THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



Fig. 1660. — Historic Willow on Dufferin 

 Island, Niagara Falls. 



Overhanging the water, there is on 

 Dufferin Island, near Niagara Falls, a 

 weeping willow, a descendant of the 

 trees that kept vigil by Napoleon's tomb 

 and formed a feature of the landscape 

 of which it occurs to us the great com- 

 mander would have fully approved. For 

 intensely practical and military though 

 his mind was, he had yet enough appre- 

 ciation for the beautiful and venerable 

 in Nature, to make him, when he was 

 laying down the plan for a great road in 

 the Alps, actually to turn aside its 

 course to avoid an ancient representa- 

 tive of that other grave-yard tree, the 

 Cypress. This tree it may be of in- 

 terest to remark, was that which a de- 

 feated monarch, some three hundred 

 years befores, struck with his sword in 

 childish petulance 



There are on the banks of the Detroit 

 river, some pear trees, old and weird of 

 aspect, planted by the French before 

 the year 1760. One of the oldest is 

 said to date from 1705. There is a 

 story that a settler brought from France 

 three seeds in his vest pocket and plant- 

 ed them near Amherstburg. The old 

 trees there now are the children of those 

 which sprang from these trees " The 

 trees are productive," says Professor 



Craig, to whose writing we are indebted 

 for information about them, " but the 

 fruit is not valuable." 



In the famous apple-growing country 

 of the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia 

 there are also apple trees still bearing 

 that were planted about the middle of 

 last century. Prince Edward Island 

 can also boast apple and cherry trees 

 set out in old French times 



Plum growing, according to Mr. Craig, 

 has been a special industry for a hun- 

 dred or more years in LTslet County, 

 some seventy miles north-east of the 

 City of Quebec " Reine, Claude de 

 Montmorency is delicious and peculiar 

 to this region. The Damson plum 

 trees grow in stocky form and produce 

 out of all proportion to their size. The 

 Kentish cherry has through heredity 

 developed hardy forms well adapted to 

 its new home and ripens a month later 

 than the same variety grown at Ottawa." 



At the home of the editor of the 

 Horticulturist an apple tree was cut 

 down five years ago, whose limbs had 

 98 rings, showing its age to be as many 

 years. A Rhode Island Greening here 

 has a record of having one season pro- 

 duced twenty barrels of marketable ap- 

 ples. A thirty year old Yellow Spanish 

 cherry tree on this farm once yielded a 

 crop of 360 quarts The apple tree at 

 Waterloo shown in Fig. 0000, was grown 

 from seed bought from Pennsylvania in 

 1800. It is the oldest apple tree in 

 that locality. It measures at the base 

 three feet in diameter and at a distance 

 of five feet from the ground two and a 

 half feet. 



Of interest are some rare specimens 

 of southern trees found within our 

 borders. There are a few bearing fig 

 trees to be found here and there. They 

 have been successfully cultivated at 

 Niagara, Winona and even as far north 



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