COUNTKY GENTLE]N[AN’S COMPANION. 
371 
Fkbruaey 19. 
FRUIT-TREES IN POTS. 
I I HATE seen a collection of Fuchsias, healthy, and in full 
flower, growing in Cob-nut shells, and covered with a bell- 
glass. 
I tlionglit it a very pretty toy, and so the grower appeared 
to do ; still, he did not hold forth the system as the par 
excellence oi Fuchsia culture. 
I have also seen a collection of fruit-trees gi’owing in 
garden pots, bearing fruit, and covered with a glass roof. 
I also thought this a very pretty toy on a somewhat 
large scale, and I doubted not that it would be exceed¬ 
ingly interesting and amusing to a gentlemen or lady 
who might have suflicieiit leisure and inclination to play 
with it. 
But such a toy, I thought would be sadly too exi^onsive, 
aud of very little real use to a practical gardener, who is 
expected to furnish an abundant annual supply of fruit to 
his employer’s table'; nor yet to a market-gardener, who has 
rent and taxes, etc., to pay; for it must be recollected, that 
if no heating apparatus be employed, the produce of the 
potted trees will be ripe much about the same time as fruit 
of the same sorts on the open wall, and, consequently, at 
the lowest value. 
So, in niy humble opinion (unless some special cause 
I exists for doing so), it is evidently a decided step in the 
'wroiKj direction to confine a collection of hardy fruit-trees 
in garden pots, or boxes, when it is evident that far more 
satisfactory results covrld be obtained by the common, or 
planting-out system. 
That good fruit has been obtained from trees growing in 
pots, I am by no means inclined to dispute; but, at the same 
time, I feel satisfied that, all other circumstances being 
alike, better quality aud greater quantity would have been 
obtained from the same trees had they been planted out. 
The same rule will, I think, apply to all fruit; for although 
the Fine-Apple has been very successfully grown in pots, 
still, I believe, few gardeners who have had an opportirnity 
of giving the planting-out and pot system a fair trial but 
will prefer the former. 
Mr. Robson’s excellent article, entitled “ Fruit trees 
planted out versus in pots,” must, I imagine, in a great 
measure, shake the confidence of the enthusiastic advocates 
i of the pot system. 
An intelligent gardener, in my neighbourhood, at present 
contemplates erecting what will deserve the name of an 
“Orchard-house;” that is, simply to enclose a square, or 
' oblong-square, piece of ground, say half-a-rood, more or 
' less, with a wall eight or ten feet high, and cover the square 
I so enclosed with a glass roof on the ridge-and-furrow 
principle. This he supposes he can do at a comparatively 
moderate outlay. He will then plant it with dwarf fruit- 
trees of various sorts, and, at the same time, reserve a 
portion of the ground for early vegetables. But as I know 
him to be a reader of The Cottage Gaudexeu, should 
this meet his eye, he may possibly be induced to give you 
his ideas on the subject.—ZEriivaus. 
REVELATIONS FROM BABYLON. 
(Continued from Col. XIV. payc 457.) 
“ Eauly in the ninth century B.C., the Assyrians did 
not come in direct contact with the Jews, though they 
overran the whole country as far south as Damascus, 
and even exacted tribute from the maritime cities of 
Phoenicia. The succeeding king, Silhna-rish, fought several 
battles with Ben Hadad, aud after the dethronement of the 
latter, with the usurper llazael, while he also received rich 
presents from Jehu, who is called in the inscription the 
son of Omri, from having sat on the throne of Samaria. 
The annals of the next king, Shnmnsphul, extended but to 
four years, during which the wars of the Assyrians were 
confined to Asia Minor and Babylonia, aud of his successor, 
Phnlulch (the Pul of Scripture and Phulok of the LXX), no 
strictly historical record had been yet found. The interest¬ 
ing fact, however, had been discovered, that this king had 
married a foreign princess of the name of Sammiiramit (or 
Semiraniis) and that having lost his throne by a domestic 
revolution to a stranger of the name of Tiglath-Pileser (the 
second), the upper royal line of Assyria, after a dynastic 
rule of 5^0 years, terminated in hig person, all this minutely 
agreeing with the fragments of Assyrian history preserved 
to us by the Greeks. From the death or dethronement of 
Pul commenced the second or lower Assyrian line, the 
epoch being marked in Babylonian history as the era of 
Nabonassor, and dating from B.C. 774. Of Tiglath-Pileser, j 
the first king of the lower dynasty, annals had been found 
extending to his 17th year, and among his tributaries were 
many names -which were of interest from Scriptural associa¬ 
tions, such as IMcnahem of Samaria, Rexin of Damascus, 
Hiram of Tyre, the King of Byblos, of Casias, of Carche- 
mish, of Hamoth, and even a Queen of the Arabs, who 
seemed to have reigned in Idumea, or Arabia Patroca, and 
who is the representative in regard to race and station 
of the famous Queen of Sheba, who had visited Solomon 
about two-and- a-half centuries before. 
“ According to Scripture history, Tiglath-Pileser must have 
been succeeded by Sbalmaneser, a name which had not yet 
been found in the inscriptions, but which had originally 
headed, it was believed, certain mutilated tables, recording 
the wars of an Assyrian monarcli with Hosea (?) king of 
Samaria, and with a son of Rezin of Damascus. It seemed 
probable that as Tiglath-Pileser II. had defaced the monu¬ 
ments of Pul, whom he supplanted, so Sargon, who was 
again of a\difi‘erent lineage and who gained the throne of i 
Nineveh in B.C. 7^!1, had designedly mutilated the records i 
of Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser, who were his two ! 
immediate predecessors, no single slab belonging to these j 
kings having been ever found, either in a perfect state 
or in its original position. The explanation offered of this 
period of history was that Shalmaneser had succeeded 
his father, Tiglath - Pileser, on the throne of Nineveh 
about B. C. 72H,—that he laid siege to Samaria in 744-24,. 
and while engaged in that operation was surprised by the 
I'evolt of Sargon, who ultimately drove him from power aud 
established himself in his place in B.C. 721. Sargon’s 
first act was to bring the siege of Samaria to a close, 
and the account of the Samaritan captivity given in the 
inscription correspond closely with that preserved in Scrip¬ 
ture, Halah, Habor, indeed, aud the river of Gozan, where i 
the expatriated tribe were idaced, and which had been so 1 
variously identified by geographers, were proved by the 
inscriptions to be represented by the modern Nimrud, and 
by the two rivers, the Khuhoor and the Myijdonius, the 
latter Greek teirn being a jnere jiarticipal formation . of 
Gozan, which was the original Assyrian name of the city of 
Nisihin. The annals of Sargon were preserved in great 
detail, and were replete with notices of much historical 
interest. His wars with Merodech Bahulan, the king of 
Babylon, with the kings of Ashdod, of Gaza, of Hamath, of 
Carchemish, and of many other Syrian kings, were described. 
He received tribute from Pharaoh of Egypt, from the Queen 
of the Arabs and her confederate the Chief of Sheba (or 
the Sabueans, who at that time dwelt in Edom). There was 
distinct account, moreover, of the expedition to Cyprus 
(which was referred by the Greeks to Shalmaneser); and 
Sargon’s memorial tablet had been discovered in the island. 
The history of Western Asia, indeed, at the close of the 
eighth century B.C., w'as given in the most elaborate detail 
in tbe inscriptions of Korsabad, which was Sargon’s capital, 
and in every respect was found to coincide with the con¬ 
temporary annals of the Jews. Verifications of still more 
importance had followed from the discovery of the annals of 
Sennacherib, who succeeded his father Sargon in 702. His 
wars with Illuloeus of Sidon, and wdth Merodach Baladan 
and his sons, w'ere in near accordance with the notices of 
the Greeks, and the famous Assyrian expedition, which 
Sennacherib led against Hezekiah of Jerusalem, as given in 
the native annals, coincided in all essential points (even to 
the numbers of tlic thirty talents of gold which the Jewish 
king paid as a peace-offering) with the Scriptural record of 
the event. It was not to be expected that the monarch of 
Assyria would deliberately chronicle his discomfiture under 
the w’alls of Jerusalem and his disastrous retreat to Nineveh ; 
but there was the significant admission in his annals that 
he did not succeed in capturing the Jewish capital, and this 
