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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



one end of the snowy ranges of the Alps and walk up and down through 

 their midst to the other end over a continuous series of peaks and passes. 

 And most admirably has this object been attained, beginning at the Col 

 di Tenda, a few miles north of the Riviera, and aiming for Mont Blanc ; 

 thence, turning in a north-easterly direction, through the Bernese Oberland 

 and onward through the Tirol, ending at Ankogel, the last snowy peak 

 some 200 miles this side of Vienna. But delightful as the book is to the 

 lover of Swiss mountains, we are bound to notice that it hardly even 

 mentions the Swiss flowers. 



" The Culture of Fruit Trees in Pots." By J. Brace. 8vo., 110 pp. 

 Murray, London.) 5s. 



We took up this treatise with the liveliest expectations, knowing 

 beforehand so well that the author has the subject at his fingers' ends, 

 and anticipating that he would also be able to convey his knowledge in a 

 clear and practical manner. We must confess to some little disappoint- 

 ment. The knowledge is all there, but the expression of it is often by no 

 means clear, as we will show presently, and in one case at least is very 

 far from being practical. 



The book opens rightly with details as to the best sort of houses, their 

 dimensions, and the way to construct them. There is a curious statement 

 on page 3 that " iron should be avoided because it has a tendency to absorb 

 much moisture." We quite agree in the advice, but for the very different 

 reasons of its heat in summer and its cold in winter, but we should never 

 have accused it of absorbing moisture, though doubtless it often condenses 

 it. However, that is a small point ; but on the same page we come to the 

 somewhat cryptic announcement that " the plan is correctly drawn to 

 scale and fully explained in the notes." To find a plan at all one has to 

 turn over the next page, and there one finds a skeleton ground-plan and 

 two outline elevations, but no scale is mentioned, and no notes whatever 

 are to be found, and no reference to them either till one comes to page 107, 

 and no hint is given on pages 3, 4, or 5 that these same notes are located 

 at page 107. Again, ' The columns referred to in plan, &c. ; " but no such 

 reference is to be found, although there are on the plan eight little round 

 marks which presumably are the columns intended to have been " referred 

 to." " These columns will then have to be affixed to the T-iron in the 

 middle of the roof ; " but there has as yet been no mention of a T-iron at 

 all, nor is it shown on the plan, and after puzzling the matter out we are 

 inclined to think that "middle of the rafters " should be read for "middle 

 of the roof." And so the book goes on, full of evidence of accurate know- 

 ledge possessed, but also of lack of ability to convey it clearly. Even in 

 his own special department of cultivation the author is not always clear ; 

 e.g. on page 52 he gives a "Diagram of a tree that requires no pruning," 

 and on pngo 53 points out four spots to which it ought to be pruned back 

 for the sake of thinning and to give uniformity to the tree. Any one who 

 understands the work knows instinctively what the author means, but 

 presumably the book is written for those who do not know. 



What seems to us the most extraordinary statement in the book is 

 when the author tells us how we may determine the number of fruits a 

 tree may be allowed to carry. We are not to judge by its size or its 



