3C8 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Oetofter f, 1*58. 
manure, but I do not think they can carry crops like they have this 
season many years without a breakdown. Noblesse and Royal George 
were well cropped, also Princess of Wales, but was not thought highly 
of, it had no colour scarcely. Nectarines were as heavily cropped as the 
Peaches. Strange to say there was a large Green Gage Plum on the 
wall about the middle of the case. Not one fruit had there been on it 
this year. I was told there was a good crop last year ; the tree promises 
well for 1889. I may say that the Rev. F. Leslie Melville will be pleased 
to show his Peach case to anyone interested in Peach-growing without 
fire heat. Welbourn is about halfway between Grantham and Lincoln, 
by the side of the Great Northern Railway. Leadenham is the station 
for Welbourn. 
I will give the size of the Peach case as nearly as possible : Length, 
98 feet; height of back wall, 8 feet; width at ground line, 7 feet. Two 
11-inch boards form the fiontor perpendicular, one board is hinged and 
forms the front ventilator. The top glass just slopes enough to allow 
the water to run otf. The top is 3 feet G inches wide ; the front glass 
is 6 feet from the angle at roof to front boards, and slopes into the place 
3 feet. There is a G or 7-inch board hinged and worked with iron rods 
for top ventilation. The glass is 21 ounce, 20 by 15 inches, the bars for 
glazing are T irons 15 inches apart. A board 11 inches wide and 1 inch 
thick is placed flat side to the wall at the top. Just under the eave 
bolts go through the board and wall and screw up tight. The T irons 
are screwed to the top side of the board. There are about 7 inches of 
glass left out of the T irons ; the 7-inch board is hinged to the same 
board. I believe for ventilation. To strengthen the front there is f-inch 
iron rod let into a stone in the ground every 4 feet. There is a T iron 
runs along the bottom of the others ; they are rivetted to the one 
horizontal, and the bolts or rods through it also, and all rivetted together. 
I was told the whole of the 98 feet run. and 8 feet high and 7 feet wide 
at the base, cost about £20.— Geo. Picker. 
THE PROGRESS OF BOTANY. 
(Continued from page 297). 
GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 
A GOOD deal, however, has been done. We owe to the indomitable 
industry of Mr. Bentham and of Sir Ferdinand Mueller a comprehen¬ 
sive flora of Australia, the first large area of the earth’s surface of 
which the vegetation has been completely worked out. Sir Joseph 
Hooker, in his retirement, has pushed on within sight of comoletion the 
enormous work of describing so much of the vast Indo-Malayan flora 
as is comprised within the British possessions. To the Dutch botanists 
we owe a tolerably complete account of the Malayan flora proper. But 
New Guinea still remains botanically a terra incognita, and till within 
the last year or two the flora of China has been an absolute blank to us. 
A Committee of the British Association (whose report will be presented 
to you) has, with the aid of a small grant of money, taken in hand the 
task of gathering up the scanty data which are available in herbaria 
and elsewhere. This has stimulated European residents in China to 
collect more material, and the fine collections which are now being 
rapidly poured in upon us will, if they do not overwhelm us by their 
very magnitude, go a long way in supplying data for a tentative discus¬ 
sion of the relations of the Chinese flora to that of the rest of Asia. I 
do not doubt that this will in turn explain a good deal that is anomalous 
in the distribution of plants in India. The work of the Committee has 
been practically limited to Central and Eastern China. From the west, 
in Yunnan, the French botanists have received even more surprising 
collections, and these supplement our own work in the most fortunate 
manner. I have onlj' to add, for Asia, Boissier’s “ Flora Orientalis,” 
which practically includes the Mediterranean basin. But I must not 
omit the invaluable report of Brigade-Surgeon Aitchison on the collec¬ 
tions made by him during the Afghan Delimitation Expedition. This 
has given an important insight into the vegetation of a region which 
has never previously been adequately examined. Nor must I forget the 
recent publication of the masterly report by Prof. Bayley Balfour on 
the plants collected by himself and Schweinfurth in Socotra, an island 
with which the ancient Egyptians traded, but the singularly anomalous 
flora of which was almost wholly unknown up to our time. 
The flora of Africa has been at present but imperfectly worked up, 
but the matoiials have been so far discussed as to afford a tolerably 
correct theory of its relations. The harvest from Mr. Johnston’s ex¬ 
pedition to Kilimanjaro was not so rich as might have been hoped. 
Still, it was sufficient to confirm the conclusions at which Sir Joseph 
Hooker had arrived, on very slender data, as to the relations of the high- 
level vegetation of Africa generally. The flora of Madagascar is 
perhaps, at the moment, the most interesting problem which Africa 
presents to the botanist. As the rich collections, for which we are in¬ 
debted to Mr. Baron and others, are gradually worked out, it can hardly 
be doubted that it will be necessary to modify in some respects the views 
which are generally received as to the relation of the island to the 
African continent. My colleague, Mr. Baker, communicated to the 
York meeting of the Association the results which, up to that time, he 
had arrived at, and these subsequent material has not led him to modify. 
The flora as a whole presents a large proportion of endemic genera 
and species, pointing to isolation from a very ancient date. The tropical 
element is, however, closely allied to that of Tropical Africa and of the 
Mascarene Islands, and there is a small infusion of Asiatic types which 
do not extend to Africa. The high-level flora, on the other hand, ex¬ 
hibits an even closer affinity with that temperate flora, the ruins of 
which are scattered over the mountainous regions of Central Africa, and 
which survives in its greatest concentration at the Cape. 
The American botanists at Harvard are still systematically carrying- 
on the work of Torrey and Gray in the elaboration of the flora of 
Northern America. The Russians are, on their part, continually adding 
to our knowledge of the flora of Northern and Central Asia. The whole- 
flora of the North Temperate Zone can only be regarded substantially 
as one. The identity diminishes southwards and increases in the case of 
the Arctic and Alpine regions. A collection of plants brought us fromt 
high-levels in Corea by Mr. James might, as regards a large proportion 
of the species, have been gathered on one of our own Scotch hills. 
We owe to the munificence of two English men of science the organi¬ 
sation of an extensive examination of the flora and fauna of Central' 
America and the publication of the results. The work, when completed,, 
can hardly be less expensive that of the results of the Challenges 
voyage, which has severely taxed the liberality of the English Govern¬ 
ment. The problems which geographical distribution in this region 
presents will doubtless be found to be of a singularly complicated' 
nature, and it is impossible to over-estimate the debt of gratitude which 
biologists of all countries must owe to Messrs. Godman and Salvin when 
their arduous undertaking is completed. I am happy to say that the 
botanical portion, which has been elaborated at Kew, is all but finished 
In South America, I must content myself with referring to the great 
“ Flora Brasiliensis,” commenced by Martius half a century ago, and 
still slowly progressing under the editorship of Prof. Urban, at Berlin.. 
Little discussion has yet been attempted of the mass of material which, 
is enshrined in the mighty array of volumes already published. But 
the travels of Mr. Ball in South America have led him to the detection- 
of some very interesting problems. The enormous pluvial denudation 
of the ancient portions of the continent has led to the gradual blending 
of the flora of different levels with sufficient slowness to permit of 
adaptive changes in the process. The tropical flora of Brazil, therefore*. 
presents an admixture of modified temperate types which gives to the- 
whole a peculiar character not met with to the same degree in the 
tropics of the Old World. On the other hand, the comparatively recent 
elevation of the southern portion of the continent accounts, in Mr 
Ball’s eyes, for the singular poverty of its flora, which we may regard- 
indeed as still in progress of development. 
The botany of the Challenger Expedition, which was also elaborated- 
at lvew, brought for the first time into one view all the available facts- 
as to the floras of the older oceanic islands. To this w r as added a discus¬ 
sion of the origin of the more recent floras of the islands of the Western- 
Pacific, based upon material carefully collected by Prof. Moseley, and 
supplemented by the notes and specimens accumulated with much judg¬ 
ment by Dr. Guppy. For the first time we were enabled to get some- 
idea how a tropical island was furnished with plants and to discriminate 
the littoral element due to the action of oceanic currents from the 
interior forest almost wholly due to frugivorous birds. The recent ex¬ 
amination of Christmas Island by the English Admiralty has shown the- 
process of island flora-making in another stage. The plants collected 
by Mr. Lister prove, as might be expected, to be closely allied to those- 
of Java. But the effect of isolation has begun to tell ; and I learn from 
my colleague, Prof. Oliver, that the plants from Christmas Island cannot 
be for the most part exactly matched with their congeners from Java. 
but yet do not differ sufficiently to be specifically-distinguished. We 
have here, therefore, it appears to me, a manifest case of nascent 
species. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
The central problem of systematic botany I have not as yet touched 
upon : this is to perfect a natural classification. Such a classification^ 
to be pei'fect, must be the ultimate generalisation of every scrap of 
knowledge which we can bring to bear upon the study of plant affinity. 
In the higher plants experience has shown that we can obtain results 
which are sufficiently accurate for the present without carrying our 
structural analysis very far. Yet even here, the correct relations of the 
Gymnosperms would never have been ascertained without patient and 
minute microscopic study of the reproductive processes. Upon these* 
indeed, the correct classification of the Vascular Cryptogams wholly 
depends, and generally, as we descend in the scale, external morphology 
