editor's table. 



New Oil Plant. — A correspondent in the Pacific communicates for the Horticulturist the 

 following information : — 



"In the province of Piiira, Peru, grows wild a bush or plant, said to resemble the Palma 

 Christi. It is known commonly by the name Piuon. A countryman of ours, Alfred Duvall, 

 Esq., has produced from the seeds of this plant an oil, which for lubricating, as well as for 

 illuminating purposes, is fully equal to, if not superior to the best spermaceti oil, at least, 

 such is his opinion, after sufficient experiment. He is about erecting the necessary machinerj', 

 and making arrangements to collect the seeds, in ample quantity, for the purpose of producing 

 the oil in sufficient amount to supply the market, at a price very much less than that of any 

 other oil of equal quality." 



^'Cotton. — The cotton grown in the province of Piura, is said to be, next after our Sea Island, 

 equal to the best gathered in the United States. I am assured that each plant, on an average, 

 yields at each crop four times as much as our plants, and affords two crops every year. This 

 plant does not require to be renewed oftener than once in five or six years. The quantity culti- 

 vated is comparatively small, from two to three thousand bales, owing, probably-, to the want 

 of facilities of transportation to a port for shipment, and also, want of population. One of 

 their political writers says : ' Peru is taking a siesta;' when she wakes up, she may do some- 

 thing towards developing her agricultural resources." 



The New Potato. — We have devoted several pages in the present, and last number, to the 

 complete account of the Dioscorea batatus, respecting which short paragraphs have conveyed, 

 from time to time, more or less information. The first article is credited to the London Mark 

 Lane Express, which is the exponent of subjects on food; the present number contains an 

 account of its cultivation taken from the new Patent Office Report, and will be found full and 

 interesting. The trials yet made of this esculent in this country, are not yet conclusive as to 

 its importance, but there seems to be every probability of its adaptation to our climate and 

 soil; if so, it will become of the utmost importance, and not improbably the prairie land of the 

 West will become its home. 



Vicar of Winkfield. — We are indebted to P. E. Freas, Esq., for specimens of this pear, 

 called by the French Monsieur le Cure, They are very fine, but to our taste, not equal to a 

 well ripened Duchesse, or a fine Lawrence in season about the same time. 



Apples from our neighbor Keyscr, of several fine kinds, show emphatically that Pennsyl- 

 vania is not, utterly ivorn out, as some will have it to be. 



Large Seckel Pear. — While all the other States of the Union are recording their triumphs 

 in fruit culture, the Key Stone must not be forgotten. We have to record the growth of a 

 Seckel Pear, which is probably unprecedented for its size. It was received by post, en- 

 veloped in cotton, and grew in the garden of Thaddeus Banks, Esq., in Hollidaysburg, Penn- 

 sylvania; its length was nine and a half inches, and circumference eight and three-quarter 

 inches. Mr. John Penn Jones will accept our thanks for this remarkable specimen, "which 

 was grown on a three years old graft, on an apple." 



The Railroads. — We shall endeavor to give an early insertion to "Ilorticola's" article on 

 •TK "the Railroads in a social point of view." As at present m.anaged, they are a despotism, on a 

 C I reduced scale, as bad as some of the thousand and one despotic institutions in the old countries 









