PART II.

OPERATIONS IN THE FRUIT DEPARTMENT.

169. Plant-Trees of various kinds. This work of planting may still be performed; but if delayed beyond the first week, it had better be deferred till the autumn. If the weather be very dry, water fresh set trees, copiously and much about the stems, over the roots.

Train and nail-wall-fruit trees. The blossoms of most trees now trained, will be liable to injury, and the trees must be expected to bleed, if pruned.

Look over-the trees, and disbud, i. e., remove, with the thumbnail, surplus and weak foreright shoots of apricots, peach trees, &c. If insects or mildew appear on the leaves, a little flowers of sulphur dusted over the young shoots may prove very useful; it is strongly recommended by some writers. Keep the fruit borders, raspberry, gooseberry, and currant beds, in good order, and free from weeds. Attend to the strawberry beds, keep them clean, and water them effectually if the weather be very dry.

Grafting may still be performed, particularly by the crown method. Repair the clay of former grafts if it be cracked or injured. Destroy insects of every description.

MISCELLANEOUS.

170. Plant-most kinds of evergreens; not only the common sorts, such as laurel, Portugal laurel, laurustinus, bay, evergreen oak, gum cistus, &c., but those which flourish best in heath mould or bog earth; as, rhododendrons, magnolias, andromedas, and the like.

Sow-annual seeds; set perennial flower roots, cuttings, and

offsets.

Introduce, wherever it is possible, the beautiful orchis tribe; these plants move well when they are in flower; dig round them with a rounded trowel till the roots come up without injury; set them in holes of corresponding size, and then give water. The orchis morio, or purple and green orchis, with its rich varied tints, will sometimes continue in flower for five or six weeks: it grows in meadows where the soil is moist and approaching to clay.

Protect auriculas, in pots; these beautiful and fragrant flowers should stand on a stage, facing the east, with a covering at the top to guard them against heavy rains.

Roses and other ornamental flowering shrubs in pots, should have fresh mould added to the surface: remove dead twigs and leaves,

and give gentle waterings occasionally. Loam and bog-earth mixed in equal proportions, and kept in a heap all the winter, form a capital compost for most of the ornamental plants in pots, the heaths excepted.

Select Trees, Shrubs, and Border Plants in flower this month.

171. Trees and Shrubs.-Pear tree, Pyrus communis; Cherry tree, Prunus cerasus; fly Honeysuckle, Lonicera xylosteum; Rhodora, Rh. Canadensis; Lilacs, Syringa. Evergreen-shrubs.—Several species of Andromeda; of Whortleberry, Vaccinium; and one or two Heaths, Erica; Pontic Rhodendron, and other species; Currant, the golden and crimson, Ribes aureum et sanguineum.

Herbaceous plants.-Anemones, wood, double, and pasque flower, An. nemorosa, flore pleno, var.; et pulsatilla; Double violet, Viola odorata f. pleno; Dog's violet, Viola canina; Spring snow-flake. Leucojum vernum; Primrose,-common, double, Chinese, &c. Primula; Spring Gentian, Gentiana acaulis.

Bulbous roots.-Canada Bloodwort, Sanguinaria Canadensis; Hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis; Tulips, yellow, Van Thol, Tulipa sylvestris et suaveolens; Daffodil, Primrose peerless, Narcissus biflorus; Frittillary, Snake's head, and Crown imperial, Frittillaria meliagris et imperialis.

THE NATURALISTS' CALENDAR.

APRIL

THE name of the month is derived from a word which signifies opening, (Aprilis, Apertilis ab aperiendo,) and the character of the season justifies the name: the buds expand, as it were, at once; and every fine sunny day causes so sensible an advance in the progress of vegetation, that the most superficial observer cannot fail to be struck with the rapidity of the work. The month is, however, not less distinguishable for the opening of the buds, than for the arrival of the early, soft-billed birds of passage. The season is liable to great mutations, and is as frequently visited by cold, parching, and durable east winds, as by those genial showers which were formerly hailed as the precursors of the flowers of May.

Ditto

The average height of the Barometer is about 29 inches 9 cents. Thermometer 49 deg. 9 tenths. In the first week.-The sweet wild note of the black-cap (Motacilla atracapilla) is sometimes heard; snipe (Gallinago minor) pipes.

Second week.-Nightingale, (Motacilla lusinea,) red-start, (Motacilla phoenicurus,) yellow willow-wren, (Motacilla salicaria,) arrive, and soon come into full song; swallow (Hirundo rustica) arrives about the 10th, 12th, or in the

Third week,-also the martin, (Hirundo urbica); cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is heard; tit-lark, wood-lark, grasshopper-lark, (Alauda pratensis, arborea, et trivialis,) sing;—the note of the last (as White says, "cantat voce stridula locustæ,") may easily be mistaken for the chirping of a cricket or grasshopper.

Fourth week.-White-throat (Motacilla silvia) sings; this bird is remarkable for the odd gesticulations it makes while singing on the wing, just before it alights on a bough of a tree; wry-neck (Jynx torquilla) is heard; this bird is considered as the precursor of the cuckoo; the wren, chaffinch, skylark, blackbird, &c. &c. continue in full song.

MAY.

SECTION I..

SCIENCE OF GARDENING.

PART I.

LIGHT.

172. Nature of Light.-LIGHT is described as that peculiar principle, or emanation from a luminous body, by which objects are rendered perceptible to our sense of seeing. Philosophers, from a very early period of time, have made light a subject of speculative inquiry the beautiful vision, however, has eluded their researches, and its real nature is still deeply involved in mystery. Little, indeed, is actually known beyond the results of those experiments which men of inquiring minds have instituted, in order to ascertain some of its general properties. What we know of light, we know by its effects.

Whatever may be the nature or the cause of light,-whether it be a material substance, composed of particles directly thrown off from the sun, or a mere emanation—a modification-a something which produces impressions, but possesses in itself no properties in common with those of matter,-whether it be a fluid sui generis, diffused throughout all nature, and revealed to the eye, as sound is to the ear, by vibrations or pulses, produced by the agency of a luminous body, or, finally, whether (as indeed appears the most probable conjecture) it be an electrizing principle, which acts by inductions, and effects chemical decompositions and combinations, infinitely varied, but all in harmonious unison,-whatever, indeed, be its nature, certain it is that light exists, that it produces impressions and determinate effects, that it is governed by immutable laws, and is possessed of general properties, some of which having been already ascertained, there is reason to hope that, as science advances, the nature of light itself may, to a greater or less extent, be accurately determined.

It would be unprofitable to the reader to impose upon him the task of wading through the mysticisms of philosophical speculators. They who are desirous of becoming acquainted with the great

variety of contradictory hypotheses which have been advocated, are referred to Dr. HUTTON's Mathematical Dictionary.

I shall select a few paragraphs from the article on LIGHT in that work; and these, with some other interesting quotations, will enable the reader to determine what were the opinions of Sir Isaac Newton and of his followers, and what the present state of our knowledge of the laws by which light is governed, and of the effects which it produces.

173. Newtonian Theory." The Newtonians maintain that light is not a fluid per se, but consists of a great number of very small particles, thrown off from the luminous body by a repulsive power with an immense velocity, and in all directions: and these particles, they also assert, are emitted in right lines: which rectilinear motion they preserve, till they are turned out of their path by some of the following causes; viz. by the attraction of some other body near which they pass, which is called Inflexion; or by passing obliquely through a medium of different density, which is called Refraction; or by being turned aside by the opposition of some intervening body, which is called Reflexion; or, lastly, by being totally absorbed by some substance into which they penetrate, and which is called their Extinction." "Sir Isaac Newton observes, that bodies and light act mutually on each other; bodies on light in emitting, reflecting, refracting, and inflecting it; and light on bodies, by heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion, in which heat principally consists. For all fixed bodies, he observes, when heated beyond a certain degree, do emit light, and shine; which shining, &c. appears to be owing to the vibrating motion of their parts; and all bodies abounding in earthy and sulphureous particles, if sufficiently agitated, emit light, which way soever that agitation be effected. Thus, sea-water shines in a storm; quicksilver, when shaken in vacuo; cats or horses, when rubbed in the dark; and wood, fish, and flesh, when putrified." (HUTTON's Dictionary— Light.)

174. Velocity of Light." The velocity of the particles of light is truly astonishing, amounting to near two hundred thousand miles in a second of time, which is near a million times greater than the velocity of a cannon-ball. It has been found by repeated experiments, that when the earth is exactly between Jupiter and the sun, his satellites are seen eclipsed about 8 minutes sooner than they could be according to the tables; but when the earth is nearly in the opposite point of its orbit, these eclipses happen about 81 minutes later than the tables predict them. Hence then it is certain that the motion of light is not instantaneous, but that it