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The Masgosteen. — An early number of the Uorticulturist will contain a superb plate of 

 the Mangosteen, •which has lately been fruited in England. By general consent it is the 

 best of fruits, but all attempts to cultivate it beyond its natural habitat, the Malay penin- 

 sula, and islands to the eastward of the Bay of Bengal, have heretofore been unsuccessful. 

 We hope by figuring this superb fruit to induce some of our cultivators to attempt it in 

 this country. 



Fixes Sabixiana, or Pkickly-leaved Pine.* — The frontispiece represents the cone of the 

 Pinus Sabiniana, about one-half its natural size, a splendid and useful species, found by the 

 late Mr. Douglass on the western flank of the Cordilleras, at a great elevation above the 

 level of the sea, being only 1600 feet below the range of perpetual snow, in the parallel 

 of 40C>, and likewise on the less elevated mountains near the sea coast, in the parallel 

 of 373. 



The Indians were found to make use of the kernels as food ; they are nearly as jileasant 

 as almonds, except that they leave behind a slightly resinous taste. 



The stems of these pines are of a very regular form, and grow straight and tapering to the 

 height of 40 to 140 feet. A copious transparent resin exudes from the tree when cut. It 

 was named after Mr. Joseph Sabine, Secretary of the London Horticultural Society ; about 

 London it appears to be as hardy as the Pinus pinaster. We observe it is advertised in this 

 number by Ellwanger & Barry, and it is probable plants may be for sale by others. (See 

 NuttalVs Supplement to Michaux, vol. iii. page 110.) 



TuE Dioscokea. — A correspondent of the Sacramento Journal having heard that one of tlio 

 objections raised against the new potato was, that the Chinese themselves knew little about 

 it, he made inquiry among the Chinese shops, and was successful at the first place he called. 

 The storekeeper could not understand him, nor could the purchaser him, except when the 

 inquirer picked up the roots to examine, when he said : " Good — all same as potato ; mak'ee 

 boil ; two bits pound." This sets at rest one of the great arguments of certain doubters. 

 We have said from the first, wait in patience till the roots grow before condemning them 

 in toto. Time sufficient to prove them has not yet elapsed. 



Home. — The favorite sitting-rooms of many families in Paris and Berlin, as the evening 

 hour comes on, are the balconies and terraces near the roofs of the houses, under the shade 

 of trellises covered with flowers and foliage. They are often five or six feet wide, and are 

 often furnished and decked out with great taste, even to the gilding of the railing, and the 

 hanging of fancy curtains. For, let it not be supposed that those who live at the top of a 

 house having such a terrace, are merely poor needle-women, or obscure artists. By no 

 means ; they are, more probably, people who can afl"ord to have their chairs and sofas 

 covered with velvet, and lounge away their evenings in looking down from their giddy 



* See Frontispiece. 



