562 General Notices. 



Dr. Lindley's valuable article on the same subject in the Horticultural Trans- 

 actions, Professor Alphonse De Candolle's in the Bibliotheque Universellc, 

 and M. Otto's in the Gartenzeitung. We shall make ample use of all these 

 papers in a volume which we contemplate on the plants suitable for a con- 

 servative wall, with their culture and management. We rejoice to find that 

 the noble tree of iaurus nobilis at Margam, which Mr. Dillwyn kindly had 

 measured for our Arboretum, and which is nearly 62 ft. high, was only slightly 

 injured at the top, and has recovered. 



The Stranger's Intellectual Guide to London, for 1839-40, containing an Account 

 of the Literary and Scientific Societies and Institutions, Exhibitions, and 

 Curiosities ; Museums, Libraries, Public and Private Collections ; Botanical, 

 Horticultural, and Zoological Gardens, fyc, of the Metropolis. By A. 

 Booth, F.S. A., F.S.S., Member of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, &c. Post 8vo, pp. 152, with a tabular synopsis, &c, in 

 a folding sheet. Lond. 1839. 



A work much wanted, and which cannot fail to be extremely useful, even 

 to gardeners, since it contains a list of the London nurseries, of private 

 gardens, of public gardens, botanic and horticultural, of the zoological gar- 

 dens, &c. In speaking of the gardens of the Duke of Northumberland, at 

 Syon, it is stated that His Grace is the most successful breeder of monkeys in 

 the kingdom ; a fact which we were not before aware of. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



THE Character of Soils in Relation to Vegetable Culture. — When a cultivator 

 devotes himself to the investigation of a soil, it is a matter of indifference to 

 him whether it is composed of alumina and silica, or whether these substances 

 are in the state of quartz or felspar, or that by their aggregation they form the 

 debris of granite, or, finally, that they belong to primitive, transition, or alluvial 

 formations : what he requires is, to know what kind of plants the soil will 

 produce with the greatest advantage, the trouble it will require to put it in a 

 state of culture, the manuring it will need, the quantity of this manure it will 

 yield to the plant, and the portion it will retain in its own substance; these are 

 its agricultural characters, those which adapt it to the objects of agronomy, 

 and which shed light on his researches. 



What we have already said of the composition and properties of soils de- 

 monstrates that certain of their scientific elements have a relation to the pro- 

 perties which are enquired after by cultivators. Thus, as to the nature of the 

 crops which may be expected from different soils, those which contain car- 

 bonates of lime and magnesia are eminently qualified to produce wheats and 

 leguminous crops ; the siliceous clay lands are the soils peculiarly adapted to 

 forests ; the siliceous are proper for plants which vegetate in winter, as rye, 

 &c. ; mould favours the vegetation of those potherbs which are cultivated for 

 the stems, leaves, &c. As regards the facility or difficulty of working soils, 

 those that are siliceous are easily dressed, as well as those which have an 

 organic origin ; whilst calcareous and clayey present great differences in this 

 respect, according to the diversity of their composition. Finally, sandy and 

 calcareous soils require frequent manuring, and this addition they decompose 

 to the immediate profit of the plants ; whilst clayey ones retain the manure, 

 may have the process of manuring postponed to greater intervals, and receive 

 at the same time a larger quantity of manure. Diluvian soils admit of im- 

 provement with gypsum, and siliceous clays with marl ; whilst land rich in 

 organic matters requires the dung of animals to facilitate and promote the de- 

 composition of the mould. (Jam. Jour., vol. xxvii. p. 89., for July, 1839.) 



