344 
THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
RETROSPECTIVE CRITICISMS. 
MODE OF STRIKING CUTTINGS FROM THE LIVING TREE. 
In your last No. p. 229, you gave a mode of making cuttings, but this 
is not new: it was practised by Humboldt many 
years ago, and is common in Germany. J. C. 
Brighton, 
Aug . 4, 1841. 
I am perfectly aware that a mode somewhat 
similar to the one mentioned in p. 229 has been 
long practised, but still it may have been new 
to many of my readers. Fig. 79 shows a some¬ 
what similar plan, with a bell-glass with a hole 
in it. It is related by Humboldt, that when he 
saw any tree that particularly pleased him, and 
that was not in seed, he took off a ring of bark 
from a branch, and gathering together some of the 
earth in which the tree grew, he made a kind of 
plaster like that of clay which is applied to new 
made grafts, and put it round the branch just 
above the ring, making it fast with some strips 
of cere-cloth, which he always carried about with 
him for that purpose. The humidity of the 
forests of South America, where this experiment was tried, rendered the 
siphon shown in fig. 67 unnecessary; and the sap, checked in its descent 
by the ring taken out of the bark, expended itself in roots, which found 
nourishment in the earth contained within the cere-cloth. Thus, when 
Humboldt returned to the place (which he took good care to mark), 
some months afterwards, he found, instead of a dry specimen, a living 
tree awaiting him, which only required to be severed from the parent 
plant, to be fit for transporting to Europe. Most of the living specimens 
brought by Humboldt from South America were obtained in this way. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
A MIXED FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Madam, —Having just become the possessor of a small garden, I should 
be much obliged if you would give me some directions how to lay it out 
with mixed borders, or rather if you would give me a “ working plan ’* 
of mixed borders, so as to flower from May to August or September; if 
Fig. 79. 
