THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 17, 1859. 
93 
times better; aud as to other people getting what I have got, that 
is but a matter of time.— Siiieley Hibbeed. 
[I am the defendant in this case, but I ought to be the com¬ 
plainant. Mr. Hibberd had an interview with Mr. West on the 
subject of the candle, and promised to let Mr. West know the 
result as soon as Price’s people succeeded in making a suitable \ 
one for the Waltonian. Mr. West heard no more about it till he J 
received a leaf out of Dr. Lindley’s book—a slip containing a com- 1 
munication from Mr. Hibberd, in which the candle and the Case 
are recommended; but The Cottage Gaedenee is ignored [ 
altogether, and other works are mentioned, in which are drawings 
of the Case taken from The Cottage Gaedenee. As godfather 
to the Waltonian Case, I thought that an unfair way of dealing 
between gentlemen of the same craft. Very unfair indeed ! and I 
could lay my hands on a volume of the “Botanical Register,” 
in which Dr. Bindley said, smarting under similar circumstances, 
“ that such practice was like opening a shop for the reception of 
stolen goods.” But I would not hit so hard. “ Only it looks so 
curious-like.” 
Hearing of the candle, so “curious-like,” Mr. West called at 
Price’s factory, and was told they sent their ship-candle to Mr. 
Hibberd for a trial, and they proposed sending down a box of 
them to Surbiton for Mr. West to make sure of it. I shall see 
the experiment tried by three of the best propagators by the 
Waltonian in the three kingdoms,—namely, Mrs. Walton, to 
whom we are all indebted for this excellent contrivance; Mrs. 
West, who passes judgment on every Case before it leaves her 
husband’s factory; and to Mrs. Whitby, the lady of Capt. 
Whitby, inspector of prisons. Lakelands, Dundrum, near Dublin. 
Capt. Whitby resided here when the Waltonian came out, and 
learned the working of it from Mrs. Walton. He was then re¬ 
moved to Ireland, where Mrs. Whitby has been doing wonders 
with the Waltonian ever since, and never had the slightest trouble 
or difficulty with it. But does it not “look so curious-like,” 
that Capt. Whitby should have come over to London this week 
to tell us all this ? Yes—he called on mo to say how delighted 
they were with this amusement, and told what difficult things 
Mrs. Whitby managed to get up in it; and he ordered another 
Case from Mr. West for a friend, and another is ordered for Cork. 
Now, as the Doctor and Mr. Hibberd thought proper to open 
their shops for the working of the Waltonian, and deemed it fair 
to slight the old man who nursed and fed the babe, clothed the 
youth, and outfited the full-grown man in The Cottage Gae¬ 
denee, let the readers of The Cottage Gaedenee allow the 
candle to rest under the bushel until the said ladies return a prac¬ 
tical verdict; and Mr. Hibberd may depend upon it, if Price’s 
ship candle is better for the Waltonian than the lamp, he will 
not go without the credit of his fair share of the merits of the 
outfit, if I be alivo and well. I had not the slightest intention 
of depriving him of his share when I said tho candle was only 
in expectation.—D. Beaton.] 
THE SCIENCE OE GARDENING. 
(Continued from page 64) 
Retuening to the consideration of tho food obtained by a plant 
from the soil by the agency of its roots, wo find that silica, or 
the pure substance of flint, is presont in all soils ; is soluble in 
water, requiring one thousand times its weight of this liquid to 
dissolve it ( Kirwan’s Mineralogy , vol. i, p. 10) ; is found in 
many plants, and in all tho grasses that have been analysed. 
It was the opinion of Lampadius that tho earths contained in 
plants are merely the effect of vegetation, and altogether inde¬ 
pendent of the soil in which they grow. The experiment was as 
follows :—Live beds, four feet square by one foot in depth, each 
containing a pure earth,—alumina, silica, lime, magnesia, garden 
mould, and each mixed with eight pounds of cowdung, were 
sown witli rye. The produce of each was separately reduced to 
ashes, and the same principles were found in them all, particu¬ 
larly a portion of silica. Whence came the silica in the bed of 
alumina ? According to Lampadius it was the result of vege¬ 
tation. But Saussure, after Ruckert, has shown that cowdung 
contains a portion of silica. (Sur la Veg. chap. ix. sect. 3.) 
Hence the substance which Lampadius could not account for but 
by means of vegetation he had supplied with his own hands. It 
is now known that the earths are partially soluble, some of them 
in pure water, and all of them with tho aid of acids ; so that we 
may fairly presume that they are taken up in solution by the 
root, and converted to the purposes of vegetation. Not that they 
are capable of affording any considerable degree of nourishment 
to the plant, but that some plants seem to be benefited by ab¬ 
sorbing them. The grasses have their stems thus strengthened, 
and the Equisetaeeas and the Palms have their stems or leaves better 
fitted for the purposes of art. The leaves of Palms make a sub¬ 
stantial thatch for covering houses owing to the silica they contain ; 
and the Dutch Rush is made use of to polish even brass. 
Alumina, or the basis of clay, present in all soils, is so soluble 
in water as to be inseparable by the filter, and is much more so 
when any of the acids are present ( Sennebier’s Phgsiolog. Veget. 
vol. iii. p. 18) ; it is found in plants in minute quantities, espe¬ 
cially in the grain of barley, Oats, Wheat, &c. ( Schroeder , in 
Oehlen's Journ. vol. iii. p. 525). The chief value of Alumina in 
a soil is by enabling it to retain moisture and the soluble 
portions of organic manures as they decompose. It also retains 
their ammonia; and it is believed that it even absorbs this great 
promoter of vegetation from the atmosphere. 
“ Peroxide of iron and alumina,” says Liebig, “ aro distin¬ 
guished from all other metallic oxides by their power of forming 
solid compounds with ammonia. The precipitates obtained by 
the addition of ammonia to salts of alumina or iron are true 
salts, in which the ammonia is contained as a base. Minerals 
containing alumina or oxide of iron also possess, in an eminent 
degree, the remarkable property of attracting ammonia from the 
atmosphere, and of retaining it. Vauquelin, whilst engaged in 
the trial of a criminal case, discovered that all rust of iron con¬ 
tains a certain quantity of ammonia. Chevalier afterwards 
found that ammonia is a constituent of all minerals containing 
iron ; that even hematite, a mineral which is not at all porous” 
contains one per cent, of it. Bonis showed also, that the peculiar 
odour observed on moistening minerals containing alumina is 
partly owing to their exhaling ammonia. Indeed, many kinds of 
gypsum and some varieties of alumina, pipeclay for example, emit 
so much ammonia when moistened witli caustic potash, even 
after they have been exposed for two days, that reddened litmus 
paper held over them, becomes blue. Soils, therefore, containing 
oxides of iron and burned clay must absorb ammonia, an action 
which is favoured by their porous condition ; they further pre¬ 
vent, by their chemical properties, the escape of the ammonia 
once absorbed. Such soils, in fact, act precisely as a mineral acid 
would do if extensively spread over then- surface. 
“ The ammonia absorbed by the clay or ferruginous oxides is 
separated by every shower of rain, and conveyed in solution to 
the soil.” 
Lime is found in almost all soils ; it is easily soluble in water, 
and there is but one plant that is not known to contain some of 
it as a constituent—the Salsola Soda (Ann. de Chimie , vol. xviii. 
p. 76). Thus a crop of Beans, twenty-five bushels per acre, con¬ 
tains in those twenty-fivo bushels 36£ lbs. of lime,—namely, 
2J lbs. in the seed, and 34 lbs. in the stems and leaves. Twenty 
tons of Turnips from the same space of ground contain 118 lbs. 
of lime— 46 lbs. in the bulbs, and 72 lbs. in the leaves. Eight 
tons of Potatoes from an acre contain 39 lbs. of lime— 8 lbs. in 
the tubers, and 31 lbs. in the haulm. 
Another important suggestion is thus thrown out by the late 
Professor Johnston :—“ Can lime take the place of potash or 
soda in the living plant ? We have no series of anaylses of 
entire plants which are fitted to throw much sure light upon this 
point. In regard, indeed, to certain parts of the plants it appears 
that the proportion of limo they contain may vary very much, 
and that as the limo increases the alkaline matter diminishes. 
Thus, in—- 
“ a. The Tobacco leaf. —The mean relative proportions of the 
alkaline matter and of lime found in a series of tobacco leaves 
grown in two different localities were as follows :— 
I. II. 
Potash and soda. 27.02 12.21 
Lime. 27.87 45.90 
“ Each of these results is the mean of four analyses j and they 
appear to show satisfactorily that in the leaf of this plant the 
lime may increase while tho potasli diminishes. In other words, 
the lime may take the placo of a part at least of tho potash. So 
“ b. The twigs of the Vine , from two localities, gave an ash 
which contained of-alkaline matter and of lime respectively— 
I. II. 
Alkalies . 45.82 27.98 
Lime. 29.75 40.75 
from which it would appear as if lime in this plant might also 
take the place of potash and soda. 
