October 12, 1871. 



JOUENAIi OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



277 



Alangiaee* : — This small order of Indo-Chinese character 

 lurnishes hard and handsome woods, not yet introduced into 

 the European catalogue, though the iour species are exceedingly 

 plentiful in the remote regions of our north-east frontier. 



Ehizophoraceae, or Mangrove tribe, are tropical trees of the 

 deadly salt swamps or muddy lagoons of the inland forests. A 

 pleasant sight to a naturalist are those vast aciualio forests, 

 casting their dusky shade in the mirror of water, and he must 

 oft enter their leafy labyrinths in a light canoe paddled by some 

 savage ally, should he wish to become familiar with the lish 

 eagle, otter, alligator, and many "uncouth fishes," sole tenants 

 of the fever-haunted waste. Two good kinds of hard durable 

 wood are produced by this order, but hitherto only useful to the 

 shipwrecked sailor from their isolated locale. 



Oi Myrtacese, India can boast one hundred and odd forms, 

 chiefly fruit-bearing trees of lesser growth than could be termed 

 forest timber, and indeed chiefly the denizens of enclosures and 

 groves. However, Psidium or Giiava does grow actually wild in 

 the Coffee tract well known as the Wynaad jangle. Southern 

 India (perhaps introduced). The trees in that locality extend 

 for a great distance, and on one occasion of a general famine 

 proved the value of their existence by saving an immense popu- 

 lation from starvation, as the fruit contains a large per-centage 

 of sugar and mucilage, and is noted to be in its most perfect 

 condition and abundance during the rainless and blighted 

 periods of the above terrible visitations, and Government long 

 ago rendered punishable any injury to the food-yielding tract 

 above mentioned. Gaava wood, though rarely met with in the 

 market, is a most desirable article, close-grained, tough, light, 

 and applicable to all the purposes of British Beech, but it is 

 never of any size. Some I felled in improving a. neglected 

 garden was perhaps 18 inches circumference, and rarely straight 

 for more than 2 feet. It is most pleasant to turn in the lathe, 

 makes prime tool handles and agricultural implements, also 

 gunstocks of light and durable quality. I have occasionally 

 purchased billets of the Indian gardeners, who sell them as fire- 

 wood when clearing old enclosed lands. 



Of this large order the Eugenias are handsome orchard trees, 

 the purple mouth-staining Plums so astringently acid as to 

 require salt in qualifying them for the human palate ; 

 indeed, the amount of tannic acid in every leaf and pore of 

 these elegant trees renders it of some importance in native 

 estimation, the bark yielding brown red dyes, and the timber 

 imperishable beams and posts for bridges and well foundations, 

 being hard, heavy, and incorruptible by reason of its great 

 store of astringent saps. For shade and ornament unsurpassed, 

 as they attain considerable dimensions, and have mostly showy, 

 Myrtle-like blossoms, conspicuous in the waxy green, closely- 

 set foliage. This wood is not in the market, being too heavy 

 and coarse for export. I have used it for various out-door work, 

 as well-gear for irrigation, gates, posts, &a. Sonneratia (in 

 MyrtaceEe) is remarkable as furnishing a firewood replete with 

 an aromatic resin, or oil, which long rendered it the only effec- 

 tive substitute for coal in the steamers on the river Indus, 

 along the banks of which it grows abundantly. 



Ternstromiaceffi, or Theads, another of the Indo-Chinese 

 form of most interesting properties, but only one, a very rare 

 and local tree, Thea assamica of the uninhabited tracts (about 

 27 — 28° north latitude on the Little Burrampooter and its tribu- 

 taries), can be said to supply wood for constructive uses. The 

 ultra savages on whose lone hunting grounds there exists a belt 

 of these quaint unmatched Tea trees, some six miles long by a 

 few hundred yards wide, jealously watch this spot, and explorers 

 for the ruins of classic Sissopulnugger, hunters of ivory, retri- 

 butive expeditions against those wild men and Tea-seed collec- 

 tors, can all give a lively account of the " skedaddle " produced 

 by a shower of swift and silent arrows, all heavily envenomed 

 with aconite, shot from the leafy ambuscades of the " cropped 

 hair " Mishmees, as those uncivil nomads style themselves, in 

 distinction from their " unshorn " neighbours. This wood is 

 known to the native backwoods man of that ilk as Boga Kat, or 

 white wood, and is applied when obtainable to the ignoble pur- 

 poses of walking staffs and sling yokes, being light and flexible. 



Aceracea3, or Sycamores. — There are several species in the 

 Himalayas, but I have never met with any person, native or 

 English, who had used the wood, for the trees generally grow 

 on lofty heights, many days' journey removed from human 

 dwellings, and being surrounded by so many other kinds of 

 useful woods have escaped the axe in toto. 



Sapindaoea3, or Soap-berry trees. — Only two or three of this 

 very numerous Eastern order supply timber, which is hard, 

 white, close-grained, and useful, but being surpassed by so 



many other woods within easier access is rarely out down, and 

 I have never worked it myself. 



iEsenlaceEe, or Horse Chestnuts. — The remote regions of the 

 Upper Himalayas contain two or three species of Pavia, but I 

 never saw a tree felled. They are valued for their bitter, fari- 

 naceous nuts by the mountaineers in famines, though quite as 

 nauseous as our European congener. 



Sterculiaceas. — It is somewhat strange that of the many giants 

 of the forest in the one hundred and odd species composing this 

 very sylvan order, not one should supply any timber of utility 

 in industrial art, being usually spongy and of pulpy consistence, 

 while the bark of many is so tough, wiry, and pliable that cord- 

 age is manufactured, and even the lassos used by elephant- 

 catchers are prepared of this substance. Foresters use the 

 bark oi Sterculia urens for their drag ropes. Tea planters as 

 cables to ship their loads and fasten their rafts, builders to lift 

 their timber into place, and aboriginal man for snare loops to 

 entangle the wild buffalo, &o. The Tree cotton is the pro- 

 duct of Gossampinus, a noble ornament of the woodlands. It 

 is as soft and silky as swan's down, but cannot be used for the 

 loom, only stubbings, &c. — 'Eos.— {English Mechanic and World 

 of Science, 



GROUND VINERIES. 



And so. Monsieur " Au eevoie," you have cut your fingers- 

 a la Eendle ! If you had the original protector and used it for 

 Vines, you would do so and not reap much satisfaction. The 

 truth is that Mr. Eendle has an imagination at tropical heat, 

 as shown by his very pretty book with its plates and impossible 

 troughs, for growing Grapes in, and making our wine from 

 English-grown Grapes. Poor Messrs. Gilbey ! how they must 

 have shaken in their shoes to contemplate the bare possibility 

 of not importing any more wine ! If the book had this effect 

 it had no other, for no one seemed to patronise the invention, . 

 and these semicircular troughs with a groove for glass all went 

 out of mind, and the book too, for I cannot find my copy ; still 

 the idea was new and attractive. 



There is just a word or two to say about the protectors. 

 Those sent out originally by Mr. Eendle were really interesting, 

 and as protectors for lettuces and other garden crops were most 

 useful, and when slightly improved were all that our clever 

 gardener Mr. Ingram reported them to be. Here permit me to 

 assert that Mr. Eivers never allowed his name to be used ; he 

 carefully avoided writing a sentence that could be used by an 

 advertiser, but it seems, according to " An kevoik," to have 

 been so used, just as it is made a handle to the Eoyal Ashleaf 

 Kidney Potatb, which requires no handle. Well, I must say 

 that the grooved bricks, and their lasting qualities, and the 

 facility of moving the^t ucture, seemed to me most agreeable, 

 and so I tried them with Vines, which grew well and ripenecS 

 their fruit almost as well as those in common ground vineries ; 

 but the sliding of the glass in the grooved bricks was to me 

 intolerable, as the pinching of the Vines required them to be 

 moved so frequently that cut fingers and friar's balsam were 

 in the ascendant. Well, about this time I received from Mr. 

 Eivett one of his improved ground vineries with one side 

 moving on hinges. The wind had knocked over more than 

 once the Eendle protectors, much to my disgust ; and so I went 

 over to Eivett, for, like Macedon and Monmouth, they both 

 begin with E. 



As far as I can judge Mr. Kendle has improved his protectors, 

 so that cut fingers are not so much in the market, and if so 

 improved they will be most useful for many garden crops, but 

 not equal for Vines, or Peaches, or Pears, as are those of Mr. 

 Eivett, which I pronounce to be the most convenient structures 

 for small or even large gardens ever invented. The hinged 

 side to the ground vinery is a capital idea. Mr. Eivett had it, . 

 I think, from Mr. Eivers, but I am not sure. The lifting this 

 up, pinching the Vine, the cordon Peach tree, or gathering. 

 Strawberries and Peaches, is a real luxury ; and then in wintes" 

 the salads are always so comeatable, that although I should in,- 

 large gardens or even in market gardens, employ the brick 

 structures because they are cheap, and if built low will not 

 be affected by the wind, for the amateur Eivett's improved 

 ground vinery is all in all. The uses of this structure are not 

 yet half understood, for, besides winter and spring salads, 

 bedding plants may be kept under them with the usual air in 

 mild weather, and in a sharp frost "sealed" — ie., covered with 

 a thick coat of straw. If this is of sufficient thickness no frost 

 will or can enter. 



There are some new inventions by the Eev. T. BrShaut and 



