thousand feet above the sea level, and where they have snow for two months 

 A friend who resides within two and a lialf miles of the grove says, the soil 

 is a sandy loam, moderately dry', and he thinks the trco will succeed in the soil and 

 climate of western New York. I trus^ it will, but taking its near relative the 

 Sequoia (^Taxoilluvi) scvipervirens as a guide, I do not entertain strong hopes. 

 But what if it cannot be grown in New York or ]*ennsylvania, or in an}' part of 

 New England, if it will, a.s it undoubtedly will, flourish in Virginia, Kentucky, 

 and all the States south of 89°. If we fail with it in the North, our chivalrous 

 patriotic, tasteful brethren of the sunny South, must take charge of The Big 

 Tree. Let them plant it at once beside that loveliest of all Evergreen trees on 

 the earth, the Magnolia cvandijiora, and then they will have, side by side, the most 

 gigantic and the most beautiful of trees — trees that in the heathen ages would have 

 been Deified. "NVhci let me ask is to become of this grove ? Will the people of 

 California, I mean the government, guard it against destruction? The men who 

 flock there as to all new countries, are too eager in search of wealth to bestow any 

 thought upon trees, and it is greatly to be feared that unless some protecting power 

 be thrown around it. the Big Tree grove will fall beneath the ruthless hand of 

 speculation and in^.provement. 



AVhat a calamity this would be ! These glorious living monuments whose history 

 dates so far back in the records of time. There are men in California however, who 

 do appreciate these trees, and we sincerely hope they will awaken a public sentiment 

 favorable to their preservation. 



Now as to the name. I see you have adopted Lindley's view that it is a new 

 genus, and give his title " Wellingtonia. " This may be correct, but I think 

 otherwise. There is no real ground for creating a generic distinction between this 

 tree and the sequoia senij>ervirens. 



It is true that they differ in foliage, that is, the foliage of a full grown ;S'. 

 gigantea is different from the foliage of a full grown S. semjyervirena, but among 

 the Junipers, PcJocarps, and other families of Evergreens, we see differences quite 

 as strongly marked. 



Then the cones are precisely alike except in size; that of the sempervirens being 

 about the size of a hickory nut, and that of the gigantea, as shown in your plate 

 about the size of a pullet's egg. The cones of both have the same persistent 

 wedge-like scales, with a transverse depression on the outside, the seeds of both are 

 the same in number, situation, and appearance, and the trees contain the same red 

 coloring matter which has given the name of "Red wood" to the sempervirens. 

 For a time the absence of the male flowers prevented botanists from arriving at a 

 complete decisioE^ and when Dr. Lindley gave the name Wellingtonia, he had 

 not seen them, or I believe he never would have named it a new genus. 



Last February Dr. Torrey received specimens of the male flowers from 

 California, and these enabled him at once to place it without hesitation with the 

 sequoia ■ both he and Prof. Gray, are agreed in this, and these two gentlemen as 

 e aware, stand at the head of Botanical science in this country. I see 

 31. Decaisne, M. Carriere, and several other learned botanists 



