247 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 26 1859. 
or growing from self-sown seed in a garden, often puts up a scape ; 
' but even in that case it may readily be distinguished from a true 
Oxlip ; the scape is much more slender than that of the Oxlip, 
and the individual blossoms, both as to form and colour, are 
| precisely those of the common Primrose. 
P. Altaica. —Is not this a mere variety of the common 
Primrose ? 
Blue Oxlip, or Polyanthus. I think I have understood that 
this plant is scarce. Why it should be scarce I do not know ; 
i for it increases as readily as any other variety of the Oxlip. 
P. DENTICULATA. 
P. Muitroi.—T his plant should, I think, be grown in a pot, 
and placed in a saucer full of water. 
P. auricula lutea. —A few more varieties, but none that the 
florists would value. 
P. DENTATA. 
P. MARGINATA. 
P. LOUGIFOLIA. 
P. EARINOSA. 
P. nivalis. —A hybrid which grew from seeds which I gathered 
from P. nivalis, and which is evidently a hybrid between P. nivalis 
and P. marginata ; but though the seeds were from P. nivalis, it 
is much more like P. marginata. 
P. villosa, or P. glutinosa, or P. VISC 03 A, or perhaps all 
the three species. 
P. IXTEG-RIFOLIA. 
P. Helvetica. 
Also a Primula which is, I think, probably a white, or rather a 
cream-coloured variety of P. Helvetica; for the forms of the 
leaves and also of the corollie seem to me to be almost the same 
with those of the common P. Helvetica. 
P. MINIMA. 
P. CORTUSOIDES. 
P. PRKNITENS. 
I have also a few Primulce which have grown from self-sown 
seed, and which may be either hybrids or varieties of P. auricula ; 
as that plant is, as every one knows, very apt to sport. 
N.B.—I have not artificially hybridised any of these Primulas. 
I have not the skill requisite for the performance of so nice an 
operation ; and indeed I do not wish I had that skill, for I look 
upon hybrids, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdom, as 
monsters. I hope that I shall not, by speaking thus, give offence 
to some eminent horticulturists of the present day, who have 
artificially produced effects which in nature seem to have been 
most carefully avoided. Many of these hybrids are certainly very 
showy—nay, very beautiful; still they are monsters. The genera 
Pelargonium, Calceolaria, &c., are, I think, in the opinion of 
botanists completely ruined. Those who admire the unadulterated 
productions of Nature ought to import the genuine species of these 
genera from their native habitats.—Q. Z. 
VARIETIES. 
FARMER GARRULOUS TALKS. 
“ John, a man needs to go away from home occasionally, in 
order to be ‘ glad to get back again,’ and there are a comfort and a 
lesson in such gladness. Would I exchange my own hickory fire 
for the coal-grate of Abram Dodsworth, Esq. ?—or this green- 
baize-covered straw-stuffed lounge, made of a board and four ash 
sticks, with a saw, auger, and ax, for the spring-sofas in the par¬ 
lours of Calvin Corncrusher ?—or the ornaments of this cheerful 
sitting-room, consisting—let us see, there is that case of insects 
that Dick has collected, impaled on pins ; that dry grass that Jane 
gathered last fall, and which has remained right where site put it 
ever since she married that young Esculap—dogs take it! that 
young doctor ; and that trace of corn over the door; and your 
shot gun up on those hooks ; and those portraits of them Durhams 
—I declare, and there are those two woollen rabbits that—don’t 
bark apple trees—were stuffed with salt by Jane’s own hand, and 
—well, sir, I would not exchange them for all the fancy land¬ 
scape paintings the rich widow Webbfoot has in her fine-art 
gallery. The fact is, John, there is a great deal of false sentiment 
in the world. If a man grows rich, he affects refinement and 
taste, and effects the world in such a manner as that it laughs at 
him. Be natural, John, and simple, John, and honest every¬ 
where and anywhere, and you will become a lion—no mistake 
about it, sir! The man who dares to be eccentric enough to be 
comfortable anywhere, and natural everywhere, or the woman 
either, for that matter, makes an impression that, is enviable, 
especially among those whose good opinion is worth having. 
Give me a natural picture John, always. Talking about natural 
pictures, I was over to young Mose Mighty’s the other day. You 
know he has married rich, and is trying to fix up a fine place. 
Well, sir, he has stuffed that little two-by-four yard of his chock 
full of trees and shrubs, and dug up every green grass plot in it. 
You know his father, like a great many others no wiser than him¬ 
self, placed that good, comfortable house as near the road as he 
could well get it—a man with a thousand acres of land, and a 
house in the street almost, and his barns all one side of the farm! 
Catch me doing that thing. Of course, I should look a little to 
elevation and convenience, but I should aim to get my home as 
near the centre of the homestead as possible, other things being 
equal—at any rate, it should not be within one hundred rods of 
the road. Well, sir, Mose had his gardener, and was stuffing in 
the plants and shrubs, &c., when I drove up. 
“ ‘ How do you do to-day, Mr. Mighty ? ’ I said. 
“ ‘ How are you Farmer Garrulous ? ’ said he. 
“ ‘ Very well, sir,’ said I. 1 See you are fixing up considerably.’ 
“ ‘ Oh, yes,’ said Mose, ‘I am expending money enough on this 
place to satisfy a Downing, and I imagine it will please the old 
fellow when it is done—at any rate, I’ll have him up here, cost 
what it will, to suggest any improvements he may think proper.” 
“ ‘ You will, eh ? ’ said I. 
“ ‘ Yes, I’m bound to -———’ 
“ ‘ Raise him from the dead ? ’ 
“ ‘ What do you mean, Mr. Garrulous ? Downing is not dead ?’ 
“ ‘ Well, yes, in one respect—his body is dead—his works live, 
and I’ve no doubt his spirit does.’ 
“ ‘ You don’t say ? Hadn’t heard of it!—sorry—deuced sorry 
—have to get some one else. But, I say, Garrulous, don’t you 
think that a picture he would like to look at ? ’ 
“ ‘ Have you got Downing’s works, Mr. Mighty? ’ 
“ ‘No, Jolly Greenleafe loaued them to me; but I’ll send for 
| them, if you’ve any suggestions to make.’ 
“ ‘Well, send. I think I can show you what Downing would 
think of your place.’ The book came after a little—‘ Downing’s 
Landscape Gardening.’ I turned to the page where Downing 
directs those who have small grounds, &c., how to make their 
places tasteful and agreeable. He says, you know, ‘ hy attempting 
only the simple and natural; and the unfailing way to secure this, 
is to employ as leading features only trees and grass.’ And then 
I read Mose :—‘ These rural bedlams, full of all kinds of absurdi¬ 
ties, without a leading charaoter or expression of any sort, cost 
their owners a vast deal of trouble and money, without giving a 
tasteful mind a shadow of the beauty which it feels at the first 
glimpse of a neat cottage residence, witli its simple sylvan charac¬ 
ter of well kept lawn and trees.’ 
“ ‘ Now,’ said I to Mose, ‘ you will discover you have not 
followed Downing’s plans very closely.’ 
“The man was completely taken down, as he deserved to be— 
talking about Downing, with no idea whether he was dead or 
alive, and as little knowledge of his writings, or directions, as I 
have of the number of mastodons it took to make a prairie. 
“ But, John, this is a terrible rain for cattle and sheep that are 
out. We must get out early in the morning and look after the 
lambs. Had as soon lose a yearling as an early lamb.”-—( Prairie 
Farmer.) 
Colouring Fruits. — Duhamel in his “Treatise on Fruit 
Trees,” says, that to encourage the colouring of kernel fruits it 
is merely necessary, when they have attained their full size, to 
remove the leaves which shade them, first from one side, then 
from the other, and finally all round. He adds, that their colour¬ 
ing may be rendered more brilliant by marking the side next the 
sun with a hair pencil dipped in cold water. M. de Flotow had 
remarked, but without being able to account for the fact, that in 
Apples and Pears which were striped on both sides the rays, or 
stripes, were longitudinal—that is, from the eye to the stalk, but 
never transversely; although he says, that in several works on 
pomology, fruits are figured with the stripes in the latter direction. 
The results of the experiments have led to the conclusion that the 
action of the sun’s rays upon the skin of fruits wetted or moistened 
by dew is the cause to which the production of these red bands 
is to bo assigned. If, says he, fruits wetted by dew are observed 
whilst the rays of the rising sun strike upon them, it will be seen 
that the moisture collects in drops on the edge of the cavity in 
which the stalk is inserted and on the sides, forming hues of 
moisture of greater or less length, according to the size of the 
drops, and according as the sun evaporates them with greater or 
less rapidity.— {Ibid.) 
