THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 20, 1850. 
ness and fidelity with which the Editors are performing their 
work, wc may mention that the information is brought down to 
the present day; the discoveries of most recent geographical 
discoverers are recorded; recent and even pending treaties are 
referred to; and in the biographies of living statesmen we find 
the subjects referring to events so recent as tlie fall of the Pal¬ 
merston administration. Among the biographies we were pleased 
I to find the names of fellow students of our own, still living, who 
have devoted their time to the study and elucidation of scientific 
subjects. A feature of the work is, that the pronunciation of 
every proper name is correctly given. The whole will form, when 
completed, one volume of about 800 demy octavo pages, and will 
be furnished with maps, woodcuts, and other useful illustrations. 
Chambers’s E nc ycloiledia.* —We never remember to have 
read a work published by Messrs. Chambers, that was not both 
useful and ably prepared ; and the present book, for general in¬ 
formation and reference, is worthy of its predecessors. It is 
t alphabetically arranged, therefore the knowledge required is easily 
; found; illustrations are given wherever required to render the 
statements easily understood. Moreover, the contents are to be 
relied upon, and give full and the latest acquired information upon 
i almost every subject in its pages. We wish they had excluded bio- 
; graphy and geography, for these require Cyclopaedias to themselves. 
However, as the present work is to extend to seven volumes of 
about 900 pages each, it will embrace an immense mass of infor¬ 
mation, and, as the publishers say, <! will be the cheapest Ency- 
clopmdia ever published.” The following is a specimen of its 
[ contents: — 
i “ABACA, or MANILLA HEMP, is the fibre of a species of 
plantain or banana (Musa iroylodgtamm), a native of the Phi- 
| lippine Isles, where it is extensively cultivated. The leaf-stalks 
; are split into long stripes, and the fibrous part is then separated 
. from the ileshy pulp. A labourer can in this way produce daily 
I 50 lbs. of hemp. Before 1825, the quantity produced was in- 
! significant; but now it amounts to nearly 3000 tons annually. 
■ In Manilla there is a steam rope-work for making ropes of it for 
naval purposes. They are very durable, but not very flexible.— 
j The fibre of a number of species of Musa is used in tropical 
■ countries. See Plantain.” 
The American Home Garden.! —From the thoroughly 
; practical way in which this work is writ ten, we may easily con- 
i ceive it to be admirably calculated to instruct those for whom it 
is written ; but the details of the operations, in many instances, 
differ so much from those that are necessary in this country, that 
I it could not be entirely relied upon as a guide to British gar¬ 
deners. Many of the crops of which it treats are not cultivated 
in this country : and almost all the fruits, with few exceptions, 
which are recommended to be grown, do not exist here; and those 
of them that have been introduced have been found not to succeed 
j in our climate. 
But, while we say this much, we would not have it thought 
that wc speak disparagingly of Mr. Watson’s hook. There is 
very much in it, treating of the general principles of gardening, 
that might be read with profit by English gardeners ; and it con- 
' tains, also, many suggestions that they might, with adaptation to 
our climate, turn to good account. 
SALE OE ORCHIDS, FERNS, AND OE 
FKEMONTIA CALIEORNICA. 
Mr. Stevens, at his auction rooms, King Street, Covent 
Garden, sold on the 17th inst. 149 lots of Orchids and Ferns, 
besides the plant above named, which was thus described in the 
catalogue—“ By order of the Council of the Horticultural Society 
of London .—FremonUa Californica, a no>v and uniquo shrub 
(Torrey in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. v., p. 2), 
* Of this most remarkable plant, a solitary individual was raised 
in 1851, in the garden of the Horticultural Society, from a seed 
received from Mr. Robert Wrench. In April, 1854, it produced 
flowers for the first time, as large as those of Trollius Asiaticus , 
brilliant yellow inside, apricot colour outside, with the addition 
of some cinnamon-coloured down; and their substance was so 
1 Chambers's Fncgclopavlia. A Dictionary of Useful Knowledge, for 
the People. Illustrated by wood engraving and maps. W.andR. Chambers, 
Loudon aud Edinburgh. 
+ The American Home Garden, being Principles and Rules for the Cull are 
of Vegetables, Fruits, Flowers, ami Shrubbery. By Alexander Watson, 
Illustrated. London : Sampson Low $ Co. 
I thick, that each flower remained in perfection for weeks.’” It 
| sold for £37 16.?. 
| The following are the prices for which some of the Orchids 
were sold:—TErides Lindleyi, £6 10?.; yK rides nobile, £9; 
; YE. Schroderi, £31 ; and another specimen, £27 ; Blialaenopsis 
amabilis, £12 10.?.; Cymbidium eburneum, £14; Hi rides nui- 
I eulosum major, £18; Vanda suavis, £13 16?.; yE rides Lobbii, 
£17 10.?. 
The highest prices given for the Ferns were;—Lastrsea villosa, 
£3 5s.; Gleichenia spelunceo, “very rare,” £3 10s.; Cynthea 
arborea, “very rare,” £3; Gleichenia diehotoina, £1; Todea 
pellucida, £1; Diplazium brevisarum, £1 16s. 
The Orchids and Ferns sold, altogether, for about £170. 
KEEPING THE AIR MOIST IN STOVES AND 
GREENHOUSES. 
“ What is the best way of keeping up a supply of moisture 
in a plant-stove and a warm greenhouse? Watering the floor 
with the hand is a troublesome operation, and has a tendency to 
discolour the flags. In the greenhouse the hot-water pipes are 
I underneath the floor; in the plant-stove they are above it—part 
of them passing through the bark-bed and under the plant-stage.” 
j —J. Robinson. 
[In the greenhouse, if the pavement is such an object, syringe 
the stage and shelves ; place flats with water on them ; place the 
plants, where convenient, in moss, kept moist in dry, hot weather. 
If there is no means for getting water into the chamber below 
the floor where the pipes are, unless in very frosty weather, the . 
! watering and syringing the plants will give nearly enough of 
atmospheric moisture. In the plant-stove, place evaporating 
troughs on the pipes exposed, and syringe the surface of the bark- 
I bed as it gets dry in hot, dry weather. Pour water also about 
i the pipes in tlie bark-bed, when you judge the tan is dried by 
them. If you use an atmosphere near saturation point, you will 
want some scrubbing and scouring to keep your- flags nice and 
clean. 8oda and salt will assist yon in cleaning them ; but they 
| will soon wear the stones out.] 
VARIETIES. 
What is a Fact ? — It is necessary always to distinguish fact 
from opinion, and not bo guided by an opinion as long as any 
- doubt is in the mind whether the facts upon which it was founded 
were sufficient. In illustration of this, “ You must know,” 
[ says Professor Owen, “that some of us scientific working men 
in London formed a kind of club; and after our winter’s scientific 
work, lectures, &c., are over, we usually go to enjoy a day’s 
fishing and fresh air. We have taken a small river in t he neigh¬ 
bourhood of London to enjoy the sport of fishing. There is a 
public-house near it where we can obtain homely and cleanly fare, 
like that which old Isaac Walton described in ins beautiful book 
on angling; and our rule is that he who catches the biggest fish 
takes the chair and presides for the occasion. Well, on one 
occasion, in the course of the day, one of us, I should not exactly 
say ho was a scientific man—he was a political one—caught a trout 
about three pounds and a half weight; and took a barbel, which he 
had caught at the early part of the day, weighing about half a 
pound, and thrust it down the trout’s mouth with the end of his 
rod. lie then handed over the fish to be weighed, and it scored 
four pounds. Of course lie took the chair. As we were going 
away, another of us, a scientific man, indeed a President of the 
Royal Society, said to the chairman—‘If you don’t want that 
tine fish, I should bo glad to take it home.’ The fish was given 
to him; and about a week after we met. again. My lord said, ‘ Do 
you know there was a most extraordinary circumstance about 
that great fish which you gave me the other week? I had no 
idea that trout were so voracious.’ Knowing I am very fond of 
natural History, my servant came and asked mo to go down into 
tlie kitchen; and on going there I saw that the trout had swallowed 
a barbel of fully half a pound weight. Of course the naturalist 
I could not avoid saying, when lie heard this, ‘I am astonished to 
hear your lordship state such a circumstance as that you know 
that trout are not voracious — it is out of all probability 
for a trout to have a barbel weighing half a pound in its stomach, 
and the idea most unphilosophieal.’ My lord said he did not 
care whether it were philosophical or not, but it was a matter of 
fact. In the end an explanation took place, aqd it turned ouf 
