course of the summer; they will then grow rapidly, and many will flower at twelve months old, particularly any mules from A. reticulata or striatifolia. As the different species of CRINUM and PANCRATIUM Continue growing at all seasons of the year, they will succeed better to be kept in pots continually, only shifting them occasionally into larger ones, as the others become filled with roots, for the more room the roots have to run, the finer the flowers will be; and Crinum amabile, if grown in a large pot or tub, will produce its magnificent and fragrant flo wers four times every year. They will all require occasionally to have the mould all shook from the roots, and the suckers taken off, or otherwise they will become unmanageable. As they are of stronger and more vigorous growth than Amaryllis, they will require rather a stronger soil; some good rich loam, mixed with nearly a third of sand, and a little peat to keep it open, is the best soil for the different species, also being careful to have the pots well drained with potsherds; and if any bulb should chance to be getting rotten, or have lost its roots, it must be dried in the way recommended for Amaryllis. Any young plants that are wanted to grow fast, should also be placed in a hotbed frame or pit in summer, and as soon as one pot is filled with roots, it should be shifted into a larger one; by that means they will soon become flowering plants. HEMANTHUS multiflorus is a tender stove bulb, which requires a great heat, and particular care to grow and flower it well; the same soil as recommended for Amaryllis is suitable to it, and bulbs that are fresh imported should be potted and placed in a hotbed frame, but they will require very little water until they have made fresh roots; they will then need a frequent supply, but they will always require a warm situation in the hothouse, and care must be taken not to water them over the leaves, as it very frequently gets into their hearts and rots them; one reason, we believe, of their generally surviving so short a time in most collections, which is the more to be regretted, as they are splendid flowering plants. ART. IX. Historical Notice of the Present de Malines Pear. By JOHN BRADDICK, Esq., F.H.S., of Boughton Mount, Kent. Dear Sir, Ir was not till this day that your Prospectus of the Gardener's Magazine reached me. I am happy to find that such a work is undertaken by you, in whose hands I am sure that VOL. I. No. 1. D it will be ably conducted. For the information of our horticultural brethren, to be inserted in your new Magazine, I herewith send you an account of a new pear, with four specimens of the fruit, which I beg that you will taste and report upon as your judgement shall direct. The history of this pear is as follows: -The late Count Coloma, of Malines, amused himself in raising new varieties of the pear, by imimpregnating the blossom, &c.; the idea of so doing first struck him near fifty years ago, as he informed me, on his reading the works of the English author, Bradley. During five years that I annually visited the continent, for the purpose of collecting buds of new fruits, I used every year to receive buds from the count's garden; several of those had fruited, and were named by him; many others, although considered as children of promise, had not fruited, and were, in consequence, without names; amongst the latter was a cutting, containing buds of the pear now sent to you; one of these buds I inserted into the bearing branch of a pear tree growing against a N. W. wall in my garden, at my late residence in Surrey, which bud produced fruit in two years after its insertion. This fruit was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society, and was pronounced by those gentlemen to be good. I wrote to Mr. Louis Stoffels, corresponding member of the Horticultural Society in the city of Malines, describing the pear, and requesting him to trace out the name of it in reply to my letter, Mr. Stoffells stated that the Count Coloma's garden was sold, and his collection of fruit trees dispersed, so that no further information could be gained of the pear in that quarter. To this he added, that it was the wish of the Count's friends that the pear in question should be called Present de Malines, by which name it is mentioned in the Horticultural Society's transactions, and under this name I gave buds of it to Mr. Young, nurseryman of Epsom, and some others. Upon removing my collection of fruit trees last year from Thames Ditton, in Surrey, to this place, I brought with me a young standard tree of the Present de Malines, and planted it, together with the Seckle, Urbaniste, Poire d'Ananas, Passe Colmar, Napoleon, Marie Louise, Beurré, and many other new fruits, in an exposed situation, on part of Coxheath. This I did for the purpose of trying if those superior fruits would ripen on standard trees in the climate of England: all the trees appear to like the soil and situation, and the Present de Malines bore seven fruit this year, four of which I now send to you, and suggest, if you should find the fruit, upon tasting, to be of a quality that will warrant the measure, that you recommend this tree as a standard to be planted in the southern parts of England and Ireland; as an espalier in the midland parts of those countries; and against a wall in Scotland, and the remaining part of the other two countries. To this, I think, that you may safely add, that this fruit will prove a valuable acquisition to our national stock of pears. The tree is clean, healthy, and vigorous in growth, falls early into fruit, and promises to bear abundantly. Boughton Mount, 30th Nov. 1825. Respectfully I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient servant, Note. We received the fruit, which have a good deal of the Bonchrétien shape, large at one end, smooth, and every where of a beautiful yellow colour: one specimen (fig. 5.) we tasted 5 ourselves, and the others we sent to three eminent fruiterers. It is agreed that they are of most excellent quality, melting, and of a rich musky flavour. Mr. Grange, one of our first fruit erers, knows the pear, calls it a melting Bonchrétien, a good bearer, and excellent keeper. Mr. Cooke's opinion is to the same effect. It is amusing to hear of the Standard Napoleon being planted on Coxheath, a spot where, during the war, the flower of the British army were assembled to prevent such a result. Mr. Braddick has purchased a very fine estate in that neighbourhood, which he is improving on an extensive scale, and introducing there, and, wherever he has an opportunity, the most improved varieties of hardy fruits. To this subject he has been devoted for many years, and, perhaps, no man living has originated from seed, or imported from France and America a greater number of excellent sorts. At Boughton, Mr. Braddick is his own architect, agronome, and gardener, and we should be most happy to receive some account of the many operations he has now going forward in building and planting.— COND. ART. X. On the Cultivation of the Grape known as West's St. Peter, as practised at Spring Grove: By MR. ISAAC OLDACRE, F.H.S., gardener to the Emperor of Russia. WEST'S St. Peter grape is acknowledged by all who have seen it at Spring Grove to be the finest and best late grape yet cultivated in this country; and although it has been long in England it is but little known amongst horticulturists. I am not acquainted with its having been cultivated in the neighbourhood of London before I planted two vines of it at Spring Grove in the year 1818. It has made such rapid progress in its growth and fruit bearing, that I hope a short history of it in your Gardener's Magazine may be of no small interest to the lovers and cultivators of grapes in general, as, if they adhere to the few hints here given, they may have grapes all the winter months, as plentiful and as fine as at any time in summer. I begin every year to force this grape in the middle of April, and keep the heat of the house where it grows as near sixtyfive degrees fire heat, by Fahrenheit's thermometer, as I can until the summer months. This grape requires more heat to bring it to maturity than the Hamburgh, or any of the earlier kinds I am acquainted with. The fruit with me begins to change colour in August. When the weather is wet or cold at this season I make a little fire at nights, so as to keep the house at sixty degrees fire heat until the fruit becomes quite black, which is sometimes in the middle, and sometimes in the end of November, when I reduce it to temperate, and so keep it till I have cut all the grapes. This in some years is the beginning, and some years the end of March. The Poonah grape I keep till April, with the leaves on as if in sum mer. The wood of West's St. Peter is round, of a brown colour, short jointed, eyes prominent, leaves rather small, and flat, smooth, and shining underneath, deeply serrated; they turn to a purple colour as the fruit becomes black. The vine grows freely, and is a great bearer; the bunches at first showing are small, and apparently weak, but gradually advance until they become long with large shoulders. The blossom sets freely, the berries are round, and grow of an even size, and if well thinned they soon become large. When ripe, the grape is of a very black colour, the skin thin, with small seeds, very juicy, and high flavoured. There is another St. Peter grape which is known to most experienced gardeners, but is very different from the one above mentioned; the leaves of this old variety are very downy or woolly underneath, the edges turn downward, the berries are oval, and the wood long-jointed, that is, with great distances between the buds. Spring Grove, 5th December, 1825. ART. XI. On the Relations of Heat, Moisture, and Evaporation in Natural and Artificial Atmospheres. By THOMAS TREDGOLD, Esq., Civil Engineer. THE Constitution of the atmosphere has a most important influence on the growth of plants, and particularly its relation to moisture. Till within these few years the variable state of the moisture in the air was not registered with any degree of accuracy; and, chiefly, from the want of proper instruments. A variety of contrivances have been, from time to time, invented for ascertaining the quantity of moisture in the air, but none of them are so perfect as it is desirable to render them. The well-known expansion and contraction of both vegetable and animal substances, by the effect of moisture, has been tried in several ways; but since there is no probability that the change of bulk is exactly proportional to the change in the quantity of moisture, these methods are not in much esteem. The increase and decrease of weight from moisture is objectionable for the same reason. There are two methods, however, which give accurate results, though they are not quite so easily applied as the principle |