October 12, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
341 
centre, with an island here and there ; and the banks which slope to 
it are planted with choice specimens of Conifers, but the main quarters 
are filled with large batches of Rhododendron ponticum for game 
coverts, and Laurels of various kinds, including colchica and rotun- 
difolia, two of the hardiest and most vigorous varieties of the 
common Laurel. Japanese Coniferse were plentiful here, the Golden 
Box (B. Fortunei) being very conspicuous. A number of houses are 
devoted to the rearing and growth of young Yines, and just now they 
are full of well-developed canes, short-jointed and well matured, for 
planting or fruiting in pots. The walls which surround the whole 
were covered with well-trained healthy Peach, Apricot, and other 
fruit trees. 
The forest tree department is a great and important feature of the 
firm. The trees are grown in various nurseries on the outskirts of 
the city, one of the principal places being on the farm of Liberton 
Mains, three miles to the south of Edinburgh. This farm of 400 acres 
is occupied by Mr. Robert Black, who, along with his farming, 
combines market gardening on an extensive scale ; and the system 
adopted by Messrs. Dickson it Co. is to take a piece of land from 
which some green crop has been cleared, plant it with one or 
two-year-old seedlings of Larch, Scotch Fir, Oak, Chestnut, Beech, 
or any other sort of tree they grow in large quantities, and after 
these have been grown there for two or three years they are ready 
for the market, and the ground from whence they are cleared is given 
back to be cropped as farm land. By this system the trees are 
always planted and reared on fresh ground, which keeps them clean 
and vigorous. The trees are here also allowed plenty of room for 
healthy development. We never observed finer plantations of forest 
trees, but probably some share of this may be attributed to the 
selection of seed, as the firm gives special attention to this ; their 
Scotch Firs, for example, being collected in one of the finest old 
forests in the Highlands. At Liberton they also grow their Roses, 
of which they have an healthy and extensive stock. Some of those 
budded last autumn have made shoots 5 feet in length. 
Notes on other nurseries will appear in a future issue.—J. W. 
ORCHIDS IN OCTOBER. 
ThI 8 is a good time to examine the Masdevallias and repot them. 
Where large masses have died in the centre they should he shaken 
out, all the decayed parts removed, and the healthy pieces potted 
separately. The best material for potting these in is a mixture of 
peat, leaf soil, broken crocks, and rough sand, with a surface 
dressing of live sphagnum moss. 
Odontoglossum Alexandrse, Pescatorei, and others which may 
require it, should he repotted, or top-dressed with good fibrous peat, 
surfacing with sphagnum, and just giving sufficient water to keep 
it fresh. 
Plants of Lmlia Dayana, L. praestans, Cattleya marginata and 
C. pumila, which have their young growths well advanced, should be 
removed to the Cattleya house, as they will be greatly benefited 
by a little heat now. 
Plants of Odontoglossum vexillarium which have not been 
removed ought also to he shifted to the Cattleya house, and likewise 
Caelogyne barhata and cristata, which are showing, as the flowers 
are apt to suffer from the damp atmosphere of the cool house. The 
night temperatures should now be as follows: East Indian house, 60°; 
Cattleya house, 55°; and cool house, 50°. 
Though this is a dull season for Orchid blooms, yet the houses 
are enlivened by a few plants, amongst the most notable of which 
are the following :—Aerides nobile, with its long pendent spikes of 
large creamy-white flowers spotted with rose. Barkeria elegans 
with rosy lilac blooms, with a rosy white lip with purple blotch ; it 
lasts in perfection for nearly two months. Cattleya Schilleriana 
bearing olive green flowers sprinkled with brown, with a white 
purple-veined lip ; this does well either on a block or in a pot. 
Odontoglossum vexillarium Leihmanii is a variety bearing smaller 
but darker-coloured flowers than the other varieties of vexillarium. 
Oncidium curtum has chocolate and yellow blooms, with large, 
bright yellow, chocolate-margined lip. 0. flexuosum has brown- 
spotted bright yellow blooms. 0. Forbesii is bearing numerous 
yellow-margined chocolate-coloured flowers. O. oblongatum has 
long spikes of bright yellow blossoms; and O. tigrinum has yellowish 
green blooms, with large citron-coloured lip, exhaling a Pine Apple¬ 
like odour.— Orchidist. 
Yaltje of Earth-closet Manure. — “Inquirer” has drawn 
attention to the circumstance that on two occasions I have given 
different amounts of the ingredients to be found in this substance. 
I may perhaps be permitted to recall that these were arrived at 
in two different ways. On the first occasion I took Dr. Voelcker’s 
estimate (modified by Dr. Gilbert’s) of the value added to soil by 
passing through a closet in a particular instance ; but the soil 
itself in that case contained a considerable amount of potash, and 
I credited a portion of this to the excreta. In the second instance I 
calculated from the average ingredients of excreta alone, with a 
small proportion of urine. Hence a discrepancy, which is, however, 
trifling, except in the matter of potash. Whether Mr. Taylor’s soil 
contained potash or not cannot be told till it is analysed ; but my 
sole purpose was to show that, whether his soil was rich or not, it at 
all events received an addition which made it a rich dressing when 
applied in the quantities which he has informed us he used. Having 
shown this in two different ways I have nothing further to add.— 
J. B. K. 
ALPINE STRAWBERRIES. 
Perhaps it may be serviceable to some of your younger readers 
if I give a short account of a very useful little Strawberry that is 
grown here—the Alpine, its value consisting in its continuous 
fruiting. I gathered the first dish in May, and there has not 
passed one week since but I could have gathered a dish more or 
less large. I have this day (October 2nd) gathered fruit, of 
which I send you a fair sample ; and if the weather continues 
mild I shall be able to obtain several more dishes from the same 
bed. In size and quality the Alpine is, as most persons know, 
inferior to the general garden Strawberry, but on account both of 
its earliness and lateness I think it is invaluable and worthy of a 
place in many gardens where it is not at present grown. The 
plants of which I write were raised from seed supplied by Messrs. 
Suttons of Reading three years ago, and their treatment since then 
has been of the roughest. They were planted in the first piece 
of vacant ground that was available, which happened to be on a 
south border ; and there they have been ever since, nothing having 
been done to them except clearing off the runners at different 
times ; but in future I intend for them to have more attention, for 
I think that a dish of Strawberries at the present season from the 
open ground is not to be despised. I daresay they would not do 
equally well in all places, but at least I think they are worth a 
trial.—J. S. 
[This communication reached us with the following note, which 
we print for the information of other correspondents who may 
have sent fruit through the post and lost it. 
“ Returned Letter Office, General Post Office, London. 
“ Oct. 4,1882. 
“ Sir.— I have to inform you that a packet addressed to you containing fruit 
from which liquid was escaping, injurious to other correspondence, has this day 
been destroyed, it being contrary to regulations to allow such matter to circu¬ 
late through the Post Office. Cover and letter sent herewith.—G. R. SMITH, 
Controller ,”] 
PHOSPHATE OF MAGNESIA, WHAT IS ITS 
MANURIAL MONEY VALUE ? 
In my first letter on this subject (p. 290) I alluded to the part 
taken by salts of ammonia and organic matter in aiding the solution 
in water of phosphates, and in my last (p. 317) I alluded to the 
wonderful fact that all fertilising elements in the soil must, before 
they can be absorbed by plants, be again fixed and rendered 
insoluble by water, or, as Liebig terms it, be physically combined 
with the soil. In my present communication I propose to enter 
more particularly into this phenomenon, and inquire into the 
existing theory of plant-nutrition as taught by Liebig, Voelcker, 
and other chemico-agricultural writers, for without entering into 
this question I should be unable to pursue advantageously, particu¬ 
larly to the non-chemical reader, my examination into the value 
in agriculture of phosphate of magnesia. 
In the first of the propositions put forward by Dr. Voelcker 
to make his present views on phosphates clear, which I quoted in 
my last, he distinctly refers to his opinion on the physical-com¬ 
bination theory of plant-nutrition; but I shall make use of the 
writings of Liebig to lay the question before those sufficiently 
interested in the subject to follow my arguments thus far, not 
only because he was the first, as 1 believe, to propound these 
truths clearly, but because I cannot hope to find any other expo¬ 
sition of them which puts the matter so simply. I cannot do 
better than refer the reader to Liebig’s treatise on the “ Natural 
Laws of Husbandry ” or his “ Letters on Modern Agriculture ” 
for a perfect view of his reasonings, and I must content myself 
here with making a few extracts from them. I ought to state, 
however, that the first discovery of the surprising fact of the 
fixation by soils of potash, ammonia, phosphoric acid, &c., is due 
to Professor Thomas Way. 
“We have hitherto believed,” says Liebig in explaining the 
present view of the nutrition of plants, “that plants received their 
food from a solution, and the rapidity of its effect was in direct 
proportion to its solubility.” “ We believed that water was the 
carrier of the most remote elements of the soil to the immediate 
presence of the plant.” “ But all this has been a great mistake. 
We have inferred, from the effect of water and carbonic acid on 
rocks, a similarity of action in soils ; but this conclusion is false." 
