1885.] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 461 



Betters to the Editor. 



SIR, — I thank you very much for namin<,' my trees and shrubs 

 for me, and am very pleased to liave your confirmation 

 regarding No. 4, wliich I have always recognised as a Magnolia 

 tripdala. We have a good many magnolias of this kind in 

 Curraghmore, but not one of them has flowered during the time I 

 have been here. The average lieight of this tree in England, 

 according to Loudon, is from 15 to 30 feet; but we liave several 

 specimens which have already attained to considerably beyond the 

 latter height, and are still growing vigorously. Our largest specimen 

 is fully 37 feet in height, and is perhaps one of the handsomest 

 trees I have ever seen. It is growing in a rich alluvial soil on the 

 banks of a tributary of the Suir, and is otherwise favourably 

 circumstanced. This tree, however, is not very fastidious as to soil, 

 as we have it flourishing here in cold, wet, poor ground, in which 

 many of our reputed hardy trees have succumbed. Some of our 

 best specimens, in fact, are growing in land of this description, and 

 though they are not quite so large as the one I have referred to, are 

 yet strikingly handsome trees. " Curraghmore." 



DEAR SIR, — By this mail I am sending you a copy of the 

 Proceedings of the Agri-Horticultural Society of Madras, con- 

 tairing a letter of mine giving the history of the introduction of the 

 mahogany tree to the East Indies, which would, I think, be 

 interesting to many of your readers. The grand growth of the tree 

 here has lately attracted some attention, and Government is at 

 present, with the assistance of the Kew authorities and the Govern- 

 ment of Jamaica, endeavouring to increase it largely. 



There is another subject in which I am deeply interested, in 

 which you can probably assist me. There are to the north and 

 south of Madras thousands of acres of sand-dunes which, within the 

 last five-and-twenty years, I and others have covered with thriving 

 forests of Casuarina muricaia, Roxb. The tree in favourable parts of 

 the sands grows to a noble size, and that very rapidly. I have 

 many 40 to 60 inches in girth at 5 feet from the ground, and 

 tapering up probably 90 or 100 feet as straight as and very like a 

 larch planted in 1871. A few trees are cut for poles, shed-building, 

 rails, and such-like uses, but hundred of acres go down in a very 

 immature state every year fur firewood. The wood is very hard, of 



