298 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
January 9, 1897. 
first of which is the formation of borders. I think 
too much importance has been attached to forming 
elaborate borders ; the results seldom equal anticipa¬ 
tions, whereas a border formed of sound fibrous 
loam, with a good sprinkling of plaster or mortar 
refuse will, according to my experience, give much 
better and more lasting results. What we require is 
a sound, solid, but porous border, that may be 
termed a store-house for the roots to draw all the 
food they require from as needed. This food can be 
supplied from the surface by the cultfvator in such a 
manner as his judgment may deem advisable- 
Another advantage arising from this surface feeding 
is that the roots always come to the top for the good 
fare provided for them, thereby getting all the 
benefit of solar influences, as well as immediate 
increased vigour when fertilisers are applied. 
What those fertilisers should be must depend to a 
great extent on the soil, such things as Vines, 
Peaches, and in fact all stone fruits must have lime 
and potash. Lime may be applied with advantage 
in the form of bone-meal, or superphosphate, and 
potash in the form of muriate of potash or kainit. 
Another very powerful fertiliser that I have used in 
connection with the above is muriate of ammonia 
(sal-ammoniac). This must always be used with 
care, as it would soon do serious injury if applied 
carelessly ; however, when employed judiciously, it is 
a great aid to any fruit-bearing tree, either under 
glass or outside, that may be carrying a heavy crop 
of which there appears to be some doubt of finishing 
properly. 
For a number of years I have practised with 
chemical manures on Vines and other fruits, and I 
can safely assert that they are of immense service. 
If used with discretion not only do they add to the 
weight of crops, but likewise to the size of the fruit, 
colour, and flavour. There are also many artificial 
manures on the market all more or less of assistance 
to the gardener ; but the difficulty is to know which 
is the most adapted to your soil, and consequently 
the most economical. To discover which, some 
chemical knowledge is necessary, and there is no 
question that it would pay all cultivators of the soil 
to acquire some knowledge of chemistry ; it would 
prove of great value, especially to young men, who 
have their way to work in the world. 
-**»- 
QUEENSLAND. 
In these days, when so many men of all classes, tired 
of the strife and strain of commercial life are turning 
naturally for relief to the land and its quieter pur¬ 
suits, we hear, in this connection, too much of 
England’s expensive and overcrowded acres and 
too little of the millions of cheap, sparsely-settled 
lands of our colonies. This is said, not in dispraise 
of the Mother Country, but merely in justice to her 
colonial estates, which, in this regard, do not get 
notice enough in our everyday news-sheets. These 
remarks were directly suggested by the perusal of 
one of the many excellent pamphlets that the 
Queensland Government is plentifully issuing as to 
the fruitfulness, cheapness, and vast area of her land 
that is to lease or sell on easy terms. Queensland 
has reached that settled stage of her history when 
her position as a steady community and an impor¬ 
tant member of the Empire is assured ; she has fixed 
industries that give stability, and has proved that 
her resources—pastoral, agricultural, mining, etc.— 
are to all intents and purposes illimitable. There is 
thus a steady and growing population, and assured 
markets for those who cultivate the soil of Queens¬ 
land. 
In the matter of fruit-growing, for instance, the 
colony offers particularly strong inducements to the 
small capitalist - cultivator. The soil produces 
readily, on the cbast, every tropical fruit, and on the 
high table-lands every product that is grown in the 
temperate zones. For these, as has been said, there 
are good and growing local markets ; while facilities 
for export to the United Kingdom are ever on the 
increase. Amongst the fruits that may be profitably 
raised, the Banana takes a foremost place. This is 
a fruit which crops plentifully and soon, grows no¬ 
where in the world better than in northern Queens¬ 
land, and the land needs little preparation for it. 
Locally, it is looked upon as a staple food as well as 
a luxury, being highly nutritious ; children thrive 
on it amazingly. Again, the Banana carries excel¬ 
lently, and people here at home are rapidly waking 
up to its merits as an agreeable food. 
A company has recently been started to carry 
Bananas direct to England from the West Indies, the 
fruit having hitherto been imported via America. This 
is a sure sign that the Banana has a big future in 
England; considering the fact that virgin soil 
specially suited for Banana growing can be had on 
the easiest of terms in this colony, and the facilities 
that exist for shipment from Queensland, there is no 
reason why her settlers should not have a big share 
in the new trade. The prospects of Queensland as a 
fruit-growing country are, in fact, exceedingly bright, 
and good openings for fruit-growers with energy and 
a little capital are to be found there. 
-- 
FLOWERS AND PLANTS IN CEYLON. 
Writing to a friend in the old country, Mr. H. F. 
Macmillan, curator of the Botanical Garden, Pera- 
deniya, Ceylon, and an old Kewite, relates some 
facts concerning the vegetation in that tropical island, 
as follows 
" Now is the time with you that a glimpse of 
the lovely verdure of vegetation is to be obtained 
only in glasshouses ; but here it is just as rich as 
at any other time of the year. Now, in fact, (15th 
December), is the flowering season of a great 
number of things. The Victoria regia, which has 
never before been managed at Peradeniya, nor in 
Ceylon, has been flowering freely for more than a 
month in our ornamental lake here. Next year I 
hope to be able to raise a number of this interesting 
aquatic, the flowering of which has well-nigh caused 
a sensation. Curiously enough, it always flowers 
here at the same time of day as it did at Kew—about 
5.30 or 5.45 p.m. Here, also, its majestic appearance 
is well supported by the splendid vegetation in its 
immediate vicinity, including clumps of the Giant 
Bamboo (Dendrocalamus giganteus), 80 ft. to 100 ft. 
high, fine specimens of Caryota urens, and other 
graceful Palms. It is not, however, without care 
and attention I have managed the Victoria so well, 
the heat here being insufficient for it. 
“ There are but few epiphytical Orchids to be seen 
in flower now, on account of recent heavy and 
continuous rains, which, however, some ground 
Orchids seem to revel in, Eulophia virens in partic¬ 
ular. If the Victoria regia deserves the name, 
'Queen of aquatic plants,' well may Amherstia 
nobilis claim to be termed Queen (or King) of 
flowering trees. It is perpetually in flower, but at 
its best in the dry and hot months of March and 
April. Seldom, however, does it set fruit here, it 
being a native of the Malayas. Lagerstroemia flos- 
reginae, a deciduous tree of our jungles, is another 
most gorgeous bloomer, the colour of the flowers 
resembling those of the English Lilac. 
“ Spathodea campanulata is another very fine 
flowering Bignoniaceous tree, a native of West 
Tropical Africa. A great disadvantage, however, 
with this tree, as with many others of showy 
blossom, is that it grows to such a height and bears 
flowers only upon the uppermost branches, making 
it impossible for one to get any proper idea of their 
true form; and the natives, though particularly 
nimble in the art of climbing, always try and enforce 
upon you how dangerous a task it is, undoubtedly 
with a view of maintaining the monopoly of it them¬ 
selves and of extracting a centosum (tip) from your 
pocket. I, for one, do not wish to compete with 
them, not on account of an over-abundance of 
* adipose tissue,' as you used to politely call it, but 
partly for the reason that my ' Buffalo Bill hat ' or 
• topie' has too wide an area to allow my getting 
close enough to the trunk of a tree. This is neces¬ 
sarily so, as the sun’s rays seem peculiarly strong in 
these latitudes. 
“ Another objection that a European usually finds 
to climbing trees here is that he never knows when a 
cobra, a polonga, or any other blood-curdling 
creeper may come half-way to meet him. An 
enthusiastic hybridist, however, who would not mind 
these little objections, would find here a veritable 
golden field for operation. I have not yet started, as 
I find so many things to occupy my time—at least, I 
have not made a proper start, but I will one of these 
days. 
" Talking of hybridisation reminds me of an article 
which appeared not long ago in a Ceylon paper. It 
was headed, ' The Land of Flowers,’ and purported 
to have been taken from The Gardening World. 
In it, Ceylon was said to deserve this title somewhat 
more than any other land, which is, perhaps, 
correct; but the short description given, though not, 
perhaps, exaggerated was unnecessarily vivid—at 
least, so it would appear to one living in the country 
as I am. 
" A great portion of Ceylon has undoubtedly a 
very luxuriant vegetation; but you would also be 
surprised to find long stretches of country almost 
barren, or rather having no vegetation worth speaking 
of. The writer of the article in question, I fancy, 
must have been going on hearsay rather than obser¬ 
vation—a very common occurrence with travellers 
indeed. For example, a lady traveller from Australia 
the other day remarked to me that she had not by 
any means been disappointed as to the vegetation of 
Ceylon, of which she read and heard so much, but 
she did not really expect to see such lovely fields of 
1 wheat and barley ’—meaning rice fields. 
" I do not think any one who has a knowledge of 
Ceylon Orchids will say that they are, as a whole, 
pre-eminent with those of all other countries. There 
is only one Nepenthes in Ceylon, and that only at 
the low elevations, not so high up as Peradeniya. 
The Moon-flower is not a Convolvulus but an 
Ipomoea, belonging, of course, to the same family. 
The majority of Europeans here will not agree with 
your correspondent, whoever he may be, that life is 
so very easy to maintain in Ceylon. Enervation and 
enfeeblement do not usually steer clear of us for many 
generations, nor for many years, especially if one is 
not stationed up-country, where the Bananas, Man¬ 
goes, Cocoanuts, etc., instead of ‘ offering themselves 
in abundance,' cannot, I daresay, be bought for 
much less than they can in London. Ceylon, or 
rather the greater part of it, is, perhaps, hard to beat 
for beauty of scenery and vegetation, but happily we 
do not live in such a state of things that one has 
simply to ' pluck, eat and live.’ Pity our labour 
force if ever we come to this. 
"As to these gardens, I think we can well bear com¬ 
parison with any other botanic garden of the East. 
They are over 150 acres in extent, are beautifully 
undulated, and the average elevation above sea level 
is 1,540 ft. The number of species (not all strictly 
tropical) inside the gardens is very large, and is 
yearly increasing, to do so being my duties. Our 
herbarium is acknowledged to be the best in the 
East, and our library would surprise you. We have 
also a Museum of Economic Botany (on the same 
principle as at Kew), a Laboratory, a permanent 
botanical artist, label writers, plant and seed 
collectors, etc. 
"You will have seen from the papers that poor 
Dr. Trimen, my chief, died. I was very sorry for 
him ; he was a perfect gentleman. He worked at 
his book bit by bit in his bed, until almost the hour 
he breathed his last. He never would to the last 
admit that he was more than ■ somewhat of an 
invalid.’ " 
- -*■ - 
NATURAL REPRODUCTION OF CONI¬ 
FEROUS TREES. 
Unless in the case of our native Conifers—the 
Scotch Pine, the Yew, and the Juniper—self-sown 
specimens have rarely been detected. There are, 
however, several exceptions to this rule that have at 
various time come under my own notice. At 
Woburn Abbey both the Weymouth and Bhotan 
Pines (Pinus Strobus and P. excelsa) have reproduced 
their kind freely, particularly the former, which in 
one of the Pine woods has grown so plentifully from 
seed that advantage has been taken of these young 
plants to utilise them as forest trees. 
At Holwood Park, in Kent, the property of the 
Earl of Derby, some of the most promising young 
specimens of Lebanon Cedar are such as were lifted 
from beneath one of the old trees, said to have been 
planted by the great statesman, William Pitt, when 
he owned the property. But at many other places, 
as well as Holwood, the Lebanon Cedar has repro¬ 
duced itself from naturally planted seed. 
I have only noticed one instance of any of the 
Abies family, growing naturally from seed, and that 
was in the case of A. nordmanniana at Penrhyn 
Castle, in Wales. The tree had produced an un¬ 
usual quantity of cones, containing good fertile seeds, 
and many of these germinated freely on the ground 
where shed, and were carefully lifted and taken to 
the home nursery where they grew into fine speci¬ 
mens. In a gravelly woodland where old Cluster 
Pines (P. Pinaster) were the main crop, I have seen 
several self-sown trees spring up, but these, curiously 
enough, were always lank and weak of growth. 
