THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE- 



MARCH, 1852. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Apparent Spontaneity of a Growth of White 

 Birch, (Betula populifolia,) with Remarks on the Adapt- 

 edness of certain Trees to onr poorer Soils. By John L. 

 Russell, Professor of Botany and Vegetable Physiology, 

 to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 



The rapidity with which spots are covered with an entire 

 new growth under certain circumstances, has lately fallen 

 under my observation. I adduce it to show, among other 

 facts, the importance of some such artificial resort to induce 

 such a growth, when it may be needed. In some parts of 

 the State, (Massachusetts,) especially near the seacoast, much 

 of the land is of that poor and sterile character, which ren- 

 ders doubtful the use to which it can be applied. Long, 

 narrow ridges of coarse gravel, or else small rounded hillocks 

 of the same constituents, cover thousands of acres ; producing 

 scarcely more at the very best, than a feeble pasturage in 

 spring or late in the autumn. On these bleak and treeless 

 elevations, rising from twenty to fifty feet, it may be, above 

 the plain, or else bounding corresponding depressions, into 

 which all the decomposing vegetable matter washes by the 

 sweeping rains, or by the melting of the snow, a profusion of 

 lichens flourish, to the exclusion of higher plants. These 

 are principally Cladonias, such as CI. rangiferina, or Reindeer 

 moss, CI. furcata, CI. uncialis, and Cetraria islandica ; the 

 latter the far-famed Iceland moss, and which, of all these 

 species of plants, seems to be the most agreeable to sheep 



VOL. XVIII. NO. III. 13 



