3870.] SEDUM SPECTABILE.-THE ASHEN TREE AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 
127 
shoots, and clear away insects, that the blooms may be as perfect as possible. 
Attend to the rolling of the walks. Mow lawns weekly, and aim to maintain as 
complete an appearance of high keeping as possible.—M. Saul, Stourton. 
SEDUM SPECTABILE. 
S OME years back I received from the Royal Horticultural Society, under the 
name of Sedum Fabaria^ a plant which I have since learned should bear 
f the name of Sedum spectahile. I cultivated the plant in pots for some 
time, and found it very useful for autumn decoration in the conservatory, 
but for the last four years I have used it extensively for bedding and border 
purposes out of doors, for which I find it to be extremely useful; it is indeed 
very highly to be recommended as an autumn-flowering plant, and even when 
not in flower all through the summer, the plant has a very pleasing appearance, 
and when viewed from a distance, might well be mistaken for large, well grown 
plants of Auricula. Its peculiar and very pleasing green forms a charming con¬ 
trast among foliage plants. In the autumn it produces large corymbose heads, 
some of them 6 in. across, the flowers being of a very delicate roseate pink, very 
soft and pleasing to the eye. 
When the flower-heads have faded they should be carefully removed, and 
the leaves will gradually assume a bright yellow tint, very striking at a distance, 
and contrasting in a most agreeable manner with the various autumnal tints. 
The plant is perfectly hardy, and very easy to propagate, it being only necessary 
to divide the roots into as many pieces as is desired, while side-slips will strike 
root very readily in light sandy soil, either in a gentle heat, or in a cold pit, or 
in a shady place out of doors. It requires no coddling, and the principal care it 
needs is to be lifted about every second year, and the plants greatly reduced in 
size, and replanted. If grown again in the same place, the bed should be well 
renovated with fresh soil, and trenched up.— John Cox, Uedleaf. 
THE ASHEN THEE AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 
days of yore, men and women were led to the stake for cases of supposed 
witchcraft, but in this nineteenth century men’s minds have become more 
enlightened, and what was then considered as criminal and deserving of 
y death, is now simply regarded as ridiculous. 
That some relics of superstitious belief still linger in our midst was proved 
in the Island of Jersey on Good Friday last, at 4 a.m., when four respectably 
dressed females, accompanied by a child, a few months old, might have been 
seen wending their way in a carriage and pair to a certain nursery in the parish 
of St. Saviour’s, for the purpose of passing the said child through the bole of a 
young ash-tree, to be rent for the purpose. The operation of splitting the tree 
longitudinally having been performed most carefully, and the slit carefully held 
open, two of the ladies most carefully passed the child through the opening 
