154- Use of Sal f in growing the Hyacinth. 



rent through the country ; that physic fattened the one, and 

 roast beef starved the other : and the puffing apothecary who 

 sold the physic began to collect evidences of the marvellous 

 cures which his medicines had performed, and employed cer- 

 tain scribblers to write in praise of it, some of whom overshot 

 their mark, and published treatises to prove the extraordinary 

 feeding and fattening powers of Glauber's salts ! 



I am, dear Sir, &c. 

 June, 1827. Agronome. 



Art. XI. On the Use of Salt in the Culture of the Hyacinth. 

 By Mr. Thomas Hogg, Florist, Paddington. 



Sir, 

 In addition to the judicious remarks of Mr. Campbell on 

 the culture of the hyacinth, allow me to state the result of an 

 experiment made last autumn upon some bulbs imported the 

 year before from Holland ; consequently this was the second 

 year of their flowering in England. About the end of Novem- 

 ber the smaller bulbs were planted in 48-sized pots, and 

 the larger in upright thirty- twos, in compost of one third 

 loam, one third rotten cow-dung, and the remaining third of 

 river sand, steeped in a strong brine of salt for ten days pre- 

 vious. The pots were then plunged in the ground, and 

 covered with five or six inches of old tan, where they re- 

 mained till the middle of March, when they were removed 

 into the green-house. They flowered in a manner seldom sur- 

 passed, either for brilliancy of colour, largeness of flower, or 

 strength of foliage. What! salt again, usque ad nauseam. 

 JRideat Agronome! whom I nevertheless regard as one of the 

 most entertaining of your correspondents. He evidently has 

 been dry-salted a little himself, for one may discover at times, 

 in his diatribes, particles of " Attic salt," seasoned also exig. 

 par. piperis. With respect to salt as a manure, I may be per- 

 mitted to observe, as not altogether out of place, that I am by 

 no means an advocate for its general application. Great care 

 and discrimination are requisite, and its use ought, to be first 

 regulated by a course of experiments, and by reference also 

 to the situation of plants while growing in their wild state. I 

 have found it beneficial, and I have also, in one or two in- 

 stances, found it the contrary. But, to return to the previous 

 subject, the greatest possible injury, in my opinion, that can 

 be done to all flowering bulbs is to cut off the leaves close to 



