216 Domestic Notices. — England. 



to bo soaked in water for an hour or two before using. {Jour, of Science, 

 July, 1827, p. 272.) 



A Pine-apple will keep for a long time when its crown is removed, and 

 will also be greatly improved in flavour, for the more aqueous parts of the 

 fruit gradually evaporate, and leave it much more saccharine and vinous in 

 its flavour ; which natural process is totally destroyed by the vegetation of 

 the crown, just upon the same principle that an onion or carrot loses its 

 flavour when it begins to sprout in the spring. (Quar. Jour., Oct. 1827.) 



Large Currants. — In the garden of the Rev. H. Bolton, I lately gathered 

 several black currants, which measured in girth lengthwise two inches and 

 one sixth, and in girth round two inches, and weighed forty-five grains each. 

 The same tree produced many of equal size. — Thos. William.';, gardener 

 to the Rev. H. Bolton, Ratcliffe Lodge, near Nottingham. Sept. 18. 



Large Cauliflowers. — I have lately also cut, in the same garden, several 

 cauliflowers, measuring, when stript of their green leaves, three feet three 

 inches round, of fine flavour for the table, and remarkably handsome. — Id. 



Rhdum tatdricum has been in cultivation in my father's garden, and some 

 few others here, for about twelve years. The chief advantages attending it 

 are, that it does not require peeling, is, when cooked, of as fine a colour as red 

 currant jelly, and continues to send up new leaves till the middle of Octo- 

 ber. By forcing with dung laid over an arch of wickerwork, I have seen it 

 on the table by the first of January. I do not know whether it can be 

 obtained at the London nurseries ; but it may be had of Mr. James Salter 

 of this city, to whom I gave plants more than a year ago. It thrives best 

 on a deep and stiff soil. — Charles C. Babington. Bath, Aug. 21. 



Tart Rhubarb, Turnip tops, Beet Spinach, Asparagus, and various other 

 stalks and leaves produced from bulbous, tuberous, or fleshy roots, may be 

 grown in barrels or hampers, in ships, on the plan which is shown in your 

 Encyclopaedia of Gardening {§ 5992.) for growing chiccory; and nothing 

 can be easier than to have new potatoes and mushrooms in a ship's hold all 

 the year. Spinach barrels should be kept on deck, and covered with a 

 glass case to protect them from the sea spray. Small salads may be grown 

 twenty ways. — A Horticultural Sailor. Greenwich, Sept. 23. 



Gardens of Ships. — To sow in the temperate zone and reap between 

 the tropics, is a somewhat singular thing. Yet it is constantly done. For 

 our great East India ships, in imitation of the Dutch, who first introduced 

 the. practice, have little salad gardens in flat wooden boxes on their poops, 

 where the seed acted upon by a heat increasing daily, shoots up in a sur- 

 prisingly rapid manner. In these gardens the number of crops in the year 

 are more numerous than in any spot on earth, for the gardeners, if so 

 minded, can command almost any temperature. {Weekly Review.) 



Change of Colour in Flowers. — It is not generally known, although long 

 ago noticed by M. Decandolle, that, among flowers, yellows will not pro- 

 duce blues, nor blues yellows, although both these primitive colours will 

 sport into almost every other hue. Thus the hyacinth, the natural colour 

 of which is blue, will not produce a yellow ; for the dull half green flowers 

 called yellow hyacinths are, in our judgments, white approaching green ; 

 the blue crocus will not vary into yellow, nor the yellow into blue ; and 

 the ranunculus and the dahlia, the natural colour of both which, notwith- 

 standing popular belief to the contrary with respect to the dahlia, is, we 

 believe, yellow, although they are the most sportive of all the flowers of the 

 garden, varying from pink to scarlet and deepest shades of purple, have never 

 been seen to exhibit any disposition to become blue. {Quar. Jour.,Oct. 1827.) 

 Night-flowering Stock. — The flowers of this plant, which are of a brownish 

 hue, will become green in one night, from the steam of horse-dung, in its 

 first stage of fermentation. The effect is probably produced by the ammo- 

 niacal gas, which is deleterious both to plants and insects, and was em- 



