 Noventoer 7, 1874] THE 
GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
581 
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. 
beac i << me: LS 
SUTTON & SONS 
' Will have the pleasure of offering through 
the medium of the Royal Horticultural Society 
during the ensuing season, 
SIXTEEN 
GOLD, SILVER, and BRONZE 
AND EN SADLE. MON PRIZES, 
-Collections of Vegetables, Powers, 
UITS, AND 
As see ig Sollowing esas :— 
an ak 1st Prize, 
rey onc Ae ape Silver Medal and £2 2 
Gem, Sut > 2d Prize, 
and Suttons’ New Early Bronze Medal and £1 1 
. Dwarf Wrinkled Pea, Bijou 
For the best rts \ 
of MELONS pan Tout 
sorts of ae ERS, 
one brace of each, to in 1st Prize, 
aas New Scatiet: Gold Medaland £3 3 0 
flesh Hero of Bath, Read’s 2d Prize 
3 Hybrid let-flesh, and { Silver Medal and £2 2 
on s m Medal an 
M and £1 0 
Te pro 
st Priz wie 
Silver Medal and £2 2 
2d Prize, 
Marrow, Bronze Medaland £1 1 0 
bee of ‘A 
tst Prize, 
consisting of | Silver merg and £2 2 0 
Ser gag Pie meets Guide Bronze sand £1 
ay ae = 
Be Bi Bor- the. best 
twelve “ Suttons’ 
oer ONS d” Readin 
rst Prize, 
Silver Medaland £2 2 
Bronze Medaland £1 1 0 
_ Varieties, 22) 
` the varieties offered in zj 
F i a collection \ 
a — Ist Prize 
5 tu ti 5 
pmprise ‘a dish, distinct | GOIA Medaland £3 3 0 
half and 
2d Prize, 
Silver Medal and £2 
Ze, 
oid 
or the b 
LL Bw es Silver Medal sn £2 2 
TEmo) J e a £110 
CONDITIONS OF COMPETITION. 
and (excepting Fruits) must be 
Poh Tn forcing and in the open ground. 
ovelties will 
es Poll particulers-of seve 
SUTTONS ‘SPRING CATALOGUE 
MATEUR’S GUIDE for 1875, 
= any „Member poised his greg peg 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1874. 
e 
THE DIVINING ROD. 
(Concluded from p. 484.) 
O much for an account of the divining rod in 
the last cent ich many earlier 
references in miscellaneous writers might be 
added. Thus Swift, in a aimi of Sid 
Hamel the Magician’s Rod, sa 
‘ They tell us something nee and odd 
ta certain os ic rod 
at, wn its top, divines 
Whene’ er the soil has go 
olden mines : 
are Peas k stands erect, 
Scorning to show respect ; 
and an earli erence is that made 
er sala git 
by Samuel eter? in his pip catia (1651) :— 
t they have a rod 
To hidden treasure where it lies 
A long description of the employment of the 
rod near Bristol about 1826 will be found in 
from a note in the Geological Magazine for 
November, 1872. An account of the modus 
operandi will be found in Billingsley’s Agricul- 
tural Survey of the County of Somerset (1797). 
The practice also obtains in America, where 
was exercised by 
ag es 
ccording to si kind of divin 
can be most successfully practised by ene 
seventh son of a seventh son ;” and special days 
EN set apart as especially Wn to its use. 
us, persons wishing to rod for the 
eos of lead ore must do so aot Midsum- 
mer Eve, and the Hazel employed must ied of 
Kell 
magic lore as he was in the art of discovering 
Roman camps and Latin inscriptions, he might 
have convicted Dousterswivel on the spot as an 
impostor when the fellow pretended to cut 
divining rod in the broad glare of day, and with 
as little ceremony as we might cut a walking- 
stick. The success of such an operation is de- 
pendent upon many special conditions. It 
sunset and 
must always be performed after 
10| and only- on ee nights, 
before sunrise, 
among which are 
Friday, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, St. John’s 
Day, the first night of a new moon or that m 
ceding it. In cutting it one must face the easi 
so that the rod shall be one which catches a 
first rays ot the honir jii or, as some 
western sun must shine through 
the rod, otherwise it will be good for nothing.” 
Even religious rites are occasionally performed 
upon it ; ; for the same author tells us that in the 
Ob ena 
as it is cut, and the sign of the cross is thrice 
made over it; or it isattachedto the body or dress 
of a child that is about to be christened. Even 
the rod itself, without any human aid, appears 
to have been invested with magic powers: for 
in the eee Keine directions are given 
is near, place ; a piece of the same mettal you 
air, or very 
thread, and do the like to the other end; pitch 
the sharp single end lightly to the ground, at the: 
going down of the sun, the moone being i in the 
encrease, and in the morning at sunrise, by a 
natural sympathy, you wi the mettal 
inclin ning, as it were pointing to places where 
the other is hid.” 
Vallemont in his Traité de la Baguette, to 
which we shall again refer, figures different 
t ” nd 
g the ‘ 
which it has been supposed that the Saving 
rod should be gathered for special purp 
They are drawn from the Novum Testamentum 
of Basil Valentine, an Italian Benedictine monk 
of the fifteenth century ; and to each table is 
prefixed a short notice indicating the special 
properties of each rod, and the se name 
by a it was known. Thus 
’ or shin ning rod, was most a hri- in 
gold and súch minerals as are under 
the sahaetien’ ofthe sun ; the “ Verga candente ” 
for meee dominated. by the moon ; the jumping 
rod for emeralds and such stones as are ruled 
by Venus ; the “Verga battente ” for all things 
superior rod for mercury and ae under 
the influence of the plant of that n 
It is in France and Germany, iridéed, that the 
degree by the singular experiments of Jacques 
Aymer, a peasant of Grenoble, a history of 
which may be found at considerable length in 
the Rev. S. Baring-Gould’s Curious Myths of 
the Middle Ages. An abstract of this sapaa 
case v i ne these columns. 
had b med ai investigations. - 
rests upon indisputable testimony, and would 
certainly go far to establish one’s belief in the 
phenomenon, notwithstanding the failures of 
e And after 
bottom of the matter there is a substratum of 
truth. Certain it is that in numerous wel 
authenticated cases, wherein the agents have 
been persons above suspicion, water has been 
arg by means of the rod where it was not 
even suspected toexist. Such instances as that 
aoii e a N.” (Noel) in the Quarterly 
Review, vol. xxii., p. are scarcely to be 
reckoned among wilful impostures ; ; and others 
quite as striking are given at p. 441 of 
vol. cxxii. of the same Review. It would appear 
i ntleman’s Maga. 
that such another Sa wou 
nt to make a proselyte of him.” 
be sufficie 
Vallemont’s orks d La s Dinie Occulte, o 
Traité de la Bagu 
been already 
