General Notices. 629 



present day; the management of the greenhouse, conservatory, and exotic 

 stove; the Linn^an and Jussieuean arrangements ; native country ; best mode 

 of flowering, propagation, and soils ; the forcing of shrubs, bulbs, &c. ; with 

 full instructions for keeping up a succession of bloom throughout every month 

 of the year. Taken from notes of the author's daily practice, and from com- 

 munications furnished by several eminent floriculturists, &c. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



What constitutes a Gardener. — He only deserves the name of a gardener 

 who not only knows how to do a thing in his own place, but elsewhere ; and 

 why success attends his practice, and how to vary it under new circum- 

 stances. Such a man, when he finds winter at midsummer, and the dog-days 

 in December, as in the southern hemisphere, or a climate where our cold 

 season of rest is absent, and in which all the energies of plants are stimu- 

 lated by heat and rains unknown to him at home, is able to adapt himself to 

 such circumstances, and to shift his times and modes of cultivation, and to 

 change his crops to suit them. In order to acquire this power, he must study 

 with the utmost attention the works of modern writers on vegetable physio- 

 logy, and make himself master of every thing that is known concerning the 

 way in which plants live, feed, grow, breathe, digest, and have their being. 

 Then combining this knowledge with the manual skill, which it is his business 

 to acquire during the period of his learning the art of horticulture, he becomes 

 a gardener properly so called, and is able to carry on his profession with ad- 

 vantage in whatever climate he may be called upon to exercise it. (^Gard. 

 Chron., vol. i. p. 411.^ 



Order-BooJc. — Mr. Beaton {Ibid., p. 213.) recommends gardeners in exten- 

 sive places to keep an order-book, which may be done after the manner of a 

 banker's cheque-book, taking a memorandum in the margin before tearing off 

 the order. 



The Theory of Excretions in Plants is now generally doubted, because the 

 experiments of Macaire, on which it was founded, have, on repetition, given 

 very different results from those which he obtained. The subject is still open 

 to investigation; for as yet we have no unquestionable evidence of any pro- 

 cess of excretion, like that assumed by Macaire, &c. {Ibid., p. 630.) 



Effect of coloured Light on Plants. — Some very interesting experiments on 

 this subject have been made by Dr. Horner of Hull, and Mr. Hunt of the Royal 

 Cornwall Polytechnic Institution. The following extract is from the Report 

 of Mr. Hunt : — 



" During the early part of the spring of 1840, some experiments I was then 

 pursuing on the chemical influence of solar light led me to the discovery of 

 some extraordinary facts connected with the action of light on vegetation. 

 With the hope of exciting the attention of those engaged in horticultural pur- 

 suits, and of rendering some assistance, little though it be, in overcoming some 

 of the difficulties experienced in causing the germination of the seeds of some 

 rare exotics, I am induced to trespass on the time of the Society. It is scarcely 

 necessary to explain that every beam of light proceeding from its solar source 

 is a bundle of different-coloured rays, to the absorption or reflection of which 

 we owe all that infinite diversity of colour which is one of the greatest charms 

 of creation. These rays have been long known to possess different functions, 

 and have hence been distinguished according to their supposed properties ; the 

 violet and blue being called the chemical rays, the green and yellow the 

 luminous rays, and the red the calorific or heat-giving rays. These distinctions 



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