2^56 
CONTEMPORARY "WRITINGS. 
Lup'tnus 7ianii.s, the late T)lue Forget-me-not, 
or the beautiful but rather scarce Centcnii-ea 
depi^exsa ; for dwarf scarlet beds Verbenas or 
Geraniums are indispensable, but a taller bed 
may be made of Pentstevion gentianoidex ; 
the different varieties of Antirrhimun vutjus 
are also very useful, particularly the dwart 
double white variety; the taller kinds may 
easily be made dwarfer by pegging them 
down ; for a purple bed, nothing surpasses 
the purple branching Larkspur, if raised from 
seed on a warm border, planted out eight 
inches apart, and pegged down twice during 
the growing season. The rest of the annuals 
in the above list may be sown at once in their 
places, and thinned out to proper distances. 
The Musk and Forget-me-not are hardy pe- 
rennial plants, as are also the Antirrhinums 
and Pentstemons. The time for sowing annuals 
must be regulated by the period at which the 
greatest display will be most useful ; and as 
this will generally vary from the middle of 
July to the middle of September, the seeds 
should be sown from the beginning of April 
to the end of June. The little Chcenostoma 
jiolyantha makes a very pretty dwarf bed ; it 
should be sown in March, in a warm frame, 
pricked out into boxes as soon as it is up, and 
planted out at the usual time ; the young 
plants will require stopping, in order to in- 
duce a bushy habit. Lobelia Erinus grandl- 
Jlora, is known in the seed-shops as L. e. com- 
])acta grandijiora. This, and all the other 
wa-'ieiin?, oi L. Erinus or L. gracilis, although 
called greenhouse plants in catalogues, are ex- 
cellently adapted for flower-garden decoration ; 
they may be propagated in early spring, either 
by seeds or cuttings, and with proper attention 
to potting or transplanting them into frames 
as they require it, will be ready for bedding 
out by the middle of May. They will com- 
mence flowering immediately, and unless the 
ground is very poor, will continue till the end 
of September. — Gardeners Chronicle. 
Grafting Grasses. — ']"he Gardeners' Chro- 
nicle directs attention to this, and shows from 
the experiments of Sig. Calderini, of Milan, 
that grasses have at each knot a shoot within 
the sheath of the leaf, which can be easily 
drawn out while the plant is young. These 
can be changed, that is, the shoot of a ro- 
bust growing plant i-emoved, and the shoot 
of a weaker growing plant placed there. The 
result has been an improved growth of the 
introduced plant, and a more vigorous-growing 
seed. Grafting of the grasses is something 
like bottling the Atlantic. The only point 
that can be practically useful, is tliat of im- 
proving the seed; and if this improvement in 
the first year's seed be not carried through in 
future years, the experiment is petty and 
useless. 
Indian Bread or Tuckahoe. — An o>ld 
something between a fungus and a tuber, 
described by different writers as each. It is ob- 
served that, "It has by some been considered 
as the root of some phtenogam, by others it 
has been described, under the generic names 
of Lycoperdon and Pachime, as a fungus." 
We are told that it differs totally from the 
native bread of Van Diemen's Land, which is 
nearly allied to the common Truffle. 
Potatoes. — Mr. Cuthill, in the Garden- 
ers' Chronicle, writes over again the reiterated 
lessons on planting potatoes. " Farmers," he 
says, " should keep their small potatoes for 
seed and plant them whole;" but he says 
" the only difference between planting a potato 
of half an ounce and one weighing three 
ounces is, that the heavy one will be ripe ten 
days before the light one." He advises tying 
up the plant and taking off all the lower leaves 
for at least nine inches from the ground, to l^;t 
in the sun and keep out the disease. We 
regard this as mere nonsense. Millions of 
acres of potatoes have been grown, with all 
their foliage, without the disease affecting 
them, which is a proof that the leaves do not 
cause it ; and we regard the speculation as a 
most futile one. We say nothing of the trifling 
job of tying up 1,500 to 2,000 plants in a 
single acre, and taking off all the leaves to 
nine inches above the ground ; but some 
people would think a couple of thousand 
sticks and ties, and the gathering of the lower 
leaves, a good deal of trouble. Another 
writer communicates a fact worth notice, 
and suggests that it may be a means of pre- 
venting the disease. Eight potatoes in a 
whole piece were accidentally smeared with 
tar, and as accidentally the haulm was trodden 
down flat to the ground, so as to be almost 
separated ; while the other portion was 
diseased, these eight were not. This being 
attributed to the tar, it was applied on pur- 
pose the last season, but did not save the 
potatoes ; the next year the treading down 
the haulm is to be tried. Truly the potato 
disease has been a puzzler. The Rev. E. 
Hoblyn is to tread the haulm down flat, and 
Mr. Cuthill is to put sticks to keep it upright, 
and strip the lower part of the leaves. There 
is some rational hope of Mr. Hoblyn's expe- 
riment, inasmuch as flattened vegetation may 
be less subject to electric influence ; but there 
is none of Mr. Cuthill's ; for if it escape the 
disease, there will be no proof of its efiicacy ; 
and were it possible to prove its efficacy, the 
thing is impracticable. — G. 
Botanical Expedition into Wales in 
1639. — The review of a book under this title 
gives a curious account of journeying, when 
the means of transit were not quite so rapid 
as they are now, and when our commonest 
