summer, become beautifully variegated, with red and yellow, in autumn, whenever the plant grows in a very dry soil, or in a pot. It is a very hardy and productive variety, and bears well in the open air; and in moderately warm situations, it will ripen sufficiently well to afford a very palatable fruit at this season.

I cannot discover any thing in the character of this Grape, which renders it better calculated, than many others, for being long preserved; for its skin is very thin, and it is remarkably juicy; and I am not quite satisfied that the few bunches I have possessed, having remained so long sound, may not be in part, at least accidental. I intended to send some of its variegated leaves with the bunch; but I unfortunately placed them in a book in a damp room, where they became mouldy; and I can send only a single leaf, which was accidentally preserved in my pocket-book. The bunch I send was gathered upon the 10th of October.

This variety sprang from a seed of the White Chasselas, and the pollen of the Aleppo Grape; which readily variegates the leaves and fruit of the offspring of any White Grape.*

you

I send, as you request, a few cuttings of the plant which afforded the small blue Grapes, with white stripes, which received from me in the antumn. The same seedling plant bears some bunches of which the berries are black, striped with white; others of which the berries, like those you received, are pale blue, striped with white, each presenting some colourless berries, and other bunches which are perfectly colourless. I believe it will be found to ripen in the open air nearly as well as any Grape we possess, upon plants

* Mr. KNIGHT has named this Grape the Variegated Chasselas.

of the same age; and I think it contains more saccharine matter than any Grape with which I am acquainted, exclusive of the Verdelho Grape of Madeira. This variety is very productive; and will, probably, prove well calculated for early forcing. The berries are generally larger than those you received from me. me.*

I am, my dear Sir,

Your humble servant,

THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT.

Downton,

January 30, 1812.

* I believe this little Grape to be better calculated for the press, in a cool climate, than any we now possess, and that, if trained to low walls, in the warmer parts of England, it would afford a wine of considerable strength.

LV. On the Cultivation of Rare Plants, especially such as have been introduced since the Death of Mr. PHILIP MILLER. By RICHARD ANTHONY SALISBURY, Esq. F. R. S. &c. Secretary.

Read January 6, February 4, and March 3, 1812.

AMONGST the various branches of Horticulture, that of managing Rare Plants, though perhaps really the least important, is one of the most difficult; and the avidity with which they are collected, as well as permanent delight which they afford, have advanced the rank of a skilful botanic gardener, in some families, higher than that of any other servant. Many new plants being also introduced, respecting the culture of which no particular directions have yet been published, I very willingly communicate to this Society what little knowledge I have gained on the subject.

If my remarks eventually prove useful to any one, let his thanks flow in a full stream towards the royal garden at Kew, which has been the grand source of horticultural improvement, in this country, since the death of Mr. PHILIP MILLER. How would that Prince of Gardeners, as he was emphatically called by foreigners, have been gratified to have joined us in our excurson last June, when we saw the whole of that vast collection, in the various quarters of the Grass, Physic, Kitchen, Fruit, Flower, and Pleasure ground, whether under extensive ranges of glass, or exposed to the open air, in the neatest order, and healthiest condition; and when we saw living

more than double the number of exotic plants known to him in 1768? How would he have been still more delighted to have witnessed his own liberal principles descending, and emanating in the son of his favourite pupil, who then distributed so largely amongst us all, bulbs of the magnificent Lilium Tigrinum; and who, upon being asked by your Secretary for a plant still more rare, told him, in the very words. of Mr. PHILIP MILLER to BOERHAVE'S gardener, to "help himself to whatever he wished for"?

Nothing is stated in the following pages that is not the result of my own experience: but it would be very ungrateful in me not to mention, next to the names of the late Mr. AITON and his son, those of Messrs. LEE and KENNEDY; and of Mr. DoNN, who after being the right hand of his master for so long a period at Kew, has raised the Cambridge garden to a degree of clelebrity it had never attained before; by all of whom, many hints and instructions, now fully detailed, were originally given. For much valuable matter, relative to the soil and places of growth of Cape and West India plants, always communicated without the slightest reserve, and so essential to the working gardener, I am indebted to the late Mr. FRANCIS MASSON. Still more lately, I have gained a great deal of useful knowledge of this sort, from the manuscript tickets of Mr. JAMES NIVEN, who travelled several years in various districts of the Cape, at the expense of GEORGE HIBBERT, Esq. From that gentleman's gardener also, Mr. JOSEPH KNIGHT, who in so short a period brought his master's late collection, at Clapham, to a state of unrivalled beauty, and now labours, as successfully, on his own account, at Little Chelsea, I have learnt many points necessary