1 78 Catalogue of Works on Gardenings Sj-c. 



held November 10. 1838. It will be read with benefit by every scientific 

 gardener. 



" Dr. Royle stated that, having received a letter from the secretary to the 

 Court of Directors of the East India Company, with a sample of rice in the 

 husk, from the Himalaya Mountains, with a view to some experiments being 

 made on its cultivation in this country, he thought it a good occasion to make 

 some general observations on the absolute necessity of paying attention to 

 climate (using this word in a comprehensive sense), in our attempts at intro- 

 ducing into one country the culture of another, which may appear to be similar 

 in all that is requisite for its cultivation. He observed that, though the chief 

 object of the Committee of the Society of which he was secretary was to 

 investigate and make known the natural products of India likely to be useful 

 to the arts of Europe, and to introduce into that country objects of profitable 

 culture; yet it also attended to the introduction from thence of plants likely 

 to succeed in England. The Himalayas, for instance, produced numerous 

 trees and shrubs suited to the climate here, many of which, indeed, had 

 withstood the rigours even of the last very severe winter. As a kind of rice 

 was grown on the terraces cut into the sides of the mountains on which these 

 very trees grow in the greatest luxuriance ; it has been inferred, that it would 

 succeed in any climate where they flourished, and had therefore been repeat- 

 edly sent from Nepal to England for cultivation. The trees, being perennials, 

 Dr. Royle observed, afforded no data respecting the cultivation of an annual, 

 which required only a few months to bring it to perfection. To this it might 

 be objected, that barley which grew in the same mountains had succeeded in 

 the colder climate of Scotland j it was necessary to observe that the climate, 

 and necessarily the culture, of the Himalayas varied much in different parts, in 

 the same months, as well as in the same place, at different seasons of the year. 

 Thus, in the interior of these mountains, barley was not sown until May or 

 June, and reaped in August or September ; while, on the exterior ranges, the 

 harvest was gathering in, at the very time the seed was sowing in the interior, 

 or at greater elevations, It is at this season that the rice is sown in places 

 within the influence of the rainy season, which extends from about the middle 

 of June to the end of September. In some places rice is, and in others it is 

 not, irrigated ; but rain falls very frequently, and the air is almost always in a 

 moist state, from being charged with moisture from the heated valleys, and 

 depositing it on the mountains, when it reaches an elevation where it becomes 

 cooled below the point of saturation. The temperature also is so uniform, as 

 not to vary 10° of Fahr. for three months. The climate of England, in a moist 

 summer, is too cold, and in a fine one too dry, for an annual from such a 

 climate; almost all the experiments made on the cultivation of this rice in 

 England, have therefore, as might indeed have been anticipated, failed. The 

 only exceptions have been small quantities raised in moist situations, in a 

 warm summer ; and this might no doubt, always be done with irrigation, if the 

 warmth and regularity of the summer could be depended upon. 



The Apiarian's Guide, containing Practical Directions for the Management of 

 Bees upon the Depriving System. By J. H. Payne. Small 8vo, pp. 100. 

 London, 1838. 

 The second edition of a work before noticed and commended, as being 



practical, economical, and cheap. 



The Weather Guide, or an Index to the Barometer; exhibiting the range and 

 mean standard for every month ; so as to enable persons to judge more cor- 

 rectly of the action of the Barometer, and to estimate more justly its 

 important indications respecting the weather ; being, in fact, as necessary a 

 companion to the Barometer, as the equation of time is to the indication of 

 the sun-dial at apparent noon. The Philosophical Transactions for the 

 last 150 years have been diligently searched, and the most eminent autho- 

 rities collated. This Index cannot fail being useful to all interested in the 



