228 General Notices. 



showing a profit of 1/. 13s. per acre from the use of bran. He has since 

 drilled bran at the rate of 1 ton per acre for turnips, and he has the satisfac- 

 tion of finding the crops quite as good as where farm-yard manure was 

 used. {Camb. Chron. and Journ., Feb. 26. 184-2.)— W. H. B. 



Hedges. — All deciduous hedges maybe pruned and repaired during De- 

 cember, January, and February. They ought always to be moulded into such 

 a form, that the base should be several inches wider than the top, otherwise 

 they are certain to become naked below. A hedge 6 ft. high may be 1 ft. 

 wide at the base, and 6 in. at the top. Hedges should never be clipped, but 

 always cut with the hedge-bill, unless we except hedges of privet, furze, 

 and the like ; but, even in these cases, the cutting shears should be used, and not 

 common shears, which bruise off the shoots, instead of cutting them. — D. 

 December, 1841. 



Means of producing Floivers of "Rhododendron arboreum soon after Christmas. 

 — " The circumstance which I am about to relate," says Sir Charles Lemon, 

 Bart., V. P., " is of trifling importance ; but may, nevertheless, interest 

 those who, like me, cultivate the Rhododendron arboreum, and have seldom 

 an opportunity of seeing its beautiful blossoms. I have for some years been 

 in the habit of pruning the several varieties or sub-species of this plant, as 

 trees ; and 1 find that they bear the knife well, and readily assume the cha- 

 racter which I wish to give them. Last November, while engaged in this 

 operation, it occurred to me that I might make some use of the branches 

 which I had cut off; either by ripening the seed-vessels left from the flowers 

 of last year, or by forcing into early blossom the buds already formed. With 

 a view of accomplishing the first object, I placed some of the branches bear- 

 ing seed-vessels in the dry stove ; but they soon withered and came to nothing. 

 Others were placed in the mud of a tank in the damp stove, in which were 

 growing Limnocharis Humboldtii and other aquatics. This was done about 

 the end of November. The leaves, however, drooped, and the cuttings re- 

 mained unchanged for above a month ; when, to my surprise, I found that 

 the capsules were becoming turgid and full of sap, and that a strong shoot 

 was coming from each cutting ; which shoot, when I left the country, had 

 attained nearly the length of 5 in. Whether or not roots had been formed I 

 have not ascertained, for I was unwilling to disturb the cuttings so soon 

 after their apparent vegetation ; but it is difficult to suppose that such strong 

 shoots should be pushed forward and sustained by nourishment derived only 

 from absorption by the bark and wood. A cutting bearing a flower-bud was 

 at the same time placed in the above-mentioned tank. In about a month, it 

 began to swell ; and at the end of a fortnight afterwards, it expanded most 

 beautifully. Thus I had an opportunity of seeing the blossoms of my own 

 Rhododendron arboreum, at a season of the year when I am usually at home, 

 and when flowers for decoration are much in request. As the plants of Rho- 

 dodendron arboreum are greatly improved by such pruning, I intend to repeat 

 the experiment on a larger scale next season ; and shall be happy if what I 

 now write will enable others to partake of the pleasure of seeing the June 

 flowers of Rhododendron arboreum in abundance soon after Christmas." 

 (Proceedings of the Hort. Soc. for 1841, p. 203.) 



Pears, grafted on the Stock of the Mountain Ash (Fogel-Beer, Pyrus Aucu- 

 paria), by Herr Weimar, Fdrsthaus, Ems. The practice derived from Herr 

 Roth, Ober-fdrster, now resident in Altenkirchen, not far from Limburg, 

 Duchy of Nassau. He lived formerly at OberEms, Amt Idstein, Nassau; in 

 his garden there he had, in 1812, trees of full growth thus worked. The 

 crops were there abundant and sure ; in a climate and site, on the high plateau 

 of the Taunus Mountain, where neither pear nor apple would previously fruit. 

 The soil poor and shallow, upon rock. The effect is to retard the blossom 

 and give vigour to the constitution. Flesh and flavour said not to be affected. 

 Budding and grafting alike successful on old stocks or on young, by the usual 

 process ; care must, however, be taken to remove none of the young shoots 

 which the stock may make during the first season after working. In the 



