316 Missouri State Horticultural Society. 



of the peach, the ancient tradition referred to by Targioni (with 

 the remark that is contradicted by Pliny, and by common sense) 

 that the peach in Persia was poisonous, and became inocuons 

 when transj^orted to Egypt, and the case quoted of a supposed 

 hybrid raised in 1831 in Sig. G-iuseppe Bartolucci's garden at Colle 

 di Val d^ Else, from a peach stone which produced fruits at first 

 exactly like almonds, but which, as they ripened, assumed the ap- 

 pearance and succulence of peaches, whilst the kernel remained 

 sweet and oily, like those of almonds. We might also refer to^ some 

 bad varieties of peach with very little juice to their pericarps, 

 although we do not know of any which assume the flattened form 

 of our almond, a distinctive character which appears to us to be of 

 considerable importance. The foliage and flowers of the two trees 

 show little or no specific difference. — The Garden. 



ENTERTAINING AND INSTRUCTIVE. 



AGRICULTURAL STATESMEN. 



The presiding of Governor Frederick Robie, of Maine, over 

 the late annual meeting of the Maine State Grange has furnished 

 food for a most excellent article from Major Ben Perley Poore on 

 agricultural rulers and statesmen.. He thus discourses upon the 

 subject in the columns of the American Cultivator. 



Travelers in China tell us that, at a certain solemn festival that 

 occurs there once a year, the Emperor of that 'Celestial Kingdom," 

 the ruler of 300,000,000 of people, so far evinces his respect for 

 that glorious science which yields bread to his subjects, that, in 

 order to set the best possible example, he takes himself a plow in 

 hand and turns a few furrows with it, in the same fashion as does 

 the humblest plowman in his domains. In this instance do we 

 find the mighty soverign of an empire, in which sovereignty is es- 

 teemed a thing sacred — a thing exalting above the lot of ordinary 

 mortals its fortunate possessor — proclaiming, by his own example, 

 the inestimable worth of that knowledge in virtue in which the 

 earth brings forth her fruits, so that in good time we may enjoy 

 them. 



