THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 6, 1858. 
finished ; and, as the fence grows, you will find you have not 
been misled. Allow the Beeches to spread sideways as much 
as they will, and they will interweave themselves with the 
Thorns ; they keep their leaves on until the worst of the wea¬ 
ther is over, and will afford much shelter to the Thorns. By 
the time the Thorns begin to grow, the Beeches will throw off 
their leaves, in order to make another coat for the following 
winter. After this you can follow on with flowering shrubs 
and evergreens, herbaceous and bedding plants, and so on. If 
you think the single row of Sycamores is not enough betwixt 
the two fences, plant a row of Beeches next to the inner fence, 
alternately with the Sycamores.—P. Y. 
Mr situation is much like that of your correspondent’s 
friend. My house “ is on a high and exposed situation, open to 
all the winds of heaven,” but on the western, instead of the 
eastern coast j a circumstance not a little, I imagine, in my 
favour. I am also rather further from the sea, and not with¬ 
out some shelter of old trees. But, what I principally mean 
to refer to at present, is a plantation of a few acres, which I 
made on a steep bank and gully facing the shore, about 300 
yards distant from it, a sandy flat intervening. 
When I set about planting this, a dozen years ago, I began 
by putting in along the low seaward side, where there was a 
rough Hawthorn hedge, a row of Alders and Willows to form 
a brise-vent for the trees behind them. If I had it to do 
again, I think I should add, or substitute, Elder , and Birch. 
The Elder thrives nearer the salt water than any other tree, or 
shrub, and grows readily and quickly from cuttings. The 
Birch is very hardy, and makes a close screen. However, my 
Willows and Alders answered the purpose. 
Behind them, I planted some of all the common trees to be 
found in an ordinary nursery. 
It would not have answered as a profitable investment, for 
I have planted and re-planted, grubbed and re-grubbed (to 
keep down Purze and Briars), but as my operation was on a 
scale that made the expense not very important, I resolved to 
succeed, and I have succeeded, to a considerable extent. 
At the present waiting, the different kinds, in the order of 
their progress, stand thus. Ash, and Sycamore, Wych-Elm, 
Turkey (mossy-cup) Oak, which is decidedly hardier, as well 
as faster-growing, than the common Oaks. After these, the 
progress seems to be more dependent upon casual differences 
of soil and exposure, than upon the kind of tree. The Norway 
Maple, somewhat akin to the Sycamore, has one great ad¬ 
vantage over it—in shedding its leaves of a rich yellow, instead 
of the crumpled, burned-looking brown of the Sycamore, which 
is a positive deformity. 
As to the Conifers, this is not a Fir country, but I strongly 
recommend the BlacJc Austrian , which seems to be as in¬ 
different to “December’s snow and July’s pride,” as William 
of Delorraine , and it seems to grow where anything else would 
die of hunger. Pinaster is also very hardy, but it docs not 
take fast hold of the ground, and is blown down.— Senex. 
NOTES FROM THE CONTINENT.—No. 21. 
CHARLOTTENBURG. 
The marriage of the Princess Royal will have familiarised 
the readers of the English newspapers with the names of two 
of the palaces, in the neighbourhood of Berlin; I refer to 
Bellevue and Charlottenburg, and it may be expected that I 
should state what there is of horticultural interest belonging to 
them. It is not much that can be said in favour of either. The 
only feature of note about the first-named is, that it is one of 
the few places where Pine Apples are grown here; but they 
are remarkably poor. The plants are scarcely larger than 
ordinary suckers, and the largest ripe fruit I saw there, in 
summer, could not have weighed more than II lb. 
With a liberal outlay, the royal gardens at Charlottenburg 
might be rendered really beautiful; though the soil is sandy, 
and the surface too flat, the requisites in the way of fine 
old timber trees, and a large expanse of water, are present, 
and could easily be turned to good account. But truth com¬ 
pels me to say, that the most unmistakable signs of neglect are 
everywhere apparent. The palace was built by Frederick the 
Great, who also, it will be recollected, married an English 
Princess, Sophia Charlotte, the daughter of George the First. 
The flower garden, which occupies the square, on three sides 
of which the palace is built, is laid out in a complicated geo¬ 
metrical design; but from its being badly planted, coupled 
with the excessive heat of the past season, it at no time looked 
well. Here, too, during the summer months, the magnificent 
Orange trees were arranged. No royal garden is thought 
complete without its collection of standard Oranges, though, 
as in this case, they usually look yellow and unhealthy. At 
the back of the palace the grounds, flanked by the river Spree, 
are laid out in the English style of landscape gardening, and 
have a tolerably good effect. These grounds are thrown open 
to the public, and are much frequented, particularly on Sun¬ 
days, at which time hundreds of persons may be seen feeding 
the tame, and enormously large, carp, which abound in a fine 
artificial lake. This sheet of water might, with very little 
trouble or expense, be made a most beautiful feature of the 
grounds. The banks and shallow parts are covered with a 
tall, elegant kind of reed ( Phragmites communis). The stems 
of this plant, being straight, light, and strong, are used for the 
making of an effectual kind of shading for frames and houses. 
They are laid side by side, and, being connected with two or 
three parallel strings, may be rolled or unrolled easily. 
In one part of the grounds is a fine avenue of the sombre 
Scotch Pine, which terminates in a circle of the same kind of 
trees, 150 feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle—sur¬ 
rounded by Weeping Willows, beneath which, in su mm er, 
bloom the white Lily and belts of the Forget-me-not—is a 
beautiful Doric mausoleum, erected to the memory of the late 
Queen Louisa. 
A walk at right angles to this leads to where a fine tree of 
the Norfolk Island Pine ( Araucaria excelsd) is planted out. 
It is at least five-and-thirty feet high, and is now covered with 
a conical structure of glass and wood, to protect it from the 
frost. A furnace is erected, and a flue carried round it; and, 
to economise space, there are at intervals shelves, one above 
another, on which scarlet Geraniums and Fuchsias are stored 
for the winter. 
I found the kitchen garden in a still more neglected state 
than the other parts of the ground. This soil was literally 
covered with rank weeds, far over-topping the crops which 
were buried beneath them. There is not a sufficient number 
of men employed to keep the place clean. 
It is greatly to be hoped that the Princess will be in Prussia 
as great a patron of horticulture as her royal parents are in 
England, and that she will give to gardening that support 
which, since the death of the late Ring, it has not here re¬ 
ceived.— Karl. 
ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY’S MEETING. 
The March Meeting of the Entomological Society, held 
on the 1st ult., was very fully attended; the new President, 
Dr. 1. E. Gray, F.R.S., of the British Museum, being in the 
chair. Mr. F. Smith exhibited a number of insects, of all 
orders, just received from Mr. Foxcroft, being the first in¬ 
stalment of his collections at Sierra Leone, where he has 
recently arrived on an entomological excursion. The Lepi- 
doptera were very numerous, and in excellent preservation. 
They had been taken in the gardens at Freetown. He had 
also sent a great quantity of specimens of the Driver Ant 
{Anommce Burmisteri ), the habits of which had been de¬ 
scribed by Dr. Savage, the American missionary, who had 
observed it at Cape Palmas. Amongst these Ants, Mr. Smith 
had discovered a new Myrmecophilous Beetle, belonging to 
the family StapliylinidcB, and apparently to the genus Myrme- 
donia , remarkable for the long bristles at the extremity of the 
body. Mr. F. Smith also exhibited and described a number 
of very interesting nests of different kinds of llymenoyterous 
insects, collected at Port Natal by M. Guenzius. The nests 
of Eumenes tincta are composed of cells made of mud, and in 
these a parasite of the genus Stilbum , belonging to the family 
Chrysididce , contrives to introduce her eggs. The nest of j 
Synagris calyda is formed of fresh clay fixed on doors, with j 
a store of the caterpillars of Noctuce , collected from fissures in 
the bark of trees. The Pelopceus chalybceus forms its cells in 
hollow tubes of bamboo under the verandahs of houses, 
storing them with spiders as food for the young lame when , 
hatched, and separating the cells from each other with layers 
