142 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



opened beautifully to the delight of the friends re- 

 ceiving it. Your respectfully, F. W., Newark. 

 Wayne Co., N. Y., Aug. 16, 1849. 



Burr's New Pine.— A. J. Downing, Esq.: In 

 the number of the Horticulturist for August, 1848, 

 in speaking of Burr's New Pine Strawberry, you 

 say, " We do not hesitate to pronounce it one of 

 the best, and perhaps the very best, American 

 strawberry yet raised." I wish to inquire whether 

 from the experience of the present season, your 

 opinion of last year is confirmed, or what further 

 you are now enabled to say about it, from actual 

 experience; also, what is the best soil for it. I 

 have full confidence in your opinion, upon any sub- 

 ject of this nature; but the public have often been 

 humbugged with new fruits, particularly straw- 

 berries, and two years experience is better than 

 one. Is the Bicton Pine to be had at any Ameri- 

 can garden? Yours respectfully, A Connecticut 

 Subscriber. 



Our good opinion of Burr's New Pine is un- 

 changed. It is certainly the best flavored Amer- 

 ican seedling yet raised of good size and produc- 

 tiveness. It is impossible to say yet how it will 

 succeed in different soils and latitudes. But so 

 far as we have heard of its trial it has given the 

 highest satisfaction; at Rochester, N. Y., it has 

 been much praised; Mr. Huntsman of Long Is- 

 land (see p. 61,) who is a good judge, considers 

 it " the most desirable strawberry in cultivation;" 

 and the fruit committee of the Albany Horticultu- 

 ral Society, who have had fine specimens exhibit- 

 ed for two years past, reported this year " that 

 the further opportunity afforded them to compare 

 Burr's New Pine with other standard varieties, 

 fully confirms them in the opinion expressed at the 

 last exhibition, viz: 'That it is entitled to the 

 first rank, taking into consideration its many de- 

 sirable qualities." ' 



On the other hand we notice that Col. Wilder, 

 at Boston, in his notes in a previous page of this 

 number, fears that it will prove a poor bearer. 

 But the majority of experience, so far, affirms the 

 other way. 



The Bicton Pine was imported last spring by 

 Col. Wilder, who is always among the foremost 

 in introducing desirable varieties, but we believe 

 was lost on the way. As it is said to be a fine 

 new white berry, we hope it will have a trial here. 

 Ed. 



The Gordonias. — Sir C. Lyell's " second visit 

 to the United States" contains so much informa- 

 tion on the natural history of this country, that it 

 should be in the hands of every one who is fond of 

 the study of nature. It contains many botanical 

 remarks, * though geology is the topic which 

 most delights the author. His observations re- 

 specting the delta of the Mississippi, especially re- 

 garding the " sunk country" about New Madrid, 

 and the geological inferences he deduces from the 



* See especially in vol. 1, his account of the distinct zones 

 of vegetation on Mount Washington. 



effects of the earthquakes of modern date in that 

 region, will interest all readers of intelligence. 



In the following the author alludes to the pecu- 

 liarly small locality of one of our most valuable 

 fall blooming trees, (Gordonia pubescens,) which 

 in dry situations is hardy as far north as Philadel- 

 phia, and probably still further. I have one, thirty- 

 five feet high, which scents a large circumference 

 with a fragrance quite as agreeable as the flower 

 of the Magnolia glauca. J.J.S., Philadelphia. 



" If," says Darwin, " two species of the same 

 genus, and closely allied habits, people the same 

 district, and we can say why only one of them is 

 rare and the other common, what right have we 

 to wonder if the rarer of the two should cease to 

 exist altogether." 



" In illustration of this principle, I may refer to 

 two beautiful evergreens flourishing in this part of 

 Georgia, species of Gordonia (or Franklinia of 

 Bartram,) a plant allied to the camellia. One of 

 these I saw everywhere in the swamps near the 

 Altamaha, where it is called the Loblolly Bay, 

 (Gordonia. lasianthus) forty feet high, and even 

 higher, with dark green leaves, and covered, I 

 am told, in the flowering season, with a profusion 

 of milk-white, fragrant blossoms. This plant has 

 a wide range in the southern states, whereas the 

 other, (Gordonia pubescens) often seen in green- 

 houses in England, about thirty feet high, is con- 

 fined, as I am informed by Mr. Cooper, to a very 

 limited area, twenty miles in its greatest length, 

 the same region where Bartram first discovered 

 it, seventy years ago, near Barrington Ferry, on 

 the Altamaha. In no other spot in the whole con- 

 tinent of America has it ever been detected. If 

 we were told that one of these two evergreens 

 was destined in the next 2000 or 3000 years to 

 become extinct, how could we conjecture which 

 of them would endure the longest ? We ought to 

 know first whether the area occupied by the one 

 has been diminishing and that of the other increas- 

 ing, and then which of the two plants has been on 

 the advance. But even then we should require to 

 foresee a countless number of circumstances in the 

 animate and inanimate world affecting the two 

 species, before we could make a probable guess 

 as to their comparative durability. A single frost, 

 more severe than that before alluded to, which 

 cut off the orange trees in Florida after they had 

 lasted a century and a half, might baffle all cal- 

 culations; or the increase of some foe, a minute 

 parasitic insect perhaps, might entirely alter the 

 conditions on which the existence of these or any 

 other trees, shrubs, or quadrupeds depend." 



Knevett's Giant Raspberry. — I am glad to 

 learn that Knevett's Giant Raspberry proves hardy 

 with you. It is much prized here, as it stancfes 

 our winters perfectly well, and uniformly bears 

 large crops of fine fruit. Yours sincerely, M. P. 

 Wilder. Boston, Aug. llth, 1849. 



Munificent Bequests. — The late Hou Theo- 



