August 11, 1870. J 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



101 



" A beautiful feathery sea weed often adorns the roots of I'ucus ser- 

 ratus, or the stems of Laminaria digitata, this is the Ptilota plumosa, 

 and you will often find it to be the abode of an interesting Zoophyte 

 the Membranipora pilosa. Ptilota sericea, a plant much finer in tex- 

 ture than the preceding, decks the lower ledges with its silky fronds. 



" The Odenthalia dentata, though recorded as not occurring south of 

 Durham, abundantly ornaments the lowest ledges of East Scar, and a 

 ridge of rock on "West Scar, easy of access at very low tides. The 

 living plant presents a very different appeaiance to the dried specimen, 

 which is much darkened in drying. We have grown this elegant plant 

 with other Rhodosperms tolerably successfully. 



" The Chondrus norvegicns, Norwegian Chondrus, though rather 

 rare, is found in the deep pools on the north side of the rock. In leav- 

 the Scar, the beauties of which we have endeavoured to unfold, you 

 will find the Porphyra laciniata densely clothing the ledges of rock 

 nearest the shore; this is the Purple Laver, one of the Chlorosperms, 

 or green-seeded sea weeds ; though called purple, it assumes at diffe- 

 rent seasons various hues or shades. Many of the rarer Alga; are only 

 to be found at extreme low-water mark, or at the lowest water of spring 

 tides, either along the margin of the rocks partially laid bare, or more 

 frequently fringing the deep tidepools left at low water. The side of 

 the pools richest in Red Algae will be found to be the northern or 

 shaded side; whilst the olive, or green, require a sunny position to 

 bring them to maturity." * 



On the afternoon of the day on which I collected many of 

 the Algas so commented on by Mr. Ferguson, I wended my way 

 inland to Guisborough, celebrated even in Drayton's time for 

 its lovely scenery. He thus describes it in his " Polyolbion :" — 

 " Mark Guisborough's gay site, where nature seems so nice, 

 As in the same she makes a second paradise ; 

 Whose soil embroidered is with so rare sundry flowers, 

 Here large Oaks so long green ; as Summer there her bowers 

 Had set up all the year ; her air for health refin'd, 

 Her earth with alum veins so richly intermin'd." 



The last line refers to the first alum works in England being 

 erected at Gaisborough by Sir Thomas Challoner in the reign 

 of Elizabeth. He noticed that the strata here are like those 

 near Borne, and obtained workmen from the Pope's works near 

 that city. His success reducing the price of alum, the Pope 

 anathematised Sir Thomas ! but, as Graves remarks, '* the 

 Pope's infallibility is in this respect to be doubted — the heretic 

 flourished, and so do his descendants," one of whom, Admiral 

 Challoner, is now resident at Guisborough Priory. 



What tales and doiugs of the olden time does the naming of 

 that monastery recall to my memory. This was a wild district 

 when the Augustine monks were settled here by Robert de 

 Brus in the twelfth century, and so exposed to the Northmen's 

 inroads that in the fourteenth a royal license was granted to 

 the Prior and Canons to fortify their house sufficiently to pro- 

 tect them from pirates and other marauders, from whom they 

 had suffered severely. " The Prior kept a most pompous house, 

 insomuch that the towne, consystinge of five hundred house- 

 holders, hade no lande, but lyved all on the abbay ; and a 

 steward of theirs was turned out of office, because he had afore- 

 hande but oneley four hundred quarters of grayne to serve 

 their house. But nowe all these lordings are gone, and the 

 countrye as a wydowe remaynethe mournfull." — {Cotton MSS.) 



However, a good time has come again ; for although only 

 the east end of the Priory remains, a noble fragment, and an 

 arch of the north side, yet they are surrounded by a well-kept 

 garden, and beneath the old sacred ruin is a spacious wine- 

 vault, suggestive of the adoption of this inscription — 



" There are spirits above, there are spirits below, 

 There are spirits of joy, there are spirits of woe ; 

 The spirits above are spirits divine, 

 But the spirits below are the spirits of wine." 



From that vault a subterranean passage is said to pass to a 

 plantation in Toccotes, and a legend tells that midway there is 

 an enormous chest of gold guarded by a raven, which keeps 

 incessant watch over the treasure. Once only was it invaded, 

 but when the intending thief reached the chest the raven was 

 transformed to a demon, who belaboured the intruder so severely 

 that no one has repeated the attempt. There is little reason, 

 if any, for doubting that tne legend was founded on the known 

 wealth of the Priory. At the time of its suppression it was 

 endowed with the patronage of more than fifty churches, be- 

 sides many other estates and privileges, among which were the 

 right to claim fish from fishing cobbles of Kedear. But this 

 was not the only contribution to the refectory table of the 

 white-tunicked monks, for there are notices extant of annual 

 benefactions of poultry and other good things to their larder 

 and buttery. The produce of the dovecotes of their let farms 

 was always reserved. Be it ever remembered, too, that they 



* The Natural History of Rede ar and its Neighbourhood. By D. Fergu- 

 son. London Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 



were the best husbandmen, gardeners, and orchardists of their 

 age. No better testimony to this could be quoted than the fact 

 that the " five hundred householders " of Guisborough placed 

 all their lands under the management of its monks, to benefit 

 by their superior means and knowledge. — G. 



HORTICULTURAL CONGRESS AT OXFORD. 



(Continued from page 84 ) 



The following paper is that read on the first day of the 

 Congress, by Mr. William Ingram, of Belvoir Castle Gardens. 

 THE FORMATION OF SOILS. 



Investigations into the history of soils lead us far back to a voice- 

 less, but not unrecorded, antiquity; and, tracing effects to their causes, 

 we shall find ourselves carried beyond the written records of men, 

 beyond the ages of iron, and bronze, and stone, and we shall be left 

 stranded amidst the bewildered and struggling creatures whose de- 

 struction was accomplished during that eventful time called by 

 geologists the glacial drift period. Some writers on soils have attri- 

 buted their occurrence and formation to atmospheric causes alone. 

 This theory will be found insufficient to account for all the various 

 circumstances of soil occurring in this country. The preparation of 

 the'surface soil for the growth of plants is mainly due to the action of 

 the weather, and we all know that rocks, and marls, and clays, ex- 

 posed to the action of the elements, are disintegrated and pulverised, 

 and that the particles scattered by the wind, or spread over the land 

 by rain, enriched and carbonised by vegetation, form, during long 

 periods of time, considerable accumulations of soil ; but such causes 

 as these are not adequate to account for the immense masses of earthy 

 material composed of matters derived from the rocky crust of the 

 earth, and consisting, in one place, of deep beds of clay, in another of 

 sand and gravel, or loam, and distributed, with more or less irregu- 

 larity, over the hills, and valleys, and plains of this island. 



After the deposition of the lower tertiaries it would seem that 

 Britain and the north of Europe underwent a vast revolution as to 

 climate, and that some new arrangement of sea and land took place 

 at the same period. At all events, the large mammalia of the earlier 

 tertiaries disappeared, and the land was submerged to the extent of 

 several hundred feet, for we now find water-worn boulders on the tops 

 of our hills at an altitude of 1800 or 2000 feet. 



A cold period ensued, and icebergs, laden with boulders and gravel 

 from other regions, passed over these latitudes, and dropped their 

 boulders on our then submerged lands. How long this process con- 

 tinued it is impossible to determine, but by-and-by a gradual elevation 

 of the submerged lands took place. Our hill tops and ranges appeared 

 as islands, and our valleys as straits. These islands were now covered 

 periodically with glaciers; during a brief season avalanches descended, 

 glaciers smoothed the hill sides, and left the debris as morasses of 

 sand and gravel. 



In process of time the land was elevated to its present level, another 

 distribution of sea and land took place, and the glacial epoch passed 

 away. 



The agencies in action during this time were eminently calculated, 

 as no doubt they were designed, for the production of results of the 

 greatest possible importance to us, "the latest gifts of time." It 

 appears to me to have been the most evident period of preparation for 

 the race of beings that was to become dominant on the earth, and to 

 glorify by intelligent appreciation the graciouB gifts of God. 



To the action of these great forces of Nature — turbulent seas, ice- 

 bergs, glaciers, and the streams from the great ice fields, as the 

 climate changed — may be referred many of the drift soils which I have 

 already said are widely distributed, and which wherever they occur 

 give their own character to our agricultural and horticultural produc- 

 tions. Looking broadly over the vast fields of Nature, we see a cease- 

 less round of causes and effects, of processes and products. Change 

 alone is dominant. While we enjoy the great results of time, we must 

 not omit to read the great lessons writteu in what I may call the ripple 

 marks of these ancient sea margins, which, while carrying destruction 

 to the mighty race of mammals of that time, caused the production of 

 vast areas of soil fertilised more or less by the decay of animals and 

 plants which were coeval with and commingled in the debris of a vast 

 disrupted world of matter' 



The causes which have subsequently contributed to produce the 

 more important deposits of soil, are less in magnitude, and in the 

 process of soil-making are fortunately unattended by such wide-spread 

 destruction as that which occurred during the drift periods. The 

 ceaseless and prolonged action of rivers, commencing in periods in- 

 calculably remote, and coming down to the present time, have neces- 

 sarily produced immense deposits of soil. We have all had oppor- 

 tunities of seeing how the devious course of a river is changed by the 

 waters acting upon the hanks that bound it. Masses of sand, silt, mud, 

 and gravel, are annually diplaced and deposited, and loam beds, for 

 future fattening fields, are being formed, inch by inch, and year by 

 year. Our true and best loam beds are our ancient and matured 

 river deposits. 



While the rivers pierce and ramify through the land, displacing 

 and reforming new beds of the matters through which they pass, they 

 still carry onwards some of the spoils of the land into the bosom of 

 the sea. Sea and land, like rival monarchs, are ever striving for 



