December i , 1890. J 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
493 
Soils owe their bleached appearance, as in the New Forest, to 
wss of peroxide of iron. The organic matter from the peat or 
Heather reduces tie peroxide of iron to a protoxide ; the free 
carbonic acidconveifs it into a carbonate. This salt being soluble 
is removed by the same surface waters, leaving the upper part of 
the gravel colourless, sometimes quite white. Sand in peat is 
white or yellowish ; sands underlying peat are often bleached ; the 
same occurs in alluvial deposits long exposed ; iron sinks. The 
facts are iron is washed out of sands, out of limestone, out of vege¬ 
table soils or peats, causing it to accumulate in subsoils or 
in bogs. 
The Thames, from the oolite and chalk of Berkshire, Gloucester¬ 
shire, and Oxfordshire, derives half a million tons of matter in a 
year, two-thirds of which is carbonate of lime, which is carried 
out to sea, for river sediment contains little or no carbonate of 
lime, but consists of silica, alumina, and peroxide of iron, &c. In 
the silt of the Nile there is peroxide of iron, 20'21. Soils are 
liable to loss in proportion to their porosity and the presence of 
acids, freely diffusible as hydrochloric, nitric, and sulphuric—the 
last in a much less degree ; the former combined with soda, the 
second with lime, forming chloride and nitrate respectively, and 
sulphates result of the third. Soda and lime are diffusible bases, 
and sulphates are in measure only less diffusible. The greater the 
percolation of water through a soil the sooner the matters are 
washed away, but ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash are held, 
for fertile soils have corresponding retentive power. Iron being 
in sulphate form passes away with other substances, and the soil 
shows a poor per-centage of iron. Some gravelly soils, even on the 
new red sandstone as in Cannock Chase, are mere waste ; but the 
Hastings beds where interstratified with clay, the clay and cal¬ 
careous weathering down together, a productive soil results, for the 
lime attacks the iron in the alumina where it has been held ; yet 
where silicious soil contains nodules of iron a poor soil result. The 
soluble iron is washed out. Millstone grit is a poor gravelly soil ; 
there i3 no iron of consequence where it is drained, but where the 
subsoil is clay iron obtains in the pan. How does it get there 
except by washing ? If the lower greensand has a silicious soil 
mingled with silicate of iron it is barren and wet. It wants 
drainage and lime ; in fact, where it becomes calcareous, as near 
Hythe, it is productive, yielding good crops of Hops. Indeed, the 
Hythe beds are the most important of the lower greensand strata, 
largest, most fertile, and most valuable in product. In Kent it is 
limestony (Kentish rag) and this mixed, as it often is, with brick 
earth is highly fertile. Woburn sands are of lower greensand age ; 
so sterile in places as to grow little besides Scotch Fir, but at 
Sandy the sand gets an admixture of alluvial soil (we shall 
presently see what iron has to do with alluvial deposits) resulting 
in market gardens of extraordinary productiveness. 
Upper greensand, where it is an admixture of chalk marl, is 
perhaps the richest soil and easiest cultivated. Its fertility is due 
to coprolites providing a supply of phosphorus. Marl we have seen 
is rich in iron. Where the soil of the upper greensand is very 
light the remedy is Gault clay—iron gone out—-bring it in ! 
Chalk in its upper layers is white, bleached, iron washed out, 
the little resulting of animal debris ; but the lower chalk is dingy, 
owing to the presence of iron, a mixture of the two causes good 
crops to issue. Chalky loams mingled with flints usually are 
excellent soil, indeed lime is inseparable from the cultivation of 
fruit, the Romans using it as a manure for fruit trees, acting, as it 
does, most beneficially in liberating potash from insoluble com¬ 
pounds, and hastening nitrification.—G. Adbey. 
(To be continued.! 
BERBERISES. 
C Concluded from page 365 .) 
Tiie deciduous species are best raised from layers, and the 
evergreens by suckers, with a portion of root attached to each when 
taken from the parent. Layering may be done any time whilst the 
plants are at rest, but about this there are many opinions. Some 
will msist that it ought to be done when the sap is descending, for 
then a callosity is sure to be formed ; but others uphold that it is 
best done before the sap rises, for the plant emits fibres more 
rapidly then than at any other period, and a tonguea branch is more 
likely"to callus at that time than when the plant is all but at rest. 
find spring the best time for layering and getting plants of any 
kind to root quickly ; but in the case of the Berberry it is im¬ 
material what time they be layered, if tongued like a Carnation 
to facilitate the process, and pegged securely under the surface, 
leaving the slit open, and allowed to remain attached to the parent 
plant for twelve months from the date of the operation. The 
layers then may be detached from it, taken up with as much soil 
as will adhere to the fibres without falling off, and planted either 
in beds to gather strength, or at once into the places where they are 
to remain. 
Division is simply taking up an old plant and slipping the side 
shoots off with as much root adhering to them as possiole, or 
digging round an established plant, and so opening a trench, and 
then taking off the suckers without disfiguring the parent or check¬ 
ing its growth so much as lifting would. These suckers are 
planted in lines, three in a 4-feet bed, and the plants about a foot 
apart in the line, more or less according to their size, from whence 
after a couple of years’ growth they are transplanted to their final 
quarters. 
After planting, deciduous Berberries require very little manage¬ 
ment. The shrubbery should have the weeds kept under, never 
allowing them to seed, and be slightly hoed and raked over at least 
twice during the summer, besides any weeding that may be required, 
and a general clearance of decayed wood and leaves after all the 
latter are fallen. When hard frost prevails a couple of inches of 
decayed leaves or other vegetable matter thrown on the surface 
will materially increase the health of the shrubs ; and however 
much the flower beds may require a little of this vegetable earth I 
would not forget to let the shrubs have the decayed remains of the 
leaves taken from them the year before. I object to digging 
amongst shrubs at any time, especially when the roots nearly 
occupy the whole of the ground, and are close to the surface. The 
surface roots of shrubs are of as much moment to their well-being 
as those of a Vine are to successful Grape growing. Transplant a 
tree every year, and it becomes a dwarf ; and shrubs in like 
manner, robbed of their roots annually by surface digging, become 
stunted. Pruning must be limited to cutting out irregular growths 
and such as overlap each other, as well as any dead wood that may 
be found. Should any shrub become unsightly it may be cut 
down ; but if the plant be very old it would be better to stub it up 
and plant a young one, having first renewed the soil. 
Evergreen Species. —These are suitable for beds and groups 
on lawns. In either case the ground should be dug deeply, and a 
liberal amount of leaf mould or well rotted stable manure added, 
and if the turf has to be removed it should be turned in. Turf, 
however, makes such a good compost for plants, pot Vines, 
Pines, &c., that few gardeners can resist the temptation to rob the 
intended occupant of the bed of its due share of decayed vegetable 
matter by taking the turf away to the compost heap. Turf is so 
difficult to come at in most places that we can hardly insist on its 
being dug into the new bed ; but still, every barrowful of turf 
taken away is equal to a barrowful of dung, or two of decayed 
leaves ; therefore, for every barrowful of turf removed the same 
quantity of vegetable matter should be returned to the bed. 
Where the ground is of a clayey nature the soil should be taken 
out 18 inches or 2 feet deep, and its place filled with a compost 
formed of two-thirds rich loam and the remainder leaf mould with 
a sprinkling of river sand. In digging this hole or bed another 
point must be taken into consideration : Can the water escape 
readily through the bottom of the bed, so as to, prevent stagnant 
water lodging ? If not, a drain must be cut to take away the water 
that will filter to the bottom, and where, unless there be a drain to 
carry it off, it will very soon cause the shrubs to assume a sickly 
appearance. Without drains in clay soils beds dug out a couple of 
feet deep are little short of a swamp during the greater part of the 
year, and the last plant to put in such beds is the Berberry, for, 
like the Sikkim and Bhotan Rhododendrons, they are all natives of 
the hills, where the rainfall is large, but the substratum of the soil 
of such a nature that no water can lodge so as to become stagnant. 
Evergreen Berberries are better planted in early spring, but any 
time from the middle of October until April will answer ; and even 
they may be removed in summer immediately after flowering, when 
it is possible to take up with a ball, and water freely for some time 
after planting. They may be planted in groups on lawns without 
any preparation of the soil, but then, unless the soil suits them, 
they will do anything but thrive. 
Whether in groups or in beds they need little pruning, which 
should be confined to cutting in straggling growths, and such as are 
weak and old. The beds should be kept clear of weeds and leaves, 
and raked roughly occasionally to prevent moss forming on the 
surface. A dressing of leaf mould will tend to increase their 
vigour, and if it be pointed-in with a fork the bed will have a neat 
appearance during winter. The leaf mould may be applied any 
time in the autumn. 
Some of the evergreen varieties make handsome pot plants ; in 
fact, all the evergreens are useful grown in that way, either to 
ornament the conservatory in spring, or to plunge in the flower 
beds in winter, where their evergreen character is more beautiful 
than red brick, no matter how fine the tracery, and their rich 
yellow flowers impart a charm in spring. 
The Mahonia or Berberis aquifolia is second to the Laurel only 
in usefulness, and yields to no evergreen undershrub in the beauty 
