affixed to the rim of the wheel. The irrigation wheel of this construction is used in many of the countries that surround the Mediterranean; in Egypt it is called naourah; in Spain, noria. In China the irrigation wheel is used, and is made entirely of bamboo. This mode of watering gardens by rills requires less labour than the practice of carrying the water in watering-pots. It is suited to the warm and parched climate of Languedoc and Provence, but is not practised in the middle and north of France, where less watering is required.

"The cardoon (Cýnara Cardúnculus) is much cultivated in kitchen-gardens at Montpelier, and in Provence; the blanched footstalks of the leaves being boiled, and used at table. The dried florets of this plant have the property of coagulating milk, and are sold for that purpose at Montpelier. Seeds of annual flowers are collected from the wild plants in the country about Montpelier, and sent to Holland, where they are sold for the use of the flower-garden. Spanish broom (Spártium júnceum) is used for making cloth at Lodève, thirty miles north-west of Montpelier. It is sown in January, on dry banks, which have been slightly dug or ploughed. About the fourth year the stalks are long enough to be used for their filaments. The stalks are pulled in August, tied in bunches, which are placed in a ditch covered with straw, and watered during eight or nine days; the bunches are then beaten on a stone; they are opened out and dried, they are then combed, and the filament is now fit to be spun. Sheep are also fed with the young branches. Between Montpelier and Gauges the small branches of box are used as litter for

cattle.

"In the Cevennes, chestnuts are an article of food, and the inhabitants have a process of kiln-drying them, so that they will keep good for two or three years. The process consists in exposing the chestnuts, on the floor of a kiln, to the smoke of a smothered wood fire. The heat is applied gently, so as to make the internal moisture transpire through the husk of the chestnut. The fire is kept gentle for two or three days, and then is gradually increased during nine or ten days. The chestnuts are then turned with a shovel, and the fire is continued till they are ready. This is known by taking out a few and threshing them; if they quit their inner skin, they are done. The chestnuts are then put in a bag, and threshed with sticks, to separate the external and internal husk. If the husks are left on, as is practised in the Limousin, the chestnuts become black, by imbibing from the husk the empyreumatic oil of the wood smoke, and do not keep so well.

"Sterculia platanifòlia (le parasol Chinois, the Tomchu of

the Chinese) grows to a handsome tree of 8 in. diameter, in the botanic garden at Marseilles. The trunk is straight, with a fine smooth bark. There are some at Avignon likewise in the open air. At Lyons and at Paris it is usually kept in the green-house, although it is there considered capable of bearing the cold of ordinary winters, when sheltered from the north, and when covered in time of frost.

"There are but few places on the coast of Provence and Languedoc where orange trees grow all the year in the open air, and these are in situations well sheltered from the north. Hières is one of them: it is situated 50' south of the parallel of Florence. At Rome, which is upwards of a degree farther south than Hières, the orange trees are covered in winter with sheds, having large apertures in front, which are closed at night by shutters made of reeds, and opened in the day to admit the sun; and at Aleppo, lat. 36° 12', nearly under the same parallel with Gibraltar, Russell states that orange trees are removed into the house in winter, although they bear the open air in places nearer the sea in the same geographical latitude."

(To be continued.)

ART. III. Verhandlungen des Vereins zur Beförderung des Gartenbaues in den Königlich Preussischen Staaten. Transactions of the Society for the Advancement of Gardening in the Royal Prussian States. 4to, 2 Plates. Vol. V. Berlin, 1828.

1. Extracts from the London Horticultural Society's Transactions, Vol. vii. Part i.

THE essence of all the articles is given in eleven pages. 2. On the Propagation and Culture of Roses. By M. Stichler of Dresden.

The following roses are said to flower more freely, and with larger better-filled double blossoms, when budded on brier stocks, than when on their own roots: Ròsa centifolia Sultana, R. hollándica máxima, or La Duchesse de Grammont, and R. ùnica [unique?] cárnea, and R. pimpinellifòlia.

The following sorts should be worked on Ròsa semperflorens, on which they will bloom early, and abundantly: R. muscòsa, and its several varieties; R. ùnica, R. centifolia sulphurea, and R. nìgra vèra.

3. Notices of what took place at the Meeting of Jan. 6. 1828. A paper was read, written by M. Schoch, head-gardener at Wörlitz; describing that celebrated place, which was

begun to be laid out in 1768, and in which the second example of the introduction of American trees was afforded to Germany; the first having been given, a few years before, in the Electorate of Hanover.

To prevent the caterpillar (Phalæ`na brumàta minor L.) from ascending trees, M. Hallmann fastens a broad strip of paper round the stem; and on this lays a coating of linseed oil which has been thickened over the fire. Every three days this must be renewed. He had previously tried tar, but found it dry much too soon.

4. On the Cold which certain Trees and Shrubs will bear in Germany. In this paper a judicious use has been made of an Essay on the Geographical Distribution of Vegetables, published in the Mémoires du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, t. xiv. 1827, p. 356. A table is subjoined, showing the cold which dif ferent trees will bear at Carlsberg, Tübingen, Hanover, Munich, and Berlin. Many plants which thrive at the two first places are killed at the last. The table embraces 709 species; and might well bear transferring to our columns, but it would fill half a Magazine; and, after all, it would be chiefly of use to the closet botanist, to assist him in his generalisations; and such can generally have recourse to the original.

5. On the Liverpool Potato, and a Black Winter Radish. This Liverpool potato is said to be an early sort, without blossoms, extensively cultivated in the fields in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, for the supply of the market. It is proposed to try it in the sandy soils in the neighbourhood of Berlin. The black winter radish is recommended for its hardiness.

6. On the Culture of the Blue Hydrangea.

M. Fintelmann considers it clear that the blue colour of the flowers of the Hydrangea is owing to the presence of iron in the soil; sometimes the iron is found in peat earth, and sometimes in loam or sand. To make sure of blue flowers, he recommends the mixture with soil of a small quantity of iron filings, or of rust of iron in any form; say, about one twentieth part.

7. Descriptive Notices of Two North American Needle-leaved Trees. By M. Schoch of Wörlitz.

These trees are the deciduous cypress, and the balm of Gilead fir: the former grows to the height of 30 ft., and the latter to 70 ft. in Germany. The resin called the balm of Gilead is found in lumps beneath the bark of the tree in

North America. The balm of Gilead is strongly recom mended as an ornamental tree for parks, on account of the beauty of its cones, and of the fragrance with which the resin that exudes from them perfumes the surrounding atmosphere. The deciduous cypress M. Schoch recommends as very fit to mix with evergreen needle-leaved trees. He says it is found very hardy in Germany, and grows in any moist loamy soil. The wood is light, but firm; and the tree might probably be more frequently introduced into useful plantations in Britain. It is singular that the knobs which are produced by the roots of this tree, and which, even in Britain, rise a foot or more above the surface, never produce shoots. 8. On Two North American broad-leaved Trees, viz. the Mapleleaved Liquidambar and the Tulip Tree. By M. Schoch.

The Liquidámbar styraciflua grows in Virginia, Canada, and Mexico, in low moist situations; and, according to several writers, produces an aromatic resin, which exudes through the bark at wounded places, like the gum of the cherry tree. The small branches are used for fumigation to purify rooms, and the leaves are sometimes employed as a substitute for tea. The tulip tree grows best in rich, moist, loamy soil; it is very hardy; and its wood, being hard, heavy, tough, and beautifully veined, is well adapted for cabinet-work.

(To be continued.)

ART. IV. Literary Notices.

NATURALIST'S Library: conducted by Sir William Jardine, Bart. F.R.S.E. F.L.S. &c. Illustrated with numerous coloured plates, engraved by W. H. Lizars. In fcap. 8vo. The first volume of this work will appear early in the present year. The volumes will not exceed 6s.; each of which will contain from 30 to 40 coloured plates. The subjects for the volumes which are now in preparation are: Vol. 1. Natural History of Monkeys. 2. The Feline Race, or Animals of the Cat Kind. 3. The Dog. 4. Sheep and Goats. 5. Deer. 6. Eagles and Hawks. 7. Humming-Birds. 8. Creepers. 9. Gallinaceous Birds. 10. Partridges and Grouse. 11. Cetacea, or Whales. 12. The Salmon. 13. Coleopterous Insects, or Beetles. 14. Bees, &c.

Philosophical Conversations; in which are familiarly explained the effects and causes of many daily occurrences in natural phenomena. By F. C. Bakewell. 12mo. In the

press.

97

MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

ART. I. Domestic Notices.

ENGLAND.

LABOURERS' Gardens, Warwickshire, - On Saturday, the 3d of November, 1832, the prizes offered by Sir Eardley Wilmot to the labourers renting garden ground in Berkswell were awarded by him to the successful candidates. The prizes were, the whole year's rent, the half-year's rent, and the quarter-year's rent, for the three greatest quantities of wheat on one quarter of an acre, and the three greatest quantities of potatoes on the other quarter of an acre. The produce of the wheat in the three successful gardens was, 11 bush., 101 bush., and 94 bush.; and of potatoes, 111 bush., 107 bush., and 106 bush. The average produce of all the forty gardens was, for each garden, as follows:

But

Thus leaving a sum which, if subdivided into weeks, will give to each labourer 2s. per week per annum, obtained by his own industry and exertion. The pecuniary advantage of this plan to the payers of poor-rates, as well as to the labourer, is too apparent to need any comment. nobody can sufficiently appreciate the moral improvement resulting from the possession of property, however small, and the having an occupation to resort to, in leisure or unemployed hours, rather than going to the beershop.-E. E. W. Dec. 7.

The Linnean Society of London, on the 21st of June last, 1832, had the pleasure to receive from the East India Company a munificent present of dried specimens of Indian plants, collected between longitude 73° and 114° east, and latitude 32° north to the equator. During the last fifty years several distinguished naturalists in the service of the East India Company have accumulated a very rich herbarium, which contained, besides very numerous duplicates, as many as 1300 genera, and about 8500 species. The Company has, during the last few years, with great good sense and liberality, distributed between 7000 and 8000 specimens from among the duplicates, to individuals distinguished for their botanical attainments, and also to some institutions, in various parts of the world; and, in June last, as a crowning act of judicious munificence, presented the whole of the remaining herbarium, which comprises about 8000 species, and at least 80,000 specimens, to the Linnæan Society of London. The Society, fully VOL. IX. - No. 42.

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