382 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and during many months at a time not a showei washes its leaves. It 

 bears very small, insignificant looking flowers. What is it good for, 

 this tall, slim trunk, with the dull, dead-looking branches? It is the 

 milk tree, the famous "palo de vaca," which Humboldt describes. He 

 first brought it into notice. It is an evergreen. Its sap is a delicious 

 fluid resembling the finest Jersey milk, only sweeter and richer than 

 even that. When the negroes are thirsty they cut into the side of the 

 trunk as one would bore into a maple for sugar water, and the milk 

 gushes forth in a great stream. It is both food and drink, so rich is it. 

 After a little time it grows thick and yellow, and a cream rises to the 

 top. It has a fragrant odor. When a caw tree is tapped the natives 

 hasten from all quarters with their bowls to catch the flow of milk. 

 The fluid is white. Sunrise is the best time to tap the tree, for then the 

 sap flows most abundantly. The tree gets its morning milking like a 

 cow. Humboldt was much surprised at discovering the cow tree and 

 finding that its milk was palatable and nutritious. His knowledge of 

 botany had taught him that most milky vegetable fluids are bitter and 

 burning to the taste. Some of them are poisonous. But here there 

 was one milky sap that put even great learning at fault. Attempts 

 have been made to cultivate the cow tree, and make it grow in other 

 localities than wher^it is found naturally, but in vain. As soon as it 

 is removed from its native mountains it dies. 



1 ordered a Champion of the World Fuchsia from one dealer, and 

 a Phenomenal from another. When the plants bloomed, they were 

 exactly alike. I ordered a Safrano Rose from one dealer, and a Sunset 

 from another. Both proved to be the same in all respects. Here there 

 was a chance for dishonesty, since these two Roses resemble each 

 other so much that the man who sent the Safrano might have thought 

 he could pass it off on me as a Sunset. I ordered a Victor Hugo from 

 one florist, and a Mad. Blauvelt from another, and no one can detect 

 any difference in them. This is something that happens every year. 

 If you order from the same firm all the time, it is not likely that you 

 get the same plant, or variety, under two names, but if you order from 

 some other firm, you do. Do florists buy up stocks of plants and give 

 them a new name in their catalogues in order to make us think they 

 have varieties that other dealers do not have? It certainly looks so. — 

 Eben E Rexford in American Garden. 



HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 



The value of local horticultural literature, much of which is slowly 

 and laboriously put upon paper by hands unused to the work, is often 



