428 
HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
ashes (dry) one peck ; place this in a tub, 
pouring in twelve gallons of soft water, and 
allowing it to soak for twelve hours, stirring 
it up occasionally : then take of fine soft 
clay, and of fresh cowdung, one peck each, 
and mix them well together into a ' puddle ;' 
add two pecks of fresh chimney soot, and a 
peck of fine charcoal dust that has not been 
wetted ; place these ingredients together, and 
add enough of the lye of the wood ashes to 
bring it to the consistence of workable paint, 
stirring it well up with an old broom. This 
must be allowed to stand for two or three days, 
and will then be in good condition for painting 
over the stems, branches, and every part of 
the plant affected with the scale, which it will 
readily extirpate. — Gardeners' Journal. 
Bulbs. — We do not despair of seeing Val- 
lotas, and Hippeastrums, with Guernsey and 
Jacobasa Lilies, as common as Hyacinths, and 
in the common air. But how is this to be 
done, it will be asked ? By what new process 
can we hope to transfer the inhabitants of 
countries so much warmer than our own from 
the green-house and hot-house to the flower 
border ? Nothing is more feasible. We have 
only to imitate our Belgian friends. Glass 
and sand, with a little skill and patience, will 
work greater wonders than this. Let us sup- 
pose a bed for the cultivation of such plants, to 
be formed of proper materials, in a thoroughly 
well-drained situation. It may be surrounded 
by a bank of earth two feet thick, and of the 
necessary height at the back and front : on 
this may rest a wall-plate for the reception of 
the sashes. As soon as the winter approaches, 
the sashes would be fitted to such a bed; as 
soon as the summer comes, they would be re- 
moved ; and nothing would then be left except 
a common bed, the banks surrounding which 
might be decorated in twenty ways. When 
plants are not very impatient of cold, no fur- 
ther assistance would be required ; but if they 
are particularly tender, a few inches of dry 
sand spread over the bed in autumn, and re- 
moved in the spring, would guard them well. 
— Gardeners' Chronicle. 
Rhododendron nobile. — During the win- 
ter of 1835, or early in the spring of 1836, 
I received a letter from the island of Ceylon, 
written by a medical gentleman (who was an 
excellent botanist) : accompanying it was a 
packet of the seed of the Rhododendron nobile. 
Of the tree he speaks thus: — "I write from a 
plain over eight thousand feet above the level 
of the sea, which presents just now one of the 
finest sights imaginable, being one sheet of 
scarlet as far as the eye can see — the Rhodo- 
dendron nobile being in full flower ; but from 
the great elevation and consequent cold, the 
tree does not attain a greater size than a well- 
grown apple-tree ; in the valley it grows three 
months earlier, and grows considerably larger. 
I feel confident that it would succeed well in 
Ireland in the open air, and stand the severest 
winters." Immediately on receiving the seeds, 
I had it sown, and was pleased to see a fine 
crop come up. I did not venture to try them 
in the open air until the summer of 1842, 
when two were planted in my garden ; the 
remainder I kept in a green-house, but finding 
they were not in health, I last autumn turned 
all out; as the two first had not only stood our 
severest frosts, without shelter of any kind, 
but were growing most vigorously; the shoots 
of the year being as thick as those made three 
years before by Altaclereuse, or any of the 
hybrids. As those that I have had the good 
fortune to raise are not only perfectly hardy, 
(near Cork), but flowering so late as will secure 
the bloom from being injured by our spring 
frosts, I am confident they will prove a great 
acquisition to the gardeners of Great Britain. 
The Rhododendron nobile is a very fine species, 
allied to R. arboreum, with deep-crimson co- 
loured flowers, very round and compact in 
form. — Ibid. 
Moveable Green-hotjses. — Strong move- 
able roofs, to be applied in the end of Sep- 
tember and removed in April, will render 
green-houses unnecessary in half the gardens 
of the country; and will bring the winter cli- 
mate of China to the gates of London. An old 
wall, with a border twelve feet wide in front 
of it, might be easily fitted up with a moveable 
glass lean-to, and planted with multitudes of 
New Holland, Cape, Chilian, Spanish, and 
Chinese plants. That would be the place for 
Camellias, Tree Rhododendrons, and the gaudy 
Australian Myrtle blooms. Japan Lilies, Sy- 
rian bulbs, Mexican Torch Thistles, Cape 
Oxalids, and all the thousand gay forms of 
twining exotic vegetation, now known in a 
languishing state in our green-houses, would 
form thickets unrivalled, even in the native 
country of such plants. There would be no 
need of heating apparatus ; the autumn sun 
and the rain-proof roof would provide against 
cold ; and as for our summers, they would 
suit such vegetation even better than that 
which nature has provided them with at home. 
Such a border would be a shrubbery with a 
glass roof; a walk could be conducted through 
it ; and everybody who heretofore has built a 
green -house, might substitute a winter garden. 
— Ibid. 
Clerodendrons. — The free-blooming scar- 
let species of this genus are hardly excelled 
for splendour. It may not be known to every 
one that these may be retained much longer 
in bloom, if treated more as green-house than 
stove plants, when they are approaching per- 
fection. A warm and a moist temperature 
are indispensable during the period of their 
