lead progressively to that higher degree of excellence, which we are desirous of pointing out as the ultimatum. It is less the business of science or philosophy to call things good or bad, than to call them by their proper names, to describe the phenomena that attend them, and the state of civilisation, culture, and refinement which they indicate. There is no taste which may not have been good under certain circumstances of time, place, age, and country, for almost all truths but those of mathematics are relative. The love of tulips and roses is one stage in the progress of botanical taste; a second is the love of showy herbaceous plants and shrubs in general; a third stage is the love of the curious or fantastic, succulents, monsters, &c.; another stage is the love of the minute, mosses and ferns; then comes partial love, such as of one tribe or kind, as grasses, bulbs, - now begins the dawning of the love of system; after a great many steps the Linnean manner is arrived at, and, beyond that, as the ultimatum, the natural system. The difference in kind between a taste for plants as ornamental or curious, and a taste for them as parts of a grand whole, is no doubt very great; but a judicious botanist will not limit his views, or the plants in his garden, either to the one extreme or the other, nor because he has arrived at the discovery of beauty in mosses and ferns, or resolved on planting a systema naturæ, will he forget the tulips and chrysanthemums, which perhaps first caught his attention to the subject. — Cond. ART. XIX. Remarks on the Sloping Hollow Wall proposed to be erected by J. A. B., Esq. By H. G.; and farther Remarks on the same Subject. By W. H. Dear Sir, YOUR correspondent, J. A. B., Esq. (Gard. Mag. vol. ii. p. 7.) proposes to erect two walls of twelve feet high, five feet apart at the base, and gradually approaching to the top, thereby having a sloped surface on either side. He calculates he will by that means have an advantage by additional exposure to the sun, and that in part may be very true; but the great object of a wall for trees is to retain during the night the heat gained in the day. Now I fear he will find, in the first place, that the heat obtained in the day will pass off much quicker from his wall than from a common one; and as heat has a tendency to rise perpendicularly, it will pass off without benefiting the upper shoots, whereas in a common wall it of course must pass all the shoots in its passage up wards, and thereby keep them warm during the greater part of the night. In the second place, there is no mention made of the frosts and cold damps of spring and autumn, which must of necessity fall more on a wall that is sloped than on one which is perpendicular; and I think he will find that in the spring he will have the shoots and blossom forced by day, and destroyed by night; and in the autumn the first frost that comes will fall so sharp on the leaves and fruit, as to destroy the former, and, consequently, render the other useless. Independent of all this, the rain, as it falls, will be collected in the same way as on the roof of a house, which will both have a tendency to destroy the wall and injure the roots of the trees. I am, dear Sir, &c. Walworth, February 1. 1827. H. G. J. A. B. Esq.'s first advantage, he says, is the exposure to the sun. Perhaps he does not consider the exposure of the blossoms of his trees to frosts, hail-storms, &c. more than if the trees were on a perpendicular wall. Next, he says, his hollow wall will be drier! How? By being more exposed to falling rains, &c.? But the effect of these he proposes to dry by fires, which, if made strong enough for that purpose, would be strong enough to damage the trees planted within. He says dung may be fermented there also: I think not to advantage. What man could use a fork in that space? Besides, the dung would be better worked in the open air. If there any walls in his neighbourhood with buttresses to them, let him examine the face of those buttresses, and see if they be drier than the walls they are built to support. I have seen walls but a few inches out of the perpendicular, which I could not keep clean from moss. Fruit would be liable to rot by being in contact with a wall so constructed. I am, Sir, &c. be Hitcham, Herts, February 5. 1827. W. H. ART. XX. On the Use and Abuse of Salt in Gardens. By Dear Sir, FULL of the resolution which I had formed last week, of becoming an author, I have bought a quire of paper, a bottle of Japan ink, and a quarter of a hundred of quills, as extra stock for that purpose, and I intend dedicating the whole to you in the course of this winter. I felt greatly encouraged by perceiving that I had nearly filled my first sheet, before I had well entered into my subject, and was convinced that I could write a large volume on that very insignificant article, salt. But I now feel rather daunted, to think I cannot put more matter into fewer words, and shall endeavour to finish on that article as soon as possible; for as I intend giving you a treat of twenty-four dishes, I think two of them filled with salt will be quite sufficient. In order then to proceed methodically, I will, as Lord Byron says, "begin at the beginning." First, then, none of the ancients ever made use of salt as a manure. Among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, according to their mythology, salt was the very emblem of sterility. The first time that salt is mentioned (as far as I remember), is an account of an honest man's wife being turned into a pillar of salt, which in allegory means barrenness. The Dead Sea (which all the waters of Jordan cannot make sweeter than the strongest brine), being nearly surrounded with rock-salt, has, on its shores, the most barren spots on the globe. One huge mass of rock protruding a little above the others has some faint resemblance of a wrinkled old woman, and is shown to travellers as the identical salt-lady alluded to. I have seen several pieces of the said rock in England; they are kept in the museums of the vulgar curious, and serve the double pur pose of a very ancient relic, and an excellent hygrometer: the Cheshire rock answers the latter purpose just as well. Again; when the ancients had any particular spite against a city, or the land where the city had stood, their custom was to curse it in the most solemn manner, and to sow it with salt; not for the purpose of manuring it, but that it might never afterwards be any thing but a barren wilderness, and this shows that they had not tried so many experiments with salt as I have done. But that the ancients used salt as a stimulant, or seasoning, is equally clear and certain. In the Greek sacrifices salt was always one of the ingredients; the very gods, it seems, had a relish for salt the same as we have. And in Leviticus, ii. 13. there is an order by Moses to the following effect :-"Every oblation of thy meat-offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat-offering." And again, "With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt." Now, what epicure could give his cook more particular directions? The explanation given to this text, Mark, ix. 49., does not appear half so intelligible, viz. "Every one must be salted with fire." I have. read several pamphlets on salt as a manure, &c., most of them take their text from Luke, xiv. 34, &c. Mr. G. W. Johnson nails his arguments with the same passage. It is a pity that people, who are so ready to quote Scripture, should not, at the same time, season their arguments with a little of the salt of common sense, and show that they understood a little of what they read. Sentences which have been translated from various languages in different ages require a good deal of the above salt; for instance, how should I reconcile the paradox of salt losing its saltness, without admitting of some small typographical error? We have heard of flowers losing their perfume, fruits losing their flavour, &c., but whoever saw or tasted salt which had lost its saltness? and yet the saying must have been perfectly intelligible when first spoken, and meant, without the least doubt, the refuse salt, which nobody would buy for culinary purposes, and which the salt-makers got quit of the best way they could. This is the kind of salt, Sir, which was thought by the ancients to be good for nothing; to be neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, and I may add, not very This is the kind of salt good for making footpaths with. which is as good for agricultural purposes as the best in England, and which I can buy in these enlightened times at 10s. So now I will tell you per ton, and have 30 cwt. to the ton. what I have found this said salt to be good for, and the whole may be comprehended under the two general heads, viz. for destroying weeds and worms. I find I can keep a large coachyard perfectly free from moss and weeds for less than a shilling a-year; this to gardeners must be very acceptable; when families go from home, the weeding of pavements is often a tedious job; I also can keep my gravel-walks clear of moss and weeds at a tenth of the expense of breaking up, raking, rolling, &c., besides avoiding the plague of getting some sorts of gravel to bind properly, and I have always found handweeding of walks, &c. to be not only expensive but a great plague, as the work is too insignificant to set a man to; mischievous boys, or decrepit old persons, are alike nuisances in a gentleman's pleasure-ground. Care should be taken in salting the walks not to let any drop on the box-edges, as it kills it also, and makes it very unsightly; it has also been found to discolour some of the skirts of the ladies' dresses. I found it very effectual in destroying the worms, &c. in the tan-pits, but the cure proved a deal worse than the disease, as it chilled the whole surface of the tan for a good way down. Nothing checks fermentation so much as salt; it is the chief antidote to putrefaction, and yet it acts on certain bodies in a wonderful manIt commenced operations against the curb stones of the tan-pit at this place, and would soon have reduced ner. them to a heap of sand, if I had not scraped them well, and painted them also. And here, I believe, I have let out the secret, why salt has been supposed to be a sort of manure, as it not only kills worms and weeds, but even acts upon certain earths and stones in a similar manner that severe frosts do; for, as I said before, it is an excellent hygrometer, liquefying and crystallising with the atmosphere; and in a hothouse, where changes are so sudden, any porous body, having imbibed a quantity of salt in a liquid state, the heat again crystallising it, not only stone but bricks and flower-pots crumble down from its effects. But I see I have filled my sheet before saying half what I intended, or a fiftieth part of what I would say on the subject, so remain yours, &c. AGRONOME. ART. XXI. Description of a Tulip Case, and its Uses. By Mr. H. GROOM, F.H.S. Florist, Walworth. Dear Sir, IT having been frequently remarked to me by gentlemen purchasing tulips, and indeed all named flowers, that they had great difficulty in keeping them in order under their different names, I shall feel obliged by your inserting the annexed plan of my tulip-case in your valuable Magazine, as I think it may be of service to persons commencing the growth of named flowers by the facility which it affords in arranging and keeping them distinct. This case (fig. 83.) is 3 feet 11 inches 83 |