CRITIQUE ON THE JAN. HORTICULTURIST. 



to test the pear. This, with enough of lime, ashes, and the phosphates in it — artificially- 

 applied, if these ingredients are naturally lacking, or have been exhausted — will show us 

 what the fruit really is. 



The Color of Buildings in Rural Scenery. — Mr. Cooper, in his foreign travel, if not 

 in his home education, had an opportunity to cultivate a high and a correct taste in what 

 constitutes propriety and truth of color in rural buildings. All who have sojourned in, or 

 passed through the charming and picturesque village of Cooperstown, at the foot of Otse- 

 go lake, must have admired the fine baronial style of his dwelling, and its broad lawn 

 of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubbery — the fit repose of a ripe scholar, and an ac- 

 complished man. The mature taste of one who has fixed his home in the midst of such 

 striking scenery, and whose life, for thirty years, had been in perpetual communion with 

 its most attractive objects, is well worth the heed of all builders, and dwellers in the 

 country. The judgment, and the taste of our people, is fast improving in the color of 

 their buildings, although broad mistakes are now and then made in escaping from the old 

 fashioned white, into some of the new-fangled colors which we see mis-applied to newly 

 got-up houses. Observation and experience will correct this; and we shall, it is hoped, 

 work down into appropriate tones of color and shade for our buildings. 



The California Grape. — We must see about this. There are, no doubt, good native 

 grapes in California; and when other suVjjects than gold seeking, and speculation, creep 

 into the brains of her people, I have little doubt that the soil and climate of that wide belt 

 of Pacific territory, will yield us both grapes and wine, of a character not yet produced 

 in the Ohio valleys, and perhaps of equal quality and like flavor to the best of European 

 wines. 



It is nowise certain, however, that any grape from California will prove the same iden- 

 tical fruit, if transplanted here, and subjected to the influences of our widely different cli- 

 mate and soils. An indigenous production of any kind, of good quality in its native soil, 

 and matured under the influences of its own sun and air, will not alwaj's develop its fine 

 peculiar qualities in other soils, and under sunshine less propitious. We Avitness that in 

 many familiar fruits in our own localities, but a short distance apart, and in nothing more 

 striking than in the European grapes subjected to out-door culture here. Still, I would 

 not discourage the transfer of a really good grape from California into our soils. Something 

 good may come out of it; and when the thing can be so cheaply tried, it would be a mat- 

 ter of public interest that it should be done in a thorough way. 



Notes on Evergreen Trees. — Most comforting words to the nurserymen! — "the most 

 hardy, the most beautiful, and the most rapid growing of them all" — the evergreens. 

 Pretty high praise that, Mr. Downing. My good old father used to say just so, when I 

 was a boy, about the Lombardy Poplars. Yet folks don't think so now. It may be all 

 true, however, about the Deodar; and if it shall so prove, it will be perfectly magnificent — 

 for to excel our pines and hemlocks, in their stately and majestic growth in the open lands, 

 will be both a lofty and a spreading merit in its character. Let us have a Deodar Cedar 

 thirty feet high, and then we'll look at it, and pass a judgment upon its excellence. 



A saving clause, however, guards your eulogium — " the most popular of all the neto ever- 

 greens yet proved in this country." Good. My dear sir, the Pines, the Hemlocks, the 

 Firs and the Spruces, of North America, are unrivalled in breadth and grandeur, by an)"- 

 evergreens in the whole universe. 



— " The piny top of Ida," 



of which Thompson sung in his gorgeous Summer tale of Damon and Musidora, would 

 shrink into insignificance by the side of many of our pine-capped American hills. You do 



