December 7, 1871. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



447 



for eattle, and with great encoess ; the stalks, when burnt, pro- 

 duce large quantities of potash ; and the seeds, besides their 

 use in feeding poultry, already mentioned, may be made to 

 yield a large per-centage of oil. 



In that practical country, the United States of America, 

 where Sunflower cultivation i? carried on to a considerable 

 extent, principally on account of the value of the plant as an 

 oil-producer, as much as 40 per cent, of oil is, on an average, 

 obtained from the seed. After the process of expressing the 



oil, the refuse, under the name of "maro," is largely used as a 

 fattening food for oxen, hogs, (fee. More than this, the leaves 

 also maybe utilised; for, by parching and powdering them, 

 and then mixing witli bran, it is said that a food is produced 

 to which cows are especially partial. Even if it had none of 

 these useful qualities to recommend it, the excessive fondness 

 of bees for the blossoms of the Sanflower would alone repay 

 all owners of apiaries for the trouble of cultivation. — {Food 

 Journal.) 



VAN MONS. 



Jean Baptiste Van Moxs, one of the most distinguished 

 pomologists of the present century, was horn at Brussels on the 

 11th of November, 1765. From his earliest youth he showed 

 a taste for gardening, and used to amuse himself in sowing and 

 •watching the growth 

 of flowers and fruits. 

 So ardently and suc- 

 cessfully did he follow 

 up the arts of cultiva- 

 tion and selection, that 

 in the year 1815 his, 

 nursery at Brussels 

 contained more than 

 80,000 fruit trees, most 

 of them the result of 

 his own sowings. 



About this time 

 began those disappoint- 

 ments and crosses with 

 which the career of Van 

 Mens was chequered. 

 In 1819 he received 

 notice to quit his nur- 

 sery of La Fidelite in 

 the space of two 

 months, because the 

 ground he occupied 

 was required for public 

 purposes. This was, 

 unfortunately, in the 

 depth of winter, and 

 Van Mens had only 

 two days of the week 

 at his disposal ; he was, 

 therefore, only able to 

 collect grafts, mark the 

 most valuable of his 

 trees, and save, as 

 nearly as possible, a 

 twentieth of what he 

 possessed. He con- 

 veyed the remains of 

 his nursery to Louvain, 

 where fresh vexations 

 awaited him. In 1832, 

 at the time of the siege 

 of Antwerp, the ovens 

 for the cooking of tho 

 soldiers' bread were set 

 up in his garden, and a great part of the trees destroyed. Any 

 other person would have been disheartened by these misfortunes, 

 but not so Van Mons. He rented two other plots of ground, to 

 which to remove his young plants, and congratulated himself on 

 having had time to collect gi-afts from those he was forced to 

 sacrifice. But the public good had not yet vented the whole of 

 its severity upon him. In 1834 the engineers of the Govern- 

 ment cast their eyes about, and fixing them on the nursery of 

 Van Mons, decided that there was the most suitable spot for the 



Van Mud 



erection of a gaswork. The gaswork was erected, and the 

 engineers execrated. A year after this event he published the 

 tu'st volume of his work, " Arbrcs Frutiers, leur Culture en 

 Belgique et leur Propagation par la Grain, ou Pomonomio Beige 



experimentalo et Rai- 

 Eonfe." The second 

 volume appeared in tho 

 following year. 



Until 1842, when he 

 died. Van Mons con- 

 tinued to cultivate the 

 wreck of his nur- 

 sery, but griof at tho 

 death of his second 

 son and failing health 

 prevented him from 

 paying it tho same 

 attention as formerly. 

 After his death the 

 nursery was broken 

 up, and the greater 

 portion of the trees 

 taken to Geest-St. 

 Eemy, where there is 

 now an experimental 

 garden of the Society 

 Van Mons. 



When we consider 

 that Van Mons re- 

 ceived but a moderate 

 classical education, and 

 at iirst only followed 

 the vocation of an 

 apothecary, the enume- 

 ration of his accom- 

 plishments, his works, 

 and his honours will 

 be the more striking. 

 He made himself ac- 

 quainted with tho 

 principal Kving lan- 

 guages, and with the 

 science of physics. At 

 twenty he published 

 his iirst work, entitled 

 " An Essay on the 

 Princ'ples of Antiphlo- 

 gistic Chemistry." He 

 was elected a corre- 

 sponding member of the Institute of France, and like honours 

 were heaped upon him by many other learned European societies. 

 He was a Doctor of Medicine of tho Faculty of Paris, occupied 

 for filteen years the professorial chair of Physics and Rural 

 Economy at Louvain, and, last of all, was decorated with the 

 Order of Leopold. His original works and translations are nume- 

 rous, whilst the fact of his having produced 405 new varieties 

 of Pears, and 200 more of different fruits, bears witness to tho 

 practical benefits he bestowed upon horticulture generally. 



WORK FOR 



KITCHEN GARDEN. 



The presence of crops suitable as food for ineeots brings in 

 the course of time a great number of such depredators about a 

 garden. The invention of methods for their extirpation often 

 taxes the ingenuity of a gardener to a considerable extent. 

 There is, however, one substance not open to any objection, 

 and it may now be used with advantage on land whence the 



THE WEEK. 



crop has been removed— viz., lime.' Ground cropped the pre- 

 ceding season with Carrots, Parsnips, or Potatoes, and found, 

 as is frequently the case at this time, infested with insects, 

 should have a good dressing of lime dug in, or, if that cannot 

 be done, the soil should be turned up in ridges for the winter. 

 Such an exposure will benefit the land if at all stiff, and cause 

 the destruction of many insects. Birds are the natnral enemies 



