EDITOR'S TABLE. 



kuown, some of them weigMng one and one-fonrtli pounds. Do you know anything that 

 beats it ? It is equal, in flavor, to the White Heath, rounder, with a less prominent point. 

 It must have been produced from that peach. Another very remarkable and fine peach, in 

 this vicinity, is about the size and form of George IV. It is beautifully streaked with red 

 on a yellow ground, the flesh being streaked with red and yellow to the seed, from which 

 it parts freely. It is a delicious peach, perhaps not surpassed by any soft peach in culti- 

 vation, unless it is by another seedling of this county, in flavor, but not in size. There are 

 several others that have originated here, viz ; a soft White Heath, &c. 



I will mention one more article — i. e., a native strawberry, which was found growing wild 

 by A. M. McLain, and has been cultivated by him for twenty-two years, and has not, in 

 that time, failed to produce a crop. It is a light colored berry, inclined to neck. It has 

 perfect flowers, is of good size, and surpasses all others that I have seen in taste and odor. 



I am confident there is nothing wanting but attention to the fruits of this country, to 

 develop some of the finest varieties adapted to the South and West. I believe, that to 

 succeed well, we must have native seedlings. SwAix. 



Oakwood College, Evaxston, III., Nov. 10, 1856. 



Mr. Jay Smith: Your article in the November Horticulturist, entitled "Rationale of Drain- 

 ing Lands Explained," has furnished me what I have for some time sought — an explanation 

 of a phenomenon I have observed in an orchard I happened to own, near Chicago. The 

 trees were situate in rather sandy, low, flat, undrained land, and had made a fine growth. 

 In September, the fruit would become shrivelled to such a degree, that some kinds were 

 almost as pliable in the hand as an India-rubber ball. Of course I attributed this to the 

 situation of the trees, but the exact reason why that should produce the effect, was far 

 more difiicult for me (novice as I was) to discover. Nor could I see why the fruit should 

 begin to shrivel as the ground seemed to become more dry. I reasoned that the tree being 

 accustomed to a larger amount of moisture during the early part of the season, and its 

 diminishing as the season advanced, left it to carry out its undertaking under diflerent 

 circumstances from which it commenced, and, had the moisture continued as at first, the 

 fruit would not have wilted. This course of reasoning seemed more plausible from the 

 seeming analogy with swamp grasses and shrubs, which fail when their supply of moisture 

 is cut short. 



But I am now satisfied, that although the ground became comparatively dry by the last 

 of July, yet the water did not disappear to a sufficient dej^th, or early enough to enable the 

 ground to become sufiiciently warm, to ripen fruit, requiring, as it does, much more heat as 

 it approaches maturity than while young. The water did not dry out to a greater depth 

 than about two feet. This, of course, continually imparted its coldness to the ground above 

 it, insomuch that the warm rains and the heat of the sun could not overcome it sufiiciently 

 to meet the demand of the fruit. 



The proper illustration of your experiments will have a powerful tendency to set our 

 prairie farmers right upon the subject of drainage. Conviction only produces action, and 

 this alone follows a perception of the reasons. 



If you should desire to know the locality of the place whose name is at the head of this 

 letter, and turn to your map to gratify that desire, you will be disappointed. But perhaps 

 you have learned that maps are far behind the age, so far as they have reference to the 

 West, where towns spring up even while the binder is putting the gilt trimmings upon his 

 splendid large atlas. 



Evanston is the site of the Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical Institute, lately 



liberally endowed, and is one of a number of villages that have sprung up along the 

 hore north of Chicago within the last two years, and which are becoming the residences 



