510 Domestic Notices. 



opinions to the contrary, which liave heretofore been put forth as facts, by 

 those who, perhaps, after all know very little about New England, is very 

 favorable to the growth of the pear : and nowhere have I ever seen larger 

 or fairer specimens of this truly valuable fruit, than in New Bedford. The 

 pear tree is also here very healthy and vigorous, and rarely subject to any 

 disease. — Respectfully, yours, <^c., Henry H. Crapo, Neiv Bedford, Oct. 

 12, 1849. 



[Our space is so much occupied this month that we are under the neces- 

 sity of deferring the report until our next number, when we shall give as 

 much of it as our room will allow. — Ed.] 



Botanical Riches of California. — It is probably well known to many of 

 our readers that Mr. W. R. Prince, of Flushing, is now on a visit to Cali- 

 fornia, where he arrived, by the way of the Isthmus, early in June. From 

 an article in the Pacific News it appears that he has turned his attention to 

 the Botanical riches of the country, and has already made some acquisitions 

 which will be of more value to lovers of beautiful trees and shrubs, than 

 even the golden sands of the Sacramento. We copy the following from 

 the paper above-named: — 



" Having landed on the California shore on the 13th of June, we soon 

 wended our way to the lateral ranges of the Sierra Nevada, bounding the 

 San Joaquin and its tributaries. Leaving the companions of our journey, 

 and some laborers I had brought from Long Island, to wash the golden 

 banks and bars of the Stanislaus and Tuolomne, I proceeded to amuse my- 

 self by rambling over the mountain ranges and traversing the ravines of the 

 spurs of ihe Snowy Mountains, and at leisure I intend communicating the 

 results of my tour. 



For the present, I will simply remark that there are hundreds of species 

 of trees, shrubs, herbaceous and bulbous flowering plants indigenous to 

 California, which are totally distinct from those found in other parts of the 

 globe, and the most important of which are entirely new to the botanic 

 world. The most important of these are two species of pines, and another 

 of cedar, which attain each a diameter of eight to twelve feet, and which 

 comprise dense forests of the finest timber in the world, between the ex- 

 treme spurs and central range of the Sierra Nevada, and whose existence 

 there in such masses is almost unknown even to those now settled in Cali- 

 fornia. 



A. railroad connecting those immense forests with the San Joaquin or 

 some navigable branch, would speedily render the aid of Oregon, as regards 

 supplies of limber, entirely nugatory. Of the oak ( Quercus) there are 

 five species, three of which are timber trees and two shrubby and unavaila- 

 ble. The arbor vita>, growing in the pine forest referred to, and forming a 

 most regular and beautiful cone, is a distinct species greatly assimilating to 

 the Thuja sib(*rica in foliage, and attaining to a height of eighty to one 

 hundred feet. 



In other localities there are found two species of ash, one of alder, a 

 myraca twenty feet high and two feet in diameter, a Photinia of great 

 beauty, fifteen feet high and two feet in diameter, several species of iv'ham- 



