(J0 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 4, 1858. 
my tale, but without going much “ round about the 
Instead of going into St. James’s Hall the first day 
of the Horticultural Show, during her Majesty’s 
private visit, as was my wont on similar occasions 
ever since her Majesty was married, I rather availed 
myself of “ Hr. Lindley’s consummate skill, and prac¬ 
tical good sense,” and spent the two hours, from ten 
to twelve, in Air. Wild’s Great Globe, in Leicester 
Square, to look over the latest discoveries in geo¬ 
graphy—Physical Geography being my own hobby. 
Mr. Atkinson’s large book of his travels in Siberia, 
for the last six years, corrects some of Humboldt’s 
positions in Central Asia ; and Hr. Livingstone’s dis¬ 
coveries have “taken” so well, that Air. Wild lias 
made an exception in the doctor’s favour, by indicating 
his routes in detail. AVhat I was curious about was, 
to see how far the unknown parts in the “Travels” 
corresponded with the plan, or map; but I was pre¬ 
pared for the difference, after passing Lake Ngami, 
beyond the route of former travellers. Nor is there 
much, on the face of the great map, to second Hr. 
Livingstone’s supposed source of the Nile. But those 
near London, who want to improve their geography of 
Africa from Hr. Livingstone’s travels, should consult 
the Great Globe in connection with it, as the route is 
clearly given from Kolobeng to the middle of the Great 
Central Y alley, and hence to Loanda, on the west 
coast, and to Quilimane, on the south-east coast, nearly 
opposite the centre of Madagascar. This last is the 
route by which Hr. Livingstone and his party will enter 
Africa; and, after passing up the river Zambesi, out of 
the Portuguese settlement, from the place where they 
will find the first interruption to their steam naviga¬ 
tion, until they reach the Palls of Victoria, the botany 
of that part ought to be the most interesting to gar¬ 
deners of all the places visited by Hr. Livingstone; and 
as we may expect contributions of new plants from 
this expedition, for a long time to come, -who will point 
out a better field for a botanical collector than that P 
or who will say, winch is likely to be the next best 
place for botanising, in the countries embraced in these 
travels ? 
Young gardeners and gardener’s sons ought most 
certainly to make physical geography part of their 
education. It is of the next greatest importance to 
them after vegetable physiology, of which most of our 
good gardeners avail themselves largely every season 
of the year ; and even very ordinary gardeners “ do ” 
a good deal of their doings by the rules of this phy¬ 
siology, without, perhaps, having ever heard of it by 
that name. Here, then, is a good opportunity to test 
the young ideas, on an essential branch of their educa¬ 
tion. You may study from any point on the coast to 
the centre of the Zambesi Valley, the routes from the 
west coast particularly; as, no doubt, great exertions 
will be made to open a road to the west coast from the 
Great Central V alley, to reduce the distance from 
thence to Europe one-half of what it is by the Zam¬ 
besi river. Send us your ideas of the botany of any 
of those routes, or part of such routes, and we shaft 
record them, and wait the issue of this great expedi¬ 
tion under Hr. Livingston. 
Such were my thoughts and ideas when I passed my 
eye over the Abysinian mountains, across the Eed Sea, 
Arabia, and on to the centre of Mr. Atkinson’s travels 
in the great Altai range, which I followed east to the 
Lake of Baikal, and among the hanging woods round 
the lake. The Cedar of Air. Atkinson’s book was the 
most conspicuous, but Mr. Atkinson, like myself, is 
not much of a botanist; his “ skill ” in that direction 
is not “consummate,” most certainly; for he only 
names Pines, Poplars, Birches, and Brambles, and this 
Cedar, w T hich is our Finns cembra. 
Now, after coming home from the exhibition at St. 
James’s Hall, I dreamed I was in a deep forest of 
Finns cembra, on the south-east of the great Lake of 
Baikal, the side next to China; and there, in a beau¬ 
tiful artificial grotto composed of all the different j 
stones, spars, and ores, which compose the great Altai 
chain, I met a Chinese priest, one of those mentioned 
in Fortune’s “ Travels,” and among other plants he 
had several plants of Farfugium grande ; he shov r ed 
me how it came into the w r orld, how it could increase 
and multiply in the world, and how the world might 
soon be rid of it. “ Stop, father,” says I, at this 
point in the dream; “ Can you also tell me how the 
world might soon be rid of a certain friend of mine ?” 
“No, no,” says the father; “ my mission is only to 
reveal some of the hidden secrets of Nature, in her 
vegetable kingdom, to you and such as you to whom 
Nature did not vouchsafe an extraordinary degree of 
‘ consummate skill ’ in such things ; be content wdth 
that information, my son ; teach it to your ow r n kindred, 
and never more aspire to fathom the depth of divina¬ 
tion in respect to getting rid of your friends, for you 
yourself would be the first to mourn over the loss of 
any one of them, no matter how hastily he may have 
treated you.” “ Give me your hand,” says I, “ you 
are just about right; ” but his squeeze awoke me. 
According to his version, Farfugium grande is not a 
native of China, or, rather, not a natural plant at all, so 
to speak; the great Tussilago Jagonica, of some author, 
got diseased under the care of a Chinese gardener, or 
amateur; but, like the rest of them, this amateur, or 
gardener, had a wonderful knack of keeping diseased 
plants for ever so long, and the effect of this length of 
time ou a peculiar disease was, that the disease itself 
could be transmitted to generations of the same plant, 
as the doctors transmit the cowpox by vaccination. 
Propagate the diseased plant in the way we all know 
that constitutional peculiarities can be safely trans¬ 
mitted to a second and succeeding generations of it, 
and the coveted peculiarity—the spotted leaves induced 
by the first disease—is at once and for ever established. 
If the Cninaman had not acted on that “ consum¬ 
mate skill and practical good sense,”- for which a 
certain “barbarian” has been lauded to the echo in 
our happy land, the spotted peculiarity of this plant 
might have been lost to him in the first instance, and 
had not the old woman kept Mr. Fortune in tow later 
than he expected, we, too, might have lost the benefit 
of the Chinaman’s skill; but now, having the benefit I 
of two such lucky hits, let us take the advantage of the 
first of them by the propagation of the plant after the 
Chinese fashion, and if we do not have it on sale in 
Covent Garden Market, by this day twelve months, I 
did not get a vision in the night to much purpose. 
But, how did the Chinaman happen to know of the safest 
way to propagate a plant, so as to inherit a specific peculiarity ? 
Have they tracts on Vegetable Physiology in China? Or j 
what ? i cannot answer these questions, but I can answer for 
it, that I was told that the surest way, and the easiest, and \ 
simplest way to increase Farfugium grande , is by cuttings of 
the leaves with an inch or so of the footstalk, just as one might 
propagate a Fuchsia or a Gloxinia. I was also told, that j 
certain peculiarities affecting plants appear first in their leaves, 
and my own experience has taught me, that unless such leaves 
can be propagated into plants, that all sports which affect the 
leaf only must necessarily be lost, if the disordered juices arc 
allowed to mix and circulate through the normal structure of 
the plant ; but if the sport extends to a portion of the shoot, 
and that portion is cut oil' as soon as it is affected, and made 
into a cutting, that sport is saved ; therefore, the first moment 
you see any ot these sports, make sure of it that way instantly, 
as by allowing it to remain only for a few days, it may get so j 
mixed with the natural juices as to prevent the possibility of j 
retaining it. 
There is one other process, a very simple one, which I would i 
