Buchanan. In 182,, ho v- 1 f oun d 

 ever, a cutting was received from Mr. Jutler as he 

 Verulam Pear, which proved to be identical, and this 

 name is considered the better one to adopt. 



The fruit is produced all over the tree with great 

 regularity, and it is remarkably uniform »n size which 

 is Similar, in tolerably good soil, to that «f the rmt here 

 represented, from a standard ; but m rich sod it grows 



1 ■ - — form is regular. 



The 



Stalk 



considerably larger. -— - , - H _ re ._ 



slender and woody. Eye rather open in a slight depres- 

 sion. The skin is strong, and with its bronze- like 

 close coating of russet is well adapted for protecting 

 Jhe fruit for a long period. The flesh is crisp and ju*J ; 



earth, forgets that the thing created can never be equal the fruit for a long perioa. ™- - r < < 



to Him who creates. As the labourer Bleeps after his [ and in good season* becomes tolerably melting, especially 



but can hear nothing of the Oak plant in question, nor 

 does he remember any Much having ever been brought 

 or sent to Kew. I am not aware how far experiments 

 have been carried to show the extent to which seeds, or 

 rather embryos, will suffer mutilation and still retain 

 sufficient vitality to become plants ; this point will, how- 

 ever, be well worked out if the ] n.po&al to attempt the 

 grafting of embryos, submitted by you in the Gardener? 

 Chronicle to the attention of skilful practical horti- 

 culturalists, be carried out. The main question as to 

 the vitality of seeds supposed to be long buried in the 

 soil is, however, apart from this, and one which appears 

 to have received comparatively very little additional 

 illustration at the hands of trustworthy observers for 

 many years past. The famous liaspberry seed case, to 

 which allusion has again been made, remains the most 

 closely investigated example hitherto put on record of 

 embryos retaining life after the lapse of several 

 hundred years; I do not by this mean to say that 

 as well authenticated cases of seeds supposed to be 

 ancient having germinated are not on record ; but 

 this is, I believe, the only one in which all stages 

 of the process, from exhumation to germination, have 

 been seriatim rigorously investigated and vouched 

 for, right or wrong ; that some unknown and unsus- 

 pected cause of error may lurk in this case too, I am 

 strongly inclined to suspect ; and though I cannot point 

 to any such, I have been too often myself deceived in 

 cases which I once thought beyond the pale of doubt or 

 dispute, to put implicit confidence in any experiment 

 that makes large demands upon my faith, all whose 

 steps have not been watched by practised observers. 



That I may not be accused of being a churl of 

 my confidence or an unreasonable sceptic, 1 will 

 add a case in point in which I was not only 

 myself most entirely deceived, but a much more 

 cautious and most shrewd naturalist shared the 

 delusion. Dr. Thomson and I, as you are aware, 

 visited the Khasia mountains in East Bengal 

 during our Indian travels ; and previous to doing 

 so, in the course of reading what was published 

 about that curious country, we fell upon an obser- 

 vation by the late lamented Griffith, that an arbo* 

 reous terrestrial species of Loranthus (otherwise 

 an unexceptionably parasitical genus) grew there. 

 As Griffith was not only an acute and experienced 

 but a profound observer, who had made of 

 Loranthus a particular study, physiologically 

 especially, we never for a moment doubted the 

 accuracy of his statement ; nor perhaps will 

 some botanists yet, in spite of the negative 

 evidence Dr. Thomson and I can offer against 

 it. Soon after our arrival we too found an 

 (apparently) terrestrial arborescent Loranthus, 

 forming a small tree at elevations of about 1000 

 feet, whose slender trunk we climbed, and pro- 

 cured abundance of specimens of leaves and 

 flowers, and also a section of the wood ; as, 

 however, Griffith stated his plant to have been 

 at 6000 feet elevation, -and to have the habit, 

 Ac, of an Elrcagnus, we could only congratulate 

 ourselves on finding a second case of the anomaly in 

 question. During several subsequent journeys towards 

 the bases of the mountains we found the same species, 

 being always, as far as our observations went, terrestrial. 

 After some months we proceeded along Griffith's route 

 to Myrung, where he had found his terrestrial specie8,and 

 there we soon re -discovered it, exactly corresponding 

 with the following description, taken from his Journals 

 (vol. i., p. 166) :-" The most curious tree is one which, 

 with the true appearance of an Elwagnus, seems to be a 

 Loranthus, the first arborescent species yet found, 

 although, as one or two other exceptions occur to 



