64 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ April, 
— ££he culture of Alpine Plants, in con¬ 
junction with, that of Hardy Perennials, was 
the subject of a paper recently submitted to the 
Dundee Horticultural Association, by Mr. T. H. Miln. 
In reference to Alpines, he observed that though 
many hardy mountaineers will not live in our borders 
if we overlook their natural requirements, yet with 
some forethought and attention they will thrive for 
years. A plant whose native soil is bog-peat or 
rocky grit cannot be expected to thrive in a stiff 
tenacious soil, without some preparation. In any 
ordinary good garden soil, a considerable number 
of alpine plants will thrive fairly, though there 
are others that require to be specially cared for. 
Many which otherwise would perish do well when 
planted in a mixture of leaf-mould and small stones, 
such as surface-rakings, placing a few flat stones 
round the collar of the plant, and covering them 
with a thin sprinkling of soil. The stones act as a 
mulch, and keep the roots moist and cool. 
— ®he wintering of Echeveria glauca 
may be very easily effected by the following 
plan, adopted by Mr. Childs, the gardener, at 
Garbrand Hall, Ewell, as recorded in the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle :—When winter is approaching, the plants 
are lifted, and the soil shaken clean away ; they are 
then tied in bunches of three, and hung on the back 
wall of a vinery, where they continue in perfect 
health. The plan is very simple and very safe. 
— £n Mr. Samuel Wood’s Ladies’ Multum- 
in-Paryo Flower Garden (Crosby Lockwood 
and Co.), we have an elegant little volume of 
some 200 pages, well got-up, and containing a good 
deal of sound common-sense instruction in the 
management of small gardens. The writer’s natural 
history is, however, somewhat at fault, as, for example, 
when he states that the thrips (written tlirip) 
“ pierces the cuticle with its boring ovipositor, and 
then lies close and quite still, though it continues to 
draw the juices of the plant into itself.” He is 
also altogether at fault about dressing carnations, 
since though it is permissible to “ extract disquali¬ 
fied petals,” it is not so “ to place artificial or false 
ones in it;” nor does the dressing change the char¬ 
acter of the flower, which, as a garden flower, is 
equally beautiful before as after the operation. As 
to “ dressing carnations so as to alter the marking,” 
the very idea is an absurdity. Notwithstanding a 
few such drawbacks, we rather like the book, for a 
hurried glance through its pages shows a preponder¬ 
ance of sound but simple instructions how to carry 
out the operations recommended, such as may be 
likely to be useful to lady gardeners. 
— |«r. h. 0. Stewart’s Handy-Book of 
Window-Gardening (Barrett and Son) is a 
pamphlet written by the Treasurer of the St. 
Marylebone Flower Show Committee, with the object 
of assisting the class of persons for whose benefit 
the various exhibitions of window-gardening are 
organised. The effort is a laudable one, but the in¬ 
formation given scarcely reaches down to the level 
of the class for whom the treatise is intended, and is 
sometimes altogether unnecessary, as where the com¬ 
position or origin of peat or bog earth is described. 
Many of the hints given on practical points are use¬ 
ful, but the reasons given are not always to be ac¬ 
cepted, as in the case where the necessity for an 
annual repotting is attributed to the accumulation 
of excrementitious matter thrown off by the roots, 
rather than to the exhaustion of the plant-food in 
the soil. Altogether, the little treatise is better 
suited for parlour-gardeners than for window- 
gardeners. 
— JIn a pamphlet., entitled Floods 
(Fletcher, Norwich), “ Aquarius ” shows how 
floods are caused in many cases by the 
too rapid, passage of the rainfall to our streams 
and rivers—a result of civilisation; aDd he pro¬ 
poses to prevent the disastrous accumulations of 
water by making tanks, ponds, and reservoirs 
to catch and store the surplus. If such ponds 
and reservoirs were formed by the roadsides, he 
argues that the water which otherwise runs to the 
rivers would be arrested in its course; the mud and 
silt it carries with it, wdiich fills up the water-courses, 
would also be caught; and this, in dry weather, or at 
convenient opportunities, could be cleared out, and 
not having had its goodness washed out, as is the 
case with river-mud, w'ould serve to highly enrich 
the adjacent garden, farm, or pasture lands. These 
remarks are introductory to a scheme of the writer’s 
for the efficient drainage of the Lower Yare, Waveney, 
and Bure Yalleys. 
Ett fflrmomm. 
— IHu. Eobert Adamson died on February 
25th, at Elie, Fifesbire. He was, from 1843 
to 1874, gardener at Balcarres, Colinsburgb, in 
the same county, his employers being first General 
Lindsay and subsequently Sir Coutts Lindsay, Bart., 
who made him a retiring allowance. Mr. Adamson, 
who was in his 70th year, began his gardening 
career at Springfield, near Cupar Fife, and subse¬ 
quently came to England, and spent several years at 
Claremont and other places. At Balcarres he de¬ 
signed and laid out the terrace gardens, which 
are considered second only to those at Drummond 
Castle. 
— ^Lieutenant W. A. Nesfield, the emi¬ 
nent landscape gardener, died on March 2, at 
his residence, 3 York Terrace, Eegent’s Park, 
aged 88 years. The deceased gentleman was one 
of the few remaining officers who served in the 
Peninsular War. After leaving the Army his 
taste for painting led him to become one of the 
earliest members of the old Water-Colour Society, 
of which he Avas for thirty years an active exhibit¬ 
ing member. Later in life he took up landscape 
gardening as a profession, which his education as 
an engineer at Woolwich, and his talent as an artist, 
well qualified him to fulfil. In this capacity he was 
constantly consulted. The Koval Horticultural 
Society’s Gardens at Kensington were planned by 
him. 
— ftfR. James Alexander, late senior 
partner of the firm of Messrs. Dicksons and 
Co., Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, died at Bed- 
braes on March 12, in his 76th year. Mr. Alexander 
was a native of Banffshire, and in 1824 went to 
Edinburgh, and entered as assistant in the seed 
warehouse of Messrs. Dicksons and Co., where his 
untiring devotedness to business, and his straight¬ 
forward manliness, were soon recognised, and he 
was not long in working his way to the head of his 
department. He was for a short time dissociated 
from this firm, but on the death of the senior partner 
he rejoined it as partner of Mr. Scott, the surviving 
member. Since Mr. Scott’s death, in 1862, Mr. 
Alexander was senior partner of the firm, until his 
retirement from business, two years ago. 
