November 8, 1864. ] 



JOTTENAL OF HOETICULTTJEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



371 



rivetted upon it, from its extreme simplicity and elegance. 

 Its name is the Dahlia glabrata, and the seed of it may 

 be procured from Mr. W. Thompson, of Ipswich. It is a 

 small single Dahlia from li to 2 inches in diameter, of 

 colours varying from deep purple to milky white. It is 

 charming in a bouquet. — T. S. 



GAEDENEES EMIGEATLNG to NEW ZEALAND. 



New Zealand consists of three islands, two large and 

 one small ; the larger are separated by Cook's Strait, a 

 channel about 50 miles broad — distance about 1200 miles 

 from Australia. New Zealand contains nearly 75,000,000 

 acres, or is about as large as Great Britain and Ireland. It 

 contains nearly 50,000 natives, and from 90 to 100,000 

 Europeans ; but as ships are weekly arriving with emigrants 

 this population cannot be exactly stated. The climate is 

 considered as healthy, or rather more so, than that of 

 England, January being the hottest, and July the coldest 

 month. There is more wind and rain than in England, 

 but fewer wet days, as the rains are heavier than here. 

 The summer is a little warmer, and the winter much warmer 

 than in England; mean temperature of the New Zealand 

 summer 65°, that of the winter 50° ; but in so large a place 

 it varies, the north island being a few degrees warmer than 

 the south. Winter is not much colder than a cold wet 

 English March. Our common bedding plants, as Geraniums, 

 Verbenas, &c, will live out all the winter in the north island, 

 and in the south will survive with a little protection. There 

 are no wild animals hurtful to man. Minerals are rather 

 plentiful, but not much worked as yet, as wood is the chief 

 fuel, and it is dear. Greater part of it is found in the north 

 island. Most trees, shrubs, fruits, flowers, and vegetables, 

 that will succeed in England will do so in New Zea- 

 land ; and others that require a warmer winter than ours 

 may also be grown. Gooseberries and Currants, particularly 

 Black Currants, do remarkably well. I find Quick Thorns 

 are used, mixed with Furze, for hedges. Seeds of all kinds 

 that are good should be taken, as good seeds are always 

 valuable here, and doubly so there. Food is dear, bread 

 Is. id. per four-pound loaf, meat 8d. to lOd. per pound, and 

 house rent very dear. 



A handy man would perhaps receive 8s. per day — at least 

 my friend does, but he is not afraid to rough it. Such a 

 man is almost sure to get on if sober and industrious, 

 although it is common to hear people say " I wish I were in 

 England again." People must make up their minds to 

 rough it for a year or two, and the wife must have good 

 heart, and deny herself many little things for a time, such 

 as comfort in furniture, &c, unless the married couple have 

 a good sum of money to furnish with. My friend says, if 

 the wife has good heart nearly all the battle is won. My 

 friend, after being there some time, bought a quarter of an 

 acre of land for ,£50, paid ,£17 down, and £33 by instalments, 

 and paid interest at the rate of £6 10s. per cent. He after- 

 wards borrowed £100 at £12 per cent, and built a cottage 

 costing £150 ; land, building, fencing the ground, and the 

 titles, cost £221. He paid in a little over four years £130, 

 or about £30 per annum, but has two children that are help- 

 ing him ; one, a girl, sixteen years old, is getting £20 per 

 year with board and lodgings. His advice is, to any one 

 going out, take all you can, tools, furniture, clothing, &c, as 

 they are mostly double the price they are in England. It 

 is a very serious journey, and he would not advise any one 

 to go without much thought about it, and a determination 

 to be sober and industrious, and rough it for a year or two. 

 A character from the last master, as well as one from the 

 clergyman, are very valuable. Schools and places of worship 

 near towns are good, as well as pretty plentiful. He advises 

 me not to leave my place to go out, but should I have left, 

 and have a difficulty in getting another situation, to venture 

 out.— W. C. 



regard Pansy as one of a long list of names bestowed by 

 the quaint fancy of our ancestors, who, by fixing, often per- 

 haps arbitrarily, on certain flowers to express certain ideas, 

 constructed a language of flowers. The grotesque appear- 

 ance of the full-blown Pansy may, perhaps, have led to the 

 imposition of the name, but only because it may have led to 

 the selection of the flower as an emblem of " thought." At 

 any rate Ophelia (Shakspeare's Hamlet, Act TV. Sc. 5), 

 uses the Pansy as an emblem : — " There's Eosemary, that's 

 for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember ; and there is 

 Pansies, that's for thoughts." Quesnay, the physician of 

 Louis XV., and leader of the Economists, was called by the 

 monarch his " thinker," and granted for armorial bearing3 

 three flowers of the pen$e"e. The following is a list of some 

 of the names by which the Pansy goes with rustics and old 

 writers : — Heart's-ease — Herb Trinity — Three-faces-under- 

 a-hood — Kit-run-about — Cuddle-me-to-you — Love-in- vain — 

 Kiss-behind-the-garden-gate — Jump-up-and-kiss-me-my-love 

 — Love-in-idleness. Under this last name Shakspeare speaks 

 of it in the famous passage, Midsummer Night's Dream, 

 Act II. Sc. 2 :— 



" Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell ; 

 It fell upon a little western flower, 

 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wounds, 

 And maidens call it ' Love-in-idleness.* " 



In the description of the effects of the flower that follows, 

 there is evidently an allusion to the emblematical signifi- 

 cation of the Pansy : — 



" The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, 

 Will make a man or woman madly dote 

 Upon the next live creature that it sees." 



And again below : — 



" And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, 

 And make her full of hateful fantasies." 



German rustics, I am told, call the Pansy stiefmutter, step- 

 mother. — Fabitjs Oxoniensis to Notes and Queries. 



Pansy. — It is no doubt true, that the word Pansy is derived 

 from the French penser, to think ; although Ben Johnson 

 spells it pamisi, Spenser (Shep. Cal., April, 1. 142), paunce ; 

 and Milton, in Comus, speaks of pancies. I agree, however, 

 ivith Grime in thinking Dr. Eichardson's account of the 

 origin of the name unsatisfactory. I should be inclined to 



THE IRISH POTATO CEOP OF 1864. 

 The Irish Potato crop of 1864 is, perhaps, the finest that 

 has been turned out of the ground for a quarter of a century. 

 In some parts of the country where old lea lands were broken 

 up and planted last spring the produce has reached a point 

 hardly ever before attained. One instance we have heard 01 

 is that of a Down farmer who planted a small field with the 

 variety called " Skerries," and the produce raised amounted 

 to 1000 bushels, being at the rate of 600 bushels to an Dish 

 acre. Other cases have been recorded this season where a 

 still larger turn-out has been taken up. In the palmiest 

 days of Potato-growing, and ere the blight was heard of in 

 Ireland, the average of 250 bushels of Potatoes, fit for 

 market, to the statute acre, was thought a fair crop ; for 

 even then there were always found considerable quantities 

 of inferior and unsound tubers which were thrown aside to r 

 be used in cattle feeding. The care taken by growers for 

 some years past, as well in the selection as in the change of 

 soil for their Potato lands, has had the best effect on the 

 crop ; and, after long perseverance in the right path, the 

 Irish farmer has reached a degree of success unequalled in 

 the history of agriculture. It will be recollected by those 

 who paid any attention to the subject that for a great many 

 years before the setting in of the Potato disease it was not 

 unusual for farmers to continue planting as seed the same 

 variety of Potatoes, and this course was continued until the 

 root had reached the highest degree of excellence as an 

 article of food. In proportion, however, as some varieties of 

 the article excelled in quality for table use, their value as seed 

 declined ; and, when planted season after season, the natural 

 vitality gave way, until at length direct disease came on the 

 crop and general destruction followed, bringing want and 

 misery to the doors of thousands of the peasantry. 



The old habit of living half the year on the produce of his 

 Potato plot has ceased to be the rule of the cottager in every 

 part of Ireland. He no longer depends on the turn-out of a 

 precarious crop for his subsistence. One of the results of 

 the famine season, with all its dread realities, has been to 

 familiarise the masses of the people in this country with a 

 class of food much superior to that with which their fathers 

 were accustomed to be content. If, therefore, the Potato 



