Transactions of the Horticultural Society. 293 



his hot-house sufficiently charged with vapour We may men- 

 tion here, that an eminent cultivator of the pine-apple, who 

 has practised the system of keeping the floor of his house 

 moist for upwards of twelve years, and raised some of the 

 largest fruit ever grown in England, informed us some years 

 ago, that he found advantage from occasionally allowing the 

 atmosphere of his stove to become quite dry for several hours, 

 and afterwards watering every part of it, to fill the air with 

 vapour. Variation, even sometimes to extremes, seems pre- 

 ferable to uniformity of treatment, however good. This is in 

 perfect unison with Mr. Knight's papers on this subject. It 

 is but doing justice to practical gardeners thus to notice, that 

 they have for a number of years past been practising what 

 Mr. Daniell states, (p. 25.) has been " tried at the Horti- 

 cultural Society's garden at my suggestion," lest it should 

 be thought, by general readers, that Mr. D. or the Society 

 meant to claim the practice as their invention. 



2. On the Use of Charcoal Dust, as a Top-dressing for Onions, 

 and as a Cure for the Clubbing in Cabbages, Sfc. In a Letter to 

 the Secretary. By Mr. Thomas Smith, C.M.H.S., Gardener to 

 Matthew Bell, Esq. F.H.S., at Woolsington, Northumberland. 

 Read August 3- 1824. 



The charcoal-dust here made use of, is the refuse of a char- 

 coal pit. It is spread upon the ground about half an inch 

 thick, before the sowing of the seed, and merely skuffled in 

 with the point of a spade, so as to mix the top-soil and char- 

 coal-dust together. Six years' experience have convinced Mr. 

 Smith that it is a remedy for the grub and mouldiness in 

 onions ; and he has repeatedly proved, that it effectually pre- 

 vents the clubbing in the roots of cabbages and cauliflowers. 



3. Observations on, and an Account of Plants growing in the 

 Neighbourhood of Constantinople, Seeds of which ivere collected 

 and transmitted to the Horticultural Society of London. In a 

 Letter to the Secretary. By the Rev. Robert Walsh, LL.D. and 

 C.M.H.S. Read July 6. 1824. 



Dr. Walsh amused himself in the neighbourhood of Con- 

 stantinople, with endeavours to ascertain the identity of the 

 plants existing there, with those described by Theophrastus, 

 Dioscorides, and Pliny. The following is the result. 



Cercis siliquastrum, but not the kerkis of Theophrastus, 

 found clothing the shores of the Bosphorus and Mount 

 Libanus : the flowers burst out from every part of the branches 

 and trunk, nearly down to the root ; are gathered and used 

 in sallads. 



