Mantell's Chart of Floriculture. 717 



meanings explained at the bottom of the chart. The genera, 

 as thus classed, and with information thus appended to them, 

 are stated to be nearly 4000 in number, and they form 18 

 longitudinal columns ; and, says the author, " as the species 

 require the same treatment as the genus to which they belong, 

 the chart may be said to embrace the cultivation of between 

 twenty and thirty thousand of the most interesting productions 

 of the vegetable kingdom." We cannot better explain the 

 mode of using the chart than by quoting the author's own 

 " directions ;" but, before we do so, we ought to observe that 

 he enumerates 21 modes of propagating plants, or of treating 

 the cuttings, &c, while in the course of being converted into 

 plants, and these modes are severally numbered. He enume- 

 rates, also, of soils and composts, 14 kinds, and distinguishes 

 each kind by a capital letter of the alphabet. Then, " should," 

 says he, " the culture of any species of plant be required, 

 it will only be necessary to turn to the genus to which it 

 belongs. For illustration : let Abroma, under stove plants, 

 be taken as an example. Opposite to this we find. 1 . 6. E. 

 By referring to the modes of propagation, we learn that the 

 plant may be raised, 1. by seed ; 6. by cuttings of the young 

 wood planted in sand under a bell-glass, and placed in a shady 

 part of the stove or green-house, and that the cuttings are liable 

 to damp off, unless the accumulated moisture be occasionally 

 wiped from the glass. Under soils, it will be seen that E. 

 indicates equal parts of loam and peat, as best adapted to the 

 growth of the genus. Annuals and biennials being uniformly 

 propagated by seeds, it has been deemed only necessary to 

 point out their habits and places of habitation : these are de- 

 signed by the following abbreviations : — A. annual, B. bien- 

 nial, H. hardy, T. tender, G. green-house, S. stove." 



We have bestowed thus many words on this chart, because 

 it is certainly the most comprehensive synopsis of directions 

 for propagating plants, and accommodating them with the 

 soils they require, which has ever been published. It is an im- 

 portant improvement of the 11th and 12th columns in our 

 Hortus Britannicus : in those columns of that work, the mode 

 of propagation and soil are generally stated ; in the chart 

 before us, where these two particulars have been almost the 

 only objects of the author's attention, they are stated with 

 more definiteness, precision, and detail. The author adopts 

 our accentuation of the generic names, and of indicating whether 

 they be of classic, commemorative, or aboriginal origin. We 

 need not remark to the young gardener, for whose sake we 

 have noticed this chart at such length, how practicable it is to 

 apply the same principle of conspectiveness and of abbreviation, 

 by arbitrary short-hand characters, to other objects. 



