Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/171

 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 153

2. P. nivalis, Jacq., includes P. mlviafolia, De Caud. S. Europe.

3. P. eldEagnifoVm (nee elaagiiifoUa, De Caud.), Pall. = P. auijgdtdi- furmis, Vill. Caucasus, Armenia.

4. P. saUcifoliu, L. f. East.

5. P. Persica, Pers. Syria, Arabia, Persia.

6. P. Auricularia, Knoop. = P. Pollveria, L. Hybrid between P. communis and Sorbiis Ai-ia.

P. Acliras is considered to be the stock of most of our Pears, though P. dceagnifolia and Persica by cultivation and accidental crossing have also given rise to varieties. M. Decaisne, however, believes that all have sprung from one stock. Of Apples, P. pumila, Mill., the celebnted Pa- radise stock, is stated to be wild in S.E. Russia, Caucasus, and fartary, P. dasyphylla, Borkh. = j3. tomentosa, Koch, only in the East, and P. sylvestris, Mill. = Malus acerba, Merat., in S. Siberia and N. China, but not in Europe.

Besides Prnnits avium, cultivated Cherries are represented by P. Ce- rasiis, L., probably spontaneous in Asia Minor (the city of Cerasus liaving taken its name from the Cherry, and not the Cherry from it), and P. acida, Dumort., the native country of which is not known.

The Almond and Peach are separated under tlie Linnsean species of Amygdalns coinmunis and A. Persica, although there is ground for be- lieving, with Mr. Darwin, that the Peach is derived from the Almond.* The original country of either is unknown, though Mid- Asia is suggested for the Almond, and Persia for the Peach. De Candolle, however, be- lieves, on etymological grounds, that it came originally from China.

W. T. T. D.

��Reports of Experiments on the Injluence of various Manures made in the Horticultural Society's Gardens, Chiswick, in 1869. By Dr. M. T. Masters, F.R.S., and Dr. J. H. Gilbert, F.Tl.S. London. 1870. (From the Proceedings of the Royal Horticultural Society.)

For these important experiments twelve species of plants were selected as typical of meadow herbage, and upon these the action of particular manures was tried. The plants included six Grasses, three Clovers, and three pasture weeds. Some defects of the experiments, unavoid- able in a first series, are easily seen. The boxes, apparently of four superficial feet and eighteen inches deep, though seventy-two in number, did not include a single (hiplicate of any one of the experiments, and the results consec[uently lacked a most important element of control. The value of thousands of farm experiments of a similar kind, but on a larger scale, is sadly lessened, owing to the same radical defect ; and on the farm the variations in the plots as to soil, etc., are, of course, much more serious sources of error than any likely to exist in the Chiswick trials. Still we hope, in spite of the increase of troulde involved by doubling the number of boxes, that a duplicate of each experiment will be arran<i.e(l. If it had not been desirable to make the Chiswick series a continuation and aid to the Rothamsted series, we should have counselled simpler manures and a smaller number of distinct plots, omitting, say 3 and 5, out of the subjoined series : — -


 * 'Animals and Plants under Domestication,' i.337.

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