Cradles, Pavilions, Galeries, Close-walkes, and other Relievo's. -8. Of Transplanting.-9. Of Fountaines, Cascades, Rivulets, Piscinas, and Water-works.-10. Of Rocks, Grots, Cryptas, Mounts, Precipices, Porticos, Ventiducts.-11. Of Statues, Columns, Dyals, Perspectives, Pots, Vases, and other ornaments.-12. Of Artificial Echos, Musick, and Hydraulick motions.-13. Of Aviaries, Apiaries, Vivaries, Insects.-14. Of Orangeries, and Conservatories of rare Plants.-15. Of Verdures, Perennial-greens, and perpetuall springs.-16. Of Coronary Gardens, Flowers and rare Plants, how they are to be propagated, govern'd, and improved; together with a Catalogue of the choycest Trees, Shrubs, Plants, and Flowers, and how the Gardiner is to keep his Register.-17. Of the Philosophico-Medical Garden.-18. Of a Vineyard.-19. Of Watering, Pruning, Clipping, Rolling, Weeding, &c.-20. Of the Enemies and Infirmities to which a Garden is obnoxious, together with the remedies.-21. Of the Gardiner's Almanack, or Kalendarium Hortense, directing what he is to do Monethly, and what Flowers are in prime. BOOK III. Chap. 1. Of Conserving, Properating, Retarding, Multiplying, Transmuting, and altering the Species, Formes and substantial qualities of Flowers, &c.-2. Of Chaplets, Festoons, Flower-pots, Nose-gaies, and Posies.-3. Of the Gardiner's Elaboratory, and of distilling and extracting of Essences, Resuscitation of Plants, with other rare Experiments. -4. Of composing the Hortus Hyemalis, and making books of Natural Arid Plants and Flowers, with other curious ways of preserving them in their Natural.-5. Of planting of Flowers, Flowers enamell'd, in Silk, Wax, and other artificial representations of them.-6. Of Hortulane Entertainments, to shew the riches, beauty, wonder, plenty, delight, and use of a Garden Festival, &c.-7. Of the most famous Gardens in the World, Antient and Moderne.-8. The Description of a Villa. The Corollerie and Conclusion." Surely, this grand conception of Evelyn's-formed by him two hundred years ago, to which he devoted a portion of his leisure during a period of forty years; toward the completion of which he made vast advances, but to which he was prevented from giving form and substance, by the multiplicity of important affairs in which he was engaged during his whole life-time, has never been realized-no, not even approached, in any work yet given to the public. True: many things in the design would, were it executed, be found more curious than useful, and some even based upon error-such and so great have been the advances made by science since his day-but, are there not many admirable hints contained in the mere statement of his plan, which modern horticulturists would do well to avail themselves of and improve. January 7, 1847. ART. II. Instance of Effect of Boiling Water on Seeds. By X. It is a well known fact to many, that certain seeds are peculiarly difficult to be made to vegetate by the usual process of sowing. Perhaps much disappointment has been often experienced, from the failure of germination of the seeds of choice and curious plants. Many modes have been suggested or devised to facilitate their germination; some founded on the natural character of the original species; such, for instance, as sowing the seeds of the Primulàceæ, (those which are native of Alpine situations, as the Auricula, Androsace, Soldanella, &c.,) on snow, and exposing them to the open air whenever an opportunity occurred of their receiving a snowy shower; or exposing them to great natural or artificial heat, in places strongly irradiated by the sun's rays; in hotbeds, on flues of conservatories and the like; or subjecting them to scalding heat, by pouring boiling water over them, as in the case of Ipomæ a Quamóclit; or, again, to the stranger process of absolute boiling for the space of ten or fifteen minutes: also of soaking in alkalies: immersing in acids, (e. g., oxalic acid,) or watering with a weak solution of acid, until the seed vegetates, or with a solution of chlorine, which has the same effect. Doubtless, in some of the instances, a chemical action is sustained between the amylaceous particles of the seed and the acid agent, or some gaseous principle is evolved which had been lost by drying or age, but in others, as in boiling and scalding, the action seems mysterious. However curious the subject, or inexplicable the mode, yet the pleasant fact remains, and, in lieu of disappointment, by some one of these modes, the careful experimenter is enabled to raise to successful culture, species of plants, the seeds of which he may have had in his possession for years, and been unable to excite to a growth. In the case of the harder kinds of seeds, those covered with a very tough, or else with a very indurated shell or husk, for instance, the Acàcia and Mimòsæ, it does not seem so surprising that the action of extreme heat should be so well sustained. The extremely hard-wooded shell of the Hawthorn seed, (Cratæ gus,) it is well known, enables that plant to resist vegetative influence for one, two or more years: and although, if sown as soon as ripe, many of the seed will appear on the next spring, yet straggling plants may be seen in the seed bed, rising from the original sowing, for successive seasons. So the seeds of the Honey locust (Gleditschia) are of the same character in process of vegetation. Subjected to boiling, the seeds of Acàcia lophántha will sustain no injury when boiled fifteen minutes, as we have repeatedly observed; nay, the young plants seem to grow the more rapidly from seed subjected to that length of the process, than those from seed not so long boiled. Many curious leguminous seeds are almost annually brought from tropical countries, either gathered from wild plants, or sent from botanical collections, which are thrown away by ignorant culturists, into whose hands they may chance to fall, or sown without any reference to these well known facts in vegetable economy, and are thus never destined to see the light. To the Acacia and Mimosa tribe especially, (of the great natural order Leguminòsæ,) our greenhouses and collections of living plants are very much indebted for rare elegance of foliage or exquisite beauty of flower, or fragrance of blossom, or general contour of shape; and in some such collections, some one species or variety may be rare. To increase the chance of possessing some newer or rare kind, it surely would repay the amateur or common gardener for whatever trouble or patience he might exercise to insti tute many experiments founded on a little scientific knowledge to cause foreign seeds, which often fall into his hands, to germinate. No one is the loser by such operations: for even failure does not always detriment the general cause of culture; but the rather enables a further experiment to be better made. And patience, as well as experiment, is often found to be an excellent paymaster in the long run: not only, as many have known, in waiting for the blossoming of their rarer plants, but also in the waiting for the germination of their seeds, after months have elapsed since they ordinarily and normally should have appeared above the soil. In our own very humble and private experience, we have known the value of such a virtue connected with floricultural science: and before our eyes, at this moment, are some seedling Liliàceæ of rarer kinds, for whose appearance we waited more than a year; although, in the same sowing, were others, for aught we know, as difficult of vegetation, which appeared above the soil in a few weeks. The most singular feature by far of the power seeds possess of resisting heat by boiling water (to return to our subject matter,) is to be noticed in the fact of seeds not furnished with strong and woody exteriors or shells; and of those of less durable envelopes; of this latter, for instance, the seeds of the Rubi, (Raspberry,) of which Lindley, in his Theory of Horticulture, p. 157, tells us that he was acquainted with the germination of some seeds of this fruit "picked from a jar of jam, and which must, therefore, have been exposed to the temperature of 230°, the boiling point of syrup." Induced, at several times, by these accounts, and similar found elsewhere in works of Horticulture, to institute some experiments on the vitality of seed, we tried to see what success one might have on four several sorts, which we subjected to hot water raised to the boiling point, and kept in that state for ten minutes. Of this lot, was a single seed of a Gleditschia, several of Robinia, which, however, did not appear above ground. The third kind of seed has escaped our memory, but it did not vegetate: the fourth seed was the Sida polyándra, brought several years ago from the Botanical Garden at Calcutta, by a friend of ours, and which we had in our possession ever since, and, failing to vegetate it by the common process of sowing, in desperation, we put it to the severe test of the water trial, and, to our gratification as well as surprise, several fine plants made their appearance above ground in a few weeks. The Sidæ are malvaceous plants, possessing soft seeds, that is to say, seeds with no indurated exterior, and which, one would naturally suppose, could not resist much of an elevation of temperature, especially in boiling water, which, permeating their tissue, might be thought capable of destroying their organization. But notwithstanding appearances seemed so much against them, yet something like a dozen plants came up and grew luxuriantly, of which we saved a couple by potting which have given us a few flowers, pretty as are any of that genus, but of little more ornament than that most common species now rejected from our gardens, viz., Sida abutilon, original from India, but now almost naturalized as a weed in gardens and on rubbish heaps. The entire genus, indeed, may be set down, in the words of Loudon, as "free flowerers of no great beauty;" of which we have certainly a rare exception in Sida striàtum (Abutilon striàtum) of the Catalogues. What Sida polyandra will prove in open culture, we can scarcely form any opinion from our present knowledge; if no better than the old and rejected S. abutilon, thus much will it have proved, that, in its case at least, it will add its weight of testimony to the value and importance of a more experimental and scientific process of seed sowing, based on philosophical principles; and that the record of the most seemingly trivial facts in horticultural experience, may lead to results which will bear on the greater interests of the general subject. And so, Mr. Editor, should you deem this rambling and discursive essay of any value in the record of facts relating to a pursuit in which, with yourself, you are aware, we are interested, you are at liberty to insert it in some corner of your Magazine, that, perhaps, it may remind others of similar experiments, from which they may receive even greater reward in more successful results. January 27, 1847. We are most happy to present an article so full of interest to every lover of rare plants: and we hope the minuteness |