116 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[April, 



piau forests, known in the trade as 'Persian 

 wood,' until last year, was also exported through 

 the Black Sea from Taganrog. This found its 

 way, after the commencement of the war, via 

 the Volga canal, to St. Petersburg. The pro- 

 duce of the Caspian forests is softer and inferior 

 in quality to that of the Black Sea. It is a mat- 

 ter of interest to see whether one result of the 

 war will be to open these Black Sea forests 

 which the Russian Government has hitherto kept 

 rigorously closed. The falling off of the supply 

 has led, meanwhile, to various attempts to find 

 substitutes for boxwood for many purposes. 

 Messrs. Joseph Gardner & Sons, of Liverpool, 

 have introduced, with some success, tlie Ameri- 

 can dogwood, Cornus Florida and persimmon 

 Diospyros Virginiana for shuttle making, for 

 which purpose box has hitherto been in great 

 demand. The diminished supply has also drawn 

 attention to the Himalayas as a source." 



It seems to us that some of our friends inter- 

 ested in forestry, might find some places on the 

 North-west coast admirably adapted to profitable 

 box culture. Where the climatal conditions favor, 

 it does not take Box long to grow into profit. 



Pap AW Bark. — A correspondent of the Mo- 

 bile Adi^ertiser says : 



" The trunk of the papaw would be valuable 

 cultivated for its bark alone. As a fibre it must 

 be far superior to the fibre of jute, and its yield 

 is immense. A grove of papaw trees might be 

 cut down every year, as the many sprouts sent 

 up from the stumps, grow in a single season to 

 from four to six feet in length. A piece of land 

 once set, would last for cutting many years. 

 Who is willing to experiment with the papaw?" 

 And it is further said: "While exploring the 

 Indian mounds of Tennessee for the Smithso- 

 nian Institution in 1869, we took up with the 

 remains of a Mound-builder, a string of copper 

 beads that had been strung upon a slip of papaw 

 bark, and the bark was still in a good state of 

 preservation. It was taken from ten or twelve 

 feet below the surface, and from immediately 

 beneath a white oak tree near three feet in di- 

 ameter." 



Red Spruce of the Rocky Mountains. — 

 What are known as common or English names, 

 give a world of trouble, as there seems to be no 

 end to their number or application. We have 

 most of us settled down to the belief that the 

 "Red spruce of the Rock}'^ Mountains," is Picea, 

 Abies, or Tsuga Douglasii, but now comes Mr. 



Lemmon in the Pacific Rural Press and says : 

 "Tsuga Douglasii, Lindl. Douglas spruce. Black 

 spruce of the Rocky Mountains, and of the Cal- 

 ifornia coast and Sierra ranges. A common and 

 often immense tree, 200 to 3^0 feet high, with a 

 rough, b.lack barked trunk eight to fifteen feet in 

 diameter. Timber soft but strong, composing 

 the great lumber wealth of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington; cones ovate, three inches long; bracts 

 much exserted, three-parted ; leaves light green, 

 arranged in spirals around the hanging twigs." 



A Wisconsin Tree. — "The largest tree in 

 ISTorthern Wisconsin, stands on the land of Rich- 

 ard Bardon, on the bank of the Nemadjin River, 

 a short distance below the mouth of Copper 

 creek, in Douglas county. It is a white cedar, 

 spiral grained but sound, and measures nineteen 

 feet four inches in circumference, two feet above 

 the ground. Its length is estimated to be 

 seventy feet, and what is remarkable, it tapers 

 with great uniformity from the base to the peak, 

 and has not a single branch below forty feet 

 from the ground." 



[Does this mean an Arbor vitoe ? If so it is a 

 wonderful tree.— Ed. G. M.] 



PiNUS EDULis. — Mr. N. C. Meeker writing 

 from the White River Indian Agency, has the 

 following interesting note on the Pinion or Pi- 

 nus edulis. It may be noted that the White 

 River flows westward from the Rocky Mountains, 

 and is one of the sources of the great Colorado 

 River. It lies on the 40th Parallel of Lati- 

 tude, and formed part of Fremont's route to the 

 Pacific in 1845, and through whom we were first 

 made acquainted with this valuable pine : 



" I don't suppose any of you know what Pin- 

 ion is. It is a species of pine or cedar, growing 

 in the mountain gulches, and for fire-wood it has 

 no equal in the world, uiUess it be the ' tallow 

 tree' of Asia. Once at Canyon City, our com- 

 mittee reached the hotel in the morning, well 

 chilled through, and the landlord hustled around 

 and built a fire of a few little dry sticks. I re- 

 member I seized some other sticks in the corner 

 and put them on the fire, for I wanted to get 

 warm; but presently the landlord saw it and 

 took off the wood, saying I did not know what I 

 was about, for that wood was Pinion. True 

 enough ; we soon bad so hot a fire we had to 

 move back. 



"There is plenty of Pinion here, and the nuts 

 are delicious, — equal to hazel nuts, but smaller; 

 still, there is none near the agency, and I think 



