116 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 22, 1860. 
that it is difficult to transmit heat downwards, but also consider, 
as proved by previously recorded experiments, that it will be so 
far so transmitted. Ilad I plenty of dry fern, however, in the 
month of October, I do not think, unless in the case of very 
early forcing, that more heat would bo required than would be 
retained first in the soil, and then communicated to it by the 
languid fermentation. The more shallow the roots, the more 
some kind of covering is necessary—first, to protect them; and, 
secondly, to attract them to keep equally shallow. For roots 
two feet or more deep, a little litter is all that is necessary merely 
to prevent the ground getting extra cold. No covering on the 
surface would do much to influence them there. A mild heat on 
the surface of the border, and a fair portion of moisture, just 
say to the active roots, “ Come here'and en joy yourselves.” With¬ 
out such enticements upwards, downward after heat and moisture 
they will go. One reason why some of us were caught last 
October was owing to the previous fine, mild, sunny weather. 
The sun’s rays on a Vine-border are, after all, the best warming- 
pan. Once come to this conclusion, and what are we to think of 
heavily 
Cropping Vine Borders ?—Cropping with early Potatoes would 
be as unobjectionable as any, as I should expect the border to be 
clear by Midsummer, or shortly afterwards. The longer the tops 
were there, the more injury would they create. Such a vinery 
begun in March would, as respects its border, if the roots were 
not very shallow, need but little protection. If begun earlier, 
more attention would be needed. I think not so much of the 
Potato-roots exhausting the border, though that would be some¬ 
thing. The shade of the tops, first in preventing free evaporation 
and keeping the sunbeams from the soil, would be much more 
ruinous. I have examined earth under a thick canopy of Mig¬ 
nonette, and such things on such borders, that I will not trust 
myself to say how many degrees lower it was in temperature than 
soil at an equal depth fully exposed. Besides, the soil was dry, and 
the Potatoes would make it drier, and, therefore, the roots under 
such circumstances, in mere self defence would go downwards 
in search of what they needed; and the deeper they went, and the 
earlier the Vines were forced, the likelier the tendency to wired, 
Bhanked, and bad-coloured bunches. Watering, &c., I find I 
must defer. R. Fish. 
BUILDING A SMALL FERN-HOUSE. 
We have a small greenhouse 17 feet long, with a brick wall 10 
feet high at the back. The back has a south aspect. Will it do 
to build our Fern-house at the back of this wall, and to cover it 
with glass the same as the greenhouse? The greenhouse is 
heated with hot water. The boiler is at the east end of the 
house, therefore we can heat both houses with the same boiler. 
Will the Fern-house require windows for giving air ?—J ack-of- 
all-Tbades. 
[Your Fern-house will answer admirably. We should have 
the roof all fixed, and a small window in cacli end near the ridge 
made to open. In very warm weather in summer the door might 
be opened at times.] 
INFLUENCE OF THE MOON OVER THE 
WEATHER, 
Is it not true that M. Duhamel, M. Toaldo, and other men of 
science, have maintained that the moon has a considerable in¬ 
fluence over the weather ? If they entertained such an opinion, 
can you state what rules they established for foretelling rainy and 
fair weather ?— Este. 
[It is quite true that Duhamel, Toaldo, and many other 
meteorologists considered the moon a dictatress of the weather; 
but Sir W. Herschell, Sir J. Lubbock, and other more recent ob¬ 
servers of the seasons denied that the moon has any such in¬ 
fluence. In reply to your query, however, we republish the 
following from a work by Col. James Capper, published at Cardilf 
about fifty years since. Its object is to show that similar seasons 
occur every nineteenth year. Those who remember the spring of 
1841, will be able to say whether, in the same locality, it has 
hitherto resembled the spring of 1860; and so, too, they may 
compare 1859 with 1840. 
“ In the ‘ Connoissance des Temps ’ of the year 1780, page 
324, a striking resemblance is noted by M. Duhamel, in the 
temperature of the years 1701, 1720, 1739, 1753, aud 1777. But 
to come nearer to our own time, the warmth and drought of the 
summer of 1781 and 1800 must now be well remembered by 
many. The former has been repeatedly mentioned in a variety 
of foreign journals ; and the latter is recorded, as before observed 
in our own tables; and also by Mr. Bent, who has published 
meteorological journals kept by him in London for many years. 
In his general remarks on the year 1800, he says, ‘ The dis¬ 
tinguishing feature in this year is a hot and dry summer, little 
more than an inch of rain fell in the former part of J une; and 
from the 22nd of that month a continued drought prevailed for 
fifty-eight days to the 19th of August.’ But the trutli of our 
hypothesis respecting the effects produced by the circulation of 
the electrical fluid from the periodical return of the tides, which 
are coincident with the revolution of the moon, need not rest on 
the bare testimony of one or two solitary facts." Toaldo, than 
whom no person has paid more attention to this subject, in 
a new edition of his ‘ Saggio Meteorologico,’ published 1781, 
very confidently asserts that the return of cold and warm, wet 
and dry years, evidently corresponds with the return of eclipses; 
which of course only occur at the expiration of about eighteen 
years and eleven days.” 
TABLE OP LTTNAE CYCLES. 
1819 
1838 
1857 
1876 
1826 
1815 
1864 
1883 
1820 
1839 
1858 
1877 
1827 
1840 
1865 
1884 
1821 
1810 
1859 
1878 
1828 
1847 
.1860 
1885 
1822 
1841 
1800 
1879 
1829 
1818 
1867 
1886 
1S23 
1842 
1861 
1880 
1830 
1849 
1868 
1887 
1824 
1843 
1802 
1881 
1831 
1850 
1809 
1888 
1825 
1844 
1863 
1882 
1832 
1851 
1870 
1889 
GENEALOGY of the CRYSTAL PALACE SCARLET 
AND IMPROVED FROGMORE GERANIUMS. 
“ Faib Play,” a gentleman in the Lothians, who has sent us 
his name, was told by “ a most respectable London firm that 
the Crystal Palace Scarlet is just the same as the Improved 
Frogmore.” To speak mildly, that was “amost respectable” great 
mistake; for no nurseryman can gainsay the records of the 
“ stud ” book, to which we have applied in order to be able to 
satisfy our correspondent, who dates from the most celebrated 
garden within fifty miles of Edinburgh. 
Frogmore Scarlet had the greatest run yet as a bedding Gera¬ 
nium ; it was a seedling by the present gardener of Her Majesty 
at Windsor or Frogmore, Mr. Ingram. Some years after the 
birth of Frogmore Scarlet, Mr. Toward, Her Majesty’s head man 
at Osborne, had a favourite Scarlet with the late Duchess of 
Gloucester, which lie called King of Scarlets. From eighteen 
years to twenty-four years back these two were the registered 
first veins in spirit and in blood for bedding on the turf, and 
hundreds of crosses were had from their united breed. Twenty 
years back Lady Agnes Byng was the best seedling of that breed; 
and the Improved Frogmore of that “ most respectable firm ” is 
one of six different names which referred only to one plant, and 
the plant was Lady Agnes Byng, or Alice Byng, we forget 
which; but her Ladyship lived at Livermere in Suffolk at the 
time, and Mr. Dick, from Ballendean in the Carse of Gowrie, was 
her gardener then. Tom Thumb was a seedling down that gate 
soon after from the same strain, and it put Lady Agnes or Alice 
Byng, and her mother and father, the Frogmore and Bagshot 
Scai-lets, on the shelf. Then Tom must have been better than all 
that breed for the turf. 
Now Tom himself is being superseded by another and still a 
better kind from the very same blood. The Crystal Palace kind 
is thus removed two degrees of comparison hi the right direction 
beyond the memory, and the knowledge of one “ most respectable 
firm ” at any rate ; and if that firm has nothing more respectable 
to offer to the Lothian gardeners than Improved Frogmores, they 
will have a most respectable balance on the wrong page of the 
book in a very short time, for no respectable gardener would now 
plant an Improved Frogmore in his flower-beds, nor a Boyal 
Dwarf, nor a Collins's Dwarf, nor ten others of the same stamp 
and of the very blood of Frogmore. 
The Trentham Scarlet at Sydenham was derived, in 1843, 
from a sister of Improved Frogmore by the pollen of Towards' 
Bagshot King. Punch is a half-brother to it by the same father 
