CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
331 
be uninterrupted. We have also employed 
moss in connexion with the drainage, and 
with much success in the case of plants whose 
duration is short ; a small portion spread over 
the drainage to prevent the soil from inter- 
mixing with the crocks is in all cases advan- 
tageous ; and in the case of annuals and 
flower garden plants which are placed in pots 
for a month or two to facilitate transplanting, 
a little moss at the bottom of the pots is 
preferable to the crocks which are usually 
employed.] 
CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS, 
AND ORIGINAL NOTES CONNECTED WITH HORTICULTURE 
AND NATURAL HISTORY. 
Eosa Harrisonii. — A plant of this fine 
rose, in the conservatory of the Earl of 
Radnor, at Coleshill House in Berkshire, has 
this season brought to perfection upwards of 
three hundred and fifty blossoms. The plant 
is a standard. It had been subjected to a 
gentle heat, and under these circumstances 
the blooms appeared to be produced in a more 
perfect state than is usual out of doors. It 
has been treated thus : — After flowering, the 
branches were partially cut back, and the 
plants placed out of doors in rich soil, and 
well supplied with liquid manure in the growing 
season. In the autumn they are again taken 
up, and potted, and submitted to a gentle 
heat to accelerate their blooming. 
The Leek. — Of this useful esculent there 
are two principal varieties, the Scotch and 
English ; the former much hardier, thicker- 
growing, and not so soon running to seed, 
the latter generally earlier, and not so hardy, 
but more fitted for autumn and early winter 
use. The leek is generally propagated by 
seeds, and is usually regarded as a biennial — 
not a bulb ; this however is a mistake, a 
number of little bulbs being produced at the 
bottom of the seed stalk, which takes two 
years to arrive at maturity. The leek is 
therefore a true bulbous perennial, requiring 
two years to perfect its bulbs ; and subdividing 
itself after the manner of the potato-onion, 
and thus, like it, may be continued without 
rearing from seeds after a stock of bulbs is 
once obtained. These bulbs should be planted 
in rows nine inches asunder, and four or six 
inches distant in the rows ; they require rich 
deep soil, but it should not have been newly 
manured. In autumn they must be taken 
up, a sufficient quantity stored for use, and 
the rest planted for a new crop. These bulbs 
iire thus easily reared to the size of eight or 
.nine inches in circumference ; and are very 
delicate, much superior to the onion. 
Queen-bees. — At a recent meeting of 
the Entomological Society, Mr. F. Smith 
exhibited a pair of specimens of the queen 
and drone of the hive-bee, which had been 
taken paired by a friend, thus settling the 
long disputed question as to the mode in 
which the queen of the hive is impregnated. 
The queen was very pale in colour, and had 
not the elongated abdomen which characterises 
the old queens. 
The Tea-plant in India. — We learn 
from the Calcutta Gazette, that the efforts 
of Dr. W. Jameson, superintendent of the 
botanic gardens in the north-west provinces 
of India, to introduce and extend the cultiva- 
tion of the tea-plant have been highly suc- 
cessful. The tea brokers in England have, 
moreover, pronounced the Indian tea equal 
to China tea of a superior class, possessing 
the flavour of the orange-pekoe, but more 
than its usual strength, and in other respects 
resembling that imported under the name of 
ning-yong. The tea-tree in Kemaoon is not 
only identical with the China plant, and as 
capable of being made into as fine a descrip- 
tion of tea, but the climate and soil in Ke- 
maoon are as suited to the favourable growth 
of the shrub as the finest of the Chinese 
localities ; and, moreover, the tea is as highly 
prized in the districts in which it has been 
raised as it is in England. One hundred 
and seventy three seers of it were recently 
sold at Almorah, and produced from four to 
five rupees the seer, a price equal to the best 
foreign tea sold in Calcutta. According to 
the calculation of Dr. Jameson, the price for 
which it can be raised is so low as to afford 
the greatest encouragement for the applica- 
tion of capital : he estimates that if cultivated 
on a sufficiently large scale, the prime cost 
in Calcutta, including every expense, would 
be little more than eight annas a seer, or one- 
eighth of the present price. Supposing the 
cost of cultivation to be double what is here 
estimated, a sufficient amount of profit would 
still be left. The capacity of the provinces 
of Kemaoon and Grurhwall for the enlarged 
production of the article, does not moreover 
appear to be limited to particular localities. 
According to the latest report that has been 
furnished, 176 acres were under cultivation, 
containing not fewer than 322,579 plants. 
The crop is thriving in different places over 
four degrees of latitude, and three degrees of 
longitude ; and 100,000 acres are available 
in the Dhoon alone for the purposes of tea 
cultivation. At a maund an acre, they would 
yield 7,600,000 lbs., which is equal to one- 
sixth the entire consumption of England. 
Rhododendrons. — Large masses of rho- 
dodendrons are exactly what are suited to 
form the line of separation between the highly- 
dressed flower garden and the park ; as they 
may be introduced without, in the Jcast, ob- 
