COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
621 
until I had planted others. I mention this that young amateur gardeners 
may not, like myself, be misled by the high authority of Mr. Liudley's name, 
so far as to suppose that his remarks extend to all hautboys : you perhaps, or 
some of your correspondents can inform j-our readers the kind to which Mr. L. 
refers. I think mine are the Bath hautboy. 
I have a grapery in which I succeed pretty well generally ; but my fruit which 
grows nearly to maturity without exhibiting any disease, is occasionally and par- 
tially affected when the bunches have nearly attained their last colouring, by 
many of the berries retaining their red colour; and upon examination, the foot 
stalk and the sprig appear incrusted with a brown rust which deprives them of 
the power of supporting the berries, and these consequently never ripen, or are 
in fact eatable. Can you give, or procure me the cause, preventive, and cure of 
this disease? J. Mills. 
Jan. 28, 1832. . . 
II.— COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
In Berlin there are four large gardens, in which is kept up the appearance of 
perpetual summer. They are filled with orange trees, and exotics of different 
kinds, being covered over and having good stove fires, the temperature is always 
that of July and August. They contain Reading and Refreshment Rooms, &.C. 
At night they are illuminated, and have a beautiful effect. Why should Lon- 
don have nothing of this kind? In Petersburg also they have their winter gar- 
dens; and surely we might have the same, where exercise, and conversation, and 
reading may most in\itingly draw us from our fire-sides, when a ride in the 
Park or the streets could not tempt us to move in this dreary season of the 
year. In the zoological department we shall soon take the lead; — why do we 
not attempt this also ? Try to give a taste for it — set it a-foot ; and we shall 
soon leave Petersburg and Berlin far behind us. R. 
Hawthorn Tree. — It is surprising the small progress in growth which trees 
>vill sometimes make when placed in situations where they can obtain but little 
nourishment, and yet how long they will live. I do not doubt but that many of 
your readers remember a small hawthorn-bush which used to grow bet»veeii 
the stones on the top of the Conduit-house, in Hyde Park; it was cut down 
when some repairs were done to the stone roof ten or twelve years ago ; I re- 
gretted it very much, for it accorded so well with the building. I had observed 
it from my youth, and in between thirty and forty years which I remembered it? 
its increase in size seemed to be but little : and 1 knew a gentleman who died 
more than ten years before it was cut down at the advanced age of 93, who told 
me he remembered it when he was a boy, and so gradual and slow had been its 
increase that, in his long life, he could hardly perceive the difference in its size. 
These circumstances make it impossible to fix the age of it at less than a 120 or 
130 years. At the time it was rooted out it was not more than three feet high, 
no branch was from the stem more than two feet long, and the stem at the thick- 
est part not more than an inch in diameter. I. T- 
Ants. — To prevent the ravages of ants in places in which they sometimes 
abound and do mischief; it is only necessary to place tobacco leaves in their 
way, the smell is fatal to them, as is also that of the greater nirtnber of strong 
scented plants. — Morning Herald. 1 fear it is rather apocryphal. G. A. L. 
April 11, 1S32. 
