436 ANNUAL REPORT 



of the closest scrutiny by the oldest minds. We have a Cotton- 

 wood some two miles down the Zumbro that measures nine- 

 teen and three-fourths feet in circumference. We must 

 have our feast of the Poplars under the generous shade of 

 this mammoth tree some time in the near future. While I 

 should not care to see you travel all the way to these monarchs 

 of the forest on your knees, like some of the religious devotees 

 of the East, yet I would like to see you pay them more re- 

 spect than you have heretofore been in the habit of doing. 



Our late Consul to Calcutta, J. A.' Leonard, of this city, has 

 perhaps the largest flowering maple to be found within the city 

 limits. Mr. Leonard kindly called our attention to this fine bo- 

 tanical specimen as an object lesson, showing the utility of heavy 

 mulching in a dry climate, where rapid growth is required. 

 This tree was planted twenty years ago near the doctor's resi- 

 dence, and for many years stove wood was sawed and piled around 

 the trunk, some five or six feet high, resulting in a most rapid 

 growth, more than double, in fact, that of other trees of the same 

 variety, and planted at the same time, and not heavily mulched. 

 Downing said ' ' among all the species, both native and foreign, 

 we consider the scarlet flowering maple as decidedly the most 

 ornamental species." I wish to call your attention to the maple, 

 as an object lesson on mulching, worthy of the most careful 

 study. Dr. Leonard's grounds on the Zumbro remind me of the 

 beautiful residence of N. P. Willis, on the Hudson, "Idlewild," 

 of which Downing said, '' It is a piece of Nature's landscape gar- 

 dening which the hand of man should, and, from the good taste 

 of the owner, has not been allowed to appear, except in the nec- 

 essary buildings * * and we refer to it simply to show how 

 delicate and refined that taste must be which, appreciating all 

 that Nature has done with so much prodigality of beauty, as at 

 'Idlewild,' has the courage to let her alone." I am inclined to 

 the opinion that the doctor would have "let her alone " severely 

 had it not been for the fact that we made a small importation of 

 trees through him, and his characteristic liberality, while consul 

 at Edinburgh, direct from the old home of Robert Burns. The 

 love of the immortal poet was too much for hjm, and the sanctity 

 of "Idlewild" was invaded and a group of beautiful dwarf ever- 

 greens and a Roman tree now holding a conspicuous place at 

 "Idlewild,'' on the banks of the beautiful Zumbro. 

 The valleyof Jehoshaphat, through which flows Kedron, is very 

 deep and is the native home of the Cedar of Lebanon, some of 



