94 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION, November II, 1850. 
Dahlia, Heliotrope, Ac., as I find that the same degree of 
autumnal frost which destroys them also proves fatal to the 
Perilla. 
I obtained a few ripe seeds from it last year; hut this 
present season I have not been able to obtain any. I trust 
that others may have been more successful, and that it will 
not be lost, as my impression is that jt only requires to be 
better known to induce it to be extensively grown. 
I will endeavour to describe to you the material of the 
ribbons, wherein the Perilla has constituted a rather con¬ 
spicuous border with me. 
They are on each side of a long, straight, gravel walk, ten 
feet wide, with a grass verge on each side three feet wide. 
Next to the grass, 
1st line, Lobelia ramosoides (blue). 
2nd line, Calceolaria aureum multijlorum (yellow). 
3rd line, Variegated Geranium, Flower of the Day. 
4th line, Perilla Nankinensis (dark purple). 
5th line, White Dahlias, viz., Queen of the Whites, and 
Red Hybrid Perpetual Roses alternately. The Roses are all 
standards, two and a half feet high, the same height as the 
Dahlias. 
(ith line, dwarf hedge of Fuchsia gracilis. 
7th line, Yew hedge, closely clipped, and four and a half 
feet high.— Zephyrus. 
P.S. I have now (31st October) a fine plant of the 
Pampas Grass just coming into flower. I had it in a thumb- 
pot last May. I am afraid it will be too late to expand its 
flowers this season. Can you tell if you are aware of its 
having flowered this summer ? 
NOTES ON THE PLANTS AND GARDENING 
OE PERSIA. 
The following are from Lady Shiel’s entertaining volume 
on Persia. 
The Persian Mahomedans have great reverence for some 
portions of the Christian revelation, and among these are 
the mother of our Saviour; hence “ the tall White Lily is, 
in Persian, called the Goole Miriam, or Flower of Mary; 
and in a Persian painting representing the Annunciation, 
Lilies are growing round her. 
“ A thriving Persian village can generally supply a tene¬ 
ment by no means to be contemned. The principal room 
where the family resides is carpeted with felts; a high pile 
of bedding, tied into bundles, occupies one corner, while 
another corner contains chests or immense jars, such as the 
‘ forty thieves ’ found a shelter in, filled with grain, Peas, or 
Beans. Strings of Apricots, Grapes, and Onions, far exceed¬ 
ing any produced in Spain or Portugal, hang in festoons 
from the ceiling; shelves are cut into the eartlien walls, on 
which are placed stores of Quinces, Apples, Pears, and 
Melons, besides sundry cups and saucers, with, if possible, a 
few decanters and tumblers of coarse Russian glass, which 
form the pride of the family. One end of the room is occu¬ 
pied by a fireplace, over which are hung inscriptions con¬ 
taining quotations from the Koran, or from some of the 
Persian poets. 
“ The villages are surrounded with fruit-trees of every 
description, particularly White Mulberries, of which the 
Persians eat enormous quantities; indeed, their consump¬ 
tion of every kind of fruit is prodigious. 
“ The town of Gilpaegan was in a more than ordinary 
state of decay. An impression was made on me of this 
place by a present of a camel-load—really an ass-load—of 
Roses. They had no stalks, and were tied up in a large 
cloth. As soon as it was untied the sweet perfume filled the 
whole tent, and attracted Frances, who sat down in the midst 
of the fragrant heap, and would have made a pretty picture 
with the Roses scattered on her head and lap. I am told 
that in this part of Persia, and in Kermanshah, Melon-fields 
are to be seen three or four miles in length, and a mile and 
a half in breadth. I really believe there is no exaggeration 
in the statement. 
“ The approach to the town of Ooroomeeya is highly pic¬ 
turesque ; it is situated in a fine plain bearing the same 
name, with the mountains of Koordistan on one side and the 
lake on the other. The cultivation of this valley is very rich. 
For twelve miles it is surrounded with gardens, intermingled 
with Melon-grounds, Cotton and Tobacco-fields: the latter, 
of high estimation for chibouk-smoking, is sent in large 
quantities to Constantinople; but for the kalian, or water- 
pipe, the tobacco of Sheeraz is the only thing tolerated in 
‘ good society,’ and is of a flavour and delicacy which would 
reconcile it to the regal olfactories of the first James himself. 
“ The Shah had in his service a first-rate English gar¬ 
dener, Mr. Burton, and with his help I astonished every 
one with the fineness of my Celery, Cauliflowers, Ac., for 
these useful edibles occupied my mind more than flowers. 
Gardening in Persia is not an easy matter to bring to per¬ 
fection. First there is the difficulty of making the gar¬ 
deners do as they are told, and then twice every week the 
garden is flooded and the beds drowned. When the spring 
comes on and the sun gets strong and fierce, the beds dry up 
soon, and look like baked earth, cracked and dry, until the 
next water day, when they are changed into mud. The 
ground is covered with snow during January and February, 
so that March and April in spring, and October, November, 
and December in the autumn and beginning of winter, are 
the only months fit for the cultivation of a garden. The 
power of the sun in summer is so intense, that flowers blow 
and wither in a day. Roses come in about the 24th of April, 
and are out of season in Tehran by the middle of May. 
During that time they are in wonderful profusion, and are 
cultivated in fields as an*object of trade to make rose-water; 
they are an inferior kind of Cabbage Rose. Persians are 
also fond of cultivating Tuberoses, Narcissus, and Tulips in 
water ; still all their flowers are much inferior to ours, but 
while they last are superabundant. I got over some fine 
l Hyacinths one year, and they attracted great admiration. 
Nearly all our garden flowers grow wild in Persia, but are 
small, and always single. 
“ The large garden attached to the mission, in which we 
perform our daily perambulations, was on the opposite side 
of the road or street; yet even for this short distance we 
were forced to submit to the tiresome etiquette of being at¬ 
tended by numerous servants. I never went out to drive 
with less than fifteen or twenty horsemen armed to the teeth; 
not that there was the remotest shadow of danger, for no 
country is safer than Persia, but that dignity so required. 
Yet this troublesome grandeur was trifling to the cavalcade 
of a Persian lady or gentleman of rank. Our garden was but 
a melancholy place of recreation: lugubrious rows of Cypress, 
the emblem of the graveyard in the East, crossed each 
other at right angles; and, to complete the picture, the de¬ 
serted, neglected, little tombs of some of the children of 
former ministers occupied a prominent space, and filled one 
sometimes with gloomy forebodings. The gardeners of this 
spot, which, in spite of the above disadvantages, was in¬ 
valuable to me, by an old custom of the mission, were 
always Gebrs of the ancient fire - worshipping native race. 
These people are most industrious, and struggle hard under 
oppression and bigotry to gain a subsistence. They dwell 
chiefly in the eastern province of Yezd, from whence they 
migrate annually in great numbers during spring, something 
like the Irish reapers and mowers of old ; and before winter 
they assemble in the mission garden, and with their humble 
gains return in a body to their own province. In Tehran 
their abode is the mission garden, where I have sometimes 
seen 200 of this primitive people collected under the trees, 
where they live. The garden is recognised as their sanc¬ 
tuary and place of refuge, where no hand of violence 
molests them. They preserve a connection with their 
brethren the Parsees of Bombay, and it is on this account, 
in all likelihood, that their intercourse with us is so intimate. 
In these improving days of Persia this protection is less 
necessary than formerly, particularly as the present Prime 
Minister is a man of much humanity, and willing to befriend 
this hapless community, who, in their own province, stiller 
great hardships from the rapacity of governors and the 
bigotry of moollas. They are a simple, uneducated class, 
more rustic and uncouth in their appearance and manners 
than Mahomedan Persians of the same condition. Little 
or no information could be gained from them regarding 
their religion and customs. They said there was one great 
God that ruled everything, and that he had created nu¬ 
merous other gods or angels, who superintend the affairs of 
the world ; there was a futurity of rewards and punishments; 
