250 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHL Y 



[August^ 



RESPONSES. 



BY C. E. P., QUEENS, L. I., N. Y. 



In the June number of the Monthly, Jacques 

 asks, " why not have a department for Notes and 

 Queries." The plan he adopts is a most excel- 

 lent one, and I hope to see such a department 

 continued in the Monthly hereafter. 



I do not think much of Abies Menziesii, it 

 forms a very ragged and shabby looking tree. I 

 have one specimen about thirty feet high, with 

 a stem three and a-half feet in circumference, 

 and it is very shabby looking ; in fact it is any- 

 thing but satisfactory. 



Have you or any of your readers had any ex- 

 perience with the double Cinerarias ? Do they 

 ever come true from seed? I have tried to raise 

 them from seed several times, but have not 

 heen successful in raising even a good single 

 flower from the so-called double seed. 



Have any of the readers of the Monthly 

 been successful in raising Todea superba from 

 seed? I have one plant and I wish to propa- 

 gate it ; how can I do so ? A few hints on its 

 culture would be very acceptable. 



Is there a good double fringed Petunia in cul- 

 tivation, and if so what is its name ? 



The Jucunda and President Wilder Straw- 

 berries are worthless here. I find none to equal 

 Seth Boyden and Charles Downing, for general 

 cultivation. 



And I wish to say in addition to Mr. Hick's 

 notes on the trees of Long Island, that the 

 foreign varieties of ti*ees grow equally as well 

 on Long Island as their native brethren. At 

 Oatlands, Queens, L. I., the residence of W. D. 

 F. Manice, Esq., there is a Cedar of Lebanon, 

 four and a-half feet in circumference and upward 

 of thirty feet high. Magnolia macrophylla, 

 three and a-half feet in circumference and about 

 twenty-five feet high ; Salisburia adiantifolia, 

 over thirty feet high ; and a Spanish Chestnut 

 eleven and one quarter feet in circumference, 

 and about forty feet high; an English chestnut, 

 upwards of forty feet high with a trunk of thir- 

 teen feet in circumference ; besides other rare 

 trees of equal size and beauty. If you or any of 

 your readers wish a list or any information con- 

 cerning them, I will give them full particulars 

 through the Monthly or otherwise. I 

 would like to have shown you a fine specimen 

 of Cladastiis tinctoria or Virgilia lutea, up- 

 wards of fifty feet high, the branches bending to 



the ground with the weight of the long racemes 

 of white sweet-scented flowers with which ,the 

 tree was laden. It is one of the finest trees in 

 cultivation, and I wish you would call the atten- 

 tion of all the lovers of fine trees to this variety ; 

 it should be found in every collection however 

 small, being of quick growth and perfectly free 

 from insects. 



I noticed in the May number, page 132, an 

 article recommending the Ligustrum Japoni- 

 cum. Does Mr. Beecher mean to say that it 

 will stand without protection. Here we cannot 

 give it protection enough. Even when well pro- 

 tected it comes out in the spring about half 

 dead, and looking as if it had come through a 

 fire. Nierembergia rivularis is not hardy. I 

 left out about a dozen plants the past winter, 

 (1878-9), and this spring I found them all dead, 

 and they were protected by evergreen branches. 



Please ■ give me the names of some of the 

 most distinct varieties of the Selaginellas ? 



NOTES OF A SOUTHERN CEMETERY. 



BY M. DIGRAM. 



The horse rail road at Augusta, Ga., has a 

 fitting termination at the cemetery of the town. 

 Getting out of the car here and looking toward 

 the enclosure before me, I queried of the white 

 driver whether all I'eligious denominations buried 

 together, within the same fence ? He said, " all 

 but the colored, who occupy an adjoining square 

 beyond the next street." After passing through 

 a section of the cemetery of the pale faces, I 

 crossed the street to that in which the colored 

 people bury ; the existence of which probably 

 dates back to the days of slavery. This ground 

 was even greener than the first, with Euonymus, 

 the perennial-leaved mock orange, Pnnius Caro- 

 linianus, and the live oak, Quercus virens. 



Many of the graves here were covered with 

 bits of fine pottery, broken vases and shells, 

 broken plaster ceiling ornaments, broken water 

 pitchers, broken oil lamps and lamp chimneys, 

 and in one instance a fractured molasses pitcher. 

 This last might have been intended to sweeten 

 the way of some poor soul heavenward, and pro- 

 bably something of that kind in this especial in- 

 stance may have been needed. 



As emblems, these fragments of damaged 

 china ware, etc., were certainly very appro- 

 priaie, tiiough I fancy no emblematic meaning 

 was attached to them ; they covered the raised 



