400 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
| from Chusan, by Mr. Fortune. It requires a good, warm 
1 situation to flower well, but like the Yellow Jasmine 
(nutlijiora ) and the Forsythia viridissima, all from 
1 China, they answer much better as pot plants, to be 
protected while in flower, until such time as the plants 
are of a large specimen-size, when they will take care 
of themselves. 
AZALEAS. 
Azalea ovata. —Next to Weigela rosea, this is the 
finest-looking evergreen shrub on the hills of Chusan, 
according to Mr. Fortune, and the best of all he found 
in the east. It is quite a different thing from all our 
greenhouse Azaleas, being quite smooth in the leaves, 
and quite hardy after it comes to a good size. It, how¬ 
ever, as well as the Viburnums and the Roses which he 
introduced, do not got on with us, except in rare 
instances here and there. 
Azalea ajkena. —This is also a quite hardy, north-of- 
Cliina plant, and most suitable for the front of a choice 
American bed. The flowers are of a light purple in the 
open air, and look as if one was within another, like the 
j hose-in-hose Polyanthus, and the leaves are the smallest 
of all the race. 
SPI1LEAS. 
Spiilea Lindleyana. —As a standard, or for covering 
the north side of a house, or any other cold wall, this is 
invaluable, but as a bush it is only a fiddlestick, getting 
soon so confused that you can do nothing with it. It 
can be made standards of, exactly as they do standard 
Currants, first making cuttings, from which all the 
bottom eyes are taken ; or, which is done much sooner, cut 
down a strong bush of it close to the ground, and make 
layers of the very strong, soft shoots which rise imme¬ 
diately ; first cutting out the eyes from the part in the 
ground. Now is a very good time to cut one down, 
but it may be done all through the spring. 
Spiiuea arhefolia. —Ought to be in every garden for 
its elegant plumes of white flowers all through the 
autumn. 
Spjrala eella. —Another great favourite deserving a 
place in the choicest collection. 
SpiREA CUNEIFOLIA, S. LAXIFLORA, S. VACC1NIF0LIA, 
and S. rotundjfolia, are all North Indian low shrubs, 
well deserving extensive cultivation ; and S. fissa, from 
Mexico, a tall, handsome bush, equally so. 
Si'in.LA expansa, —Also a North Indian plant, with 
j flat heads of pinkish flowers, is very handsome. 
Spirea pubescens. —A newer ono, from Chusan, with 
j little heads of white flowers, and not more than a small 
i tufted bush. 
j Spiraea prunifolia, with double white flowers, is also 
j from China, and is highly prized already for its elegant 
spikes of crowded flowers—a real acquisition—like a 
, double-white Hawthorn. 
! Spirtea Douglasii. —A fine, late autumn-flowering 
| one, with large beads of white flowers, in August and 
September. 
SriR/LA reevesiana. —Single and double flowers ; the 
former is a graceful shrub; but naturally flowering 
very oarly in the spring it often fails with us, unless the 
wood is well ripened in the autumn. The double¬ 
flowering variety is said to be more free; but I never 
saw it. This last is quite a new shrub; as also one 
called Spircrn callosa, with nearly white flowers, but it is 
new to me. 
Skimmla japonica is a low evergreen, with scarlet 
berries in winter; quite new, and one of the best of the 
low, bushy evergreens. I have described it at length in 
\ a former volume. 
Double crimson Peach, and the Doublo white Peach, 
j both from Africa; ought to be in every select collection, 
particularly the crimson-flowered one, on which the fruit 
comes in clusters together, but it is of no value. 
D. Beaton. 
February 23. 1 
TOBACCO—NICOTIANA. 
This is a plant that generally arrests a considerable i 
amount of attention among visitors, and a whole chain 
of queries are launched upon the cultivator, coming 
alike from the young gent who never before had any 
idea of the look of the plant from whence he obtains his j 
box of mild Havannahs ; from the tyro feeling his way j 
amid the vexing questions of taxative and social eco- j 
nomics; and from the farmer, with an eye to the main 
chance, who cannot for the life of him see why, since j 
he has been forced to compete with all the world in 
corn-growing, he is not allowed free scope for an equal 
test of his abilities in the supplying his countrymen 
with Tobacco. 
The general position for the Tobacco-plant would be 
a rich piece of a field, or the sheltered, well-manured, 
kitchen-garden; but the kind generally cultivated— Nico- 
tiana Tabacum, the Virginian or Kentuckian variety, 
and macrophylla, a very large-leaved species or variety— 
make a noble appearance in front of a shrubbery, the 
large leaves being far more attractive than the heads 
of dumpy pink flowers. Then there are other species, 
that instead of mounting from five to seven feet in 
height generally rise no higher than from one-and-a- 
half to two-and-a-half feet; have nice, sweetish, white 
flowers, such as undulata, sometimes called suaveolens, 
rotundifolia, and longiflora, that are neither uninterest¬ 
ing whenfgrown in a bed, nor when cultivated as speci¬ 
mens in pots. Though some of these latter, if favoured 
by greenhouse treatment, would become perennial, yet 
all, when grown out-of-doors, will be most successfully 
treated as rather tender half-hardy annuals. 
The botanic name is commemorative of John Nicot, 
who sent seeds from Portugal to France about the 
middle of the sixteenth century. The common name 
is attributed by different persons to different sources— 
some contending that it is derived from Tobago, the 
most southerly of the Caribbean Islands; others alleging 
j that it comes from Tabaco, a small island in the bay 
of Panama; while others assert it comes from Tabasco, 
a district bordering on the Bay of Campeachy, in the 
I Gulf of Mexico. It is altogether a matter of no moment 
which of these places, or if any of them, was thus ho- 
! noured in giving a popular name to this narcotic, that, 
in spite of the edicts of princes, is accompanying the 
footsteps of civilisation, and, unless kept under due 
moral and sanitary restraint, is calculated to do, ere 
long, for mankind generally, what opium has done for 
its votaries, and the fire-water for its worshippers. A 
fact of more importance is, that all these places are 
within the tropics, implying thus that a high tempe¬ 
rature is necessary to bring the Tobacco-plant to the 
highest stato of perfection. True, very fair Tobacco is 
produced in the south of Europe, and even as far north 
as Holland, and what are called splendid samples come 
from Kentucky and Virginia, yet even the best con¬ 
noisseurs allow, that for an agreeable puff that wafts 
them unconsciously amid the idealities of dream-land, j 
there is nothing like a bit of real Havannah, at which 
place wc know the temperature is not only tropical, but 
a dry, sunny atmosphere generally prevails, rains seldom 
appearing unless in July and August. 
There is some difference of opinion as to the intro¬ 
duction of smoking into England, but it is generally 
supposed that Sir Walter Raleigh made it fashionable 
by his smoking parties at Islington, during the last 
decade of the sixteenth century. The practice—the 
virtue—or rather the vice—soon became so extended, 
that the princes of Christendom, with unerring infal¬ 
libility, in the shape of the Pope at their head, promul¬ 
gated shoals of awful penalties against the user of 
'tobacco, which proved just as effectual as the proclama¬ 
tion of the Emperor of China against his subjects using 
