Reviews and Extracts. 1 7 
9._Pag-e 285. On Heath- Monld and Pcaf. By J. D. 
I HAVE often, (says the writer) found the terms Pcaf, Peut-carili, and Bog-mrtit, 
employed to designate tliat particuhir kind of soil in which the British species of 
heath, the Cape heaths, and the Nortli American plants, thrive so perfectly; 
that this kind of soil (which he calls "Heath-mould") is distinct enough from 
Peat, the following characters of each, will evince. — 
Heath-mould \s the sail which occurs on heaths, sites not extremely wet and 
low, as bogs are, but usually elevated, and in consequence well drained, and 
exposed to the scorching- rays of the sun of summerjand the withering blasts of 
winter. The stratum, or layer of soil, is usually less than twelve inches in thick- 
nass, lying" on a stony subsoil, and both the soil and subsoil of so sterile a quality 
as to forbid tillag-e, yielding usually a tough, thickly-woven turf, and heath or 
ling-, and furze in abundance, with occasional brambles, and low stunted specimens 
of other species of shrubs or trees. This stratum taken off', so as to leave the 
stones bare, forms, when partially decomposed and comminuted, the invaluable 
and indispensable soil for innumerable plants of the garden ; and is composed of 
the decaying- turf, v^ith its spongy interwoven roots, a highly friable black soil, 
and a plentiful admixture of small-grained white sand. The blackness of the 
soil is doubtless partly owing to the perpetually progressive rotting' o\ ihe exuviae, 
continually supplied by the growing turf, and which decaying ex;;v!LP, besides 
the blackness, give to the soil also, in no small degree, the properties of leaf or 
vegetable mould. From this, the spongy masses of vegetable fibres, the friable 
nature of the soil itself, the decomposed vegetable matter, and the large pro- 
portion of white sand which it contains, arises its peculiar eligibility for nil plants 
with delicate hair-like roots. 
Peat-earth or Bng-earth, on the contrary, is the soil yielded by fens, turbaries, 
bogs, and morasses. It constitutes almost the entire soil of the fens of Lincolnshire 
and Cambridgeshire, and is, in fact, the soil forming the turf, of which so many 
millions are annually dug, sold, and burnt, as an article of domestic fuel. Peat 
instead of being in a thin stratum, foruis sometimes a stratum of great depth; 
instead of occupying high sites and being- well drained, it occupies the lowest, and 
is usually saturated v/ith water to the very roots of the herbage it bears; instead 
of a stony subsoil, stones are almost totally absent; and the subsoil is a water-hold- 
ing clay. While Heath-mould is most important to the g-ardener, Peat is unfit for, 
and inimical to, most of the purposes of floriculture. 
20. — Page 314. Oil the mjiirmts effects of Ants on early-forced Peach Trees^ 
u'ith the means of extirpation. By Mr. Joseph Thompson, Jun., Welbeck- 
Gardeus, Notts. 
The writer informs us, his earliest peach-house was shut up, and small fires applied 
on alternate evenings, after the 25th of November : on the 10th of Decejiber 
some few ants were observed traversing tiie trellis in quest of their favourite food 
produced by the aphis, but as g-reat attention had been paid to washino- every 
shoot when the trees were pruned, no aphis' eg-g-s, &c., were on them ; — this pro- 
bably caused the ants to injure the peach blossoms, which was not discovered until 
the opening of the petals of two or three of the earliest blossoms, when the fila- 
ments, anthers, and pistillum, were observed to fall out of the corolla. On closer 
examination we found that many of the earliest blossoms had the unexpanded 
petals perforated, the filaments eaten oirt, and the ants lodged in the nectaries 
feeding upon the honey. This was on the evening of the 13th of December, and 
we immediately commenced killing them by hand, dislodging- them from the 
blossoms with slender wires. Soinc bones of roast nu'at, &c., were placed, which 
attracted their attention and prevented them from climbing- the trees, but when 
Voi. 1, No.l. D 
