CRITIQUE ON THE JUNE HORTICULTURIST. 



65 



non ; dis a lateral branch struck from a cut- 

 ting, e is the callus, c a branch sprung from 

 an adventitious bud and destined to become 

 a tree which, to be well formed, ought to be 

 produced upon the cellular matter of the cal- 

 lus and not upon the stem of the cutting ; 

 this last ought to be cut the moment that the 

 shoot which it has brought to light is a little 

 developed. 



Some years ago I was advised to put a lat- 

 eral branch of Araucaria excelsa into the 

 ground ; I was told that I should obtain 

 along this branch adventitious buds which 

 would form heads ; I tried it, and never 

 obtained a satisfactory result, nor have I 

 ever been able to find at any horticulturists 

 a single fact in defence of the specula- 

 tion. 



CRITIQUE ON THE JUNE HORTICULTURIST. 



BV JI:;FFREYi!, NEAV-YORK. 



Your Leader. — Our Country Villages. — 

 All very well, and rightly said — the IMassa- 

 ehusetts part, in particular. They do under- 

 stand things better there, as a state, in the 

 way of living clean and comfortable about 

 their houses and grounds, than in any other 

 state of the union. From Pittsfield to Na- 

 hant, in its entire length, or from Northficld 

 down the Connecticut valley to Long IMea- 

 dow, in its full breadth, and through all its 

 river com-ses, from the Ilnu^atnnic in tlie west 

 to the Merrimack in the cast, are the loveli- 

 est villages tliat live, and though barren, hard 

 and rugged be the soil of IMassachusetts, " it 

 is a land of beauty and of grandeur" — beauti- 

 ful in its soft, sunny spots of cultivation and 

 embellishments — grand in its mountains, riv- 

 ers, valleys, capes, and ocean. But your 

 regular villages ! they are 7iot in Massachu- 

 setts. In all their beauty throughout the 

 state — T mean the old ones, for they are by 

 far the prettiest — those ancient villages are 

 laid out on the cow-path system of pilgrim 

 times ; no parks, but a " green ;" a wimpling 

 brook or a babbling river, with broad elms 

 and willows clustered over its silvery bed, to 

 screen it from the fierce glare of the sun ; a 

 stretch of luxuriant meadow ; a gentle hill or 

 a rocky ledge now and then upon its outskirts ; 

 mountains in the distance ; in its heart the 

 neatest churches and school houses ; and 



spreading out upon its winding streets, the 

 sweetest homes, the fairest lawns, the choicest 

 gardens, and the grandest trees in the uni- 

 verse ! Witness Stockljridge, Northampton, 

 Lancaster, and a hundred others, to say noth- 

 ing of the delicious places round aliout Bos- 

 ton ; which, by the way, are losing half their 

 beauty and rurality in the starch and macca- 

 roni atmosphere which the city emigration 

 has brought into them. Why, if you want to 

 know the superiority of such winding streets, 

 just recollect back a few years ago, when we 

 were boys, and bring to mind the pleasant old 

 roads crooking out in various ways from 

 Greenwich-street, Broadway, and the Bowery, 

 in this goodly city of Gotham, which thread- 

 ed out all over the island, between old mossy 

 stone walls, with wild-briar hedges overgrown; 

 ledges of high rock ; the occasional market 

 garden, and low perched cottage enclosed ; 

 and now and then the hospitable looking, 

 broad-porched old mansion of the Stuyve- 

 sants, the Grades, the Bays, the Schermer- 

 horns, or the Le Roys, with their long ave- 

 nues of horse chestnuts, and elms, and Eng- 

 lish cherries, and box, and arbor vitEe. And 

 now where are they ? Gone, alas, forever , 

 but that was country — rural; one could smell 

 it, and feel it, as he coursed, or drove, or 

 walked those pleasant lanes and bye-roads. 

 And such, among such lands elsewhere, should 



