242 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHL Y 



[August, 



Club in New York, Mr. N. S. Britton, of Staten 

 Island, gave the following table, from observa- 

 tions made at New Dorp : 



Trres. 



Years 



Abies excelsa. I 32-6 0-61" 



" balsaraea i 30 ; 0-38" 



Pinus strobus. 1 27 ! 0-51" 



" rigida ! 32-6 ; 0-31" 



" initis. I 3S i 0-45" 



Thuja occidentalis ; 28 j 0-32" 



Juiiiperus Virginiana. i 59"7 021" 



Salix alba. ' 32 ' 1-06" 



X/lriodendron. 38 0'4.5" 



Jiiglans nigra. ' 26 - 0-41" 



Quercu.s alha ! 47-3 0-35" 



Acer rubrum.. 28 4 0'4.5" 



Carya tomentosa i 70-4 0'20" 



Beiulaalba 34 0-18' 



Fagus ferriiginea \ 44-8 0-36" 



Ulmus Americana 38 0-52" 



Castanea vesca. ' 52-3 0'51" 



Sassafras ! 27-1 ; 0-23" 



Catalpa ; 32 0-55" 



Ailanthus 31 0-59" 



Apple 23 0-65" 



Cherry i 29 0-54" 



0-30" 

 019" 

 0-25" 

 0-15" 

 0-23" 

 0-16" 

 010" 

 0-53" 

 0-22" 

 0-20" 

 018" 

 0-22" 

 O-IO" 

 0-09" 

 0-18" 

 0-26" 

 0'25" 

 012" 

 0-28" 

 0-29" 

 0-32',' 

 0-27'' 



1'73' 



i-se' 



1-52' 

 1-17' 

 118' 

 115' 

 0-58' 

 1-62' 

 1-57' 

 1-5.5' 

 0-88' 

 1-51' 

 0-95' 

 1-32' 

 0-78' 

 1-31' 

 0-96' 

 0-96' 

 1-39' 

 1-46' 

 1-23' 

 1-40' 



It would be interesting to know how these 

 figures would compare with others. Certainly 

 we should not expect anywhere else to find the 

 Balsam Fir beating White and Pitch Pine in 

 average annual growth. Such figures as these 

 are very much needed in American forestry. 



White Cedar. — Caught by a sudden shower 



I in New Jersey, the writer took refuge in a 

 shingle mill, where the Cupressus thuyoides, the 

 White Cedar of that section, was being worked 

 up into roofing shingles. Examining some logs 

 it was found that they rated from thirty-five to 

 sixty years old, and that they averaged about 

 eight inches in diameter; one thirteen inches 

 thick numbered sixty-five annual rings. The 

 trunks run about forty feet high before they 

 branch much, that is the lower branches get killed 

 by the closeness with which the trees grow to- 

 gether. The price paid for this wood by the 

 shingle mill ranges from S7 to $10 per cord. 

 Pieces cut into four feet lengths and arranged 

 four feet high and in a block eight feet long 

 make a cord. As the trees of White Cedar grow 

 so thickly together that in a twenty-year old 

 forest one could not see a bear twenty feet away 

 for the tree trunks, one can form an idea of 

 what a cedar plantation would be worth, and 

 whether a "life insurance policy" so invested 

 would be worth as much or more than the paper 

 ones so popular. A " White Cedar policy " 

 would probably be payable in fifteen or twenty 

 years. 



White Pine Leaves. — The leaves of the 

 White Pines were severely injured by the cold 

 frosty winds of March ; half of the length, the 

 upper half being destroyed. It is not usual for 

 this tree to suffer in this way. 



Natural History and Science. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



OBJECTS OF SEX IN FLOWERS. 



BY THOMAS MEEHAN, 



professor of BOTANY TO THE PENNSYLVANIA 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The reports of this verbal address before the 

 Board at its Spring meeting, as given in some of 

 the Philadelphia city papers were so absurd, that 

 we have much pleasure in giving our readers a 

 very good abstract as made by a "country" 

 paper — the Bucks Co. Intelligencer. 



"Mr. Thomas Meehan, of Germantown, on 

 Thursday afternoon delivered an instructive and 

 most excellent lecture on the sexes of plants. 

 He commenced by quoting from the works of 



Mr. Darwin and others, showing that their views 

 necessarily implied that the chief end of sex in 

 animals and sex in plants was alike; but said he 

 there is really little similarity in the relations of 

 the sexes of plants as compared with the sexes 

 of animals. Animal life is dependent for perpet- 

 uation upon the existence of the sexes ; but this 

 is not true of plants. The Red Dutch Currant 

 for instance has been propagated by cuttings for 

 many hundreds of years, as have Bananas, and 

 many other kinds of which he instanced a large 

 number ; and numbers which produced seed in 

 nature, rarely profit by the fact, for they keep 

 on for successive generations by underground 

 suckers, tubers or offsets. It was a mistake to 

 regard a plant or a tree as we would regard an in- 

 dividual animal. A plant or a tree is in reality 



