Foreign Notices : — Greece. 303 



wall," Baron Foster " obtained as large a crop of both fruit and runners as 

 from any other kind." {Ibid.) 



Raising Coniferous Plants from Seed. — A paper was read from Mr. G. Gor- 

 don, the foreman of the arboretum in the Horticultural Society's Garden, at 

 the Society's meeting, Dec. 3. 1839 ; by which it appears " that the principal 

 points to be attended to are to sow the seeds in pure loam, without any mix- 

 ture of peat, and with as little sand as possible ; to take care that the loam is 

 nearly dry until the seeds have vegetated, and then to administer water only 

 in very small quantities ; to stimulate germination by the application of bottom 

 heat, which is, however, to be abstracted as soon as the plants make their 

 appearance above ground." {Proceedings of the Hort. Soc. of London, vol. i. 

 p. 117.) 



The Ge7ius Yaccinium contains so many species that bear excellent edible 

 fruit, that I am surprised these are not more cultivated than they are as fruit 

 shrubs. There are many gardens in the North and West of Scotland, and in 

 the mountainous parts of England, and almost everywhere in Ireland, where 

 peat can be procured at little expense ; and in all such gardens most species 

 of Faccinium would luxuriate, and produce fruit in abundance. The fruit is 

 excellent, eaten with cream, or made into tarts or jellies. — aS'. M. Glasgow, 

 April, 1840. 



The Triumphal Arch. — The invention of the triumphal arch belongs to the 

 Romans, and it is one of their very few contributions to the fine arts, for the 

 Greeks were strangers to it. I find nothing in it to admire. It is pre- 

 cisely an ornamental gate, but, standing as it always does in an open space, 

 it is an object without meaning, a gate without an enclosure, a door without 

 a house. (Scotsman, Feb. 12. 1840.) 



We entirely concur in this opinion of the editor of the Scotsman, having 

 been forcibly struck with the same idea when looking at the triumphal arches 

 in Petersburg and Moscow, some years before we visited Italy. What can 

 be more absurd than the triumphal arch at Buckingham Palace, except 

 that in such a climate as London it is cased with polished marble ! A casing 

 of Welsh slate would have been appropriate to the smoky valley at the bot- 

 tom of which this mass of deformity obtrudes itself. — Cond. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 

 GREECE. 



The Grecian Cottage of the present Day. — A cottage occupied by the 

 peasantry in this part of the country (Lycia), will show that scale alone is 

 wanting to make it the temple of the former inhabitants ; the tombs cut in 

 the rocks in successive ages are also precisely similar in architectural design. 

 {Journal in Asia Minor, p. 234.) 



A Group of Grecian Plants suitable for placing around a Grecian statue or 

 other classical ornament in a flower-garden may consist of the following 

 species, all of which were found in Pamphylia, near the base of the Taurian 

 Mountains, by Mr. Fellows : iStyrax officinale, Cistus Fumdna, (Salvia i^or- 

 minum, ^nagallis cserulea, jPumaria capreolata, Gladiolus conimilnis, Muscari 

 comosum and M. botryoides, jScilla maritima, and Ornithogalum umbellatum. 

 {Journal in Asia Minor, p. 186.) A suitable sculpture ornament for such a 

 group would be one of the water jars figured in Mr. Fellows's work, in p. 239., 

 used in the same part of Asia Minor for supplying water to the weary traveller, 

 in the manner of the springs and cisterns sometimes placed by benevolent 

 persons by the sides of the public roads in Britain. These water jars " are 

 made of red clay, and are in form precisely hke the terra-cotta vases of the 

 ancient Greeks. As they stand but insecurely, they are seen tied to the trunks 



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