308 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 16. 
preparing the ground, the whole might be dug in. T am 
ambitions enough to wish to equal, aye, and surpass, if I ean, 
others in producing fine, large, good blooms. To reach this 
point, I do not hesitate at any personal labour, nor reasonable 
expense, as my motto is, “ Never despair ; ” and I am deter¬ 
mined to have, if working can do it, a good garden. I 
intend to grow chiefly florists’ flowers, such as about 100 
Dahlias, French and African Marigolds, Hollyhocks, Asters, 
German Stocks, Pinks, Ac. 
“ By-the-by, 1 intend, in the spring, to get two or three 
loads of burnt grass-roots, Ac., for a top-dressing. 
“ I may mention that my case— i.e., exhausted soil—is a 
very common one here, and what will do for my garden will 
answer for fifty of my neighbours. —A Northumbrian." 
[You have beneath your feet the agent—the best agent— 
for improving your soil. We allude to the yellow clay of 
your subsoil. Trench your ground down to that clay, and 
with the bottom spit in trenching bring up two or three 
inches, not more, of that clay, and mix it thoroughly with 
the surface-soil. Repeat this annually, until you find the 
staple of your soil sufficiently tenacious. Old mortar, and 
plaster reduced to powder, will also improve your soil’s 
staple. Your neighbours will tell you that that “ yellow 
clay ” is too “ hungry ” to do any good. Now, by “ hungry ” 
is meant—if it has any correct meaning at all—that it con¬ 
sumes, or allows to be consumed, very rapidly any manure 
added to it. It does so, because it requires the addition of 
light sandy soil and chalky matter to keep it open, and thus 
to allow the moisture and gases of the air to get to the roots 
of the crop, which would afford to that crop as much nourish¬ 
ment as it derives from manure. Your upper soil is, “ hun¬ 
gry ” and “duffy,” which, we presume, means loose and 
dry, because it wants clay to keep it together, and thus 
prevent the too rapid escape of the ammoniaeal and other 
nutritious gases and products of the decomposing manure. 
Thus it is no less true in gardening, that two barrens make 
a fertile soil, than it is in grammar, that two negatives make 
an affirmative.] 
Historical Notes on the Introduction of various 
Plants into the Agriculture and Horticulture of 
Tuscany : a summary of a work entitled Oenni storici 
sulla intraduzione di varie piaalc nell'agrieuUlira ed orli- 
cullura Toscana. By Dr. Antonio Targioui - Tozetti. 
Florence, 1850. — ( From the Horticultural Society's 
Journal.) 
(Continued from page 271.) 
In Tuscany, the varieties of figs cultivated are numerous, 
many of them due to the days of the Republic. Fra Agostino 
del Riccio, in his already-quoted manuscripts, gives a se¬ 
lection of thirty one sorts cultivated in Tuscany in the middle 
of the sixteenth century, adding that there were many others 
which he had not included, not having seen them himself. 
Those of the Medici gardens represented in the drawings of 
Castello, comprise eighteen early and thirty-two late sorts, 
in all fifty; and Micheli in his manuscripts carries the 
number up to ninety-five. 
Notwithstanding the softness of the wood, and the readiness 
with which the branches are killed down, the trunk of the 
fig-tree is remarkable for its longevity. Pliny tells us of an 
aged wild fig in the forum, which was in a dying state in his 
days, but which they dared not cut down on account of the 
tradition that under its shade the wolf had suckled Romulus 
and Remus; that another wild fig in the forum had arisen I 
over the chasm into which Curtins had precipitated himself, 
and which was preserved in memory of that feat; and that a 
third similar tree, which dated from before the time of 
Saturn, was cut down in the year of Rome 200, to erect the 
building where the vestals were placed. These tales may, 
indeed, not he true in their details, but the trees they relate 
to must have been known to have been several centuries 
old. 
Prof s Targioni alludes to the practice of caprification, or 
of the supposed artificial fecundation of cultivated figs by 
the caprifico or wild fig, and quotes several writers, ancient 
and modern, who describe the operation. He does not 
appear to be aware of the able memoir of Gasparrini, giving 
a detailed history of the origin and extent of the practice, 
and satisfactorily proving it** inutility as well by practical 
experiment as by theoretical argument, and showing at the 
same time how we must account for the perseverance with 
which the inhabitants of certain localities have kept it up 
from the earliest ages on record to the present day. 
Mulberries , of Asiatic origin, were well known to the 
ancients, who cultivated them for their fruit, either for eating 
or as medicinal. They arc mentioned by Theophrastus and 
Dioscorides, and also by Atlienams and Galen, and, among 
the Romans, Virgil, Horace, Pliny, Columella, and Palladius 
speak of them as common and well known. All these 
writers are supposed to refer to the Black Mulberry only 
(Morns nigra), now but little valued and seldom to be met 
with in Italy, although at the first introduction of the silk¬ 
worms it is supposed to havo been exclusively made use of 
in raising them. It is even said to he indigenous to the 
Italian sea coasts as well as to Persia. We have, however, 
been unable to find any wild specimens in any of our 
herbaria, and modern botanists meet with it only in a culti¬ 
vated state in East India, as in Europe. The only native 
station given with any confidence in modern floras is the 
chain of Caucasus and some adjoining mountains. 
The White Mulberry (Morus alba), now spread over all 
parts of Europe and Asia where the silkworm is raised, and 
almost everywhere the only species cultivated for that purpose, 
is a native of Northern India and China. It is said to have 
been unknown to the ancients. A passage of Ovid, quoted 
by Prof. Targioni, alludes, indeed, to the white fruits of the 
mulberry, but this is supposed by Prof. Moretti, who devoted 
a great part of his scientific life to the mulberry, to be a 
mere poetical license. Another of Berytius, also quoted by 
Targioni, states the mulberry bears white fruits when grafted 
on the white poplar, but in our days this can only provoke 
a smile at its evident absurdity. Yet a variety of the white 
mulberry, said to be delicious eating, but unknown in Europe, 
is now abundant in Beloocliistan, Afghanistan, and probably 
in Persia, and apparently of very ancient cultivation there. 
It is, therefore, by no means impossible that some knowledge 
of it may have reached such of the ancient writers as may 
have been in the East, or had communication with it. 
However that may be, it appears certain that the intro¬ 
duction of the white mulberry into Italy is of a date long 
posterior to that of the silkworm. These valuable insects 
were imported into Sicily, in 1148, by King Ruggieri, after 
he had, in his wars with Manuel Comnenus, conquered 
Thebes, Athens, and Corinth. It is commonly said that the 
Lucchese learnt the art of raising them from the Sicilians, 
and introduced it into Florence, when, in 1315, they took 
i refuge there from the sack of their own city. Paguini has, 
: however, proved that silk was produced in Florence in and 
previous to the year 1225, and from the histories and 
chronicles of Malespini, Villani, and Ammirato, it would 
appear that there were silk factories there before 1166. All 
this time the leaves used were those of the black mulberry, 
as clearly appears from a passage of Pier Crescenzio, who 
wrote about the year 1280. Several statutes of the four- 
; teentli century relate to the plantation of the mulberry 
i without anything to indicate which species they allude to, 
; whilst all writers of the sixteenth century clearly distinguish 
the white silkworm mulberry from the black-fruited. It 
would appear, then, that in the course of the fifteenth century, 
the former had gradually, but entirely, superseded the latter. 
It is, indeed, commonly supposed that the cuttings were first 
brought into Tuscany from the Levant, by Francesco Buonvi- 
cini, in 1434, and that already in the following year, 1435, a 
law dated seventh of April encouraging its cultivation related 
to this new species. 
The Red Mulberry (Morus rubra), a North American 
species, is to be. found here and there in Italian gardens ; it 
is of recent introduction and does not appear ever to have 
been planted for silkworms. The one so called which Father 
Agostino del Riccio says that Francis I. of Medicis had 
extensively sown in the Boboli Gardens, and in the islands 
of Cacine at Florence, is supposed to have been a red-fruited 
variety of Morus alba. Several other varieties of this 
species have also, in modern days, been brought from 
Eastern Asia or raised in European plantations, and sent 
forth as new and most valuable species under the names of 
Morus lalifolia,macrophylla or Morettiana, multicaulis, sinensis, 
philippinensis, japonica, Ac. 
