Dkcembeh 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
191 
distance for tlie hedge to stand—the centre stems, not the 
side of the hedge—and the mulching ought to reach to the 
wall. Pray let some well experienced person superintend 
the job, which is a dangerous game in careless hands. We 
have seen about eighty yards of such a hedge entirely lost 
the first season, for want of economy, as Cobbet would say ; 
that is, for want of good management, or stinginess, which 
is a very different thing from economy. 
As to the Rhododendrons, your’s is a queer question. To 
“ bed them," supposes them to he under six inches in height; 
and if they are good sorts, you may lose every one of them 
by frost by bedding them now. Old, or good-sized plants 
can be be planted now, safely enough.] 
POULTRY. 
POINTS OF EXCELLENCE IN POLAND FOWLS. 
“A Young Beginner will feel obliged for a reply in The 
Cottage Gardener to the points on which a Poland fowl 
would be judged.” 
[Polands would be judged by the figure and condition of 
the birds, the top-knot being an all-important point. This 
should be globular in the hens, and in the male birds full, 
but facing backwards and on the sides ; in both cases, how¬ 
ever, regularly and evenly. The tail, also, in all varieties 
should bo ample, and with the rest of the plumage indicate 
high condition. Combs horn-like, but very minute; legs 
blue and clean. 
The White-crested Black Polands must be uniformly of the 
latter colour, the tuft alone excepted ; but even here a few 
black feathers are always present in front, unless artificially 
removed. 
Golden Spangled Polands .—A clear, bright, yellowish-bay 
body-colour, regularly spangled throughout in the hens, ex¬ 
cept the wing-coverts, which are laced, and the under part 
of the body, which approaches black. The cock’s breast to 
he richly spangled, and his hackle, back, and saddle, brilliant 
orange-red, of which colour the top-knot should be also, as 
the introduction of white certainly mars the general effect; 
tail black, but very richly bronzed. 
To the Silver Spangled Polands may be applied the same 
description; the light bay ground being changed for a 
silvory-white. In both varieties, however, a question is 
raised as to the markings of the hen’s crest, which, to our 
eye, has the best appearance when very lightly spangled, or 
else laced ; but as the topknots improve with age, as to their 
form, so they are apt to deteriorate as to their markings. 
The other varieties of Polands, being mainly of uniform 
colours, are easily determined on, the topknot, of course, 
in all cases an essential feature.—W.] 
Historical Notes on the Introduction of various 
Pi.ANTS INTO THE AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE OE 
Tuscany : a summary of a work entitled Cenni storici 
snlla intraduzione di varie piuate nell'agrieuUura ed orti- 
cultura Toscana. By Dr. Antonio Targioni - Tozetti. 
Florence, 1850. — (From the Horticultural Societies 
Journal .) . 
(Continued from page 152.) 
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) much cultivated in some 
parts of Italy, especially in the Romagna, some two or three 
centuries back, when first it came to be generally used for 
dyeing silk, is now much neglected there, for it is found that 
that which is imported from Spain or from East India 
yields a richer colour ; and even that from the Levant and 
from Egypt, although considered as inferior to the Indian 
and Spanish, is still superior to the Italian. The plant was 
probably unknown to the ancient Romans, but Theophrastus, 
Dioscorides, and, and many other Greek authors mention it 
under the name of Cnecon or Cnicon. It was not then 
grown as a tinctorial plant, but for the medicinal properties 
of its seeds, and the flowers were only used as a condiment. 
The exact period of its introduction into Italy is doubtful. 
I’egoletti, in the fourteenth century, speaks of it as an article 
of importation only for the use of the dyers ; Matthioli, in 
the sixteenth, mentions its cultivation, although he alludes 
only to its medicinal, not to its tinctorial, properties. One of 
the popular names quoted by Targioni, that of Saracenic 
saffron, would seem to indicate that the Italians had it from 
the Moors, probably during their dominion in Sicily. 
The native country of the safflower is involved in great 
obscurity. East India is given by Professor Targioni on 
the authority of systematic botanical works, but to learn 
from the Indian botanists of the present day that it is there 
only known in cultivation, and that in the cold season, a 
circumstance showing clearly that it is not an indigenous 
plant brought into cultivation, but an importation from a 
different climate. It may possibly prove to be of African 
origin, if we may judge from the Abyssinian specimens 
distributed as indigenous among Schimper’s collection. 
These specimens have much more spinous involucres than 
the variety commonly cultivated, and, in other respects, 
seem to show, at any rate, a nearer approach to a wild state. 
Saffron (Crocus, sativus) is a native of Italy, as well as of 
many other parts of Europe and of the Levant, and has 
long been cultivated for the odour and flavour, as well as in 
more modern days for the tinctorial properties, of the styles. 
It is mentioned by many ancient writers, and was certainly 
cultivated in Southern Italy and Scicily as far back as 
the time of Pliny. It was also extensively and profitably 
grown in Tuscany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
when it was made the subject of many fiscal and protective 
regulations, but it is now entirely neglected as being imported 
at much less cost and of better quality from Southern 
Italy, Spain, Barbary, and Greece, and even from Orange in 
France. Besides its consumption by dyers it is much used 
for colouring Parmesan cheese and several kinds of Italian 
paste for soups. 
Yellow Woad, Weld, or Dyer's-weed (Reseda luteola) is 
another tinctorial plant indigenous to Europe. The ancient 
Romans made use of the wild plant only, but in more 
modern times it has been made to produce a much finer 
dye by cultivation, which appears in Tuscany to have com¬ 
menced in the flourishing days of the wool-trade. In the 
sixteenth century it was very general, and, like saffron, the 
subject of numerous fiscal and protective ordinances. It 
still continues to form an article in the agricultural produce 
of the Cortona district. 
Datisca cannabina, an oriential plant, first discovered in 
Crete in 1594, has, in our own days, and especially by 
Braeonnot in 1816, been shown to produce a very fine and 
permanent yellow dye, and to be well adapted for growth in 
the climate of Tuscany. Prof. Targioni refers ou this 
occasion to several other papers in which he has strongly 
recommended its extended cultivation, especially in the 
Maremma, but it does not appear how far his recommenda¬ 
tions have been practically adopted. 
The cultivation of the Poppy (Papaver somniferum) dates 
from the most remote ages. It varies considerably in the 
colour and size of the flower, in the form of the capsule, in 
the colour of the seeds, etc.; but all these varieties constitute 
a species, which is found abundantly in a wild state in South¬ 
eastern Europe, and in the Levant. In many cases it may, 
indeed, have] escaped from cultivation, but there is every 
reason to believe that, in a great part of the East Medi¬ 
terranean region, it is a truly indigenous plant. That the 
ancient inhabitants of Italy were aware of its narcotic 
properties is proved by the frequent allusions in the verses 
of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and other Roman poets: we learn 
from Pliny that poppies were cultivated and held in high 
estimation in his time, and Livy’s story of the answer given 
by Tarquinius Superbus to his son’s envoy, by cutting off the 
heads of the poppies of his garden, would carry us back to 
a much earlier date. In Tuscany, at the present time, 
poppies are extensively sown for medicinal purposes, for the 
extraction of oil from the seeds for the use of artists, and 
also when olive oil is scarce to supply its place as a condiment, 
or for burning, or making soap, &c. Its seeds are also 
eaten, but the climate is not hot enough to grow it for the 
extraction of opium. 
There is no plant, observes Prof. Targioni, whose history 
shows so many vicissitudes as that of the Tobacco (Nicotiana 
tabacum). Imported from America soon after the discovery 
of that continent, it was received into the old world with a 
species of enthusiasm, and Europeans, Asiatics, and Africans, 
began everywhere to smoke, to chew, and to snuff. It was 
not long, however, beforo some of the evils and incon- 
