52 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 15,1891.' . 
largest flower gardens the other morning, and as I entered under a 
festooned arcade, weighed down with Gloire de Dijon Roses in full 
bloom, the kindly proprietor of the well-named La Rosiere—M. L. 
Achard—one of the largest flower growers in the district, pointed with 
pride to his 50,000 metres of flowers undisturbed by a single vegetable. 
“ Toujours les Roses, Monsieur ! Toujours ! Toujours ! Pas de Legumes.” 
And so it proved. I might have walked for hours on that sunny hill¬ 
side amongst every variety of blossom, now brushing past bushes of 
Marguerites, now enjoying the scent of patches of monster Mignonette, 
now dazzled with the varieties of spring Pink and young Carnations, 
that are naturally attached to a corner of the world that has never 
known snow, and is unvisited by the curse of east winds and chill blasts 
of the cruel North. 
Here then was a dream fully realised. Do you not remember, in the 
early days of the aesthetic movement, how the professors of that fan¬ 
tastic and self-conscious creed recommended the culture of “ acres of 
Daffodils,” and told us that flower farms would be established in our 
variable little England, where female attendants, in Kate Greenaway 
dresses fashioned in the artistic taste of Liberty & Co., would gather 
Lent Lilies and walk knee-deep in Hyacinths and sprawl under in¬ 
numerable Sunflowers ? In the sunny South of France the flower farm 
is no aesthetic dream, but a very important practical fact; and it is, at 
any rate, delightful to think that a district so specially favoured does 
not neglect its opportunities, but contributes very bountifully to the 
necessities of those who are destined to endure life as best they can in 
colder and more trying climates. In a few weeks’ time the feathery Palm 
branches, on which the January sun glistens, will be gathered in 
abundance for the altars of Christian churches to be blessed by the 
priests on “ Palm Sunday.” 
In this winter time, long before the sun has acquired its proper 
power, the mosquitoes are already busy with English visitors, as I found 
to my cost last night; the inhabitants hang about the street corners 
and lounge. But for all that it would be difRcult to find a more 
courteous people than those born in the delightful land of Provence. 
What a charming life it must be, to dig in Rose gardens all day, and to 
live in a land that has never known snow. A merry, cheerful, con¬ 
tented, and delightful corner of the earth, where the sun always shines 
and the wind is ever soft, and the carriages and diligences come ringing 
through the village all day long from Toulon and the adjacent villages ; 
where the hills are green with Pine and the plains are grey with Olives, 
and the gardens are full of rainbowed Roses—yes, of “ Roses, Roses all 
the way,” .and the sea is of blue, and her islands of gold. A delightful 
spot is Hyeres of the Palms .—{Baily Telegraph.') 
A LESSON ON LEAVES. 
IThe following is the substance of a Report by Mr. THOMAS MEEHAN, Germantown 
Pa., Botanist to the Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture.] 
The correspondence of this department has not been equal to that of 
former years, and has been for the most part confined to answering 
inquiries as to the names of plants—some of them being of weeds that 
have for the first time attracted attention. None of t&se have, how¬ 
ever, been new to the State ; nor does it appear that any noxious weeds 
are spreading more than usual. Inquiries are sometimes made as to 
the best method of destroying troublesome weeds. No plant can live 
if it is not permitted to make green leaves. If the land is full of some¬ 
thing troublesome, there is nothing better than to put it in corn, and 
insist on continuous culture—not leaving the work till the weed to be 
destroyed has thrown out strong green leaves, but before it has had the 
chance to make any. Occasionally reports come to the botanist that 
weeds were not killed by this process. Failure could only come from 
neglect to hoe or cultivate, until the weed enemy has made some strong 
green leaves. It is a good lesson for a young farmer to give him some 
one stubborn weed plant—a Canada Thistle or Horse Nettle for instance, 
and let him try the experiment. 
In like manner it is wholly healthy foliage that will give full crops. 
Whenever grain loses its leaves before the ears mature the crop is 
lessened. An excellent lesson can be had from two hills of corn. 
Commence to denude the plant of foliage before the silk or tassel forms, 
and watch the result on the crop. Even those who believe they under¬ 
stand the value of attention to these matters will be surprised with the 
force of lessons like these. 
It has recently been placed beyond all doubt that the continual in¬ 
jury to the foliage of the Strawberry by the work of a fungus, which 
spots the leaves, is what proves the continual degeneracy of varieties. 
The hundreds of new varieties of Strawberries that have been introduced 
during the past quarter of a century have not given us in any respect 
better kinds than we then had, but they take the place of kinds that 
degenerate. When half the leaf blades are destroyed by the spot, the 
plant has only half the leaf surface it should have, and suffers propor¬ 
tionately. New seedlings are usually several years before they get the 
spot. The Sharpless is said to have resisted the attack longer than 
any one. The methods of culture, necessary though they be, lower 
vital power to resist the spot. It is said that the Strawberry in its 
wild state is able to resist the spot. 
Another instance of the value of foliage is illustrated by the early fall 
of the leaf on the Pear or other trees, from the leaf fungus, from cater¬ 
pillars, or from other causes. It is well known that the fruit will not 
then ripen well. Perhaps one of the best illustrations is by the loss of 
leaves on the Potato plant by the Colorado beetle, when all know no 
crop is returned to us. It is impossible for a plant to continue long 
without healthy leaves. We can turn this principle to good account in 
the destruction of weeds—and to good account also, by doing all we can 
to keep the foliage healthy in the crops we grow. 
A question was put to your botanist why trees with an abundanee 
of fibrous roots often fail for all the best care in transplanting—•while 
frequently the same trees with sprouting roots did well. It does not 
seem to be generally known that the fibres of a tree are the weakest 
part of the root system. It should be stated that the underground or 
root system of a tree is in many respects but the analogue or counter¬ 
part of the portion above ground. The two systems are founded on 
the same plan, but slightly modified. The young soft shoot becomes a 
trunk, while the same structure, pushing down, becomes a tap root. 
Side branches with leaves push from the trunk, the leaves performing 
an important part in feeding the tree. The side branches of the roots 
with fibres Ido just the same thing. The leaves work only one season 
and die, and just the same do the fibres. They die annually just as the 
leaves do. One may see how this is by looking at the fibres of an 
English Ivy, a Trumpet Vine or a Poison Vine, by which they are at- 
taehed to something to climb by. None of them are over a year old. 
The living and dead fibres are all intermixed. Once in a while one of 
these fibres will get into a cleft of rotten mortar, or into a crevice of 
dead wood, and then instead of an annual fibre, it becomes a permanent 
root. We thus derive a double lesson. First, that roots are annual, 
and second, that a fibre that would, under ordinary circumstances, have 
but a year of life, becomes a permanent root, when circumstances favour 
a more than usual supply of nutrition. The same process goes on under 
ground as we see above. The fibres all die before the twelve months 
expire, a few only becoming permanent roots among the whole mass. 
Another point is worth remembering. If we cut off a branch and 
place it in water, it will draw in some water, and live for a while, but 
unless it sends out new fibrous roots it will not live long. And just so 
with a tree. It can take in a little moisture through the surface of old 
hardwooded roots, but the roots have to make new active fibres before 
it can make much headway. It is indeed from the extreme white points 
of active growing fibres, that the tree derives its chief support. The 
old fibres, moved with the transplanted tree, have but little vital power. 
They make the white growing points only with difficulty, and hence 
are of little value. The fibres that have had vital power to go beyond 
their original annual condition and are destined to become the perma¬ 
nent roots of the plant, are the ones the tree planter should desire. 
And these are of value in proportion to their growth and vigour. If a 
mere annual fibre is of little value, so also are of little value old coarse 
hardwooded roots that are also sluggish as regards vital energy. If 
a planter can get a tree with a large portion of real roots of two, three 
or four years old, removal has the almost absolute certainty of success. 
We see from these principles why large trees are often as great 
failures on transplanting as trees with a great mass of annual fibres 
and few vigorous real roots. There is little else than a mass of hard, old 
stubs that with difficulty push out growing white fibres. The endeavour 
to move such with a large ball is therefore often an expensive failure. 
We have saved a large bail of earth, but it contains little worth having. 
The two, three or four year old roots are usually cut off and left in the 
ground in order not to have too heavy a ball. Occasionally a large 
tree, so moved, will live and thrive fairly well, but then only because 
there has been a few young and vigorous roots among the older stubs. 
These large trees moved with a ball, but without vigorous roots, almost 
always put out leaves the first season, and so will some trunks of trees 
when chopped down and no roots at all to feed them. This comes 
mainly from feeding on the sap stored in the tree. They usually gradu¬ 
ally die away completely within a few years. But if a large tree can 
be moved so as to carry with it a large number of comparatively young 
and vigorous roots, there usually follows the same success as follows 
the removal of younger trees. 
BOMBAY GARDENS. 
Having been a subscriber to your valuable Journal for several 
years, I do myself the pleasure of enclosing 'The Times of India, received 
by the last mail from Bombay, in which Presidency I have resided the 
best part of my life. On pages 16 and 17 is an interesting paper on 
“ Bombay Gardens,” read by Mr. G. H. Carstensen, the Superintendent 
of the Victoria Gardens, at a meeting of the members of the Bombay 
Natural History Society, thinking its perusal might be interesting not 
only to many who have retired from their active sphere of usefulness 
in the East to a well merited repose in their native land, but likewise 
to all interested in horticulture wherever they may be. Whilst, there¬ 
fore, inviting your attention specially to Mr. Carstensen’s very important 
suggestion, “ that a most valuable service to gardening in Bombay in 
particular and to botany generally can be rendered by the exchange of 
the seeds of indigenous plants to and from all parts of the globe,” I 
entertain the hope that you may be pleased to deem it desirable to 
reproduce the said article in your highly esteemed and widely read 
Journal.—J. A. GufiRlN. 
We are greatly obliged to our correspondent, and have much pleasure 
in giving the substance of Mr. Carstensen’s lecture as follows ;— 
The object of the present paper is to give a general outline of 
gardens in Bombay, to point out the features by which they are princi¬ 
pally remarkable, and the peculiar circumstances under which they 
have been formed and are kept up. All this is well trodden ground for 
most of the Bombay inhabitants, who, I hope, will forgive me in dealing 
