The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-07-16 00:00:00

MISCEILANEA.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.—The object of greatest
attraction here at present is the Victoria Regia, which
has been in flower for more than a fortnight past, and it
promises to keep on blooming for some time yet to come.
When we saw it, about six o'clock on Monday last, one
blossom bud was just beginning to open, and there was
another beside it in a less forward condition. A low span
roofed stove, stated to have been formerly an Orchid
house, has been converted into a tropical aquarium, for
the accommodation of the Victoria, and some other stove
aquatics. The centre of a large square slate tank is oc-
cupied by this splendid inhabitant of the waters ; and
round the sides and ends are red, blue, and white Water-
Lilies, Euryale ferox, the slender Grass-like Vallisneria
spiralis, and examples in flower of that beautiful water-
plant of the East Indies, Nelumbium speciosum. The
leaves of the Victoria are small, the largest measuring
only about 31 feet in diameter, and they all want the
finely turned-up rim, and healthy rich green colour of
the magnificent foliage of the plants at Syon or Chats-
worth. The tank in which it grows is supplied, we be-
lieve, with Thames water, which keeps flowing continu-
ously into it from a small pipe near its side, and passing
off by a waste pipe in another quarter. Before the
Thames was led on the plant did not thrive, and its not
blossoming sooner here than it has done is attributed, in
the " Guide to the Gardens," to the water in which it
was at first placed being unsuitable for its healthy deve-
-I,,pment. One of the Coccolobas (C. macrophylla) is in
flower in the large palm-stove, and is really very hand-
some. The spike of flowers is upwards of 2 feet in length,
bright crimson, and, when looked at against the massive
foliage of the rich tropical vegetation which the house
everywhere contains, has a striking effect. The height of
the plant and flower-spike together could not be less than
from 10 to 12 feet.—Gardeners' chronicle.

Water for Irrigation.—Professor Way remarked that,
for the purpose of irrigating, he thought that water should
be hard, and not soft as for other purposes : that it should
contain the sulphates and carbonates of potash, soda, and
magnesia, including organic matter, as all these were
substances that would be taken up and retained by the
land. If this view of the subject were the correct one, it
would follow that the water in granite districts would,
from its softer nature, not be so useful in irrigation as
that in other districts where lime and other earthy sub-
stances were dissolved by the water passing through them.
On a former occasion Sir John Johnstone had named to
the council the failure of some irrigation of his from the
supposed circumstance of the absence of earthy and mi-
neral matter in the water, from the water being in fact
too pure far the purpose. Sir John Johnstone being ap-
pealed to, replied, that, in the water to which Professor
Way had alluded, there was no trace of lime whatever.
The irrigarion had been laid out by the late Dr. W.
Smith on a thin moorland sandstone rock ; there was no
lime whatever. Professor Way then proceeded to say, that,
in Derbyshire, and at Bala Lake, in Wales, the water was
exceedingly soft and pure, but considered as unfit for irri-
gation. He felt no doubt that irrigation would become
much more general than it had been ; and the subject was
more interesting at the present time on account of the
society's ensuing country meeting being about to be held
in Devonshire, where irrigating operations had been so
successfully carried out. He should, on that occasion,
select specimens of the different waters, under different
circumstances, for the purpose of analysis, in order that
he might report, as requested by the chemical committee
of the society, the result of his inquiries on that inter-
esting branch of his researches. It had been found, by
ascertaining from, analysis the nutriment required by the
hop-plant, that only those soils that contained phosphate
of lime and potash, would be suitable for the cultivation
of that plant; namely, such soils as those on the green
sandstone of Sussex, Kent, and Surrey ; and that what
theory had thus prescribed as the condition, practice had
actually proved to be the most advantageous in fact, the
cultivation of hops having been most successfully carried
out on the soils in question. He thought it would also
be found, analogically, that successful irrigation would
probably be found to be confined to certain districts;
namely, to the limestone principally. Re thought it
might be a question how far the influence of that opera-
tion was due to the temperature of the water, or its che-
mical composition, or to both ; he himself considered the
eheminal nature of the water to be the most essential ; at
the same time, he was free to confess that we had all to
learn upon that subject, and he trusted that an inspection
of the Devonshire meadows would lead to further inch
ries-on the important questions connected With thasub.

ject.—Professor Way's Lecture on Water to the Royal
Agricultural _Society.
Rhododendrons.—lt is stated by Messrs. Stittltiisil‘nd
Noble, in your paper of the 15th ultimo, that "hi the
Himalaya Mountains the Rhododendron is invariably
found growing near or on the margins of morasses." As
this is put forth with a view of giving hints for the suc-
cessful cultivation of Rhododendron arboreum, I think
it worth while to mention that I have seen many thousand
• tree-Rhododendrons in the Himalayas, and I never saw
one near a morass. In fact morasses are very rare in the
Himalayas, and over many miles of country thickly
studded with Rhododendrons there is not such a thing as
a drop of water to be found. Rhododendron arboreum
grows on the Himalayas in disintegrated granite, mica
slate, and gneiss, without anything approaching to peat.
Rhododendron nilagiricum, a species first indicated by
Zenker, and one I believe generally considered distinct
arboreum, does in the Neelgherries grow in a thin stra-
tum of peat. which, however, is frequently not more than
six or eight inches in depth, and consequently the roots
?mai soon pass through it into the soil below. The finest
mass of Rhododendron arboreum I ever saw was within
500 feet of the top of Dodotolia, a hill 10,000 feet high,
in 'Comae?), between Almorah and Sireenugger, on the
Bhartgerottie river, growing in company with Quercus
Kamroopii, and just above the Deodar. Here every pos-
sible variety of colour capable of being produced by a
mixture of crimson and white was to be found amongst
the Rhododendrons ; the whole side of the hill was one
blaze of colour. A thirst-exciting ascent, in the middle
of the day, 23d April, made me search eagerly for water,
which I could only find in the shape of some unmelted
snow on the north side of the hill in a shady nook, till I
descended at least 500) feet to the stream in the valley
below—William Munn, Captain, Belfast, June 27.

LIVERPOOL HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY•

July Meeting.—Mr. Thomas, -gardener toCharles
Wilson, Esq.., of Allerton, read a, paper upon the general
management of peach. trees, especially with reference to a
curious custom► he had observed in some places of strip-
ping them entirely of their leaves by means of birch
brooms. The paper was well received by the Society,
and showed the intimate knowledge the writer had of the
subject. The general feeling was, of course, opposed to
the barbarism of the birch broom. A long conversation
ensued upon the management of fruit trees generally.
The next meeting of the Society is on the second Monday
in August.