PROFESSIONAL AND MORAL TRAINING. 
181 
PROFESSIONAL AND MORAL TRAINING. 
SUGGESTIVE HINTS ADDRESSED TO YOUNG GARDENERS. 
By Mr. W. P. KEANE, Author of the “Beauties of Surrey.” 
f T is wonderful to contemplate the different changes that matter undergoes—changes that are in 
active operation at all times. It goes through various modifications, resolving itself into different 
elements, but on the whole producing no increase or diminution in the matter that was first formed. 
To begin with ourselves : wonderful as it may seem, our bodies, when we die, will ultimately be 
nothing more than carbonic acid and ammonia. These we know are the food of plants. Our hones are 
composed of phosphate of lime, and magnesia, and chalk (the carbonate of lime); carbonate of am¬ 
monia is volatile, and is carried into the air, to he wafted on the winds of heaven; the hones are 
soluble, and the phosphates and carbonate of lime dissolved, and in a state of solution, are taken up by 
the roots of plants. The dust from the graveyards is transported to a distance, by the winds; the 
gases ascending from the same places, commingling with the atmosphere, are absorbed and assimilated 
by the leaves of plants, and these plants may be grain, fruits, or vegetables, fit food for the sustenance of 
man. Thus, there is one continued interchange, to preserve the uniform supply of matter to all created 
beings. The world is composed of animals, vegetables, and minerals. The atmosphere is composed of 
several gases, namely, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid. Oxygen inspired by animals is 
the cause of animal heat; it is the supporter of combustion, and all the changes in the elements of our 
earth are affected more or less by its action. Hydrogen is an element united with oxygen in the 
formation of water. Nitrogen produced by the decomposition of animal and vegetable substances, is 
the most nutricious ingredient for all gardening purposes. The ammonia so useful to vegetation con¬ 
sists of six parts of hydrogen and two parts of nitrogen; urine and stable manure are very rich in 
ammonia; that portion that ascends into the atmosphere is brought down with every shower of rain 
to fertilize the land. Carbon is given out by the respiration of animals; it exists in all natural 
manures, and plants are also supplied with it from the atmosphere. 
How beautiful is the harmony of Nature. Animal life depends for support upon vegetable life, and 
vegetable life is indebted to the assistance of minerals for its support. They are all links in the great 
chain of universal existence. To make it more plain, man’s existence is continued by the nourishment 
he receives from the flesh of animals, and from vegetables ; animals feed upon vegetables ; and vege¬ 
tables upon organic and inorganic substances, in a state of solution. Man and the other animals after 
death undergo changes by the action of the atmospheric agents, by which they become the food for 
plants; and plants in a similar manner after death contribute to the support of their descendants. 
Matter undergoes various changes, its elements are re-arranged to continue the same matter—even the 
very same weight of substance now as was in the world at the moment of its creation. 
Mm nnii Hurt plant's. 
Medinilla Sieboldiana, Planchon. Siebold’s Medinilla ( Flore cles Serves , t, 482),—Nat. Ord., Melasto- 
macea3 § Melastomese.—Syn., M. exirnia, Siebold, not of Plume —-A handsome stove shrub, quite smooth, the 
branches terete, except when very young, when they are obsoletely four-angled. The leaves are opposite, somewhat 
fleshy, entire, triple-nerved, oblong-elliptic, deep green above tinted with pale brown beneath, and attached by short 
footstalks. The flowers are numerous, in short naked divaricating panicles, which grow from the old wood; they are 
of a waxy texture, the petals four, white tinted with rose at the base, the subglobose calyx being yellowish brown, 
and the stamens deep rose colour. From Java. Introduced to Belgium, about 1847, by M. Van Houtte. Flowers ? 
Opuxtia Salmiana, Parmentier. Prince de S a im ’s Opuntia {Pot. JSPag ., t. 4542).—Nat. Ord., Cactacese § 
Opuntidse.—A very pretty, slender, succulent plant, requiring an intermediate stove. It grows one to two feet 
high, of branched habit, with erect cylindrical slender branches of an ashy green colour, bearing scattered areoles 
formed of white downy tufts of wool, among which are six to eight small brown unequal spines. The flowers are 
copiously clustered about the ends of the branches, moderate-sized, the sepals gradually passing into petals; the 
outside is red, but, when fully expanded, the ground colour of the flowers is sulphur-yellow, slightly tinted with 
rose colour and red down the centre; the petals are obovate; the flowers about two inches in diameter. From 
Brazil. Introduced about 1848. Flowers in September and October. Boyal Botanic Garden, Kew. 
Cyaxotis vittata, Lindley. Banded-leaved Cyanotis {Journ. Sort. Soc., v., 139).—Nat. Ord., Commelynacece. 
—Syn., Tradescantia zebrina, of gardens .—A herbaceous stove plant of small size, with ornamental foliage. The 
stems are procumbent, much branched, spreading on the ground, or hanging over the edges of the pots or baskets 
in which it is grown; they are more or less tinged with purple. The leaves are oblong-oval, oblique at the base, 
purple beneath, dark purplish green above, with two longitudinal silvery hands, and hairy sheathing petioles. 
The flowers are small, inconspicuous, purple, appearing for a long time one after another, from wit hin a couple 
of terminal bracts, of which one resembles the ordinary leaves except in being stalkless, the other is shorter and 
