102 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 18, 1858. 
feet beyond the leaflets, and is armed with sharp hooks, by 
which it naturally clings to other trees, and thereby supports 
the stem which is not strong enough to stand erect. In this 
we see one of those marvellous adaptations of means to an 
end, which meet the eye of the student of Nature at every 
turn. Near it was a plant of the very rare Areca Danksii, 
named after the great circumnavigator; Areng saccharifera , 
the East Indian sugar-producing Palm; Chamcedorea gram- 
minifolia. , most elegant of all the tribe ; and, trained to one 
of tiie pillars, the climbing C. scandens , the leaf-stalk of 
which is curiously jointed, so that the leaves droop as though 
broken. A fine young plant of the monster Dragon tree 
(Dracaena Draco), of which we have all read ; and some 
poble Screw Pines, particularly Pandanus utilis and the long¬ 
leaved D. furcates. These deserve to be more cultivated; 
in the reports of English Elower Shows, I have only seen 
I mention made of the dwarf P. Javanicus among the foliage 
plants. 
There are many other houses containing a vast collection 
of well-grown plants, but I did not notice anything very new 
among them. I must not, however, omit to mention the 
collection of standard Orange trees, the healthiest I have 
seen. In the same house were some excellent standard 
Myrtles, Bays, and Portugal Laurels ; and several cork &aks, 
which will not bear the winter here. 
Although almost dark before I left, I had a glimpse of 
! the flower garden, which appears to be extensive and well 
laid out, but at the time of my visit looking, of course, 
dreary enough. A good deal of praise has been bestowed 
upon the fountains and jets-d’eau here, but one feature 
! ought decidedly to be done away with, and that is the puny 
| artificial rockwork, combined with the highly-finished archi- 
! tectural balustrading of the terrace. 
Below the flower garden, are walks between high closely- 
clipped hedges, in the most artificial and almost painfully- 
formal style of gardening. In one place these hedges are 
formed into a sylvan theatre, which has occasionally been 
histrionically used.— Ivarl. 
EARLY TULIPS—CATALOGUE 
ARRANGEMENTS. 
Early Tulips are now (May 3) at them best, and if the 
weather was but genial enough to expand their cups, they 
would be very beautiful indeed; even in dull 'weather they are 
very effective. I have long been a great admirer of the section 
in small selections ; but I now feel certain of what I have 
long predicted, that for a season in early spring the flower 
garden may be so garnished with these flowers as to be more 
brilliant than in autumn. The present chilly, cloudy weather 
is nearly as unfavourable for these gay harbingers of spring, 
as were the previous dry, parching days, when, for want of 
more surface moisture, the blossom begun to droop each after¬ 
noon, and since which some of the flowers show the parching 
effects of too much sunlight by the burnt-white margins. 
Some kinds are more subject to this than others. Again, 
j the early morning hours, if fine, with sun from eight to eleven 
or twelve, are, in my opinion, the most favourable ones to take 
| the true effect and shade of colours before the strong mid¬ 
day and afternoon sun imparts such a reflected glare of colour 
which does not deceive the eye under a medium and softened 
tone of light. There is also such a disparity of colour between 
the exterior and the interior: in favour of the former in a 
majority of kinds, especially in the parti-coloured yellow ones, 
that I take it as a general rule that degree of merit in beauty 
must be taken from the interior, and in such I simply give 
the ground colour in connection with the brilliant or rich- 
coloured bands of colour within ; but in the pure white and 
sliaded-white grounds the beautiful cerise-crimson stripes and 
; feathers arc nearly, if not altogether, as clear outwardly as 
inwardly. All ground colours having the edge of the sepals 
well defined in a distinct colour are, more or less, picturesque 
and effective outwardly • but where the ground colour gradu¬ 
ally merges into a lighter shade, the merit of such has to fall 
back upon the tint of colour forming the general basis in- 
wardly. I make a distinction between ground colour and 
! sur ace colour 5 the former applying to the predominant one, 
: as to quantity or extent; and the latter to the stripes, or flakes, 
or bands, laid on, though this distinction is not to be spe¬ 
cifically applied to the present subject. 
In our forthcoming bedding-plant and soft-wooded cata¬ 
logue, I have, for the first time, attempted to give more j 
definite terms (by adapting a rule) to the descriptions of j 
Geraniums , &c. You know the very irregular style hitherto 
given by catalogue-makers—sometimes commencing with one 
feature, and sometimes with another, without any definite 
term to express the ground colour • and I am not certain j 
that I have always been clear and uniform in my application I 
of terms.— William Wood, at E, G, Henderson and Son's, 
Wellington Hoad Nursery, 
■ 
i 
— - 
INDICATOR BEE STAND. 
As I neither wish, nor expect, to realise profit by the sale of 
the indicator bee stand, w'hich is advertised in connection 
with my name, I may, perhaps, be permitted to call the at¬ 
tention of bee-keepers to its object, and construction. Last 
year I suggested, in the pages of a popular journal,* the ad¬ 
vantage to those who make a study of the honey bee, of some 
means of indicating the progress of a colony during the I 
season, so as to obviate the clumsy expedient of a steelyard. 
The plan on which I then proposed to construct an indicator, 
namely, by means of a spiral spring, I was assured by many 
friends would fail utterly, and for a time I gave no further 
attention to the subject. On consulting lately a clever me¬ 
chanician, he assured me my proposal was in every way a 
practical one, and in proof of it he produced a bee stand, 
after the model shown in my sketch in the article referred 
to, and it proves to bo just the thing that was required, to 
render the daily observation of the bee additionally instruc¬ 
tive and pleasurable. As any one handy in the use of car¬ 
penter’s tools might make such a stand, I will briefly describe 
it. The hive board rests on a square solid piston, which 
plays freely up and down in a hollow post of inch stuff, to 
the front of which is affixed a dial plate. Inside the hollow 
post, just below the dial, is a cross piece, on. which rests a 
spiral spring, tempered to bear a pressure of sixty pounds. 
The hive with swarm is to be placed on the stand, and the 
weight, which the index indicates, is to be noted down. As 
* “National Magazine,” No. 44. 
