454 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— September 25,1S5G. 
this season. First a thin band of the best kinds of 
Phlox Drummondi, trained close to the ground; then a 
low, bushy band of the Frosted Silver plant, Cineraria 
maritima; then the Purple Unique Geranium, trained 
down; then the Variegated Geranium called Lady 
Grenville, this being the first time of its advent to these 
pages ; but it lias been in the Experimental all this 
season. It is a chance variety of, and a better kind than, 
the old Zonale varieyata of Miller's time, and the centre 
of, I think, mixed Scarlet Geraniums. In front of this, 
and running under the whole south front, or conservatory 
terrace, is the same arrangement as was first adopted in 
1850, and is described in the volume for that year, 
where the first blue and yellow ribbon which surrounded 
that pattern is spoken of. The plain ribbon system was 
originated here by Lady Middleton, on “the block bank 
border,” more than twenty years back. If the Crystal 
Palace authorities had seen how this pattern is bound 
round with the blue and yellow ribbon, their own chain 
pattern in the two centre panels might have been in 
better tasto. This pattern is a succession of oval- 
shaped beds on a square base or border, bounded by a 
terrace wall on the back, and a kerbstone in front. The 
ends of the ovals do not touch exactly; there is just 
room for the two ribbons to cross between the ends. 
Now, start from one end of the border, and puss a blue 
band of Lobelia ramosoides, ten inches or afoot wide, down 
one side of the first oval bed, and a like yellow band of 
CEnothera prostrata down the otherside, and cross them at 
the pass between the two beds, and so on all the way, a 
blue and a yellow ribbon alternately facing either side, 
the ovals to bo filled alternately to suit with the Lady 
Middleton Geranium and Cerise Unique. The spare 
part of the border or ground colour is silver sand, 
and the larger open spaces opposite to where the beds 
meet aro occupied with specimen plants of the Goose- 
berry-leaf Geranium in liftle circular beds, one plant 
in a bed. This looks extremely well. A Yellow Hearts¬ 
ease, the yellow ribbon this season, and the Lobelia 
ramosoides for the blue; and all the ovals are with Cerise 
Unique. The Ramosoides has taken a bad disease here 
this season; and as it may increase like the Potato 
disease, they will substitute Speciosa for it next season. 
This is quite as good and deep a blue as Ramosoides, is 
much about the same size, and spreads rather wider, 
and it has no seeds with me this season. 
The flower-boxes about the conservatory terrace, and 
all about the walls and balustrades, are much as I used 
to describe them. I found the Lucidinn, Coral-stemmed, 
and the best of that class among them, and got a stock 
of it from hence. The conservatory was in the hands 
of the carpenters and glaziers, getting an entire new 
front, and the usual display here was in the Balaclava 
style; but the house and staircases, with the statue 
galleries in the front entrance, were loaded with fine, 
handsomely-grown specimens in bloom, much better 
than during my time; but then they have six times 
the quantity of glass since then, Mr. Foggo having put 
up, in the last eighteen months, just as much glass as 
Mr. Davidson and I put up between us. Ilia designs, 
and his way of treating and ventilating, are as superior 
to our different modes as ours were from those of older 
date : but I must have a day on purpose to tell of this 
part of the present management, and another to tell of 
the grounds and novel plans beyond the Temple of the 
Winds, and below the hill-side on which it stands. 
D. Beaton. 
Earliest Notice of Guano —Though I am not able 
to fix the precise date at which Peruvian guano was 
first used as a manure, it may bo interesting to be 
referred to the following passage in an old work written 
in Spanish by Albauu Barba, curate of the parish of | 
St. Bernards, in Peru, in 1040, and translated in Ifififi 
by the Earl of Sandwich, which has been published 
in the last Journal of the Rath and West of England 
Agricultural Society :— 
“ Canlanus, among his curiosities, makes mention of 
another kind of earth, anciently called Brittunica, from the 
country where it is found; they were fain to dig very deep 
mines to come at it. It was white; and after they separated 
the plate that it contained, they manured their tilth fields 
with the earth, which were put in heart thereby for one 
hundred years after. Out of Islands in the South Sea, not 
far from the city of Ania, they fetcli earth that docs the 
same effect as the last aforementioned. It is called Guano, 
id est, Dung: not because it is the dung of sea fowls, as 
many suppose, but because of its admirable virtue in making, 
ploughed ground fertile. It is light and spongy, and that, 
which is brought from the Island of lqueyque is of a dark 
grey colour, like unto tobacco ground small; although from 
the Islands nearer Ania they get a white earth, inclining to 
sallow, of the same virtue. It instantly colours water 
whereinto it is put, as if it were of the best leigb, and smells 
very strong. The quantities and virtues of this and of 
many other samples of the New World are a large field for 
ingenious persons to discourse philosophically upon, when 
they shall bend their minds more to the searching out of 
truth than riches.” 
The earth called Brittanica is, of course, marl, which, 
in very early days, was much used in England, and 
particularly in Kent aud Sussex. In the “ Letters to 
Ralph de Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, written by Lis 
Steward,” and published by Mr. Blaanvv in the fil'd 
volume of The Sussex Archaeological Collections, we have 
frequent notices of its application to the land. Writing 
to the bishop in 1222, he says:— 
“ By the Grace of God all your atfnirs proceed prosperously 
in Sussex. I am using Marl at Selsey, with 2 Carts, as it is 
said that the Marl found there is the best; wherefore, if you 
should see it to be advisable that I should use Marl with 
more Carts, I advise you should procure from Sir Godescall, 
or elsewhere, 12 mares to draw in the Carts, inasmuch as it, 
is expedient for you to procure them in those parts, because 
they are as dear as Gold in Sussex. ... In like manner,” 
he adds, “I am using Marl at Watresfield with 5 Carts, and 
I much hope that it will result to your advantage. ... In 
your manor of Selsey, I am marling effectually, so that on 
the departure of this, five acres have been marled.’’ 
There are very few farms in the Weald of Sussex 
without what are called their marl-fields. The use of 
lime and chalk has superseded that of marl; but the 
numerous marl-pits, wdiich are now commonly trails 
formed into ponds, in which carp and tench aro kept— 
fish which were much more esteemed by our ancestors 
than by ourselves, to whom all the finny treasures of 
the deep are open—prove how prevalent the custom of 
marling once was.—It. W. B.— (Notes and Queries.) 
OUR HOUSE PLANTS IN AUGUST AND 
SEPTEMBER. 
Achimenes that have ornamented stoves and green¬ 
houses will now, many of the early ones at least, be 
past their best, and no pruning or daily cleaning will 
ever enable them to rival their first brilliancy, and the 
best plan is to remove them at once. Where to? as the 
question. Many place them at once in a corner, any¬ 
where out of sight, under glass, or under a wall or 
a bush, as the case may bo, and then wonder, next 
spring, why they must hunt up their neighbours for 
good, sound tubers, their own being so small, shrivelled, 
or diseased, that they know they will do little guod with 
them. What else could be expected, when the foliage, 
still green, is allowed to wither or grow as it may in a 
shady, cold corner, or is shrivelled up at oneo by 
exposure to the fierce rays of an unobstructed sun? 
