renders it utterly impossible to specify within the limits of this article the soil proper for each particular species; however, I think it may be advanced as a rule not subject to many objections that the whole of each genus are generally fond of the same compost. I shall draw up a table of genera, of which any of the species are known to require the aid of the greenhouse or stove; showing that peculiar soil most suitable to each particular genus; deduced from observations on the extensive collections I have had under my own particular care, combined with those which I have had an opportunity of making on others, as well in the vicinity of London as around Dublin.

The necessity of this combination is evident from the difficulty of finding the whole of the genera here enumerated in any single collection in the United Kingdom.

ARTICLE VI.

ON GUANO.

(Continued from page 65.)

"THE nectariferous juices, or, as they are commonly called, the honey in flowers, are usually separated or secreted by glandular bodies called nectaries, and this honey has by many been supposed indispensable in the fecundation of the seed; but there are also glands on the leaves and leaf-stalks (petioles) of many plants, which perform the same office of secreting honey; here, of course, it cannot be of use for this purpose. Such glands exist on the petioles or leafstalks of most of the acacia tribe; on the tips of three or four of the lower serratures on the leaves of Grewia, on various parts of the leaves or stems of the Balsam, on Passiflora, and many other plants. These glands only secrete honey during the youth and growth of the leaf; it is then only that their operation and beautiful structure can be properly observed. When the leaf has attained its full growth and perfection, the active part of these glands dries up, the time for observing their powers is past, and the leaf then proceeds in its own important functions of elaborating the sap. It has been lately surmised, and it appears to me with every probability of truth, that this honey is an excretion of the superabundant and useless part of the juices thrown off, after the leaf or flower has selected all that is

necessary, precisely analogous to the excretions of the animal frame. I will attempt very briefly to show, that this view, if correct, is of some importance, both to agriculture and to horticulture. Mr. A. A. Hayes, of Boxbury, in a beautiful, simple, and, I believe, original experiment, before the Chemical Society of Boston, proved the existence of phosphoric acid (probably combined in several seeds), by immersing sections of them in weak solutions of sulphate or acetate of copper; in whatever part of the seed phosphoric acid existed, on that part was deposited a precipitate of phosphate of copper; this was particularly evident in the seeds of India corn. A certain quantity of phosphoric acid, or phosphates, is therefore necessary to the existence of these seeds; and that part of the plant (probably the flower) destined to perform the functions of preparing the juices for these seeds, must go on exerting its utmost powers in selecting and rejecting, until the requisite quantity of phosphates and other ingredients for the seed are obtained. Now the phosphates in most soils exist in extremely minute quantities; therefore, those plants and flowers whose seeds require them, must extract large portions of food from the soil before they can select the amount of phosphate necessary for the perfections of their seed; and probably, only as many seeds arrive at maturity as the plant can procuré phosphates to complete; the remainder, embryos of which are always formed in abund ance, are abortive—that is, never come to perfection. The same line of reasoning, of course, applies to the other necessary ingredients of seeds. If, therefore, we present to a plant food containing an abundant supply of these ingredients, it seems reasonable to suppose, that we shall produce more seeds, or rather that more of the embryo seeds will be perfected. Now, the chemical analysis of Guano, shows that it contains, in abundance, most of the necessary ingredients of plants and seeds, the nitrogen of its ammonia being absolutely requisite for the cellular, vascular, and other parts of the stem and leaves, and its phosphoric acid, as well as its nitrogen, for the seeds; and if future experience should confirm what I have thus stated as an opinion, that the flowers of plants manured with Guano become smaller, it may be accounted for on the assumption, that as there are presented to the plant these ingredients in abundance, particularly those necessary for the seed, the flower and its glands, whose office it is to prepare the latter, have less work to perform, less food to analyze, less

to select, and less to reject; hence, there is no necessity to have them of so large a size as where much exertion of these functions is required. The seed will also be larger and in greater quantity.

"We shall forbear to enter on the chemical analysis of Guano; it is more our province to show its effects, and to inform our readers how it may be most efficiently employed in horticulture. We have in progress various experiments to assist in proving its value; and, as far as these have gone, they have in general been most satisfactory. We have already proved that it may be used too freely, and that injury may be thereby produced. In a liquid state (four ounces to a gallon of water), applied twice a-week for three weeks, to beds of strawberries, it has occasioned an amazing growth of foliage and blossoms, but its influence on the crop of fruit remains to be seen. On the other hand, a bed of seedling Alpine strawberry plants, which had been up about a month, was thinly sprinkled with unmixed Guano in powder, and it destroyed every plant where it was applied. The half of a bed of Onions, which were six inches high, was sprinkled over a month ago with pure Guano, at the rate of two ounces to every square yard, being upwards of five cwt. to the acre; the season has been rainy, and the Onions treated with Guano are double the size of those not so treated. Potatoes, which were six inches high, had Guano sprinkled along the rows, amongst their stems, at the rate of an ounce and a half to every yard; and these are now (five weeks subsequently) far superior to those in parts of the rows purposely left without Guano. Nine parts of light soil were mixed with one of Guano, and half a spadeful of the compost was put into each of the holes regularly made to receive it, in a prepared bed of light soil; in the midst of the compost in each hole a plant of Brussels sprouts was put, and then well watered. This was done a month ago, and at the present time more than half the plants have dwindled and died. Geraniums were watered at intervals of a week, five times only in the whole, with Guano water, four ounces to the gallon of water; their leaves began to curl, and, although the use of the liquid Guano had been discontinued two months, it is unlikely that the plants will recover till they are potted in fresh soil. Plants of various sorts, in pots, watered only with Guano water, half an ounce to a gallon, have flourished astonishingly-none have failed. These are lessons which cannot be mistaken."-Hovey's Magazine.

ARTICLE VII.

OBSERVATIONS UPON ANNUALS TO BLOOM EARLY IN SPRING OR SUMMER.

BY M. E. P., OF WILTS.

THE best period for sowing annuals that are intended for springflowering is the month of August, or early in September, as those instances of success which have occurred to us have for the most part been from self-sown seeds, which have doubtless been scattered nearly at that time. The seeds should be very lightly covered, or only worked into the soil with a rake, and not be sown too thickly, because, when the young plants have to be much thinned, the remaining ones will be weak, and inevitably damaged in some degree. On the other hand, they must not be sown very sparingly, as it is desirable that the plants be near enough to each other to allow of some dying in the winter, and also to form a covering to the soil, which shall assist in protecting the roots. Unless sown in pots (which is a troublesome and unsatisfactory process at this season), and kept in frames through the severest weather, no autumn-sown annual should ever be transplanted, for they never recover sufficiently that vigour, and that firm establishment in the earth, which are essential to their preservation, if in any way transferred from the spot where they germinate. They may be thinned to two or three inches apart, leaving the strongest and healthiest, and best-rooted plants; and if it should appear, as winter advances, that their roots are so near the surface as to render them liable to injury from winds or other circumstances, a mulching of soil can be carefully laid over the bed. In the spring, all that will be necessary will be to train the branches of the living specimens over those places where any may happen to have perished, and the display of blossoms will be most brilliant and durable.

ARTICLE VIII.

ON POTTING, AND SOIL SUITED TO GROW THE FUCHSIA VERY SUCCESSFULLY.

BY G. G.

HAVING, in February, prepared a suitable quantity of well aerated lumpy loam, fibrous loam, and peat, with a proportion of charcoal

in lumps, and a smaller quantity of silver sand, also some hard lumps of decomposed manure, made so by drying, so that it will not easily coagulate into a mass; but if a sufficient supply of clear manure water can be commanded the above manure is not needed. Use for the stronger and more robust plants nearly all loam and charcoal, and a greater proportion of peat and sand for those of weaker growth, but in all cases let the soil he open and lumpy, and in order to prevent the soil from being too fine let it be passed through a fine sieve so as to take away the finest of the soil. Have clean pots, shake off a large portion of the old compost, place the roots in regular course in the pot, then fill up with the compost, and shake, or carefully press, the soil to the roots. The plants being placed in the greenhouse, let them he syringed overhead so as to soften the buds, which aids them in breaking easily. Do not water much at the root till the fibrous ones begin to strike into the fresh soil, and then in proportion as the plants grow. Manure water occasionally applied is always beneficial to them, and the best kind is a sprinkling over the surface of the ball, of superphosphate of lime, washed down by the usual mode of watering the plant. By due attention to thinning the shoots to a regular supply, and securing them, &c., plants will be produced of first rate merit.

PART II.

MISCELLANY

OF

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

New or Rare Plants.

GYCNOCHES LODDIGESII. MR. LODDIGES. (Bot. Mag. 4215.) Orchidacea. Gynandria Monandria. Introduced from Surinam by Messrs. Loddiges, and has bloomed in the Royal Gardens at Kew. The raceme of flowers is terminal, long and drooping; flowers five or six, large; each being five inches across. Sepals and petals greenish-brown; the sepals blotched with brown. Lip, fleshcoloured, spotted with red. Very interesting and pretty.

ALLOPLECTUS DICHROUS. TWO-COLOURED. (Bot. Mag. 4216.) Gesneriacea. Didynamia Angiospermia. T. G. Lorraine, Esq., introduced it into this country from Brazil. It requires to be grown in the stove. It has the appearance of a