October 3, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
26% 
—— RHUBARB, says Dr. Birdwood in his “‘ Handbook to the 
Indian Court at the Paris Exhibition,” is mentioned by Dios- 
corides as brought from beyond the Bosphorus, and the Rachoma 
of Pliny, which he says was brought from beyond Pontus. It 
is a native of south-eastern Thibet and the western and north- 
western frontiers of China, and is said to be mentioned by 
Chinese writers B.C. 2700! The Rha, which came into Europe 
by the ancient carayan routes from Northern China by Bok- 
hara and Asia Minor, was naturally called Rha-ponticum, and 
that by Russia and the Danube Rha-barbarum. The designa- 
tions Turkey, Russian, East Indian, Canton Rhubarb merely 
indicate the commercial channels through which Rhubarb has 
been derived in modern times. It is a good illustration of the 
obstructions which are still put in the way of the trade of 
India with Thibet and Western China, that if the Viceroy and 
Governor-General needs a Rhubarb pill, instead of getting it 
at once through the Himalayan passes, he receives it round 
about by way of Kiachta, St. Petersburg, London, and the 
Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Rhubarb now obtained from 
Hankau is the root of Rheum officinale of Baillon, a native of 
Mongolia ; but undoubtedly the true plant, the source of the 
best Turkey, or Russian, Muscovite or Kiachta Rhubarb, is 
Rheum palmatum, the Sharo-moto of the Mongols and Djemtsa 
of the Tangutans. 
— Mr. THoMAS Row.anps, foreman at Mr. Bass’s gar- 
dens at Rangemore, has been appointed gardener to the 
Viscountess Downe at Baldersby Park, Yorkshire. 
—— ON the occasion of the visit of the Scottish Arboricul- 
tural Society to the estates of the Earl of Mansfield at Scone, as 
reported in the “Journal of Forestry,” Mr. M‘Corquodale, 
forester, pointed out a very effectual mode of preventing the 
RAVAGES OF RABBITS AMONGST THE YOUNG TREES, by the 
placing of boards firmly fastened with wire round the stems, 
and which are removed before the tree becomes too large, and 
replaced by wire fencing. The boards are about 30 inches in 
length, 3 inches wide, and half an inch thick, and may be 
cut of any third-rate timber too small or worthless for any 
other purpose. Four to six of them can be quickly bound 
loosely round the foot of each tree, and are as easily removed 
when the growth of the stem renders it necessary. The 
method is thoroughly effective, and none can be applied more 
easily to trees of a suitable size, say 5 to 15 feet in height. 
Mr. M’Corquodale also stated that while Abies Douglasii 
grows at Scone with great vigour A. Menziesii appears this 
summer to be everywhere decaying, the injury being attribut- 
able to late spring frosts. 
—— LIGHTNING AND TREES.—It cannot be too often 
repeated at this season of the year, when thunderstorms are 
so frequent, that one of the most dangerous places in which to 
seek shelter is under a large tree. Of all the persons and 
animals killed by lightning probably eight-tenths have been 
destroyed under or near trees. Oak trees more frequently 
than any others draw lightning from the clouds, partly 
perhaps because the close grain of the Oak increases its con- 
ducting power, and partly because the sap of the Oak contains 
a large quantity of iron in solution which, by impregnating 
the wood and bark, has the same effect. But no tree enjoys 
the exemption of the Banyan, which, at least as the Hindoos 
believe, is never touched by lightning. The Pittsburg Com- 
mercial takes the recent disaster at a picnic near that city as a 
text from which to give its readers some good advice about 
avoiding trees in thunderstorms, and makes the practical 
suggestion that the proprietors of groves frequently rented for 
picnics and such entertainments in the summer should provide 
one or more substantial sheds for the accommodation of parties 
in case of asudden storm.—(Mississippi Lumberman.) 
—— THE Queenslander notes the cutting of a GIANT EUCA- 
LYPTUS felled in the Dandenong Range, Australia, that had 
attained the height of 300 feet. The following were its di- 
mensions :—At 1 foot from the ground the circumference was 
69 feet, at 12 feet from the ground the diameter was 11 feet 
4 inches, at 78 feet diameter 9 feet, at 144 feet diameter 8 feet, 
at 210feet diameter 5 feet. 
PIPPINS. 
ABOUT five miles to the north of Lewes in Sussex is a village 
dignified by the name of Plumpton, which being translated 
signifies “The town amid a clump of trees,” a town that would 
have attracted no notice if in a moated house, still there 
existant, had not resided Leonard Mascall who is said to have 
first introduced Pippins from the Continent. What these 
Pippins were we have no means of knowing, and we find no 
clue to discover. Mascall also first brought carp from the 
Continent into England, and cultivated them in the moat 
which then was and still is around the house. 
Of Leonard Mascall’s family the earliest notice in the parish 
register is ‘Edward Mascall baptised” in 1592. Of the house 
in which they resided I could discern no remains but tke 
chimneys, which are of the Elizabethan era. The remainder of 
the house is more modern. The pond in which Mascall had 
his carp still remains, and beneath a row of Elms yet existing 
he probably walked. 
Recently a search was made a second time in the registers 
of Plumpton in Sussex relative to the family of Leonard 
Mascall in the hope of finding more details, but the search 
was almost fruitless. The earliest entries in the register are 
of the births of several females of the family in 1558 ; and of 
the burial of Richard Mascall in March, 1569-70. We pub- 
Fig. 41.—Erica pyramidalis (see page 260). 
lished the portrait of Leonard Mascall and all the information 
we then gleaned in the Journal of Horticulture dated January 
28th, 1875. : 
A SUMMER DAY’S STROLL. 
THE Heather had opened its flowers into full summer beauty, 
the month was August, the morning fine when I essayed to 
fulfil a promise long made to visit the gardens of some of my. 
neighbours to see, mark, learn, and to discuss their doings, 
their trials, triumphs, and failures. Ashdown Park, Plaw 
Hatch, and Brambletye were within my reach, and my route 
was across Ashdown Forest, a forest only in name now, the, 
greater part being denuded of trees—a wild waste of Heather 
Fern, Broom, and Gorse, extending over an area of some twenty 
square miles, the last remains of that huge forest, the Andreds- 
wald of the Saxons, called Sylva Anderida by the Romans, 
and which in their day extended from Kent right through 
Sussex into Hampshire for a distance of 120 miles. 
On the confines of this waste coins bearing the impress of 
Agricola and Vespasian were found among some slag of the old 
Roman ironworks a few years ago ; and J haye in my possession 
some pieces of charcoal which I picked out of another heap of 
slag as it was excavated from beneath a superincumbent bed of 
