Ill 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 24, 1850. 
clear old islo (Britain), as well as those of many other parts of 
Europe—the Apple and the Pear—at this season of the year ? 
These fruits are the most popular of all the cultivated fruits of 
our native islands ; ancl deserve the more attention, because they 
are dainties which are not confined to the tables of the higher 
classes, for some of the choicest kinds of each sort are to be found 
nmany a cottager’s garden, especially around the neighbourhood 
of Bristol. 
At the September Show of the Clifton Horticultural Society 
last year a proof of this was to be seen ; for there the cottagers’ 
Apples ancl Pears spoke for themselves much higher than it 
would be possible for volumes to speak for them—they being equal 
to any that I saw exhibited of summer fruits, where the compe¬ 
tition lay between either gentlemen-amateurs, or their gardenera. 
Considering all that lias been said on the cultivation, and on 
behalf of these fruits, by all writers upon them from the earliest 
date to within the last few years, a great deal more has been said 
than practised ; although some of the cultivators now seem to be 
trying to make up for lost time; but that is impossible, for, as 
the old adage has it, “ Misspent time can ne’er be recalled.” 
Even now there seems to be too great a leaning (by small growers) 
towards increasing the varieties they cultivate. Therefore, the 
exercise of judgment in their selection, in too many cases, is sadly 
neglected. 
There seems to be far too great a number (they are become 
legions), described in catalogues. Small cultivators, and too 
many gardeners as well, resemble a child in a toy-shop—such a 
host of desirables arc before them they become bewildered, scarcely 
knowing which to choose, and, too often, purchase those of which 
the merits have been scarcely tested, although extolled to the I 
highest degree ; and, consequently, when they come to be proved 
are found to be just admissible for the cider or perry-mill, but 
not so good for that purpose even as many of our well-known 
varieties. 
It must be acknowledged by everyone, that unnumbered thanks 
are due to the British Pomological Society for the exertions they 
have this last year made, and which, without a doubt, are wide 
and rapid strides in the right direction, and will very soon place 
before the public a list of the choicest selections of all our hardy 
kinds of fruit, with a description of the situation that each of 
them is best adapted to. This will be a very great help to the 
whole country; a help that will be felt by all classes of society—• 
the rich proprietor as well as the market-gardener, and the 
humble cottager. 
There seems to be greater desire for cultivating these fruits 
than tliera was a few years ago, especially among those who are 
obliged to follow various other pursuits to supply their daily wants. 
A proof of this makes itself more visible every day. In this 
small town there are three cottagers that are going a step further 
than the bulk of their neighbours ; they subscribe their penny 1 
per week each of them, and take The Cottage Gaddeneb be¬ 
tween them. This is the right kind of spirit—one which will 
very soon spread itself farther; for the day is not very far distant 
when the working classes will as much think of doing without 
wholesome fruit every day, as they do now of doing without their 
accustomed meals. 
I must now turn back for a retrospect of about fourteen years, 
when many people were surprised to see one private gentleman 
planting on such a gigantic scale, having some years previous to 
this planted several acres, and then to plant from twelve to 
fourteen acres more. But, just about this time, some malicious 
person cut off several hundreds of the trees, about one foot from the 
ground, which caused the owner to have all the others cut off and 
regrafted, with the intention of keeping them dwarf bushy trees. 
They went on well for about four years, then bore two fair crops 
for young trees; but, after that, up to last year, they would j 
scarcely pay for gathering, for they had been allowed to grow 
together, so that it was impossible for anyone to walk about 
amongst them. The grafts were also permitted to grow on for 
years, up even into the branches, which were choking and killing 
the trees as fast as time would allow. 
This was the state the trees were in when I first saw them : but 1 
from these self-same trees, and at this present time, there are above 
thirty different kinds of the choicest dessert fruits produced, and 
not a few of them, but several bushels of some of the kinds. 
Many persons had seen the trees ; and, of course, everyone’s 
opinion on them was different. Some were for destroying them 
altogether; but could they see the fruit now, I fancy their re¬ 
commendations would be altered. The change seemed quite as 
sudden, in comparison, as the unexpected peels of thunder are 
oftentimes of a summer’s day ; but not quite so sudden as that un¬ 
welcome visitor was which made his unexpected appearance on the 
last day of March, and the first day of April—that visitor which 
is known among children as “ Jack Frost,” but will be known to 
the majority of gardeners this year as a wholesale fruit destroyer, 
especially where he was not forbidden, or rather, kept at bay by 
protection.—J. Ashman. 
(To he continued.) 
NOTES UPON SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. 
Since observing that curious phenomenon connected with the 
seeds of Collomia, as narrated at page 350 of the last- volume, 
I have examined the seeds of a great number of other plants, to 
ascertain if they also possessed the property of shooting out spiral 
threads the moment their outer skin, or testa, was moistened. 
I find many species allied to Collomia do so in a greater or less 
degree, varying considerably even in the various species of the 
same genus; and it is by no means a distinctive mark of the 
order (Polemoniacese) ; for, while it is present in Collomia and 
Gilia, I do not find it at all in any species of Polemonium or 
Leptosiphon which I have examined. 
On the other hand, some few plants belonging to widely dif¬ 
ferent orders show it fully as well as those above mentioned ; 
for instance, Salvia horminum, S. Forslcohlii, and S. argentea; 
while in S. gigantea I could detect no trace of it. A few com¬ 
posite plants also possess this peculiarity. In Casuarina these 
spiral threads seem to belong to an inner coating rather than to 
the external skin of the seed. While examining them I was led to 
speculate upon the reason why they were so created different 
from all other seeds—for God never works without a purpose— 
and my speculations were assisted by a passage I met with in an 
American work (Gray’s “Structural and Systematic Botany”). 
The author says, “ They may subserve a useful purpose in fixing 
light seeds to the ground, where they lodge by means of the first 
shower they receive.” How interesting it is to observe the care 
with which Providence ensures the perpetuation of the smallest 
of created things. 
One of the strangest circumstances connected with seeds which 
has come under my notice is the length of time some very 
minute ones will lie in the soil without germinating. A few 
years ago I was very anxious to raise a stock of Begonia Mar liana 
(or, as it is sometimes called, B. diversifolia), I sowed the seed of 
it, which is as fine almost as dust, in the autumn. During the 
winter and spring a few plants came up, which I immediately 
pricked off. They continued to germinate one or two at a time 
until August, when they came up by hundreds. 
It is interesting to observe the change in form which the 
leaves of some plants undergo in their younger stages. The first 
pair of leaves which some plants make are of their normal form; 
but in others that state is only gradually attained. 1 lie most 
remarkable instance of this latter mode with which I am acquainted 
occurs in the Victoria regia. The first leaf is long, narrow, and 
grass-like ; the second arrow-head-shaped and pointed ; and it is 
only after the production of six or seven leaves that the normal 
round form is attained. 
The young leaves of some seedlings of Ouverandra fenestra!is, 
which I have raised, are exactly like those of Aponogeton dis- 
tachyon , while its normal form is, as w T e all know, a mere skeleton, 
with nothing but the veins left; hence its name of the “ lattice 
plant.” 
Almost all Palms, whether they have pinnate or fan-shaped 
leaves, produce entire ones at first from seed ; the only exceptions 
to this rule, that I know of, are Calamus Betang, Latania rubra, 
and L. aurea. 
Among Cycads there is a great variation in the mode of growth 
from seed; ’ some start into existence almost in their normal 
form. I have seen seedlings of Eneephalartus Caffir the very 
first leaf of which was furnished with ten or a dozen leaflets ; 
while the first leaves of Ceratozamia Ohieshreghlii and C. Mi- 
gueliana are only bifoliate. 
Stangeria paradoxa —that curious Cycad, which, from the 
great resemblance of its venation to that of a Fern, was at first 
published as a Lomaria by one of our best Fern botanists—at 
five years old from seed has a tuber-like stem not larger than a 
nut. How old, then, must those imported plants be which have 
stems a foot high and fifteen inches in circumference? Still 
greater must bo the age and slower the growth of Eneephalartus 
Caffir and its allies. I have had plants of this under my charge 
