107 



stone : but our plants afford evidence that such soil is not required 

 when they are grown in an artificially heated atmosphere. We have 

 used good yellow loam, mixed with a little leaf -mould and sand. In 

 this they have attained the height of eight feet, and continue in a per- 

 fectly healthy state. In their native place the leaves are deciduous, 

 falling off in the dry season. But the health of a general collection 

 of tropical plants, grown in a hothouse, will not allow us to put them 

 under the influence of their natural dry season. We therefore find 

 that some individuals change their habit, and become evergreen. This 

 has been the case with the Lagetta plants ; and it is probably to an 

 accidental circumstance that we owe the present production of flowers. 

 One of the plants appeared to have received some check, which caused 

 it to shed its leaves : the consequence was, that just before the unfold- 

 ing of the young foliage, it produced its flowers. Like many of the 

 Thymeleaceae, the Lace-Bark tree is difficult to propagate. We haN e 

 never succeeded by planting cuttings, nor by grafting it on species of 

 allied genera ; but we now have hopes of propagating it by lavering. 



J. S. 



ARBOR DAY.* 



By E. D. Till, F.R.H.S. 



" Forward in the name of God : graffe, set, plant and nourish up trees in every 

 corner of your grounds ; the labour is small, the cost is nothing, the commoditie 

 is great, your selves shall have plenty, the poore shall have somewhat in time of 

 want to relieve their necessitie, and God shall reward your good minds and dili- 

 gence." — John Gerhardt, 1633. 



Trees are more or less common to the whole surf ace of our land, 

 whether marsh, moorland or mouutain, arable or pasture, arable land, 

 perhaps, excepted, but even arable fields are ofter skirted by trees. 

 There are few altitudes in the British Isles where trees will not 

 flourish. We speak of trees " clothing" the earth, and when they are 

 absent we speak of the " naked" landscape, as though, that which was 

 proper to it was wanting. Trees, therefore are the earth's natural 

 ornament, and it is unnatural for the land to be without them ; more- 

 over they are necessary, because trees, and vegetation generally, con- 

 sume the waste products of animal life ; thus they play an indispens- 

 able part in the economy of nature. 



The carbon dioxide exhaled by animals is inhaled and assimilated 

 by plants, and this is one of the marvellous processes which are a con- 

 tinual witness to Creative design. The silent machinery is ever in 

 motion by which the atmosphere of our planet is purified, and the 

 processes of animal life, find their counterpoise in the processes 

 of vegetable life the one complementary and necessary to the other 

 by mutually operative and immutable law. Were it otherwise, both 

 plants and aDimals would be poisoned by the respective waste products 

 they exhale. 



Treeless areas are not conducive to the retention of moisture ; the 

 rain that falls on them either flows away quickly because it meets 

 with no impediment or is rapidly evaporated, whereas forest lands, 

 rendered porous by the roots which permeate the soil, and shaded by 

 foliage, are far more retentive. 



* Journal, R. Horticultural Society, England. 



