Foreign Notices: — Portugal, Russia. 621 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



PORTUGAL. 



Lisbon, Dec. 21. 1834. — Though I do not know much of gardening, and 

 rely chiefly on your indulgence for my communications to the Architectural 

 Magazine, yet I must send you a few observations on the vineyards of 

 Portugal, though I have no doubt they are already familiar to man}' English 

 readers. It is ten years after a new one is planted, before the wine attains its 

 best qualities. The vines continue to bear well for twenty years ; but there is 

 no regular and general renewal of them, for, as they become weak or die, they 

 are rooted up, and fresh ones are planted in their places. The stems are al- 

 lowed to rise only about 3 ft. from the root, and all the shoots are cut away 

 in the winter, leaving only one, or at the most two, to each root. The vines 

 are propagated by layers, leaving all the shoots from a single stem deep in the 

 earth in the winter season. The bearing shoot, which is left on the stem, as 

 mentioned above, is bent, and its extremity tied down to the main stem. One 

 acre of land yields from four to five pipes of wine. 



The Villas in the Neighbourhood of Lisbon are generally provided with a ve- 

 randa, or open gallery, exposed to the cooler aspect of the locality, and are 

 situated in the midst of ornamental grounds. These ornamental grounds form 

 what is called the quinta ; this term being used from such grounds originally 

 comprehending about a fifth part of the whole estate. The villa at which Cap- 

 tain B. resides was at one time the property of a Portuguese nobleman. It 

 comprises about a dozen acres of vineyard, and a beautiful shrubbery extend- 

 ing to the edge of a high cliff of calcareous rock overhanging the Tagus. 

 Among the trees in this shrubbery, I observed the Quercus Plex, Q. Siiber, 

 and Q. coccifera, the Pinus Pinaster, the Portugal laurel, the Phamnus, the 

 Pistacia, the myrtle, numerous species of Cistus, Colutea, Psoralea, &c, all 

 of which appear to be natives. Among what I should conceive to be foreign 

 plants or trees, are the ikfelia, or bead tree, the date, the fan palm, the banana, 

 the agave, the ceratonia, and I need not add oranges, lemons, olives, tama- 

 rinds, figs, and mulberries. 



The wild olive bears a small and not a pulpy fruit, and its branches end in 

 thorns ; but, when grafted, the thorns disappear, and the fruit becomes larger 

 and more pulpy. It is customary to split the trunk of the trees whilst young, 

 and to drive wedges in to keep the clefts open. 



Oranges and lemons, in Portugal, are not indigenous, but were originally im- 

 ported from Africa. The climate of Portugal is rather too cold for them ; 

 they suffer much in the severer winters, and only do well, at any time, in the 

 lower grounds and more sheltered situations. The tops of the trees are often 

 injured by the cold winds in common winters, especially when they grow at all 

 lofty. Oranges do best when planted rather wide asunder. Lemons are better 

 for being crowded together. The citron is the best stock on which to graft 

 both the lemon and the orange. The plants of both, raised from seed, and 

 never grafted, produce the best crops, both in quantity and quality ; but these 

 trees, especially when old, become so thorny, that it is troublesome to gather 

 the fruit. — /. B. Williams, R. N, 



RUSSIA. 



The Flora of Nova'ia Zemlia. — The plants which are common to Russia 

 and Nova'ia Zemlia are all early flowering in the former country, while in the 

 latter they never succeed in developing all their flowers, and rarely ripen their 

 seed. Indeed, it is hardly comprehensible how some of them, first flowering in 

 the middle of August, can ever mature seeds at all ; and M. Baer observed 

 several plants which showed no signs of either flowers or seeds. He was 

 therefore led to suspect that a considerable portion of the flora of Nova'ia 

 Zemlia is of foreign origin, and springs from seeds annually carried thither on 

 the ice. If this hypothesis be well founded, it offers a remarkable illustration 

 of the ever active, yet almost invisible, machinery, by which life and organis- 



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