January 29, 1887. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
845 
quantity of cuttings are produced for the coming winter 
stock, when the old plants are discarded. By propa¬ 
gating annually, we get plants of stronger constitution, 
better habit and deeper-coloured flowers. The cuttings 
strike readily in a compost of peat, loam, leaf-soil and 
sand, provided with a temperature of about 80° and 
gentle bottom heat. When well rooted they are 
gradually hardened in a more airy structure and shifted 
into 3-in. pots. One stopping will suffice, and by the 
middle of July they will be ready for their first shift, 
using the same compost as before described, only in a 
rougher state. 
Six-inch pots will generally he found sufficiently 
large to produce good-sized plants, with an average of 
six to seven leading shoots, and should be grown in 
cool frames or pits with plenty of air and direct sun¬ 
shine to thoroughly ripen their growth ; and if intro¬ 
duced into heat at the beginning of October, a welcome 
Animals have lived on plants ever since the Creation ; 
but it is also true that some plants have begun to turn 
the tables on the animals by entrapping and eating 
them whenever they can. As you know, Mr. Darwin 
has proved beyond a doubt that some plants not only 
entrap, but actually digest, insects or small portions of 
fresh animal food ; but I think it will be a long time 
ere evolution lands us into an age wherein the plants 
generally shall enter into a league to eat up all the 
animals, in the way the Borneans of to-day are trying 
to eat up all the rats. It is, nevertheless, a fact 
that there are some few plants found in this and other 
countries which are all the better for a meat diet now 
and then. 
“ Of all decorative arts—of all pleasant pastimes, gar¬ 
dening still remains as one of the most popular to-day ; 
and one reason why it has afforded so much delight, 
and still remains to us as an attraction, may be found in 
if grown in the garden of a queen. When we come to 
consider the early history of flowers, as used for 
decoration or personal uses, we find that the wild or 
native flowers were first employed. Of course all plants 
are wild somewhere or other in the world, and the most 
showy of these were at first selected for decorative 
uses. The Champaca, Jasmine, Nelumbium, and 
Orchids of various kinds were so used in India from 
the earliest times, while in the Western tropics the 
most beautiful of the native wild flowers were also 
employed, long, long before the woad-painted, skin- 
clad Briton saw aught to admire in a wild ltosebud, or 
in flowers of Honeysuckle or of Hawthorn. 
“ It is very probable that the first plants ever culti¬ 
vated were grown for use as food or for their medicinal 
virtues rather than for their beauty; but in the 
herbarium of the museum at Cairo, also at Kew and 
the British Museum, may be seen to-day the mummy 
PiUELLIA MACEANTHA : FLOWERS EOSY PURPLE. 
display of their much appreciated and distinct-coloured 
flowers will fully compensate for the little trouble 
bestowed on them.— J. F., Dorset.” 
-—>X<—- 
FLOWERS AND GARDENS. 
On the 20th inst., Mr. F. W. Burbidge delivered a 
lecture on this subject in the Litton Hall, Leeson Park, 
Dublin, and in the course of his remarks, said 
“ O nc e upon a time it was my duty to travel in Borneo, 
where the natives have a custom of eating rats. An 
old chief whom I questioned solemnly told me the fol¬ 
lowing story:—‘A long long time ago,’ he said, ‘all 
our villagers had marvellous crops of Bice. One 
morning a host of rats appeared, and devoured the grain 
left in the fields. Then the head man arose and said, 
The rats have eaten up our Bice, and now we must 
eat up the rats.’ ” And it was so. Now, this story 
you can believe or not ; but something of the same 
kind of philosophy is going on amongst plants to-day. 
its ever-changing character. One of the great charms 
of gardening is the interest it excites, and the amount 
of pleasure gardeners obtain during their rambles ; for 
I need scarcely say they will be most anxious to see the 
plants grown in other gardens besides their own. Apart 
altogether from the decorative or beautiful aspect of 
flowers and green leaves, such things have a teaching 
power peculiarly their own, and this is especially so 
where there are children. One of the best of lessons to 
instil into the minds of young people is that all flowers 
are beautiful, for it is these that our greatest poets have 
most delighted to honour. Daisies, Bluebells, Prim¬ 
roses, Daffodils, Snowdrops, Violets, wild Boses and 
Woodbine have all been woven into song and story 
from the time of Chaucer to the days of Tennyson. 
The one great charm which lingers round our garden 
blossoms is their beautiful reality. They are essentially 
genuine. In art and literature generally the poor man 
must put up with a makeshift, but a Lily, an Iris, or a 
Pansy in a cottage garden is as real and as beautiful as 
wreaths of Egyptian flowers culled by hands and w T oven 
by fingers that tingled with the love, warmth, and life¬ 
blood of 4,000 or 5,000 years ago. The oldest of dried 
flowers in herbaria—that is, of flowers especially pre¬ 
pared for scientific purposes—do not date back further 
than the middle of the sixteenth century, and yet we 
find that flowers were used in Egyptian ceremonies 
some 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. About sixty distinct 
kinds of plants and flowers have been identified, and 
by placing these in warm water Dr. Schweinfurth, of 
Cairo, has succeeded in preparing a series of specimens 
gathered 4,000 years ago. The blue Water Lily, or 
Lotus, the Poppy, the Larkspur, Flax, Charlock, 
Knapweed, and other flowers are perfectly preserved, 
the garlands being woven together with strips of the 
Nile reed, or papyrus of the ancient scribes. I should 
like to see a garden of not less than a quarter of an 
acre around every country cottage or dwelling-house, 
and more especially is it to be desired that a garden 
should be attached to all country and suburban public 
