THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 249 



advent of the Prince of Orange to England^ the weeping willow made its way to 

 the royal palace at Hampton Court. At any rate this was the first willow known 

 in Europe, and nothing is yet positively known as to how that plant came there. 

 The name Babylonian willow is a poetical fiction, and comes from a mis- 

 translation of the Bible version. The willow is wholly a native of arctic or 

 temperate climates. There were never any willows in Babylon of any kind, 

 and harps could not be hung on them. The nearest ally to the willow there is 

 a poplar — Pojmlus Eujihratica — but it is extremely improbable that harps 

 were hung even on these. Those the most familiar with the flora of Ancient 

 Babylon seem to have settled down to this, that our common oleander, of 

 which they used large quantities in their gardens, was this tree of the Baby- 

 lonians on which their harps were hung. But those who know of the deadly 

 poisonous juices of this plant will be slow to believe that there was much 

 handling indulged in either by hanging harps on the branches or other- 

 wise. If we take the phrase as a figurative or poetical one, expressive of 

 the sorrow that was involved by continued captivity, and the oleander as the 

 expression of joy and happiness, we may find some ray of explanation. At 

 any rate the translation "willow" is an unfortunate one, as it leads to much 

 misconception of the surroundings of the Jews in those ancient times. — 

 Thomas Meehan. 



CUTTING BACK EVERGREENS. 



But a few years ago it was considered the ruin of an evergreen tree to cut 

 o2 its leader. If by accident it was broken, the symmetry of that tree was 

 thought to have departed forever. How things change ! The beauty of many 

 evergreens in their maturity depends upon cutting back the terminal shoots or 

 pinching out the terminal buds. Many of our readers — possibly all of them — . 

 may be ignorant of the fact that the white pine {Pinus strohus), if treated in 

 this manner from the time it is four feet high until it reaches a hight of ten 

 feet, becomes a tree of great beauty, symmetry and compactness. The firs, 

 hemlocks, spruces, retinosporas, arbor-vittes, are all greatly improved by being 

 persistently cut back while young, and, notably in the case of the balsam fir 

 and Norway spruce, their lower branches are preserved many years longer 

 than when the tree is permitted to grow at will.- Our red cedar, as it grows in 

 the fields, soon loses its lower branches, and with them its beauty. Cutting 

 back changes its nature. It becomes more dwarf, but more spreading and 

 compact, and in this way is made a tree well worthy of a place in ornamental 

 grounds. — Rural Ne2u Yorker. 



PRESERVING CONTOUR OF EVERGREENS. 



No one is more capable of talking upon the above topic than Dr. John A. 

 Warder, so we quote from him : 



As the young trees increase in size, and after they have left the nursery to 

 occupy their permanent stations, it is necessary to have a care to the preser- 

 vation of their contour. The nurseryman must not neglect this in training his 

 trees, and the first requisite is to avoid crowding in the rows — the laterals 

 damaged or lost by such crowding cannot be reproduced as in deciduous trees. 



