;

be now. One word more as to the principle you advocate, before I express a doubt as to its practicability. Do ask Mr. Lamb to take up his facile pencil, and give you a design for a public building, the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, &c. &c., which shall be an alphabet of architecture and when he has finished, let each member have its sign-board hung up to tell the babe in architecture that this is an Ionic volute, that a triglyph, &c. &c. Of course he will not consider proportion, or architectural or artistical effect (perish æsthetics, thought, feeling, taste!), but will take care that every member is so large, that, however distant, the eye may see it fully, so as to comprehend its exact form and position: nay, would it not be the best way to have the scaffolding up, that any one who wishes may have an opportunity of a nearer view? Now, if you are consistent, you ought to contend for this in our public buildings, as much as for making our parks a collection of labels. If I have thus broadly caricatured your views, it is because I know they are deeply rooted, and must therefore require a strong effort to change them. I can scarcely hope to succeed ; but, seeing that they are beginning to be acted upon in high quarters, I am anxious that, before it is too late, they should be re-examined.

And now as to its practicability. You are already complaining that the names are not sufficiently large; and you must still complain until you get them as big as a sign-board, and entirely destroy all appearance of a garden. The remedy I should propose would be, either the establishment of a botanic garden in connexion with the park, or placing plans of the grounds in some of the structures in the park, with lists of the trees, &c., and proper references, and instructing the attendants to give assistance in finding particular plants to all enquirers.

I had intended also to have made a remark or two on your suggestion that a ruined aqueduct should be introduced, but I have not at the present moment the Magazine before me. Kent, I think, planted dead trees in his parks; but he was soon laughed out of the practice. The time will soon come when artificial ruins will share the same fate.-T. W. Leeds. June, 1843.

It is seldom that we differ in opinion from this correspondent, to whose taste and judgment we pay great deference. On the present occasion, however, we do not exactly accord with him on any one of the points on which he has touched.

In the first place, we positively deny that the naming of one plant of each and all of the species and varieties in our parks and public gardens would interfere with picturesque effect. There are not above 500 trees and shrubs that are suitable for being planted in public parks where the ground is not dug ; and these, by whatever arrangement might be adopted (unless they were all put together in one small enclosure), would be distributed over a great many acres of surface; and, among many thousand trees and shrubs which are not named, we do not see that the labels would intrude themselves, or that any description of general effect would be injured by them, while, to those who took an interest in trees, these labels would be extremely interesting; for the first desire that rises in the mind, when we see a new object with which we are pleased, is to know its name. For one citizen of London that has a taste for picturesque beauty or landscape composition, there are ten thousand that know nothing of either: but that ten thousand may have a curiosity to be gratified, and to them the naming may be a source of interest. We do not think it possible" that a high love for the beauties of nature" can be cultivated in any of the London parks, peopled as they are, from morning to night, with horsemen, carriages, pedestrians, bath-chairs, troops exercising, and even policemen. Add also, that the surface of the ground is generally comparatively

flat.

With respect to the shrubs, which we have stated (p. 288.) to be planted in alphabetical order, we ought to have mentioned that we totally disapprove of this arrangement anywhere, except in a nursery or in a nurseryman's catalogue. The trees in Kensington Gardens that are named were planted some

years before any idea was entertained of naming them; and hence one is named here and there without any reference to arrangement, and without the slightest injury to picturesque effect. It is impossible to walk along this belt of trees without being convinced that the names form a great source of interest to the spectators.

With respect to the shrubs that are arranged in alphabetical order, nothing can be worse; but they do not occupy a thousandth part of the surface of the gardens, and, as they will doubtless be removed, they ought not to be considered as a specimen of general arrangement. Had our correspondent seen Kensington Gardens before he produced his remarks, we are persuaded they would have been very different.

With respect to ruins, we think they ought to be very rarely introduced; but we are not so exclusive as to say that they are in no case admissible. On the contrary, there are situations, such as where a stream is led along the side of a slope for the sake of obtaining a waterfall, where a waterfall issuing from a ruined aqueduct or the remains of a mill-course is more natural, if the expression may be used, than any piece of rockwork that can be made. Such, at least, is our opinion. We shall, however, be glad to hear all that our cor. respondent has to say against ruins.- Cond.

ART. IV. Queries and Answers.

A CURIOUS Caterpillar.—I forward you a very large curious caterpillar, which was found feeding on a geranium. Its excrement is as large as that of a rabbit. When lying quiet its head looks broad and large, and, if touched, it puts out a very long trunk or snout, like a pig's. —James Barnes. Bicton Gardens, Sept. 21. 1843.

[We sent the caterpillar to Mr. Westwood, who returned us the following observations on it.]

Mr. Barnes's caterpillar is that of the common elephant hawk moth (Sphínr, or Chœrocámpa, Elpènor), figured by Mr. Humphreys, in his beautiful plates of the English moths (vol. i. plate 5. fig. 7.), from a specimen "taken at Bayswater, in the possession of Miss A. Loudon ;" together with the caterpillar (fig. 8.), which, by the by, has the tail represented much too small, and the spottings of the body too faint. The curious property mentioned by Mr. Barnes, of stretching out the fore segments of the body into a long neck, is well known, and has led to the application of elephant moths to these insects. The French call them cochonnées; and, from this circumstance, M. Duponchel has made them into a separate genus with the name Chorocámpa, from two Greek words, signifying a hog and caterpillar; that is to say, a caterpillar with a snout like that of a hog.

I have not before heard of this insect feeding on geraniums. Its ordinary food is the ladies' bedstraw, willow herb, and vine; but other instances of a similar change of food have been noticed, as in the case of the swallow-tailed moth which you sent me a little time since (see p. 460.); whilst a friend of mine has lately reared a specimen of the carpet moth (Euthalia impluviàta) from a caterpillar which also fed upon the geranium, its ordinary food being the birch and hazel.

Mr. Barnes's specimen had formed for itself with the bits of grass, &c., with which he had packed it in the box, an oval bed, within which it was coiled up, to undergo its chrysalis state; but I fear it has got injured during its passage through the post-office and letter-carrier's hands.-Jno. O. Westwood, Grove Cottage, Grove Road, Hammersmith, Sept. 23. 1843.

THE

GARDENER'S MAGAZINE,

DECEMBER, 1843.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ART. I. Bicton Gardens, their Culture and Management, in a Series of Letters to the Conductor. By JAMES BARNES, Gardener to the Right Honourable Lady Rolle."

(Continued from p. 606.)

LETTER XXIV. System of Cucumber-Growing.

I BEG to take the present opportunity, having half an hour to spare, of making a few remarks on my system of cucumbergrowing, which is a very easy and simple method.

I believe there is no one thing in the whole practice of gardening that has caused more contention amongst gardeners of all classes than cucumber-growing; neither do I believe there is any one thing that has had more treatises written on it. Many of these, I make no doubt, have proved useful; but I am in no way acquainted with the contents of any of them, never having seen but one work on the growth or cultivation of the cucumber, and that was an old book I had lent me many years since, at a time when I was in full practice in a market-garden, and which did not interest me much. It is a plant I have always been particularly fond of growing, and in the culture of which I had for several years a very extensive practice in the London market-gardens.

The cucumber called the Man of Kent was raised by me, and has been very highly esteemed, as may be seen by referring to the different exhibition reports.

I have seen gardeners attempt to grow cucumbers in October, and lose their plants several times in the course of the winter, not managing to cut a cucumber before May day; but being supplied with plants, first from one neighbour and then the other, from six to ten times. It is easy to guess a gardener's errand about the month of March, if he is seen running about with a small basket or hat-box. I have seen many men who would not commence growing cucumbers until they had either seen or heard of a neighbour beginning, or a thought had struck them from seeing the sun shine; and then they would make a 3d Ser. 1843. XII.

UU

bed in a great hurry, and look round amongst their neighbours for plants.

I have known gardeners put their employers to great and unnecessary expense, and themselves to unnecessary trouble, and after all succeed but indifferently.

I have seen gardeners make a bed of strong hot stable dung, and other fermenting materials, from 3 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 6 in. in height; and I believe there are hundreds who follow up the same plan at this very time. Now, if they were only to consider this properly, would they find that the nature of the plant required it? I say, certainly not. Then why continue to follow up such an absurd practice? It appears to me, and always strikes me, when observing the hotbed carried up to such an unreasonable height, that it is either to make it appear conspicuous to every observer, that a cucumber-bed exists in the garden, or that it may be awkward and troublesome for their employers to look into. Why should that be? What need has a gardener to object to his employer looking into a cucumber-frame, when the plants are in a healthy state and doing well, any more than into a hothouse. I have seen those unreasonably high hotbeds lined afterwards strongly with hot fermenting materials, and large holes bored all through the beds, to cause the heat to circulate strongly and rankly through the bottom. A little consideration will quickly show such practice to be entirely against nature. Can it be reasonably thought that they get such a strong fermenting heat at their roots in their natural climate? I should fancy not, and have therefore for many years left off the practice; and I am perfectly convinced, were that old absurd practice entirely dispensed with, cucumbers would be produced with more certainty, in greater abundance, in better perfection, and with much less expense aud trouble. I often wonder how much longer those absurd and unnatural practices are to exist. It would give me great pleasure to see the practical part of cucumber-growing better understood. A man may be in full practice the whole of his life, and yet he may never have once considered whether he was following the system most natural for the production of any one thing under his charge; but go on in some way or other, because he has observed others do the same. A man may read all the books that have been written on any subject; but what is the utility of it if he has had no practice, or has not a mind of his own, properly to reflect on what he is about to do, and what is the most natural method of producing any one thing he is about to aim at? Until that is fully weighed, things will continue in the present unnatural state.

The proper system to cultivate and produce cucumbers all the year round is very simple and easy, and can be summed up

in a few words. Get seeds of some good variety, and sow them in charcoal dust if it can be conveniently had, or some rather light, purified, sweet earth, plunging the pot in which they are sown in a kind, wholesome, sweet, heat. As soon as the plants are up, pot them singly into small 60-sized pots, taking care to use wholesome sweet earth, and place them as near the glass as possible. As soon as they have made one rough leaf, and are forming the next, pinch it out, or, more properly speaking, stop it; then shift them into 48-sized pots, leaving one third of the pot not filled with earth, to fill up as the plants advance. When the plants have made another joint, stop them again; then shift them into 24-sized pots; if in the autumn or short days of winter, much time and labour will be saved by so doing; allowing them at this time to grow three joints before stopping them again, and taking care, if they are for the hothouse and to be grown in large pots or tubs, to have some thoroughly sweet earth prepared, brought into the house, and put into what you intend to grow them in, a day or two previous to their being permanently placed where they are to produce fruit, so that the earth may get a little warm. Then train them up a neat wire trellising, or painted string trellis, which I prefer myself, as it is so easily shifted when the plants are to be removed, and a succession to be replaced. It is my rule to stop the plants at every joint after turning them out, as long as they are kept growing, taking care, at all seasons, to have a succession of young plants of different sizes.

The requisites are, nice low pits heated with hot water, well drained, which is most essential on any system; and a good body of well-prepared pulverised soil, consisting of the top spit from an old pasture that is loamy and full of fibre laid together for one year, and, at the time of using, mixed with some sweet, mellow, well-prepared rotten dung, and a little charcoal dust, if it can be procured. For my own practice, I prefer a good frame to any pit for early forcing, except it be a pit on a good construction, worked with hot water, with a nice light trellis to train the plants on, and to keep the fruit from the earth. The depth of the frame, at the back, should be from 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft.; the front 6 in. shallower, which is quite sufficient, as the frame can always be elevated to any degree one could wish for, according to the season of the year.

In preparing for the bed, I always take care to have it well drained with faggots, prunings, or some kind of refuse; to have my dung or other fermenting material well prepared and sweetened, and never, at any season of the year, to make my beds more than 2 ft. 6 in. in height (2 ft. is about my measure); and to line the outside immediately with the same material to the very top of the frame, covering the lining all round with a little