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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, April 21, 1857. 
The railway journey from Hamburgh to Berlin is, perhaps, 
as uninteresting a trip as it is easy to find. The whole 
distance, 180 English miles, is over a flat, sandy plain, so 
level, indeed, that there is not a single tunnel, and scarcely 
any cuttings are to be seen. Those parts of the country 
which lie a little lower than the rest are swampy and covered 
with reeds ; all the rest are dry and barren. This monotony 
is now and then broken by plantations of Birch or Fir; 
but there is little cultivation visible. The country is occa¬ 
sionally divided into large fields by bad hedges of Birch or 
Acacia ( Robinia pseudo-acacia). There is nothing looking 
green, as there is in England even in the depth of winter, 
not even a Furze bush. Our common Brake Fern ( Pteris 
aquilina) is nowhere to be seen; but the Heather is there, 
and large tracts look quite black with it. 
The first impression that strikes every person visiting 
Berlin is that of wonder that so fine a city can have grown 
| up in such a flat, barren, uninteresting country, and upon the 
i banks of such a sluggish stream as the Spree. Most of the 
streets of Berlin are straight—one of them for three miles— 
and many are planted with avenues of trees. The street called 
“ Unter den Linden” (literally, under the Lime trees) is 
generally admitted to be one of the finest in Europe; it has 
a double avenue of Limes through its whole length, which 
is about three quarters of a mile. Beneath the trees are 
stalls for the sale of flowers. The best bouquets, which are 
very tastefully made up, are kept under glass cases. There 
seems to be a brisk sale for little bunches of Violets, Crocus, 
and Cyclamen flowers, which are sold at three silver groschen 
a bunch (3|d. English money). It grieves me to have to 
record that the people of Berlin combine their love of flowers 
with that of gambling, and both with the breaking of the 
Sabbath. Every Sunday, I am told, there are lotteries for 
bouquets in several parts of the city. The tickets are a 
penny each; about one in every four persons is successful, 
and becomes the owner of a threepenny nosegay. It is 
i composed of a few Primula flowers, a Violet or two, and a 
| few sprigs of Box.— Karl. 
STOCKING RIVERS WITH FISH. 
The following is extracted from a letter which has just 
! appeared in the Hereford Times, and is signed “ A Brother 
j of the Angle : ”— 
were so much struck by the intelligence of this humble 
fisherman as to reward his perseverance and discovery by 
an appointment as superintendent of a numerous force, 
through whose exertions not only have many of the most 
unproductive rivers in France teemed with living testimony 
of his success, but our own country and other parts of 
Europe have also participated in its beneficial results. It 
does, I repeat, appear extraordinary that no advocate has 
sprung up from the ranks of British anglers to speak 
forcibly in favour of trout and greyling propagation, and by 
their example to induce the general adoption of so easy 
and inexpensive a mode as merely the sawing a few of the 
orles which abound on the banks of all trout streams into 
inch boards, and forming boxes, which under water would 
last thirty or forty years, and, by placing strong wives of 
galvanised iron (also imperishable) on one side of the 
boxes, form a cage for depositing the spawn, into which no 
natural enemy could enter nor the floods injure, thus 
preserving it until hatched, and afterwards proving a safe 
asylum for the young fish to run into, similar to the every¬ 
day mode of preserving chickens from the ravages of the 
kite by placing them under a hen-coop.” 
This extract was inclosed in a letter, which says, “ A 
Brother” does not mention the position that the boxes 
should occupy in the stream, though, I presume, the sides 
in which the galvanised wire is fixed should face contrariwise 
to the force of the current, and they should‘be well secured 
to the bed of the river by strong hooked pegs or other 
substitutes. But where it can be found feasible to adopt 
them it is worth a consideration whether or not the boxes 
would not prove best if formed bottomless, so as to allow 
the spawn to remain protected on the natural site and 
position in which it became deposited by the fish ; and re¬ 
garding the brisk-running waters which the trout delights 
to inhabit, I would recommend the spawn protectors to be 
made in the shape of a long-sided triangle, thus forming a 
cutwater and least resistance to the power of the current, 
and also being less liable to displacement from the pressure 
of those unfortuitous collections of atoms which are sure 
to form themselves against an opposing body in their 
course.”— Upwards and Onwards. 
[We shall be obliged by any authentic information on 
this interesting subject.— Ed. C. G.] 
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“ The only calculation we have of natural production i 
that one fish deposits spawn capable of producing 17,000 
and, as it is supposed that out of this number 800 only i 
the natural state are left to germinate, and afterwards tin 
few comparatively escape their aquatic and winged ad 
versaries and arrive at maturity, the success of those wh 
have achieved exemption from such heavy loss on natura 
production by artificial means cannot fail to create genera 
interest; and it would seem that anew era is fast presentin 
itself to the lovers of the angle generally, it being far mor 
practicable to secure and hatch the spawn of trout and grey 
ling than that of salmon. As a humble disciple of Izaa 
Walton, I regret that this discovery has only been viewe. 
in this country in a mercantile point of view, and that s 
little of his spirit is infused into those landed proprietor 
through whose estates flow beautiful trout and greylini 
streams, or surely we should see more progress in the art o 
replenishing those streams annually with thousands of thesi 
beautiful finny tribes, and thus repair the encroachmen 
of vagabond poachers and netters of our best streams, who 
when keepers are asleep (and keepers, like other men, mus 
sometimes get forty winks), ruin the pleasure of the angler 
It appears to me a strange want of interest in making pro 
vision for this sport that the return of profits and the in 
crease of salmon only are all that we see discussed 
wnereas if we review the origin of this valuable scientifii 
mode of artificial culture, we find that it was brought t< 
lght merely by a poor fisherman on the banks of one o 
the French rivers, who, being unable to procure a subsistenc, 
from the unproductiveness of the fish therein, had recours* 
to the experiment of collecting the spawn, and preserving 
it in boxes in the river until hatched; and it must be born, 
in mind that in this river were no lordly salmon, bu 
humble try only, and that the Academy of Science in Pari: 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
TROPCEOLUM PENTAPHYLLUM FOR THE BACK 
OF A GREENHOUSE. 
“ The stage in my greenhouse is a flat one, three feet high, 
and is made of three-inch bars three quarters of an inch 
apart, extending along the back from end to end, with a 
straight footpath in front. Would a Tropceolum pentaphyllum 
be drawn too much were it planted in a bed beneath, 
and trained up wires along the wall, and through the 
spaces between the bars of the stage, and thence up the 
sashes ? ”—A. 
[A strong root of Tropceolum pentaphyllum will give you 
satisfaction, and if your greenhouse is not kept hot it will 
bloom freely in summer and autumn. Most likely it will 
die back in winter; but it will come next spring stronger 
than before.] 
VINE PRUNING AT FONTAINEBLEAU AND 
THOMERY. 
“Your article from the Horticultural Society's Journal 
on the \ines of Fontainebleau and Thomery is interest¬ 
ing to all out-door Grape growers. There is, however, 
one paragraph which I cannot understand, and I should 
feel obliged if you would give me an explanation. I allude 
to that on the pruning. Are all the Vines kept at the 
winter pruning in the state of Vine a ? If so, do the up¬ 
right branches grow from the single eyes, and bear fruit 
to the extent of eighteen inches (the eyes at the base of 
a stem will not throw fruit in this country)? or are the 
upright branches kept at the winter pruning to bear fruit 
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