stance simply to show that this plant might be used with great success in covering bowers and other rustic buildings during the summer and autumn, even should it not resist the winter months.

The gardens and demesnes of the Chief and Under Secretaries are also well worth notice. The gardens are extensive, and have been long celebrated for their excellent productions. The demesnes are neat and well wooded. Mr. Forsyth, gardener to the Chief Secretary, is well known as an excellent general horticulturist; and Mr. Wilkie, gardener to Mr. Gregory, is a highly respectable man in his profession, and a zealous amateur in every thing tending to its improvement.

In observing generally on the present state of gardening here, we have to remark that the same indifference to every improvement in horticultural buildings prevails, as in the royal gardens around London. Every new method runs its, round, before it passes the centinel at the gate, and in ninetynine cases out of a hundred it is refused admittance. The dressed grounds are upon an extensive scale, very formal, and as yet no variety of ornamental trees or shrubs have been introduced.

Not many years ago the neighbourhood of Dublin could boast of some as splendid gardens as any around London. But, alas! how are things changed. Look at Rathfarnham Castle, not a solitary instance, but one out of many, where a magnificent green house, on the same plan as those at Hampton Court and Kew, has been turned into a cow-shed, and the fine old Dutch garden is now a total ruin. In this country, whenever a gentleman's affairs render it necessary to reduce his expenditure, or his health or business calls him abroad, the first step of his agent, who is generally an attorney, or some person equally regardless of every thing but making money, is to recommend the gardener's discharge, and that the garden be either let or left to the care of some old follower; that is, one who has worked for many years about the place. This is no imaginary view; in nineteen cases out of twenty such advice is given, and as often followed. But mark the consequences:-the labourer undertakes the business, and for which he is paid the sum of ten pence per day. If, in the course of a few years, the proprietor returns home, or finds it convenient to keep his place in its former style, where are his fruit and ornamental trees, &c., the labor of a hundred years?-gone! for what? the mighty saving of a few pounds. The painter and gilder may repair any dilapidations that time may have made in the house; should even the fabrick itself have tumbled down, it can be rebuilt,

but in the ordinary life of man what could reproduce the others? Every one conversant in the localities of Ireland knows well the truth of what we have here stated.

In order to obviate such irreparable consequences, we would warmly recommend to such gentlemen as from necessity or choice wish to curtail their expenditures in this department, to lay down as much of the garden and pleasuregrounds as are possible in grass, and to retain the gardener, with as much assistance as may be necessary, to keep the trees and other ornamental plants in due order. The expence in this case is ultimately a mere trifle compared to the line of proceeding we have just condemned.

Merville, the delightful villa of Lord Downes, is situated about two miles south of Dublin, and is unquestionably one of the best kept places in the empire. The garden is not of great extent, but it contains an excellent collection of fruit trees, which are kept in perfect order. The forcing houses are very complete: there is nothing particular in their formation; like the greater part of the hot-houses in this country, they are nearly the same as those delineated by Nicol in his earlier editions of the "Scotch Forcing Gardener." A range of pits for the growth of pine apples, on the plan of those so common about London and Liverpool, have been lately built, and answer well. It is to be hoped that the recent improvements effected throughout England in the growth of this incomparable fruit, by which so much time and expence are saved, will, ere long, render every gardener familiar with its culture. In the flower-garden there are two remarkably neat houses, with copper sashes and metallic rafters; one is used as a green house, the other as a stove for plants, and they both contain an excellent collection. The parterre in front of these houses is remarkably pretty, and here, in the proper season, may be seen the best collection of spring-flowers in the kingdom. The figures in the parterre are, in our opinion, rather formal. We hope ere long to see the stiff geometrical figures which have so long held a place in the flower garden entirely exploded, and fancy, aided by correct taste, have its flight in this department of gardening. The kaleidoscope exhibits many figures which will greatly assist the imagination in matters of this kind. Detached from the garden, there is a small American ground, where are the best private collection of bog plants we know of in the vicinity of Dublin. They are judiciously planted and in great health. Dublin, 28th October, 1825.

(To be continued.)

ART. II. Upon the Method of setting the Fruit of the Granadilla. By an AMATEUR.

THE granadilla, or, as it is called by the South American Spaniards, Purchas, is a well known West Indian fruit, produced by various kinds of passiflora, especially by P. quadrangularis, maliformis, and laurifolia, and also by a species now common in our stoves, called Passiflora edulis. It varies in size and external appearance according to the particular species by which it is borne, but is in all cases a sort of gourdlike apple, filled with seeds enveloped in a copious pulp, of a most agreeable, subacid flavour. The great merit of this latter substance, as a luxury for the dessert, has induced many individuals to attempt the cultivation of the plants in their stoves; and not without success. The fruit of the P. edulis is produced in abundance, without any particular treatment of the blossoms, but it is inferior to that of either of the three other kinds. These, however, do not bear produce in sufficient abundance to make their cultivation worth attention, except under a particular management of their flowers, which, as it is, I believe, very little known, I will endeavour to explain, as it is practised in the stove of a gentleman in this neighbourhood.

It is well known that the beauty of the flower of the common passion-flower depends upon the variously-coloured little threads which are symmetrically arranged around its centre, so as to exhibit the appearance of rays; these rays proceed from a fleshy cup, inside of which are also some other processes which project from the side of the cup towards the centre, and from a cavity capable of holding a considerable quantity of moisture. From the base of this cavity rises up an erect solid stalk, upon the top of which, above the stamens, is placed a little green ball, surmounted by three styles, which ball afterwards becomes the fruit. Now, in a hot climate, when the breezes are constantly playing among the foliage, and when the necessary moisture for the subsistence of the plant is supplied by the dews and a humid atmosphere only, no inconvenience arises from the complicated arrangement by which nature has distinguished the flower of the granadilla genus from that of all others. But in a stove, in an artificial state, where ventilation is necessarily very imperfect, and where the flowers are subject to be dashed with the spray or the direct effusion of the water-engine, a different event takes place. The fleshy filamentous rays, which, in the tropics become withered up, and quickly perish, are kept, by the circumstances just alluded to, in an unnaturally damp state, and, becoming.

rotten, collapse, and either fill the cavity described to exist at the bottom of the stalk of the fruit, with a preternatural collection of putrid water, which quickly causes the stalk to decay at its base, and, consequently, the young fruit to fall off long before it even approaches maturity, or which, when the remains of the flower become pendulous, keeps the young fruit and its support so damp as to produce the same effects. But if, with a pair of very sharp scissors, the whole of the fleshy rays are remooved after the flower is fecundated, all this inconvenience is avoided, and, in most cases, the fruit will swell and arrive at maturity, especially if a little pollen be applied to the stigmas, with a feather or a bit of any soft substance.

This is a very simple contrivance, and it would seem obvious enough; but the cause of the failure in obtaining fruit being generally unknown, it is not surprising that the mode of removing the impediments to its maturation should have been also overlooked.

The figure, at the end of this communication, will serve to explain the peculiar structure which I have attempted to point

out.

Those who may desire to find a detailed account of the various kinds of granadillas, will do well to consult the Horticultural Society's Transactions, vol. iii. p. 99., where there is an excellent account of them, by Joseph Sabine, Esq., the Secretary.

ART. III. Remarks on the Effect of the Lombardy Poplar in Park Scenery. By Mr. JOHN THOMPSON, Landsurveyor and Pictorial Draughtsman.

THE Lombardy poplar is a tree, which, as applied to the science of arboriculture, is capable of producing not only the most noble and striking, but the greatest variety of effect; and

perhaps, there is no tree which has the misfortune to be in general so injudiciously planted. I have, therefore, sent you a few remarks founded upon the study of landscape composition, in which I do not intend to say any thing of the bad or good qualities of the poplar, but merely to consider it as a tall conical mass of foliage, which becomes of great import, when. contrasted with the more useful and valuable round headed trees.

First then, it is a known pictorial rule, that all horizontal lines should be balanced and supported by perpendicular ones; -thus, the effect of a bridge or via-duct would be greatly increased by the assistance of poplars.

In the accompanying sketch, (fig. 1.) not only the lines of the

bridge are balanced and supported by the upright poplars, but lengthened and pleasing reflections are produced, which breaking the horizontal gleams on the water, continue a mass of lines intersecting each other at right angles, than which effect, nothing can be more simply grand and classical. This is admirably illustrated at Blenheim, where the poplar is an accompaniment of all the bridges, but more particularly at that via-duct, where the water first enters the park; this seen from the neighbourhood of the great bridge, forms a landscape of much beauty and purity. But the planting of the island is as much at variance with good taste: it is covered with tall poplars, forming a mass which seems too big for its base; and which mass, from its stiff and upright form, contrasts but badly with the varied outline of the surrounding wood and water. How much more agreeable it would have been to VOL. I. No. 1.

C