232 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[January 9. I 
of Loudon, and of all of us; my specimen tree is 30 ft. high. 
It cannot, therefore, be called dwarf. I have never heard it 
called “ Scarlet Pavia.” This name is applied to Pavia 
rubra, and its variety P. humilis, both dwarf, and with deep 
1 crimson flowers. I have never seen either of them called 
Pavia rubicunda ; this latter name always being attached to 
JEsculus, your Scarlet Horse-chestnut, with large rugose 
leaves. The Pavias have all very smooth foliage. By the 
way, Pavia discolor makes a nice free-flowering standard. 
“ I have long wished to get standards of P. macrostachya, a 
great favourite of mine, but the buds have always failed. I 
think I have tried it at times for these twenty years, and 
have never succeeded in making it a standard by in¬ 
arching." 
“ Dec. 24,1850. 
“ The four popular varieties of the Hawthorn ought to be 
| named as follows :— 
“The Pink Thorn, or Hawthorn, formerly known as the 
Scar-let Thorn. 
1 “ The Crimson Thom. 
“Tire Double White Thorn. 
“ The Double Pink Thorn. 
“ There is not the least approach to scarlet in any of them. 
Neither ought the FEsculus rubicunda to be called the 
‘ Scarlet Horse-chestnut,’ but the Rosy Horse-chestnut. 
You see the old way was (but we must change such matters) 
to name a variety, not according to its actual form or colour, 
but according to what was wished for, or desired ; thus, the 
first deviation from white in Hawthorn was called ‘ scarlet.’ 
Too bad, was it not ? ” 
At first, I thought Mr. R. put me down as a fast writer, who 
wrote at random, and to meet that charge I prepared the 
following defence :—In the first letter, Mr. R. wrote Scarlet 
Horse-chestnut as we all do, being such a common word in 
the nurseries. In the second letter, he is not far from my 
translation of rubicunda. What he says about his beautiful 
specimen of HU sc ulus rubicunda is a feather in my cap, for it 
' thus appears that under first-rate management this beautiful 
tree attains to a greater size than I, or any of the authorities 
stated, was aware of. Still I should not feel myself justified 
in calling it otherwise than as I have. Last summer I saw 
six plants of Queen Victoria geranium about five feet high, 
and fine bushy plants ; but few would take me for a faithful 
authority, if I called the variety more than a dwarf; and so 
with this chestnut. I did not know that Pavia macrostachya 
was so obstinate as to refuse uniting by grafts or buds, 
and notwithstanding Mr. Rivers’s great authority. I am not 
satisfied about letting it off from further trials. Will it take 
on any of the smaller Pavias } Unless it refuses to do that, 
we may be sure of it yet, by double working, or, perhaps, by 
inarching in August, after the flowers are over; there are 
many plants that will neither root nor take by grafting while 
preparing to flower, or when in a flowering state. 
I know all the double thorns, and the red thorns well, and 
j also the chestnuts, but would rather not trust to my own eyes 
] when I am called in question. In The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
| vol. ii. p. 5, Dr. Lindley writes of the true Double Scarlet 
Thorn, and of the single form of it—“ the most brilliant of 
all the thorns, with bright crimson blossoms, and the double 
variety of it has also flowers nearly as intense.” Dr. Lindley 
would not thus describe a pink thorn, and therefore the 
probability is that Mr. Rivers does not know the sort. Re¬ 
specting the Scarlet Hoi se-chestnut, I learned that name also, 
and did not make it; but there is no such in existence. No 
i one has ever yet seen a Scarlet Horse-chestnut. Here, too, 
I cannot trust to my own eyes. The first account of the 
Scarlet Horse-chestnut is in an old French periodical of 
more than forty years standing, called Herbier de VAmateurs, 
or, as one might say, a French Cottage Gardener. There it 
is first called rubicunda, that is, glowing red, or as we say in 
the country, a jolly red face. The next account we have of 
it, is in a work published at Berlin, in 1822, called Dendro. 
logische Flora, with a plate, No. 2 1. In 1825, it was figured 
in London,in a work called Dendrologia Britannica, plate 121. 
Here it got paler, and was called Carnea. Dr. Lindley also 
named it Carnea, in the Botanical Register, plate 1050. But 
the elder Decandolle adopted rubicunda, in his large Pro- 
dromus, vol i. p. 957, just five-and-twenty years ago. Don, 
in his Miller's Dictionary, did the same, vol. i., p. 652. 
| Loudon followed the true name in all his Arboretums . A 
Polish botanist, Schubert, called it rubicundum ; and a Ger¬ 
man botanist, who seemingly got into Paris through the ! 
very centre of the multiplication table itself, and who, out | 
of old iron, manufactures new names for old plants by tho j 
score, for the pages of Annates dcs Sciences Naturelles, calls 
it Watsomana, very likely, after the author of Dendrologia 
Britannica —derivations being fashionable just now—and I i 
recollect the day when, if Dr. Lindley had found two trusty 
friends like Mr. Rivers and myself, ho would have gone over | 
to Boulogne to “meet” this German botanist, with a pieco 
of old iron. But having missed that, let Mr. Rivers consult 
the above authorities, and if any of them called his troo a 
scarlet sort, or if the best of them did not range it below the 
medium size, I shall consent to be called a fast writer, not . 
knowing what I am about. D. Beaton. 
NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK CLAY. 
The clay, or (as the Editor of The Cottage Gardener i 
more properly calls it) the clay-marl, of Norfolk and Suffolk j 
is used not only as a manure, but also as a building mate¬ 
rial; large bricks being made of it, and dried in tho sun. 
These bricks ai-e provincially called “ lumps.” Labour will 
bo spared if the clay, which is to be used for this purpose, 
is cast before the winter; for then it will be in some mea¬ 
sure crumbled by the frost. The work of making the lumps , 
may be begun in the spring as soon as it is probable that 
there will be no more frosts severe enough to injure them. 
The first thing to be done is, of course, to temper tho clay. 
This operation is performed in the following manner:—A 
quantity of straw is cut into lengths of eight or ten inches; 
some of this straw is spread on the ground, so as to form a 
bed two or three inches thick; this is done in order to pre¬ 
vent the soil from being mixed with the clay. On this bed 
of straw some clay is laid, and trodden by a horse, having j 
been first sufficiently moistened. While this operation is 
going on, the clay is watered as often as is necessary, and 
some of the chopped straw is, from time to time, scattered 
upon its surface and trodden into it. I need hardly say that 
the use of the straw is to make tho clay hang together, and 
to prevent the lumps from cracking as they dry. Eight or 
nine cart-loads of clay maybe trodden at one time. In about 
two hours the clay will be sufficiently tempered; and the 
clay which formed the bed on which it was laid, will be 
found to be mixed with the mass. 
The lumps are moulded in the same way as common 
bricks; but as no sand is used, the inside of the mould 
must be kept wet, that the clay may not stick to it. The 
length of the lumps is always eighteen inches, and their 
thickness six inches; but the width varies, being twelve, or | 
nine, or six inches, according to the thickness of the wall 
that is to be built. Thus, if a fourteen-inch wall is to be 
built, lumps twelve inches thick must be used; for the inside J 
and outside coatings, of which we shall speak presently, will 
add about two inches to the thickness of the wall. 
When moulded, the lumps are laid, an inch or two inches J 
apart, upon the ground to dry ^ as soon as they are stiff 
enough to handle, they are turned upon the other side, then 
successively upon each of the edges, and upon each of the j 
ends. In about three weeks, if the weather be fine, they j 
will be dry enough to be used for building ; or, if not imme¬ 
diately wanted, to be formed into piles. 
When these lumps are used in building, they are laid, not 
in or upon the ground, but upon an under pinning of bricks, 
or, more frequently, of flint with brick quoins, and a course 
of bricks on the top ; for flints are very abundant in this part 
of the country. The under-pinning should not be less than 
two feet high. The lumps ore laid just as bricks are laid, 
except that they are all placed lengthways ; the width of the 
lump being, as was before said, nearly equal to the thickness 
of the wall. They are laid, not in mortar, but in clay, tem¬ 
pered in the same manner as that of which the lumps are 
made; but no straw is mixed with the clay used for this pur¬ 
pose. Since, therefore, it cannot be trodden upon a bed of 
straw, the ground upon which it is tempered should be very 
firm. 
After the building is roofed in, both the inside and the 
outside of the walls are coated with plaister, composed of 
equal parts of clay and a kind of marl, provincially called 
