REVIEW 



seen inakinj; their way out of town, to visit some pardon or orchard. At dusl<, 

 he is foiulling liis children in liis lionie again at l)orclu'i«lcr, or showing some other 

 ]>artv who has been waiting his return, the growth of jiears on tlie ([uince, and 

 delivering the ex])erieiice of twenty-live years' success. Look at liim ne.xt, giving 

 minute directions in his greenhouse, or driving the hist nail in his new and admir- 

 able fruit-room. Lamps are now requisite, and we will leave him chatting with 

 good neighbors, but witii one hand arranging other letters that must be answered 

 l)efore slee|) is permitted, or complying with some editorial request for an article 

 detailing his experiences. Such is Col. AVilder's career at home. "We all know 

 what it is abroad, as a leading mind and an active liand. 



I'rofessor Jenks has done his task well. "We could have wished that even 

 some few more of our favorites had found admission to his pages ; we cannot find 

 the second part of Lady IJarnard's " Auld Kobin (iray," wliich, though not so 

 beautiful as the first, is required to make it complete. The exquisite history of 

 its composition, and the correct version, will be found in that admirable book, 

 Lord Lindsay's Lives of the Lindsays, than which there is no more delightful 

 biography in the English language. 



This volume is one to be appreciated by all lovers of rural art, and we hope to 

 sec it on every table where we visit. 



Catalogues, &c., received. — Catalogues des Plaiitcs Exotiqnes, nouvelles et rares, culti- 

 vees dans les serres de J. Linden au jardin royal de zoologie et d'horticulture, a iiruxelles, 

 1857. Illustrated, and full of new things of value and interest. 



First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology, illustrated by over tliree hundred and 

 sixty wood engravings, and a glossary of botanical temis. By Asa Gray, New York, 1857. 

 invaluable and carefully prepared work. 



A Practical Treatise on the Construction, Heating, and Ventilation of Hothouses, &c. By 

 Robert B. Leuchars, Garden Architect, New York, 1S57. 



Official Report of the California State Agricultural Society for 1856. California Farmer 

 office, San Francisco. A very interesting pamphlet, and entitled to attention. 



Catalogue of Fruit and Ornamental Trees, Vines, Shrubs, &c., cultivated and for sale by 

 James W. Gray, Bull's Pond, Fairfield County, Connecticut. 



Novel Hybrid. — "An old and zealous correspondent (R. T. C.)," says the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, " has left at our office two most interesting seedlings, the produce of one plant (a 

 florist's Picotee), and, it is believed, of one seed pod, fertilized by either a dark Sweet Wil- 

 liam, the ordinary Indian Pink, or one of Vilmorin's Garden Dianths of the Indian Pink 

 race. The experiment which led to so curious a result, will have indeed to be repeated 

 next season, in order to ascertain whether one seed pod produced both forms, and what 

 was the male parent. But we have here the imt)ortant datum, that Picotees and Carna- 

 tions (for R. T. C. has seedlings from both) will breed freely with certain other Dianths. 

 What a wide field for improvement is thus opened ! Imagine Sweet Williams with enlarged 

 flowers and the delicate markings of the florist's Carnation, the same in the quasi-annual 

 Indian Pink, and our own native Mountain Pink, from which some beautiful fairy Carna- 

 tions might possibly spring. In these cases, R. T. C. suggests that the Carnation should 

 be the pollen parent, and though many — probably all — of tlie first cross would be selfs, and 

 partake only of the dark or normal color of the Carnation, striped flowers would doubtless 

 soon appear. Of the two young plants now in our possession, one has quite the appearance of 

 a common garden Pink, and the other is very like a Sweet William ; yet they are both 

 to be out of the same seed pod, and that of a Picotee. The last at least is a true mule 



