214 



HORTICULTURAL MISSION To CHINA. 



of disease apply the remedy. The yellows 

 are not only shown in the leaf, hut may be 

 known bv the shrivelled and dry appear- 

 ance of the branches also. I have careful- 

 ly noted the results of several experiments 

 made this season, and am more fully con- 

 vinced that the cultivation and manures 



used, together with the soil upon which the 

 Peach tree is grown, deserve a very impor- 

 tant consideration from all those who would 

 have this excellent fruit upon their tables, 

 as well as little trouble from the yellows. 

 L. Wy.man, Jr. 



Weft-CanibriJpe, Siptember, 1846. 



MR. FORTUNE'S HORTICULTURAL MISSION TO CHINA. 



Our readers are already aware, that in 1S43, 1 

 as soon as China, through the new treaty 

 made by the English, appeared more acces- 

 sible to foreigners, the Horticultural Society 

 of London, with its usual zeal, dispatched 

 an able collector, Mr. Robert Fortune, 

 to that country, in search of new plants. 



Mr. Fortune has been eminently success- 

 ful in his mission — one which, by the way, 

 will prove quite as interesting in its results 

 to all our readers, as any of those which 

 had for their motive — openly or disguised — 

 the opium trade, or the spread of cheap 

 calicoes. 



After an absence of a little more than two 

 years, Mr. Fortune reached England in 

 June, 1846, bringing with him the last of 

 the vegetable treasures he had secured, in 

 eighteen glazed cases, having previously 

 transmitted a large number of species to 

 England. These are, with the exception 

 of only two species, all now well established 

 in the garden of the Society near London, 

 and as soon as they are somewhat propaga- 

 ted, we shall hope to see them introduced 

 into this couutry. 



The climate of the higher portions of 

 China is so nearly like our own, that many 

 of the trees and plants from thence will 

 prove entirely hardy here. When we say 

 that among the new plants, which are the 

 result of this expedition, are the celebrated 

 Shanghai Peach, the trtie Mandarin Orange, 



a dozen or twenty beautiful sorts of Tree 

 PcRonias of novel colors, a stiperb new yellow 

 climbing Rose, and an everblooming Rose, 

 Jive-colored, a white Wistaria or Glycine, and 

 several new and handsome hardy Azaleas, 

 we only mention a few of the most impor- 

 tant of the prizes which have rewarded the 

 zeal of the London Horticultural Society. 



In the last number. Part III., of the So- 

 ciety's Journal, which is just issued, we find 

 a sketch of Mr. Fortune's natrrative, so 

 agreeably told, and so full of interest to 

 horticulturists everywhere, that we are con- 

 fident our readers will thank us for imme- 

 diately placing, as we here do, the most of 

 it before them. 



" When the news of the peace with China first 

 reached England in the autumn of 1842, the Coun- 

 cil of the Horticultural Society of London, believ- 

 ing- that an extensive field of botanical and horti- 

 cultural treasures lay unexploreil and unknown in 

 the northern parts of that empire, appointed me 

 as their collector. I left Enj^land early in the 

 spring; of the following year, and arrived in China 

 on the 6th of July. Several cases of living plants 

 were sent out under my charg-e, as well as a large 

 quantity of vegetable and flower seeds, the greater 

 part of which arrived in excellent onler. The 

 fruit trees and vegetable seeds were greatly prized 

 by English resiiients in the northern parts of the 

 country, where such things succeed much better 

 tlian they do in the south. Ca|)tain Balfour, H. M. 

 Consul at Shanghae, kindly offered me ground in 

 the garden of the Consulate, where I conld plant 

 the trees, and where they were to be considered 

 as public property : that is, any one who might 

 apply was to be supplied with grafts at the proper 

 season of the year. By this means, the kinds 

 would soon be multiplied, and secured in the coun- 

 try until the fruit could be seen and apprciatcd 

 by the Chinese themselves. Such things arc o 



