HORTICULTCKAL SOCIETV OK LONDON'. 



203 



and as a Practical Gardener with the Pri\ile£res of a Fellow, 



Mr. D. Beaton, Gardener to Sir William Middleton, Bart., 

 F.H.S., Shrubland, near Claydon, Suffolk. 



A paper was read by Mr. Fortune, the Superintendent of the 

 hothouse department in the Society's Garden, upon the effect of 

 Mercurial vapour on vegetation. The author stated that in con- 

 sequence of reports that wood prepared with corrosive sublimate, 

 under Kyan's patent, was injurious to vegetation, a series of ex- 

 periments had been tried in the Garden for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining how far these opinions were well founded. In one 

 experiment a small portable greenhouse was prepared with 

 Kyanized wood, and, thus pickled, was introduced into the atmos- 

 phere of plants under handglasses ; but without injurious effects 

 in such cases. But when Kyanized wood, or shavings mois- 

 tened with corrosive sublimate, or crude mercury, or salts of that 

 metal, were introduced into vessels containing plants exposed to 

 the dampness and high temperature of a hothouse, in ever\ such 

 case the plants became sickly, recovered when removed from 

 the influence of the mercurial vapour, and sickened again when 

 again exposed to it. 



The following communication, on a means of producing 

 flowers of Rhododendron arboreum soon after Christmas, was 

 also read from Sir Charles Lemon, Bart. V. P. 



** The circumstance which I am about to relate is of trifling 

 importance j but may, nevertheless, interest those who, like me, 

 cultivate the Rhododendron arboreum, and have seldom an 

 opportunity of seeing its beautiful blossoms. I have for some 

 years been in the habit of pruning the several varieties or sub- 

 species of this plant, as trees ; and I find that they bear the knife 

 well, and readily assume the character which I wish to give them. 

 Last November, while engaged in this operation, it occurred to 

 me that I might make some use of the branches which I had 

 cut off • either by ripening the seed-vessels left from the flowers 

 of last year, or by forcing into early blossom the buds already 

 formed. With a \-iew of accomplishing the first object, I placed 

 some of the branches bearing seed-vessels in the dry stove ; but 

 they soon withered and came to nothing. Others were placed 

 in the mud of a tank in the damp stove, in which were growing 

 Limnocharis Humboldtii and other aquatics. This was done 

 about the end of November. The leaves however drooped, and 

 the cuttings remained unchanged for above a month ; when to 

 my surprise 1 found that the capsules were becoming turgid and 

 full of sap, and that a strong shoot was coming from each 

 cutting 5 which shoot, when I left the country, had attained nearly 

 the length of five inches. Whether or not roots had been" 

 formed, I have not ascertained ; for I was unwilling to disturb 

 the cuttings so soon after their apjKirent vegetation ; but it is 



