Ourtis^s Botanical Magazine. 593 



iTie fruit is all set, and the weather fine ; then I take off the 

 upper net, and remove all the fern; but I hang on the nets 

 again for some <lays, to harden the trees gradually. Then, 

 taking the opportunity of fine soft weather, I remove the 

 whole. This ought never to be done when it is very cold, 

 nor in broad sunshine ; for, at such times, sudden exposure 

 would hurt the trees and the young fruit. I have made use 

 of this covering for these thirteen years past with great suc- 

 cess, finding it a safeguard against almost all sorts of unfa- 

 vourable weather. When the fern is wet, it expands itself; 

 when it dries with the sun, it contracts ; so that it then makes 

 but little shade. I now stick on the fern, and make a close 

 covering on a snowy night." 



Saving Peas or Beans from Mice. — Chop up the tops of 

 the last year's shoots of furze, and sow them in the drills. 



Cheap Method of catching Mice. — Sink bell-glasses level 

 with the earth ; fill them half full of water ; put a little oat- 

 meal over the water in the glass, and a little over the earth 

 about the outside of the glass, " to decoy them to a watery 

 grave." Cover the glasses with straw during winter, to keep 

 the water from freezing. 



Art. IV. Catalogue of Works on Gardening, Agriculture, Botany, 

 Rural Architecture, S^c, published since July, 1831, ixiith some 

 Account of those considered the most interesting. 



fn enumerating the contents of the Botanical Periodicals, those genera or species marked by a 

 star (*) are not included in the first edition of the Hdrtus Britdnnicus. 



Curtis' s Botanical Magazine, or Floiver-Garden displayed; New Series, 



Edited by Dr. Hooker. In 8vo Numbers, monthly. 3*. Qd. coloured ; 



3s. plain. 



lio. LVI. for August, contains 



3088. Xanthochjrmus dulcis. Figured from Bretton Hall, whei'e, in 

 Feb. 1S31, a small tree about 10 ft. high was loaded with 200 flowers and 

 young fniit ; the latter having every prospect of attaining perfection. The 

 ilowers, which are " cream-coloured, almost white," are smallish ana pro- 

 duced in fascicles. The fruit, which, in the Molucca Islands, the native 

 station of this species, is palatable and good, is " a rounded or oval berry, 

 of the size of an apple, smooth, and bright yellow, with copious yellow 

 pulp." — 3089. O^lea undulata, A plant for capacious conservatories, 

 where its dark-tinted, largish, evergreen, deeply waved leaves make it wel- 

 come in winter, and where, moreover, it not rarely produces numerous 

 panicles of minute, white, very fragrant blossoms. In the figure cited, the 

 leaves are not enough waved, nor have their petioles or expansion their 

 usual dark tint. — 3090. Melocactus communis. This grows at St. Kitt's, 

 " in very dry and barren places, often on bare porous rocks, into which its 

 tortuous roots penetrate. Its increase in size is vei'y slow. The inhabit- 

 ants of St. Kitt's have observed plants for a long period of years to make 

 no apparent progress, and tradition estimates the age of some of them at 

 from 200 to 300 years. When the head is by any accident broken off, a 

 cluster of new plants springs up from the wound ; by removing and plant- 



VoL. VII. — No. 34. <2 2 



