32G JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c Ap rii so, was. 
the effects of potash on light sandy soils •usually deficient in that 
alhali can alone decide whether or not potash can be economically 
used as a manuring agent. The inquiries I made in Germany 
respecting the experience of farmers who tried the crude potash 
salts of Strassfurt, do not enable me to say positively that they 
had a decided beneficial or contrary effect. The fact is our ex¬ 
perience is far too scanty for deciding this question.” 
In a report dated February, 1867, on field experiments with 
crude German potash salts Voelcker says—“ These salts have 
been tried in Germany during the last three or four seasons on a 
variety of crops, sometimes with apparently marked beneficial 
results, at others without producing any decided favourable effect. 
This contradictory record of experience appeared to me to result 
probably from the great variation in the proportions of available 
potash which we know to exist in soils of different characters; ” 
and he sums up the experiments which he then made with this 
conclusion—“ It would, however, be rash to decide, on the strength 
of a single series of experiments, that the artificial supply of 
potash, unfortunately as it has proved to be in the case before us, 
is useless under all circumstances. I therefore wish to suspend 
my judgment on the practical utility of this and other cheap 
forms of supplying potash to the land until I shall be in posses¬ 
sion of more extensive and reliable practical evidence than at 
present." 
As it might be supposed that the use of potassium salts as 
manure may have obtained a more successful application since 
the date of the above report, I may say that repeated failure of 
this manure, to whatever cause due, has continued to the present 
time ; but at present we are busied with Dr. Yoelcker’s views on 
the subject. 
Again, in a report published on 1st July, 1867, he says—“Last 
summer was rather too wet and not hot enough for Mangolds ; this 
makes it appear that in clay soils in a good agricultural condition 
the addition of potash salts ... to a good dressing of dung and 
superphosphate does more harm than good to Mangolds. It 
follows, evidently, from these experiments and observations, that 
in considering the efficacy of potash salts as a manure for Swedes 
not much reliance can be placed on the increase of 30 cwts. of 
roots per acre, &c. 
“ The Potatoes (York Regents) were planted on the 2nd April, 
and were well up on the 25th May. The crop was dug on Sep¬ 
tember 14th. Produce, with potash salts 10 tons per acre, with 
4 cwt. of crude potash salts also 10 tons per acre.” 
“ It is but right to state that the field in which the experiments 
were tried had been dunged two years •previously, and had again 
received a good dressing of rotten dung for this. It, therefore, 
was evidently in too high an agricultural condition to give the 
potash salts a fair chance of exerting any beneficial influence 
upon the Potato crop.” 
Judging from these remarks, especially the last, I do not think 
that Dr, Voelcker would give the same recommendations as 
“ Single-handed ” gives for the treatment of stableyard manure 
either for horticultural or agricultural purposes. At the same 
time I am constrained—nay, I am glad, to admit that Voelcker 
in summing up the results which gave occasion for the last quoted 
report goes further in the direction that “ Single-handed ” 
takes than his words which I have quoted would have led me to 
expect. He says, in fact—“ On the whole the preceding ex¬ 
periments furnish practical evidence that the application of crude 
potash salts in conjunction with superphosphate materially benefits 
root crops grown on light and poor soils, which we may suppose 
to be naturally deficient both in potash and available phosphoric 
acid.” 
Though, therefore, on the whole I am obliged to conclude that 
Voelcker must hold very different views from “ Single-handed ” 
on the course which the latter advocates in respect of the use, of the 
abundant use, of potash salts with dung or with general artificial 
manures, I am myself far from asserting that the latter is wrong, 
and I recognise in him a scientific as well as practical teacher, 
from whom I am a very grateful, if a troublesome— Inquirer. 
P.S.—I leave untouched for the present the other point raised 
by me—viz , the form in which potash is absorbed by plants, as 
this communication has spun out to such a length; but I will ask 
you to give me space to recur on a future occasion to this and to 
some other questions raised by your article of the 9th March on 
“Fertilisers and their Use.” 
The following printer’s errors occur in my last communication 
on page 284, and as they are rather important I would beg to 
be allowed to call attention to them, otherwise readers may be 
misled. In the second paragraph the following occurs—“ Many 
thousands of acres, however, contain no more than 1 per cent.” 
Thi3 should have been 0'1 per cent. The next is where I am 
made to say that a ton of farmyard manure treated with 4 lbs. of 
sulphate of potash is equal to ten not so treated. Two was what 
was written, but had been mistaken by the printer for ten— 
possibly my fault.— Single-handed. 
LOW TEMPERATURES IN IRELAND. 
On the nights of the 9th and 10th inst. our thermometer here 
registered 5° to 3° below freezing point respectively. Our instru¬ 
ment is 3 feet from the ground and about 100 feet above sea level. 
We have an unusual show of fruit blossom this season, Plum, 
Damson, and Cherry trees being covered with bloom, while Pears 
both on walls and open standards are very promising ; but I am 
very much afraid that after such frosts the fruit crop will be dis¬ 
appointing. Potatoes growing on a south border, which runs 
parallel with a wall 15 feet high, are blackened, as likewise are 
herbaceous plants, such as Spiraeas, Bocconias, Polygonums, Diely- 
tras, See., as also the young growth of the beautiful tree Pterocarya 
caucasica. 
The following were the readings taken by Dr. Dorbirck at Col. 
Cooper’s observatory, 132 feet above sea level:—April 9th, mini¬ 
mum on grass, 25-0°; in shade, 31'0°. April 10th, minimum on 
grass, 27 , 3° ; in shade, 31-0°— M'Phail, Machrcc. 
NOTES FROM MY GARDEN IN 1881.—No. 4. 
HERBACEOUS AND ALPINE PLANTS. 
There are several advantages to be gained by those who are the 
owners of small gardens by the substitution of the mixed border 
style of gardening to the bedding-out system, not the least being 
that, no matter what the character of the summer may be, they are 
sure to have some pleasure out of the garden. Even in 1879, that 
annus inirahilis in our gardening records, when there was nothing 
but a “ yellowy greenery ” to be seen in beds intended to be 
brilliant and gay in colouring, there were many plants in the 
mixed border which gave real pleasure and defied the deluge of 
waters to spoil their beauty ; and therefore in this record of 1881 
I would desire again to say a word in their behalf. I do not— 
cannot—pretend to be an authority in these matters. My space 
is too limited to enable me to grow collections of any genus, and 
I must be therefore contented with selections instead. For the 
same reason I cannot pretend to grow masses of flowers or quan¬ 
tities of any particular kind. I must cut my coat according to 
my cloth, and if it is rather short measure the misfortune, not the 
fault, is mine ; and I shall in writing of them just mark those which 
have done well or for some exceptional cause deserve notice. 
The Androsaces I have found a difficult genus to do much with, 
but last season three of them at any rate succeeded. A. carnea 
has, I hope, established itself, and with it the variety called eximia 
from Mont d’Or in Auvergne, which seems to be more robust. 
A. lanuginosa, which has indeed always done well with me—the 
shoots either die off or are cut off each year, and a large number 
of the woolly tufts arise from the heart of the plant, and last 
season were covered with their delightful little rosy-coloured 
heads of flowers. The newer species, Androsace sarmentosa, seems 
to be very hardy and easy to grow, and its little compact rosettes 
of leaves make it, even before it blooms, an attractive object on 
the rockery. 
Actena microphylla or novse-zealandiae has run over a consider¬ 
able space, forming a dense carpet which does not interfere with 
the growth of other plants which rise up amongst it, while later 
on its curious little spikelets of rosy crimson flowers make it very 
attractive. 
Anemone apennina and its closely similar ally, A. blanda, have 
been very lovely, the silver-grey variety of the latter being very 
pretty ; while Anemone stellata fulgens with its brilliant scarlet 
flowers give a colour on the rockery very unusual in alpine flowers. 
Very various opinions have been hazarded on this flower, some 
deprecating the idea of having it in masses ; others, as Mr. Ingram 
of Belvoir, employing it in beds for spring flowering. I cannot 
indulge in the latter use of it, and am therefore, nolens volens, an 
advocate for its use in detached clumps. 
Aquilegia casrulea has nearly disappeared, and I imagine must 
be treated as a biennial ; but it is very difficult to keep the seed 
pure, as there are no flowers apparently so easily influenced in 
hybridisation as the Aquilegia. Some years ago I thought I had 
a fine lot of seedlings, but they all proved to have been impreg¬ 
nated by the common garden flower, and produced a number of 
plants of large bluish flowers with a vigorous growth, very orna¬ 
mental, but not having the chaste beauty of cmrulea. A. glandu- 
losa I have never been able to grow, while Aquilegia chrysantha 
is certainly one of the showiest and prettiest of the genus. I 
cannot understand people saying that this will not bear removal, 
