Foreign Notices. 43 



they possess much interest, we take the liberty to copy them, knowing that 

 they will be read with much gratification. Messrs. Hovcy and Co. have 

 forwarded the writer some of the finest kinds of American pears, apples, 

 and peaches ; and we have no doubt but their introduction into the sultan's 

 garden will be the means of extending their cultivation into all the finer 

 gardens on the Bosphorus, — and the Baldwin and Northern Spy apple be 

 better known than even in the gardens of some of the highly civilized por- 

 tions of Europe. — Ed. 



" The sultan, a most amiable and generous person, has an extensive gar- 

 den attached to his winter palace on the European side of the Bosphorus, as 

 yet but new ; and I wish to furnish it with a few of our American trees, among 

 which I have thought of a few sugar-maples, — such as loe make sugar from 

 in Ohio, — hickory (shell-bark, &c.), and our black walnut (fir), — there is 

 abundance of what is called the while or English walnut here (regia), — oak, 

 magnoha (that flowers), — I have seen the latter in Ohio, where it is much 

 colder .than here, — beech, tulip-tree, sassafras, catalpa, cranberry, &c. All 

 of these, I believe, are wholly unknown here. The poplar, elm, persimmon, 

 horse-chestnut, scrub-green oak, linden, and the usual fruit trees, (none of 

 them very good,) are abundant, and, in the woods, the arbutus is common, 

 and very pretty. 



" I may mention, that the climate here is very mild. There are snows 

 during our winter, which commences in January and ends in April ; but they 

 last but a day or so, and soon melt away. The atmosphere during the win- 

 ter and spring is very damp and chilly, and fires are indispensable. We have 

 no good apples about here, near ; but the cherries, plums, (large as hen's 

 eggs, red, blue, and white,) and pears are good ; so are the peaches ; but 

 neither of the two last are to be compared to ours of the United States. 

 Of course, the grapes are excellent, — generally of a large white kind called 

 Tehauch grapes ; the large blue are also good, but too fleshy. Figs are al- 

 so good, but not so abundant as in Smyrna. Almonds grow well here, En- 

 glish walnuts, filberts, chestnuts, — large but not very sweet, — and large 

 strawberries in abundance. Medlars and persimmons grow here ; the latter 

 are from Trebizonde on the Black Sea, and here bear the name of Trebi- 

 zonde dates. Among the garden ornamental trees, I may mention the aca- 

 cia, of two kinds, — the one bearing small yellow flowers of a strong rich 

 odor, and the other producing a light-red flower, like a floss of silk, and is 

 called by the Turks ' Gul Ibrashim,^ or, the 'Rose-silk tassel tree.' 

 The Turks have much taste for flowers, and their summer-houses are much 

 ornamented about the steps with choice flowers in pots, and their gardens 

 look beautiful to the passer-by. My office of interpreter to the legation 

 leads me frequently to these summer retreats, and I cannot tell you how 

 much I admire the taste shown for natural embellishments by those whom 

 the world regards as scarcely half civilized. 



" I was last autumn at Erzeroom, not far from the Persian frontier, where 

 I procured a ^qw flower-seeds, among which is the ' Morina Orientalis,' 

 peculiar to that place, and named, by the French traveller Tournefort, after 



