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MARK what we gain from foreign lands,

TIME cannot now be said to linger,Allow'd to lay his two rude hands, Where others dare not lay a finger.

INSCRIPTION IN A FOREST.

STRANGER-whose steps have reached this solitude,

Know that this lonely spot is dear to one
Devoted, with no unrequited zeal,

To NATURE. Here, delighted, he has
heard

The rustling of the woods, that now, perchance,

Melodious to the gale of summer move; Aud underneath their shade, on yon smooth rock,

With grey, and yellow lichens overgrown,
Often reclin'd-watching the silent flow
Of this perspicuous rivulet, that steals
Along, its verdant course, 'till all around,
Had Gill'd his senses with tranquillity.
And, ever, sooth'd in spirit, he returned
A happier, better man. Stranger, per-
chance,

"Therefore the stream more lovely to thine

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To the last-beam of life's declining day, Thirsis shall view, unmov'd, thy potent reign;

Secure to please, while goodness knows to charm,

Fancy and taste delight, or sense and truth inform.

Tyrant-when from that lip of crimson glow,

Swept by thy chilling wing, the rose shall fly,

When thy rude sigh indents bis polish'd brow,

And quenched is all the lustre of his eye, When ruthless age disperses every grace, Each smile that beams from that enchanting face.

Then thro' her stores shall active mem'ry

rove,

Teaching each various charm to bloom a

new,

And still the raptur'd eve of faithful love,

Shall bend on Thirsis its delighted view, Still shall he triumph, with resistless pow

er;

Still rule the conquer'd heart, to lifes' remotest hour.

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LA VIOLETTE.

Tu n'es plus la reine des ficurs,

Rose-modele d'inconstance Qu'elle est courte ton existence, Dans un jour tu nais, et tu meurs, Charmante et simple Violette!

Je te prefere en tous les tems,
Ton odeur suave, et parfaite,
Est le Presage du Printems.
La rose paroit au grand jour,
Ainsi que la Coquetterie ;
Pour eviter la Flaterie,
Sous l'herbe tu fais ton sejour,
Ton rivale a l'hommage invite,

C'est Venus, avec ses appas Toi, tu ressembles au merite, Qui perce, et ne se montre ga

Ce qui plait aux yeux, plait au cœur, Telle est la maxime en usage,

L'homme est leger, il est volage,

Et neglige le vrai bonheur;

La nature pour sa toilette

A cree les roses par milliers. Sages-Cherchez la Violette, Laissez aux fous tous les rosiers.

DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN ARTS, MANUFACTURES, &c.

A new and expeditious mode of Budding, by Thomas Andrew Knight, esq. F. R.S.

PARKINSON, in his Paradisus Londoniensis, which was pub lished in 1629, has observed, that the nursery-men of his days had been so long in the practice of substituting one variety of fruit for another, that the habit of doing so was almost become hereditary amongst them: were we to judge from the modern practice, in some public nurseries, we might suspect the possessors of them, to be the offspring of intermarriages, between the descendants of those alluded to by Parkinson. He has, however, mentioned his "very good friend, Master John Tradescant" and "Master John Miller," as exceptions; and similar exceptions are, I believe, to be found in modern days. It must, however, be admitted, that wherever the character of the leaf does not expose the error of the grafter, as in the different varieties of the peach, and nectarine, mistakes will sometimes occur; and therefore a mode of changing the variety, or of introducing a branch of another variety, with great expedition, may possibly be acceptable to many readers of the Horticultural Transactions.

The luxuriant shoots of peach and nectarine trees are generally barren; but the lateral shoots emitted in the same season, by them are often productive of fruit, particularly if treat

BELFAST MAG, NO. XXXII.

ed in the manner recommended by me in the Horticultural Transactions of 1808. In the experiments I have

there described, the bearing wood was afforded by the natural buds of the luxuriant shoots; but I thought it probable that such might as readily be afforded by the inserted buds of another variety, under the appropriate management. I therefore, as early in the month of June, of the year 1808, as the luxuriant shoots of my peach trees were grown sufficiently firm to permit the operation, inserted buds of other varieties into them, employing two distinct ligatures to hold the buds in their places. One ligature. was first placed above the bud inserted; and upon the transverse section through the bark: the other, which had no farther office than that of securing the bud, was appli ed in the usual way. As soon as the buds (which never fail under the preceding circumstances) had attached themselves, the ligatures last applied were taken off, but the others were suffered to remain. The passage of the sap upwards was in consequence much obstructed, and the inserted buds began to vegetate strongly in July and when these had afforded shoots about four inches long, the remaining ligatures were taken off, to permit the excess of sap to pass on; and the young shoots were nailed to the wall. Being there properly exposed to light, their wood ripened well, and afford

ed blossoms in the succeeding spring: this would, I do not doubt, have afforded fruit; but that, leaving my residence at Elton for this place, I removed my trees, and the whole of their blossoms in the last spring proved, in consequence, equally abortive.

On the parts of Trees primarily impair ed by age In a letter from T 4 Knight, F.R.S. to the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. K.B.P.R.S.From the Philosophical Transac tions of the Royal Society of London. In the first communication I had the honour to address to you (it was in the year 1795), I stated the result of many experiments on gratied trees, from which I inferred that each variety can be propagated with success, during a limited period only; and that the graft, or other detached part of an old tree, or old variety, can never form that, which can with propriety be called a young

tree.

I have subsequently endeavoured to ascertain which, amongst the various organs that compose a tree, first fails to execute its oflice, and thus tends to bring on the incurable debility of old age; and the result of the experiments appears sufficiently interesting, to induce me to communicate an account of them to

you.

Whatever difference exists between the functions of animal and vegetable life, there is a very obvious analogy between some of the organs of plants, and those of animals; and it does not appear very improbable, that the correspondent organ, in each, may first fail to execute its office; aud satisfactory evidence of the imperfect action of any particular organ can much more easily be obtained in the ve getable, than in the animal world.

For a tree may be composed, by the art of the grafter, of the detached parts of many others; and the defective, or efficient, operation, of each organ, may thus be observed with the greatest accuracy. But such observations cannot be made upon animals; because the operations necessary cannot be performed; would be much danger of error in and therefore, though there incautiously transferring the phenomena of one class of organized be ings to another, I conceive that exPeriments on plants may be, in some cases, useful to the investigator of the animal economy. They may direct him in his pursuits, and pos sibly facilitate his inquiries into the immediate causes of the decay of animal strength and life; and on a subject of so much importance to mankind, no source of information should remain unexplored, and no lights, however feeble, be disregarded.

Naturalists, both of ancient and modern times, have considered the structure of plants, as an inversion of that of animals, and having com pared the roots to the intestines, and the leaves to the lungs, of animals; and the analogy between the vegetable sap, and animal blood, is very close and obvious. The experiments also, of which I have at ditierent pe riods communicated accounts to you, supported by the facts previously ascertained by other naturalists, scarcely leave any reasonable grounds of doubt, that the sap of trees circulates, as far as is apparently necessary to, or consistent with, their state of existence and growth.

The roots of trees, particularly those in coppices, which are felled at stated periods, continue so long to produce, and feed, a succession of branches, that no experiments were wanted to satisfy me, that it is

not any defective action of the root which occasions the debility and diseases of old varieties of the ap. ple and pear tree; and indeed experience every where shows, that a young seedling stock does not give the character of youth to the inserted bud or graft. I, however, pro. cured plants from cuttings of some very old varieties of the apple, which readily emit roots; and these plants at the end of two years were grafted, about two inches above the ground, with a new and very luxuriant variety of the same species. These grafts grew very freely, and the roots themselves, at the end of four or five years, probably contained at least ten times as much alburnum, as they would have contained, had the trees remained ungrafied. The roots were also free from every appearance of disease, or defect.

Some crab-stocks were at the same time grafted with the golden pippiù, in a soil where the word of that variety rarely lived more than two years; and I again grafted the an mal shoots of the golden pippin, with cuttings of a young and healthy crab-tree, so as to include a portion of the wood of the golden pippin, between the roots and branches of the native uncultivated species, or crab-tree; and in this situation it grew just as well as the wood of the stock and branches. Some branches also of the golden pippin trees, which I mentioned in my former communication of 1795, being much cankered, were cut off about a foot above the junction of the grafts to the stocks, and were regraft ed with a new and healthy variety. Parts of the wood of the golden pippin, in which were many cankered spots, were thus placed between the newly-inserted grafts, and the stocks; and these parts have subsequently become perfectly free

from disease, and the wounds, previously made by canker, have been wholly covered with new and healthy bark. These facts, therefore, satisfied me, that the debility and diseases of old varieties of fruit of this species, did not originate in any defective action of the bark or alburnum, either of the root, or of the stem and branches, and my attention was constantly directed to the leaf and succulent animal shoot.

A few crab-stocks were grafted with cuttings of golden pippin, in a situation and soil, where I had previously ascertained that the wood of the golden pippin rarely remained in health at the end of a second year; and, as soon as the annual shoots had acquired sufficient growth and firmness, numerous buds of a new and luxuriant variety of apple, which had recently sprung from seed, were inserted in them. During the succeeding winter the natural buds of the golden pippin branches were destroyed, and those inserted suffered alone to remain; and as soon as the leaves of these had unfolded, and entered on their office, every symptom of debility and disease disappeared in the bark and wood of the golden pippin; and each continued to perform its office, just as well as the wood and bark of the young seedling stocks could have done under similar circumstances.—I made nearly the same experiments on the pear tree, and with the same result.

I have endeavoured, in several former communications, to prove that the sap of plants circulates through their leaves, as the blood of animals cncuiates through their lungs; and I have not subsequently found any facts, in the writings of other natu ralists, or in my own experiments, which militate against this conciusion. I have also observed, that grafted trees, of old and debilitated va

rieties of fruit, became most diseased in rich soils, and when grafted on stocks of the most vigorous growth; which has induced me to suspect, that in such cases more food is collected, and carried up into the plant, than its leaves can prepare and assimilate, and that the matter thus collected, which would have promoted the health and growth in a vigorous variety, accumulates, and generates disease in the extremities of the branches and annual shoots, whilst the lower part of the trunk and roots remain, generally, free from any apparent disease. I am, therefore, much disposed to attribute the diseases and debility of old age in trees, to inability to produce leaves, which can efficiently execute their natural office; and to some consequent imperfection in the circulating fluid. It is true that the leaves are annually reproduced, and therefore, annually new but there is, I conceive, a very essential diffe-ence between the new leaves of an old, and of a young variety and in support of this opinion, I shall observe, that the external character of the leaf of the same variety at two, and at twenty years old, is very dissimilar; and it therefore appears not improbable, that further changes will have taken place at the end of two centuries*.

"The leaf of a seedling apple or pear-tree, when the plant is very young, is generally almost wholly free from the pubescence or down, which subsequently appears on its under surface; and which Bonnet and M. Mirbel, have supposed to increase its surface and powers. But I feel little disposed to adopt this hypothesis, having observed that the leaves of some new varieties of the apple, which have sprung from seeds of the Siberian crab, have both surfaces nearly equally smooth; and that these varieties grow faster, and bear heavier crops of very rich fruit, than any others, without being exhausted or injured.

If these opinions be well founded, and the leaves of trees be ana, logous to the lungs of animals, is it very improbable that the natural debility of old age of trees and of a nimals, may originate from a similar source?-This is a question, upon which I am not by any means prepared to give an opinion: but I believe it will very generally be admitted, that the human subject is best formed for long life, when the chest is best formed to permit the lungs to move with most freedom. I have also long and attentively observed amongst our domesticated animals, that those individuals longest retain their health and strength, and best bear excessive labour and sufficient food, in which the chest is most deep and capacious, proportiouately to the length of current the circulating fluid has to run; and the same remark will, I believe, be generally found applicable to the human species.

French Turnip; a variety of the Brassica Napus, or Rape which has long been cultivated upon the continent; by Mr. James Dickson, F.L.S. V.P.H.S.

Trans. Hart. Soc. vol. I.-26. FOR above twelve years, I have seen this plant brought to our market in Covent Garden, but only by one person, and I believe it has been chiefly sold to foreigners, though, when once known, it will be a very acceptable root in most families. It is much more delicate in flavour than our common turnip, and is to be used in the same way. In Germany it enriches all their soups, and there is no necessity to which is thinner than that of the cut away the outer skin, or rind, common turnip, but only to scrape it. Stewed In gravy, it forms a most excellent dish, and being white,

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