878 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[May 3, 1873. 
for cherries, led her to a tree on which, by a cunning 
manoeuvre, the ripening of the fruit had been retarded for 
at least a month after every other cherry in England had 
disappeared. The prim old young lady, surrounded by 
her courtiers, while daintily picking the ripe black fruit, or 
pausing to examine the first orange trees ever cultivated 
in England, which were grown in that garden, must have 
admired the beauties by which she was encompassed. But 
if is doubtful whether she looked upon a fairer scene than 
the Garden in the same parish which is the theme of the 
book before us. Probably its author is of the same opinion, 
and not satisfied with limiting the enjoyment of its charms 
to himself and his visitors, he has sought to share it with 
the. public so far as carefully minute description and 
lavishly abundant illustration can impart it. Jonathan 
Tyers, who was lessee of Yauxhall for the greater part of 
-the eighteenth century, after maintaining those gardens 
as a place in which “ debtors, lords, and thieves” might 
run riot, retired to another garden at Denbigh, in which 
he designed an “ awful and tremendous view” of the 
\ alley of the Shadow of Death, in order to terrify liber¬ 
tines from their evil courses. But Mr. Smee’s garden- 
pictures are of a very different kind, and the score of full- 
page illustrations in this book have rarely been excelled, 
■either for the beauty of the scenes they depict, or the 
manner in which they are engraved on wood and printed. 
But to speak of the book itself. It commences with a 
history of the district in Celtic, Homan, Anglo-Saxon, Me¬ 
diaeval, and modern times. It next describes the geology in 
•a chapter where there are some interesting remarks as to 
the water supply from the chalk; the rising of the Bourne; 
and also upon the effect of the Croydon sewage experi¬ 
ment. Then comes the planning of the garden,—not the 
least interesting part of the book, as it is a subject the 
author has studied con amove ,—and this is followed by a 
chapter on the principles of gardening. These principles 
are laid down in rather a gossipy manner, and sometimes 
a. considerable latitude is required in construing the scien¬ 
tific information upon which they are based. For instance, 
in reference to dialysis, the reader is informed that “ crys¬ 
talloids—such as alkaline salts—pass through a layer of 
membrane, impervious to water, as though it had no ex¬ 
istence and an epiphyte is said to encircle another plant 
and “pump out by dialysis all its salts.” Again, we read, 
“ the changes which take place in the interior of plants 
are caused by the action of light, which enables them to 
reduce the carbon products .... from the carbonic acid of 
the atmosphere,” which is only part of the truth. An¬ 
other chapter is devoted to garden tools and freely illus¬ 
trated ; in fact too much so, for there is nothing extraor¬ 
dinary in Mr. Smee’s watering pot, or wheelbarrow, or 
several other of his tools, that makes them worthy of a 
woodcut. A good hint as to garden labels is to have the 
name embossed in sheet lead by printing on it with ordi- 
nary type. Frames and glasshouses are next treated of, 
and a “poor man’s house” of extremely simple construc¬ 
tion is described. With the exception of a well-written 
chapter by Miss Smee on the “ Gardens of All Nations,” 
the remainder of the book is taken up with short de¬ 
scriptions of the numerous living things in the garden, 
both animal and vegetable. Hoses and aphides, black¬ 
birds and blind-worms, ducks and duck-weeds, cabbages 
and butterflies, are all included within the range of the 
author’s jottings, and the descriptions are in most cases 
assisted by well-executed woodcuts. 
Our limits do not allow of an attempt to enter into a 
detailed description of this portion of the book, but there 
are one or two things worthy of note. The great impulse 
which has been given to horticulture in recent years—due 
in no small degree to the labours of the late Mr. Loudon— 
has not only improved and increased the number of varieties 
of indigenous plants, but it has caused nearly every land 
the sun shines upon to be searched for new treasures. 
Edward I.’s fruiterer’s bill included only pears, apples, 
quinces, medlars, and nuts, and amounted to but 
£21 14s. l^d. from Whit Sunday to November. Mr. 
Smee’s garden contains more than three hundred varieties 
of the apple alone, and at least five times that number are 
known. In the fifteenth century, the English kitchen 
garden contained little besides cabbage, lettuce, spinach, 
beetroot, trefoil, bugloss, borage, celery, purslaine, fennel, 
smallage, thyme, hyssop, parsley, mint, a species of turnip, 
and small white onions ; but the author of “ My Garden ” 
enumerates more than an equal number of salad plants 
alone, to say nothing of numerous legumes, roots, and 
tubers, cabbages, marrows, aromatic herbs, etc. 
We may quote here the description of a process devised 
by Mr. Smee, Jun., for obtaining the delicate odours of 
pinks and other flowers. “ He uses a glass funnel, with 
the narrow end drawn to a point. In this funnel he 
places lumps of ice with salt, by which a very low tem¬ 
perature is produced. The funnel is supported on an 
ordinary retort stand, and placed near the flowering 
plants, when water and the ethereal odour of the blossom 
are deposited on the exterior of the glass funnel, 
trickling down to the point, and droping at inter¬ 
vals into a glass vessel below. The scent thus obtained is 
very perfect and interesting, but is apt to become sour in 
a few days, unless some alcohol is added. ... To 
obtain the odour in perfection, the blossom must be in its 
prime.” 
With Mr. Smee a standard rose is tabooed—one cannot 
wonder at it after seeing the picture of his pyramids—and 
he has evidently little liking for geometrical beds and 
ribbon borders, with their “inevitable geranium.” Camp¬ 
bell sang— 
“ Ye field-flowers! the gardens eclipse you, ’tis true, 
Yet, wildlings of nature, I dote upon you;” 
and in the author he would have found a kindred spirit, 
for there appears to be as much care devoted at Walling- 
ton sometimes to the introduction of a wild plant as to 
the cultivation of those more popularly prized. But the 
student of nature invariably enjoys beauties which are 
passed over by ordinary eyes. Many a reader of Mr. 
Smee’s beautiful book will be surprised to find how much 
food for study there is in a garden, and after perusing it to 
the last page will be able to understand the feeling which 
prompted the motto on the first —MeyaAa /cat davgacrTct. ra 
tpya aov } Kvpie 6 Qebs 6 TvavroKparup. 
BOOK RECEIVED. 
Botanical Companion to the British Pharmacopeia. 
By Hyman Marks. Dublin : Fannin and Co. 1873. 
, _ 
Notice has been received of the death of the follow¬ 
ing :— 
On the 2nd April, 1873, Mr. William Lingwood, Che¬ 
mist and Druggist, of Edwardes Terrace, Kensington. 
D'otcs anlr (fumts. 
SYR. FERRI ET QUININE IODIDI.— In reply to 
A. E. J., who asks for a reliable formula for Syr. Ferri et 
Quinise Iodidi, we insert the following, the second of 
which is from Dorvault’s * L’Officine — 
Quiniae Iodidi.gr. j 
Acid. Acet. Dil.tri iij 
Syr. Fem Iodid. 3 j- 
M. 
Place iodine, 5 parts, and iron wire, 2 parts, in water, 
20 parts. Allow the reaction to go on until the colour 
disappears ; filter, and mix with simple syrup, 1120 parts ; 
then add sulphate of quinine, 1 part, dissolved in q. s. of 
dilute sulphuric acid. 
