EDITOR'S TABLE. 



Duchesse d' Angouleme, selling at twentj'-five cents each. The most of these trees so exceed in 

 luxuriance of growth the familiar appearance of northern trees, that I could name with certainty 

 none but Seckel — fruit and foliage being absent. One, a large and later kind, may be Beurre 

 Diet. I have the promise that specimens of each shall be sent north to me next summer to be 

 named and tested with the same varieties northern grown. 



" In this garden is an Oleander, very fragrant, grown to be a wide-spreading tree, upon a clean 

 stem or trunk quite nine inches in diameter at the base. A Crape Myrtle of thirteen inches diame- 

 ter of trunk; Scuppcriimig Grapes with stem five inches in diameter; a common Black Cherry 

 that has attained a height o{ thirty feet in three years; well grown Magnolias, {grandljlora) etc.; 

 show the great fertility of the soil. There was also the most symmetrical and well-developed 

 Torreya taxifolla that I have ever seen. I gathered four of the seeds from the ground and send 

 them in a box with Quince specimens, but fear they will be too dry to germinate. M}* attention 

 was called particularly to a tree of the Quince family, remarkable for its large fruit. It has been 

 named by some one here, a Cydonia sinensis, and is here commonly called a Quincidonia. Igno- 

 rant of all botanical nomenclature beyond a few common nursery names, I do not know its vari- 

 ety and am curious to learn what it is, if known much to you, and how it may be propagated 

 other than from seed, which has been uncertain, while cuttings have wholly failed. As the fruit 

 may be rare at the north, Mr. Brooks has given me two specimens to send to you. These I have 

 packed in cotton in a cigar box and sent by express to Savannah, to be forwarded from thence, 

 in care of some ship-master, for Boston, with charge to protect from freezing. One specimen of 

 this fiuit weighed 3i lbs. In the box is a scion from the bearing tree, and the end of a shoot 

 which grew six feet the past season on a seedling of the same, and some leaves. If they reach 

 you safely, please send the smaller one to my brother. The tree closely resembles the Crape 

 Myrtle, in its trmik, shedding its bark annually — is of upright growth, like a Pear, until spread 

 by the weight of its fruit, and the wood very close and hard. The fruit grows usually on the 

 upper side of the limbs, the stem but a short bunch not parting from the tree. Its leaf-buds 

 open with the first warm weather, (in February,) and it was so late as yesterday that I took the 

 last of this season's crop from the tree, showing that a very long season is required for the per- 

 fect growth and maturity of the fruit. I think I have seen in some book a description of this 

 tree — perhaps in Downing's — but describing it as a shrub or bush, similar I suppose to what 

 we call the Pyrus Japonica. This, however, is a tree twenty feet or more in height. The fruit 

 has a strong aromaj peculiar, and, to some, not agreeable. A very rich preserve is made from 

 its pulp or flesh, after extracting its bitter by boiling, and adding a syrup, while the wafer in 

 which it has been boiled will make a sweet jelly, its bitter properties disappearing in the second 

 process. Columbus, Geo." 



The Paradise d' Automne Pear. — I have been much surprised at several depreciatory notices 

 in relation to this fruit, and especially at the statement of the President of the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society — that it has been over-rated, and that he had never tasted a good speci- 

 men of it. To this, it might be sufficient to oppose the opinion of his neighbor, Robert Manning, 

 whose reputation as a pomologist, and especially as a cultivator of the Pear, is world-wide. He 

 places it in the front rank of autumn Pears. From five successive years' opportunitj- of testing 

 it, I most fully coincide with his opinion. The tree is a remarkably free grower, and one of the 

 most prolific that I know of, bearing fully every year of large, fine fruit. When gathered early, 

 before it begins to change its color, — say about ten days before vt would ripen on the tree, — it is 

 invariably of the most delicious character, excelling, in its exquisite flavor, ever}' other Pear of 

 its season. I am not alone in this opinion, but am sustained in it by that of all, in this vicinity, 

 who have had an opportunity of eating it when properly grown and ripened. 



I may add, that on some soils, if left to hang till the color changes, it becomes poor, and, in 

 that state, would warrant the objections that have been made to it. I consider it one 

 most valuable of all Pears for general culture. E. — Worcester, Mass. 



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