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CRITIQUE ON THE FEBRUARY HORTICULTURIST. 



lustration of the truth — that we overlook 

 what is within our reach, and take infinite 

 pains to get that which is to he had with 

 difficulty ; that two of the finest evergreen 

 shrubs in America, the common laurel — 

 {Kalmia laiifolia,) and the native holly — 



(Ilex opaca,) are scarcely to be found for 

 sale in a nursery, or growing in a shrub- 

 bery, in the United States, though in Eng- 

 land they are planted by the acre, and 

 plants of the Kalmia may be had for a few 

 shillings a thousand. Ed. 



CRITIQUE ON THE FEBRUARY HORTICULTURIST. 



BY JEFFREYS, NEW-YORK. 



Your Leader — The Convention of Fruits. — 

 Very well. The fruits themselves having 

 taken the subject in hand, I trust the de- 

 sired reform of anglicising their foreign 

 names will go forward. I know no better 

 reason for retaining proper names and pro- 

 nunciations to foreign fruits in foreign lan- 

 guages, than to foreign cattle or horses, or 

 any other thing. It is an absurdity all 

 round. We talk, or profess to talk, Eng- 

 lish in this country. Why then strive to 

 draw foreign languages in so awkwardly, 

 to bother our tongues and brains, when the 

 " old well of English undefiled," is at hand, 

 sufficient for all our purposes ? I hope that 

 this important matter will be put right at 

 the next annual pomological convention. 



Preserving Fruits fresh for winter use. — 

 A most excellent plan, and as easy in prac- 

 tice as to bottle cider. A little attention at 

 the proper seasons to things of this sort, 

 and what a multitude of household com- 

 forts do we draw about us, costing to those 

 who grow the fruits little or nothing, and a 

 source of profit to those who wish to make 

 them so. 



A Botanical Account of California. — I 

 trust that California is destined to produce 

 something better than gold. If not, it must 

 be a wretched country. But until gold 

 gets to be an old story, I suppose we shall 

 hear little of anything else. For the last 



twelve months, I have been inquiring what 

 California produced in the way of vegeta- 

 tion, but can find no one who thought of, 

 or saw anything but gold when there. 



It is said that Col. Fremont's glowing 

 pictures of the luxury of vegetation there is 

 all moonshine. If, however, California 

 shall prove a good agricultural region, no 

 occupation for the next twenty years will 

 prove so surely profitable as that of culti- 

 vating the soil in grains, vegetables and 

 fruits. More gold can thus be dug out of 

 the soil than in the richest placers yet dis- 

 covered. 



Notes on Fruit Culture in Illinois. — A 

 very interesting paper ; and if the Catarobe 

 grape, so graphically described by Profes- 

 sor Turner, is a native of that country, it 

 is substantial evidence that his chief diffi- 

 culty in his other fruits is, that they are 

 foreigners to that particular soil and locality. 

 His narrative of the root grafted, stock 

 grafted, and stock budded apples, is ano- 

 ther strong evidence of such fact. I would 

 suggest to Professor T. to try native Illinois 

 stocks, grafted or budded high, i. e., at the 

 point where he proposes to spread the top 

 of his trees. The main stock, where the 

 chief complaint now lies, will then be indi- 

 genous to the soil, and altogether likely to 

 withstand the vicissitudes of climate and 

 soil, which are so fatal to the exotics. At 



