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JODBNAL OP HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAKDENER. 



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Mr. Buiet assured me were many years apo selected by him 

 from a bed of eome thoiiBand Taxodiums on account of their 

 peculiar appearauou. I ixliibit specimens from eleven different 

 trees. It will be seen ihe suppresBion of the leaf blades or 

 adnation is in exact proportion to vigour, or the power ol form- 

 ing branoblets, and with this increased vigour the Taxodium 

 becomes Glyptostrubus, so far as any comparison of leaves and 

 blanches can identify anything. 



At the conclusion of my paper on the laws of adnation, read 

 before the meuiiug of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, at Chicago, Dr. J. S. Newberry kindly 

 pointed out that, in a fossil state, Glyptostrobus and Taxodium 

 were often found side by side, but always with so much dif- 

 ference between the scales of the cones that, while assenting 

 to the general principles of tbe paper, he could not regard these 

 two plants as identical. As cones are nothing more than 

 metamorphosed stems and branches, it is not surprising that 

 the same laws of aduation which might operate in making the 

 Taxodium Glyptostrobus, and which make them look so very 

 distinct in the difitreiit stages of adnation, should also operate 

 on the fruit, and make it appear, when at the widest point of 

 divergence, as really different. It should in fact do so, and in- 

 stead of the difierence in the cones of these fossils being any 

 proof of their sped tic distinctness, it must be received as a 

 natural sequence (if tbe law I would evolve. 



The specimens I now exhibit show at any rate that the two 

 plants are iden'ically tbe same. This granted, it completely 

 refutes the generally received theoiy, that no one species of 

 Coniferse iuhabils at once tbe eastern and western worlds. 



In my paper on variation in Epifsa repens, presented for 

 publication last May, I endeavoured to show that "cultivation " 

 and " external circumstances " wonid not account for variations 

 in form to the extent they usually received credit for; but that 

 there was rather a regular piinciple of growth in form, as well 

 as in substance, independent of outward agencies, which 

 agencies were calculated quite as muck to preserve as to origi- 

 nate the growing forms. 



Those accustomed to study chiefly from herbaria, and little 

 from living specimens, have no idea of the great variations 

 from one type which many species present. These comparative 

 differences are often so insensibly blended, that it is only when 

 we meet with some very extreme forms that they attract our 

 attention, and then only to note their extreme differences. 

 £ven when noted they are contemned as obstructing classifi- 

 cation, rather than wuleomed as invaluable aids in resolving 

 the laws of form. 



In a recent review of part 16 of DecandoUe's Prodromns, 

 which has lately appeared, with the Conifera; by Prof. Parla- 

 tore, the reviewer says : — " It must be clear to every one that 

 a great number of so-called species are varieties of one strain, 

 doubtless produced by localisation in different climatal or 

 natural conditions." {Gardeners' Chronicle, page 922, 1868). 

 As this review is understood to be by oiae who is himself known 

 as a describer of many Conifera;, which are doubtless varieties 

 of one strain, it may be worth while to point out, in some 

 Coniferae, that, neither climatal nor any external condition has 

 as much to do with variation in form as an innate power of 

 development, independent of either climatal or local causes. 



In one of our commonest Pines — Pious inops— a very careful 

 comparative examination will show scarcely any two trees to 

 be exactly alike ; the habits of the tree, the shade of colour, or 

 the length of the leaves, the size or form of the cone, the scales, 

 or seeds — in some one point a difference may be found which 

 cannot easily be described in words. When extremes are brought 

 together the differences are quite as great as characterise dif- 

 ferent species. By descriptions alone they would be fairly 

 entitled to rank as distinct. The mind fails to unite them. It 

 iB only the educated eye which preeeives their identity. I ex- 

 hibit two cones from two trees growing on the banks of the 

 Snaqnehanna, near Harrisburg. One is very long and narrow 

 — 3 j inches in length, by only three-fourths of an inch wide at 

 the base, and the scarcely projecting scales barely spinescent, 

 the other nearly as wide, but only half the length, and with 

 strongly projecting scales and spines. Unless with previous 

 acquaintance of Pinns inops in its natural places of growth, a 

 botanist might well be pardoned for considering these distinct 

 species, yet with the multitude of intermediate forms, all under 

 the same external conditions, how can any " localisations " 

 account for the varieties ? I have the same experience with 

 Finns rigida and P. pungens ; and it is doubtless true of other 

 species. 

 I have noted some interesting variations in PinoB Bonk- 



eiana, which in some way do seem to be connected with loca- 

 tion, although I have no doubt that ages of geographicul travel 

 from a central point conjoined with the principle of inheritance, 

 might find the natuml inherent laws of varintion sufficient to 

 account for them. Dr. Gray says, in the lust edition of hiii 

 " Manual of Botany," it is a shrub or low tree 5 to 20 feet high, 

 giving N. Maine, N. Michigan, and Wisconsin, and northward 

 83 the localities. I did not collect in northern Illinois, bnt 

 friends tell me it grows some thirty miles from Chicago, only 

 as a bnsh. Michaux observes that in Labrador it shows signs 

 of decrepit old age at 3 feet, and in no part of America did he 

 find it over 10 feet. Dr. Bichardson, in Franklin's narrative of 

 a journey to the shores of the Polar Seas in 1819— 1822, de- 

 scribes it as 40 feet high in favourable situations, but the 

 diameter of its trunk was greater in proportion to its height 

 than in any other Pines of the country. Douglas found it to 

 have longer leaves on the Rooky Mountains than elsewhere. 

 In company with Mr. W. Cranby, I had the opportunity of 

 examining large forests of them growing on the neck of land 

 between Escanauba, on Lake Michigan, and Marquette, on 

 Lake Superior, where we found them just Ihe reverie of Dr. 

 Eichardson's experience. Here they were more slender in 

 proportion to their height, not only than any Pine of the 

 country, but probably than any Pine elsewhere. Most of the 

 trees were from 30 to 40 feet high, remarkably straight, bnt 

 only from 6 to 12 inches in diameter. We roughly measured 

 one at Escanauba which was about 20 inches in diameter, and 

 perhaps 60 feet high, little shorter than in fact a very fine 

 Pinns resinosa, about 2J feet through, growing near it. 



Now these variations have relation to only one particular, 

 that of size ; there would no doubt be found others in many 

 respects ; but even in this one character no theory of climate 

 or soil will account for them. If a low temperature dwarfs 

 the Labrador specimens, what ia to account for the small bushes 

 in Illinois or southern Wisconsin, in lat. 42° ? And again, 

 why are these latter in the rich soils of this district so small in 

 comparison with the almost timber trees of a few hundred 

 miles farther north, and in what is usually considered the 

 poorest land of the north-west V Soil and climate may have 

 some influence in aiding variation, but facts show the origin is 

 deeper than these — namely, a native power to change, kept in 

 check only by inheritance and perhaps external circumstances. 



I have heretofore reported Pious pungens as growing at Port 

 Clinton ; I find it now abundantly on the hillt; about Harris- 

 burg; so it m»y be set down a'* native to the whole interior of 

 the State of Pennsylvania. — Thomas Mkehan {American Gar- 

 dener's Mmdhhj). 



CUCUMBER CULTURE.— No. 5. 



Cultivation in Pits. — Cucumbers are grown in pits heated 

 by dung or other fermenting materials ; sometimes provision 

 is made for lining the bed, sometimes there is none. In the 

 latter case the pit will only be suitable for Cucumber growing 

 after March, for if the plants were turned out into the bed 

 earlier the heat would soon be reduced below the proper 

 degree by fermentation abating ; and even if the fermenting 

 material were as lasting as tan, the requisite top heat, in con- 

 sequence of the earthing of the bed, and the cold early in 

 spring, could not be maintained. Such pits, therefore, are of 

 little value except for summer. Pits without spaces for linings 

 answer well in summer, but the cultivation of Cucumbers in 

 these ought not to be attempted before April; indeed, pits are 

 so much in request for protecting and hardening-off half-hardy 

 plants for the flower garden, that they can be ill spared until 

 May be far advanced. This ii a good time for filling them 

 with hot dung in quantity sufficient to raise a bottom heat of 

 80', and for giving the plants a start. If not occupied with 

 plants the pit may be filled with fermenting materials at the 

 end of March, or beginning of April. These pits should be 

 partly sunk below ground, the front being 4 feet high— namely, 

 2 feet below the surface level, and 2 feet above it, and the 

 height at back 6 feet. The width need not exceed 6 feet. In 

 filling them tbe dung must be well beaten, trodden firmly, and 

 brought level with the tops of the rafters or wall plates, as it 

 will, if this be neglected, sink considerably, and the plants 

 would then be too far from the glass. 



After the bed is made the lights should be put on, and in a 

 week or so the surface should be levelled, adding more dung if 

 that first put in has sunk much. Tbe bed should be so high 

 when the soil is put on that the latter, when drawn into hillocks, 

 may be no more than clear of the lights. In a few days it vill 



