214 



JOUKNAIi OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ September 21, 1871. 



promotes the rapid decay of vegetable and animal bodies in 

 the soil " — (Science and Practice of Gardening, page 85). It 

 has also been recommended to give dressings of fresh or maiden 

 loam to long-cropped vegetable ground, choosing soil from a 

 pasture, thus giving those very constituents which have been 

 absorbed or taken up from the ground by every vegetable — viz., 

 saline matters, and which are present in the maiden loam more 

 than in old garden soil, because Grasses do not take up saline 

 substances to nearly the same extent as garden crops. Fresh 

 soil mixed with old causes a change in the products ; it gives 

 to old soil an addition of one or other substance required by 

 vegetable crops, for it cannot be that fresh loam is richer, as 

 without manure it will not grow many vegetables to a fitting 

 condition : therefore it is not in the fibres of the Grass about 

 which so much is insisted, but in supplying those compounds 

 of which the soil has been deprived by a continued course of 

 vegetable crops, and those compounds are principally saline. 



Lime does good, but it is known that "when salt is mixed 

 with moist earth and lime a considerable quantity of carbonate 

 of soda and chloride of calcium is produced, owing to the salt 

 being partially decomposed, the chlorine of a part of the salt 

 uniting with the lime, whilst carbonic acid supplies its place, 

 forming carbonate of soda. This having the property of com- 

 bining with silica and rendering it soluble, may prove bene- 

 ficial to plants by supplying them with that essential article of 

 their food " — (Gardener's Assistant, page 121). Now, if we dress 

 ground for Onions, one part with lime, another with salt, and 

 a third with soot, the ground having in autumn been manured 

 in the usual way, we find there is little, if any, difference be- 

 tween that limed and the part sown without the lime-dressing 

 — the produce is not materially greater ; but that dressed with 

 salt produces more than the limed part, and the parts dressed 

 with soot more still. This would show soot to be the most 

 fertilising of the three, but in none of these cases is the dress- 

 ing so good as when the whole are mixed — that is, the lime, 

 salt, and soot, which afiord much the better crop of Onions. 

 A bushel of lime, soot, and salt mixed and sown broadcast 

 over the ground intended for Onions and Carrots prior to put- 

 ting in the seeds is good against the maggot or grub which 

 infests these vegetables, and is sufficiently stimulating. It is 

 also an excellent dressing for ground in March intended to be 

 planted with every kind of vegetable crop. It is valuable both 

 as a manure and as a pietentive and destroyer of insect pests. 



Everyone knows the value of guano as a manure. It is con- 

 sidered to contain most, if not all, the constituents required by 

 vegetables. I am persuaded, however, though it may be highly 

 fertilising, that it is not so beneficial by itself as when mixed 

 with salt, one of the inorganic elements that in guano is 

 reckoned of very inferior value. In some guanos there is a 

 considerable quantity of lumps, consisting for the most part of 

 common salt (chloride of sodium). In the best samples of 

 guano the chloride of sodium is about 3.00 ; of a sample con- 

 sisting of hard lumps the chloride of sodium has been found 

 as much as 49.70. Ordinary samples of Peruvian guano con- 

 tain 5.00 of alkaline salts, potash and soda. This quantity 

 may be suflicient for cereals, but there is not evidently enough 

 salt for kitchen garden crops, for I find crops dressed with 

 guano alone do not produce so well as those dressed with one 

 part salt to two parts guano, and at that rate 1 cwt. of salt to 

 2 cwt. of guano answers for every description of vegetable, but 

 it should not be given in dry weather, for all the leaves upon 

 which it falls it scalds or leaves a white blotch. 



I may name a few of the cases in which I have found it most 

 beneficial, though it answers well in all. 



1, I had some beds of Onions, Carrots, and Parsnips on a 

 plot of old garden ground, well trenched and in good heart. 

 They were " set on" — were at a complete standstill, and grub 

 already at work, making frequent wide gaps. They were 

 dressed with the mixed guano and salt, about a peck to every 

 two beds, each 4 feet wide and 40 feet long. This was previous 

 to prospects of rain, and it fell as was anticipated. The grub 

 was seen no more, the Onions are good, and the Carrots and 

 Parsnips promise very well. Without the dressing there was 

 no hope of a crop. 



2, I have 1500 Celery plants on a plot of ground added to 

 the garden last year ; it is the virgin loam so much prized. 

 The trenches were well manured. The Celery grew for a time, 

 but afterwards came to a standstill. Gaano alone was applied, 

 but it did not improve anything but the colour of the plants; 

 at last they were heavily dressed with the guano mixed with 

 salt, and the Celery has grown well ever since. I have a like 

 number of plants on old ground, and they have grown from 



the first, and have been dressed with guano mixed with salt 

 I contrive to give it so as to keep it from the hearts. 



3, Club, ambury, and all the grubs seemed to combine to 

 prevent my getting a Cabbage to heart. Cauliflower to head, or 

 Turnip to form. Hanging their heads in the sun was powerful 

 evidence of what was gnawing at their vitals ; they were 

 dressed with the guano and salt, and they have reared their 

 heads ever since, and are quite free of any grubs or pest of any 

 kind. 



Lastly, in a greenhouse that may have 30 feet of rafter I had 

 some climbers in a border ; they seemed to grow and flower 

 finely up to July, when they came to a standstill. They are 

 Passifloras Countess Nesselrode, Countess Guiglini, caerulea 

 racemosa, Tacsonia moUissima, and T. Yan-Volxemi. Guano 

 water, &c., had no beneficial efiect, but I gave them about a 

 peck of gnano and salt broadcast over the border (30 feet by 

 3 feet), and then washed it out of sight with water from a hose. 

 The effect has been all that could be wished for ; the plants are 

 growing, flowering, and fruiting. The 30-feet length of rafter 

 has been covered, and all the bars which there are to every 

 rafter, and the shoots hang down in all lengths, from a few 

 inches to 6 feet, and these, with the flowers and the hanging 

 fruit, have quite a grand effect. 



I am convinced that guano and salt in the proportions named 

 will prove to be the manure of manures for Vines, especially 

 those that have a tendency to mildew ; also for Peaches, which 

 never do so well as near the sea or within reach of its influence. 

 It will also be good for all plants subject to mildew. Salt and 

 lime are the most destructive of all to fungoid life. 



Ferns are speedily destroyed by guano and salt, but it is 

 remarkable that if freestone be sprinkled with it that the 

 stone in a few days becomes quite green from the growth 

 of moss : hence it may be of value in newly-formed rock- 

 work. — G. Abbey. 



THE LATE MR. THEODOR HARTWEG. 



My late and much-esteemed friend, Theodor Hartweg, was, X 

 think, the best plant and seed collector the London Horticul- 

 tural Society ever employed. Professor Lindley said to him in 

 my hearing and presence in the Council-room at Chiswick 

 garden, " Well, Hartweg, the Council have resolved to send you 

 to California, and it yon find this single plant (Zanschneria) 

 and send home seeds or plants of it in good condition, it will 

 pay the Society for your mission if you send nothing else. 

 Come over to my house, Acton Green, and see the dried speci- 

 men of the plant in my herbarium before you start." I may 

 add that Hartweg found it and sent it home, and I was eye- 

 witness to thousands of young plants being distributed to 

 Fellows of the Society upon application, as well as thousands 

 of other valuable plants sent home amongst his collections 

 from time to time whilst he was in the employ of the Society. 

 I had the pleasure of " writing out " all the reports of plants 

 and seeds and their condition when sent home by him, to be 

 placed before the Council of the Society when they met at their 

 rooms, 21, Regent Street, with the exception of those of his first 

 Mexican mission, consisting chiefly of Orchids, Fir cones, &c. 



I am well aware that the Secretary and Vice- Secretary were 

 not Hartweg's best friends at that time of day mentioned in 

 your short notice of Hartweg's death. Hartweg told me at 

 the time when all this ill-feeling was going on about himself, 

 that he had a very great aversion to writing about any subject : 

 hence this will show his unwillingness to write anything in the 

 shape of a journal of his travels at the time for the " Journal of 

 the Horticultural Society : " hence also the cause of his few bad 

 friends. Animosity was carried to such a pitch against him on 

 this account by a few only of the oflicials of the Horticultural 

 Society, that a short time after he returned from his last 

 mission for the Society the then Vice-Secretary would not ac- 

 cept of a set of the dried plants which Hartweg had collected, 

 but returned them by me, and never even opened the parcel 

 nor examined the specimens. 



These recollections come very vivid in my memory now I 

 have pen in hand, and I hope yon will think no worse of me 

 for placing them at your disposal. 



I always found that Hartweg acted as a perfect gentleman in 

 all his dealings with me at the time we were both in the employ 

 of the Society. I have often heard him say that Mr. George Ure 

 Skinner and himself discovered the large plant of Lajlia super- 

 biens both at the same time when in Mexico, and that they 

 were both determined to have it, but could not get it then, for 

 it was up a very high tree. Hartweg outwitted Mr. Skinner by 



