1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



28 r 



are relied on chiefly, to bring a flow of water to 

 the surface. On Mr. Hannay's grounds, water 

 which could once readily be found at three hun- 

 dred feet had to be brought up from seven hundred 

 feet, ^t Mr. Rock's, I found him busily engaged 

 erecting flumes, to carry the water across to parts 

 of the nursery, where old-time plans had failed. 

 He had however one magnificent well, which was 

 flowing out on the surface a stream as thick as one's 

 leg. The great increase in the number of Artesian 

 wells, and the turning off of mountain streams, to 

 different directions, by the modern system of hy- 

 draulic mining, is necessarily shortening the water 

 supply. The melting snows and rains have to sup- 

 ply all the water in and upon the earth. That which 

 soaks into the ground appears again in some dis- 

 tant place through the rock fissures, in the shape 

 of springs ; the other comes over the surface as 

 torrents, or mountain streams. There is reason to 

 believe that that which soaks in and forms the 

 under-ground streams, or springs, is far less than 

 that which flows over the surface as rivers or 

 streams — that is, in the higher elevations from 

 which artesian water springs. It is easy therefore 

 to calculate just how much water there is at the 

 disposal of this system, and to understand how 

 limited the supply must be. The San Jose nursery- 

 men all speak very highly of the business of the 

 past year or two, and very encouragingly of its 

 future prospects. 



On the grounds, of General Naglee, of San Jose, 

 I saw one of the most beautiful specimens of the 

 mammoth tree I have ever seen under culture, or 

 indeed anywhere. They are not pretty in a wild 

 state, and I have now seen all the groves — Mari- 

 posa, Calaveras, and all. But I had better stop. 

 It is not easy to write under the influence of the 

 pitch and toss of an ocean steamer, and four-fifths 

 of your fellow passengers begging to be tossed 

 over-board, as the best remedy for sea-sickness. 

 I tell them it is all imagination, that if they would 

 believe as I do, that there really is no such thing> 

 they would never have it. But the world has 

 always been punished for unbelief. 



As we shall probably touch at Victoria, B. C, 

 to-morrow morning, I will close this on the chance 

 of getting to mail it. My next may be from 

 Georgian Bay. 



ver's Island and between latitude 48° and 49° in 

 the North Pacific Ocean. We had. been for some 

 days sailing on the Pacific and along the Straits 

 of San Juan de Fuca, the heavily snow-capped 

 mountains of the Olympic making the air so chilly 

 that those who kept in the open air at all had to 

 do so with overcoats, or, if ladies, in warm wraps 

 or furs. All at once we came to the mouth of 

 Puget's Sound, opposite to which is Victoria, and 

 all was at once pleasant. Summer weather, and 

 everything as lovely and beautiful as the prettiest 

 poet might imagine. The harbor of Victoria is, 

 however, small and shallow, and as a conse- 

 quence, our heavy vessel had to lie for six or 

 eight hours a mile and a half waiting for the tide 

 to rise, and this gave me the opportunity to do 

 some interesting botanizing among the rocks 

 along the coast. One of my first surprises was to 

 find the Siberian crab-apple, Pyrus baccata, in- 

 digenous here.* Perhaps it is recorded in our 

 botanical works as indigenous to the North-west 

 as well as to Russia ; but I do not remember it, 

 and have no work to refer to in the place where I 

 am writing this, which is off the mouth of the 

 Skena River, emptying into Dixon Sound. It 

 must be the dwarfest form, possibly the one 

 known in nurseries as the Paradise stock, for it 

 trails over the rocks, making in some places a sort 

 of thick lattice work ten or fifteen feet square. 

 Some of the plants I saw had stems coming up 

 from among the crevices of rocks three or four 

 inches thick, and yet, by their shaggy appearance, 

 must be very old. 



The town of Victoria, which we reached in the 

 afternoon, is an indescribably pretty place. It is 

 built on a high rocky bluff, and has a park called 

 Beacon Hill, from its use in signaling in those 

 olden times when Indians were troublesome. At 

 present this hill is simply preserved for public 

 use — drives only being led around it for carriages 

 and horses, and "the poor man's cow" having 

 free privilege to roam wheresoever she wills. The 

 fern of the Old World, the common Brake of 



Chatham Sounu, Pacific Ocean, July. 

 I do not know when I have been more agree- 

 ably surprised than by a visit to the town of Vic- 

 toria, which is on the south-east point of Vancou- 



* Since tlie al)ove was written the writer has little doubt 

 the apple referred to was the Oregon Crab, and not a form 

 of the Siberian. On his return from Alaska, later in the 

 season, he found the Oregon Crab on the shores of the 

 Columbia River, with the fruit advanced and with the 

 leaves in the almost Hawthorn-like condition proper to 

 that species, instead of in the weather-beaten form of the 

 plant on the shores of Vancouver's Island. The references 

 to the use of this form as a dwarf stock for the apple will, 

 however, still apply to the Oregon Crab. It may be inter- 

 esting to add that the Oregon Crab was found as far north 

 as Hitka— some trees near there being twenty feet high and 

 with small trunks two feet round. — Ed. G. M. 



