as they are as great ornaments to the flower-garden, during the mouths of May and June, as any of the beautiful flowery tribe, and therefore deserve as much attention? I have heard many gardeners say that a sure way of obtaining many double flowers is to make choice of those single flowers which grow near many double ones; but I would ask if this is not a hypothesis, as the Cheiranthus is a genus of the class Tetradynàmia, and the flowers hermaphrodite; therefore I cannot conceive how the double flowers can make any difference to the single ones, unless they are like the flocks of Laban which Jacob fed.

Furthermore, I would ask, which are the most judicious steps to be taken by the young gardener to raise himself to the highest ranks of his profession, if there is no safety for him without it? I am, Sir, &c. A Young Gardener. Farringdon, Nov. 17. 1828.

Small Selection of Pears and Apples. - Will some correspondent who has had considerable experience in the pomological department of gardening, be good enough to hand you a list, for insertion in your next, of the most superior apples known, which must be all good bearers, and of superior flavour? I should say three for early dessert, three for a middle season, and six for long keeping, and all table fruit; and name also as many for kitchen purposes; all to stand on paradise stocks: likewise, a list of twelve or so of the most superior pears we have, good bearers, and of superior flavour, to stand on quince stocks, for walls and espaliers, and divided into successive seasons, as with the apples. Such a list would be of considerable service to many who are compelled to be very careful in their selections, from want of land, as well as to your well-wisher - Robert Errington. Oulton Park. Apple Trees fit for an Orchard. — Sir, Allow me to submit the following queries to any of your correspondents who may be disposed to favour me with a reply founded on experience:- In an orchard of 2 acres, about to be planted, what are the best sorts of apples and a few pears (standards), selecting such as are good bearers, and come quick into bearing, one of each sort? Does any of your correspondents know the Northern Greening, as it is called in the midland counties? That and the Wyken Pippin, so highly spoken of in your Second Volume, p. 486., are the chief table and kitchen apples respectively in Warwickshire and the adjoining counties. They are both excellent, but not generally known. I am, yours, &c.— J. S. L. Jan. 14. 1829.

Chlidánthus fragrans and Brunsvígia toxicària. If your able correspondent, "A Blooming Bulb," or Mr. Sweet, or any one conversant with the beautiful tribe of Amaryllidea, would describe the habits and culture of Chlidánthus fragrans and Brunsvígia toxicària (Boophàne toxicària of the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert), they would much oblige- An Offset. Swansea, Oct. 6. 1828.

Brookshaw's Pomona Británnica. — I am desirous to know if there is letter-press to this work in existence; and if there is, where it could be got. — W. H. Kew, Sept. 30. 1828.

Canker in an Orchard. The trees are of four years' growth, and I am sadly troubled with the canker. I fear I must cut them down. What would any of your practical readers advise me to do? W. G. W. Lancashire, Sept. 8. 1828...

Cobbett's Corn. Mr. Cobbett has written a most excellent and amusing book on Indian corn, and has explained at large all the uses to which it can be applied, except making beer and spirits of it. It is known that large quantities of the latter article are made from it in Adams County, Ohio, Cincinnati-Ohio, Nelson County, Kentucky, Cayuga County, New York, and doubtless in many other parts of the United States. Indian corn and rye are generally mixed about half and half. The produce from the Indian corn by itself is represented to be about two gallons from each bushel of the corn; but I do not find the mode of malting or the process of the distillation

at all described. Perhaps some of your correspondents could give information on these points. I would farther beg for any facts relating to the growth of Indian corn in any of the West Indian colonies. I am persuaded it might be most advantageously adopted as a main crop in very many of them, either for use as a grain, or for the manufacture of spirits. I, however, fear it has not been attempted in the large way.-X. Y. Jan. 13. 1829.

ART. X. Obituary.

DROPPED down dead at his own door, in the presence of his wife and child, on the evening of the 28th of August last, Charles Davidson, gardener to Laurence Jephtha Marshall, Esq., in the neighbourhood of Clapton. Mr. Davidson having been above a year in our employ at Bayswater, we can assert, of our own knowledge, that he was a very good gardener, and of orderly, regular, and respectable conduct. Never having been fortunate in the world, he died exceedingly poor, and we take it upon us to solicit from the humane and charitable some assistance for his widow and child. Whatever is sent may be addressed to Mr. Mackay, of the Clapton Nursery, who will see it properly applied.

Died, at Dublin, on the 15th of December last, after a long and severe illness, Mr. Alexander M'Leish, landscape-gardener. Mr. M'Leish came to England in 1809, and after laying out a small place in Oxfordshire under our directions, was sent by us to act as foreman to execute a plan in Norfolk. He remained there two years, and afterwards came to London, where he employed himself in studying drawing, geometry, and architecture, and in pursuing a course of reading on subjects connected with taste in rural improvements. About the end of 1814 he went to Ireland, and commenced business as a nurseryman and landscape-gardener. In the former he was unsuccessful, and incurred debts which he had only been able to pay off a few months before his death. He was a man of good taste and judgment in his profession, of great activity, and of inflexible integrity and honour; but, unfortunately, was very frequently laid up with bad health. He lost all his children, and has left a widow bereft of all the ordinary endearments of life, and so destitute of the means of support, that Mr. James T Mackay, Curator of the Trinity College botanic garden, Dublin, and a few other friends there, have set on foot a subscription for her relief. In this subscription we most sincerely hope a number of our readers will join, and convey the amount they can spare to Mr. Mackay, or to us. smallest mite will be acceptable, both in this case and in that of Mr. Charles Davidson. Direct to Mr. James T. Mackay, as above, or to us, through our publishers. The list of subscribers in both cases will be published on the cover of the Magazine.

The

Died, at Paris, in his house in the Jardin des Plantes, M. Bosc, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Royal Academician, Member of various Societies, and Professor of Cultivation in the Jardin des Plantes. Of this excellent character we shall give a biography in a future Number.

THE

GARDENER'S MAGAZINE,

APRIL, 1829.

PART I.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

ART. I. Notes and Reflections made during a Tour through Part of France and Germany, in the Autumn of the Year 1828. By the CONDUCtor.

(Continued from p. 9.)

LONDON to Brighton, August 29. 1828.—The roads of Britain are characteristic of the people and the government; their irregular natural-like direction, bold and free, and yet sometimes constrained and awkward, is a consequence of the independence of local legislation, and of the security and inviolability of individual property. Till lately some of the principal roads were crooked, of irregular widths, and circuitous in their direction, even in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; and the manner of forming and repairing roads differed in almost every district. The reason is, these roads have risen, like the English Constitution, by degrees, out of the wants of the people, in their progress from a rude state to that of regular civilisation; in districts where commerce created a demand for good roads, they have been improved by the magistrates of the county; in others which have remained in the agricultural stage, or where, from other causes, intercommunication was of less consequence, the horse tracks of past centuries have merely been widened to admit the passage of carts; in every district where small properties have stood in the way of improvements in the direction of roads, the value of these properties, or the arbitrary price set on them by their proVOL. V. No. 19.

prietors, by preventing their purchase for the public benefit, has produced that circuitousness and those abrupt turnings, which we find in some places, and which, however inconvenient to the public, may be considered as so many tributes to the inviolability of individual property, as well as proofs of want of patriotism, of selfishness, or of obstinacy in individuals.

In France and Germany the roads proceed in direct lines. from one town to another; they are everywhere of the same width, and every where, as far as practicable, formed in the same manner. The reason is, the roads in these countries have for centuries been under the direction of the central governments; probably more or less so since the time of the Romans. Why governments on the Continent, and not in England, took the direction of the roads, is accounted for by considering that roads on the Continent form almost the only means of communication between one government and another, while Britain communicates with other governments by the seas.

No small part of the beauty of English scenery results from the windings of her roads, and the ever-varying disposition of trees and hedge-rows which border them; and no small part of the formal grandeur and sameness of many parts of Continental scenery is the result of the interminable avenue of elms, poplars, or fruit trees, which accompanies the traveller.

The roads of Britain and the Continent may differ in picturesque effect, and yet equally answer their principal object, the most direct and easy access from one point to another. When the surface is level, the advantage of the straight line, in this respect, is obvious; but, unfortunately, where the system of straight lines prevails, the lines are carried indiscriminately over hills and through valleys, gaining nothing in point of distance, and losing much in point of ease and beauty. The fault of the irregular or curvilinear roads of England is that of changing the direction at every trifling obstacle, and thus rendering it circuitous, and sometimes dangerous, from abrupt turnings. The faults, however, both of the straight-lined and curved-lined roads are rapidly disappearing; those recently laid out, both in France and England, combine the good parts of each system, and have attained to a high degree of perfection. The Brighton road, though carried through a country presenting no difficulties, is still a very good example of an improved modern road, well directed or laid out, properly formed, and carefully kept, on Mr. M'Adam's principle. It is remarkable that a considerable part of a road so near the metropolis should pass through a country, the Wealds of Sussex, comparatively uncultivated and uninhabited: but this is accounted for partly from the

poverty of the soil, but chiefly because this road, in former times, led to no main object; Brighton, till lately, having been an insignificant village, without a port or harbour for shipping.

As one is always seeking something further than they have already attained, the question occurs, whether English roads would be improved by the adoption of the Continental avenues, either of fruit or forest trees. In a general point of view, we answer, without hesitation, they would not; but we certainly should desire to see fruit trees introduced more or less almost everywhere; not only in the hedges by the roadside, in margins of plantations, and in cottagers' gardens, but in the common field fences of the country. We would not introduce them regularly, nor in such numbers as to injure the roads, hedges, or crops, by their shade; but here and there with dif ferent kinds of forest trees intervening; and we would take care to make choice of varieties which assume pyramidal forms of growth, and whose fruits were small, and not liable to be blown down by the wind. The cherry and the pear are particularly eligible as hedge-row fruit trees, and would supply kirschwasser (Vol. IV. p. 179.), and perry; and entire hedges might be made of many sorts of plums and apples, for plum brandy (Encyc. of Agr., § 616.), cider, preserves, and tarts. The common objection to planting fruit trees in hedges, is that depredations would be made on them by the poor; but it is to avoid such depredations on the fruit trees of the rich, and to assist in humanising and rendering better and happier the poor, that we are desirous of introducing fruit trees everywhere. If the poor in Britain and Ireland were rendered what the poor are in Wurtemberg and Baden, fruit trees here would be as safe as they are there. If apples and pears were as commonly grown as potatoes and turnips, depredations would not be more frequently committed on the one kind of crop than on the other.

Besides beautifying the public roads by a sprinkling of fruit trees here and there among other trees, we think something might be made of the milestones, with a view to the same object. In some places of Bavaria a semicircular area of turf, 15 or or 20 ft. in diameter, is formed half round the milestone, open to the road, and the curve bounded by a close row of trees. Immediately within the row of trees is a bench of turf, as a seat for pedestrian travellers; and close behind the milestone are three turf steps, of 3, 4, or 5 ft. high, for the purpose of affording rest for persons carrying burdens on their backs or heads. In various parts both of Germany and France, and particularly in Wurtemberg and Alsace, stone benches are