FLORICULTURE.

ARTICLE VL-CULTURE OF THUNBERGIA ALATA,

BY G. I. т.

As no one appears to have noticed the enquiry of "Nanto," solume II. page 474, concerning this beautiful ornament of the stove, greenhouse, conservatory, and parlour window, I shall attempt to solve his doubts, and put him au fait of successful practice. Early in the summer, I unexpectedly received a very small plant from a kind friend; it was merely enclosed in moss, and a loose portion of soil. Judging from the form of the roots, and the appearance of the loose soil, I planted it in a 60 sized pot, in a mixture of heath-mould, (not by any means good bog earth) half decayed leaves sifted, and sandy loam all in about equal quantities, and well blended. The plant was then placed on the shelf of pine bark pit. The mould was kept just moist, and the plant took to it and began to grow immediately. Now, by referring to Loudon's Hortus Brittannicus, I find that Thunbergia alata grows in loamy peat, and is propagated by cuttings. The work further states, that it is a stove trainer, grows 4 feet high, flowers from May to September, and was brought from the East Indies in 1823. My plant shewed flower in a week or two, and ever since, it has been, with the exception of a week, in a parlour window, and at this moment has eight fully expanded blossoms upon it, During the week alluded to, it was out of flower; it had twined up a stick with one simple volute, nearly to the height of 3 feet; and opened a flower or two almost daily. It then became rather torpid, and I pinched off the leader, shifted it to a 48 size pot, in a soil rather more loamy, and with some decayed manure. Laterals were soon protruded, the stick was shortened to the more convenient length of two feet, and as the young shoots attained its summit, they were turned down, and suffered to twine or fasten as they could. The plant has now two entire volutes from the soil, and four or five subsidiary falling twiners. Two other shoots rise from the crown, and are three inches long; one is partially layered under the surface, and may take root at the first pair of leaves. When the plant resumed its growth, and again showed flower, it was taken out of the stove, and brought at once into the sitting room, where it has remained ever since, frequently exposed to the full current of the open window and door before eight o'clock in the morning; it is watered immediately when the surface soil appears dry, and has never flagged for an hour. So much for the culture of this gem, which is the more valuable as it well endures the heat of 70 to 90 in the stove, or the changeable clinate of a room. As to the propagation, I deem it a matter of almost no conceru, much less of trouble. Take a 48 sized pot, place moss or chip draining an inch deep in the bottom, fill the pot nearly with a soil of equal parts, heath-mould, sandy-loam, and decayed vegetable soil; equal parts of these. With a little cylindrical stick, make as many holes, 2 inches deep in the soil, as there are cuttings to be planted. Take off these cuttings at and across a joint, say the third from the top, where the wood is firmish: remove the lowest pair of leaves at the bottom, but retain all the others, and, as a general principle, never remove a leaf that is, or can be left above ground. Things being thus prepared, pour as much silver sand into each hole as will let the cutting go down, till the next pair of leaves touch the surface; then fill the hole with the same sand; moisten the surface to fix the cuttings, and arrange them by gentle pressure, to admit of their being covered with a tumbler glass. Press the rim of this glass the tenth part of an inch into the soil, and then, if possible, plunge thr pot into a leaf or tan bed of 75 to 80 degrees.

I never knew a cutting to flag, or a leaf to drop till it had done its office, nor a plant to fail. I have dwelt at large on this simple subject, speaking much more of minutiæ than I have ever attended to in practice, because I wish ever to lay open the causes of all the natural effects that I am describing. A young beginner had always better be too precise than otherwise, since he then will become selftaught, and acquire definite ideas, while he attains certainty in practice. From these motives the worthy conductor, Nanto and other readers, will I trust excuse the prolixity of this detail.

ARTICLE VII.

ON THE CULTURE OF HYACINTHS,

BY E. ESBURY.

As I have not yet observed in the pages of the Horticultural Register, any detailed method of cultivating the Hyacinth, I send you an abbreviation of a paper on the subject, by the Honorable and Reverend William Herbert, (from the 4th volume of the Horticultural Transactions) which, as it contains an account of the Dutch method of management, and as the author is known to be a skilful cultivator of bulbous rooted plants, may be considered fully sufficient for the successful cultivation of these beautiful flowers in England.

The compost used at Haarlem, (the centre of Hyacinths in Holland) is rotten cow dung, rotten leaves, and fine sea sand. In making this compost, the Dutch gardeners prefer the leaves of elm, lime and birch, on account of their rotting more quickly than those of other trees. The cow dung which they use is also of a peculiar quality, being collected without any mixture of straw or other litter, in the winter, when the cattle are fed upon dry food. The cow dung and leaves must not be used till they are thoroughly decayed; the compost should then be mixed in the following proportions, viz. one sixth rotten leaves, two sixths pure sand, and three sixths rotten cow dung; and it should be allowed to be together some time, to ameliorate and incorporate, before it is used for the beds. This compost retains its qualities about six or seven years, but the Dutch avoid setting Hyacinths in it two years successively; nor do they set them in it the first season, as the fresh manure might be injurious to them. In the alternate years they plant Tulips, Narcissi, &c. The beds should be made about three feet in depth with the compost, and must not be trodden down hard, but, trenches being opened, the bulbs may be arranged, and then carefully covered from three to five inches deep. They should not be dibbled or pressed into the compost. A little pure sand placed round the bottoms of young bulbs is believed to prevent them from cankering. The later sorts may be placed nearest the surface, to make them flower earlier. If the situation is wet in winter, the beds may be raised six inches, or even more, above the level of the soil, to prevent the injury which the bulbs might receive from moisture; but if too much elevated they will suffer from dranght. The Dutch cover their beds with dung in winter, to keep off the frost, but this appears unnecessary in our climate. When the leaves of Hyacinths begin to wither, the bulbs should if possible be pulled out of the bed by the hand, to avoid the danger of cutting them with a spade; the leaves should be cut off, and each bulb laid on its side, covering it lightly with the compost about two inches thick; in this state they should be left about a month (but the tardy sorts are usually left longer and more lightly covered) and then taken up in dry weather, and exposed to the open air for some hours, but not to a powerful sun, which would be very injurious to them. They should after this be carefully examined, and the decayed parts of any bulbs which may have cankered, must be removed with a knife, for which purpose it will sometimes be necessary to cut deep, for if it is not done effectually, the whole bulb becomes diseased and infects others which may be near it. The bulbs should be placed in an airy storeroom about the end of June; they must not be suffered to tonch each other, and must be frequently looked over, in order to remove those which may shew fresh symptoms of decay, until November, the time for replanting. Old Tan, well decayed and pulverized, may be substituted in the compost above described, if leaves cannot be obtained; and when the compost has been in use for about six years, it will be necessary to renovate it by the addition of some fresh materials.

In the first number of the Register, you mention that you have had some sashes glazed on Curtis and Harrison's plan, and that you will report to your rea lers how it answers. I hope you will do so, and also that you will let us know how it has been found to answer in hothouses and greenhouses.

Sussex, November 13th, 1833.

ARBORICULTURE.

ARTICLE VIII.-PLANTING FOREST TREES,

BY JOHANNES O'NEATH.

The Larch. The annual increase of this tree in circumference, at six feet from the ground, is one inch and a half, on an average of several years; and of Larches of different ages, from ten years to fifty, that is, provided they have been thinned and pruned annually. An acre of land, when planted with Larches, pays every year from twenty-four to twenty-seven years' growth, a rent, by the increase of the wood, of £3 5s.: what ront an acre of land would pay when the Larches were forty, fifty, or sixty years' old, cannot be accurately known, except by an actual admeasurement; but there is some reason for guessing, that it would at fifty years, for the first planting, pay a rent of £15 a year!

Planting Trees.-He who plants trees upon his paternal estate, thinning and pruning them judiciously, repays a debt to his posterity, which he owes to his ancestors. A gentleman whose lands were more extensive than fertile, used to plant one thousand trees, on the birth of every daughter, upon his waste ground, which were on an average worth £1 each, upon her coming to age; thus enabling him to give her a fortune of £1000 without any extraordinary economy on his part, the regular thinning of the trees every year, with barking, &c. paying off all the current expenses, besides yielding him a small rent for the land. In the year 1758, uinety-two Fir Trees were transplanted upon a piece of ground, about three quarters of an acre in extent. The land was waste and poor; no extra expense was incurred, and no further attention was paid to the young trees. In 1813 they were cut down, and yielded ninety tons of timber, then worth £4 per ton, giving a round sum of £360, which was equal to a rent of £6 10s. during the intervening fifty-five years. Can a more convincing proof he given of the facility with which a man may secure a forture for his grand-children?

It is in the family records of a nobleman, in a neighbouring country, that about a hundred years ago, seven acres of good corn land were planted with Acorns, and that the sale of the underwood paid as much as the rent of any seven acres in the district, and that when cut down, the timber sold for ten thousand pounds. It would be too much to recommend planting upou good lands that are fit for other kinds of culture, but of its propriety and the profit of it on hilly waste lands, there can be no doubt.

It may be a question as to what kinds of trees are likely to be most profitable, where profit is the only object? Much depends upon the nature of the soil. On dry lands, Larch gives the fairest prospect of profit, and what is of no little consequence, it has been found, that the land under Larch becomes a beautiful and useful herbage, where nothing that was profitable grew before they were planted. We deeply regret the great inattention evinced by all landed proprietors, to the growth of the oak. There was a time when our gentry vied in the cultivation of this tree, and when our woods were literally filled with it. Why should not the same laudable predilection now prevail amongst our affluent country gentlemen, especially when the superiority of the English oak to that of every other country is universally acknowledged ?

In addition to the care of good planting and good forcing to preserve them, all the trees (as recommended in former papers) should be annually pruned and thinned, keeping the tops spiral and light. If neglected for two years together, great numbers of young trees will be injured, and even spoiled, for good saleable timber by heavy collateral branches; those should be taken off close to the parent stem or trunk, not all at once, so as to injure the appearance of the tree, but the largest and stoutest, beginning at the top, so as to improve the upright direction of it, give vigour to the leader, and make larger proportion of straight timber. It is to be hoped that the valuable hints on this subject will not be lost.

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