General J^otices. 379 



required a thirty round ladder to reach its top, had one year above six 

 hundred ripe and inpening apricots upon it, when the party inspected it. 

 Such being the case, the cottager is called upon to cultivate this grateful 

 tree, and to give it the best situation and greatest attention, that his 

 means and time can afford. 



0*e circumstance, an absolute fact, may gratify and surprise some 

 readers. On the 27th of March, a tree that remained for the major 

 part little advanced, had one branch, not only completely in leaf, (the 

 foliage being of a bright verdure, and of full healthy vigor,) but covered 

 with fruit, several of which appeared of the size of good nutmegs. The 

 tree was planted to face the south-west, but it stands near the corner of 

 the garden, where the wall takes a direction to the south by east. At 

 the exact angle is the breast of a viner}' chimney, and its aspect is near- 

 ly due south. Against this breast was trained the solitary branch allud- 

 ed to; and the effects described evince the operation of a warm protect- 

 ive wall upon the buds, even at a time when the I'oots remain in the 

 ground exposed to frost. {Hort. Jour.) 



[These remarks, though intended for the latitude of England, will 

 equally apply in this country. We know a gentleman who has an apri- 

 cot tree in a small yard, nailed up (and carelessly too, without any sys- 

 tem of training,) to a shed or barn facing the east, which has borne a 

 considerable quantity of fruit for several years, notwithstanding our cold 

 winters. And what may appear singular, the branches, which extended 

 above the roof of the building, and fully exposed to the weather, bore as 

 profusely as those nailed against the surface. If a good soil is selected, 

 or, if poor, made good, (that is, light and deep,) there is no doubt but that 

 apricots can be very easily produced. We should like to see more at- 

 tention given to this fruit. — Ed.] 



Superiority of the Pmws sylvestris. — Of the twenty-eight thousand 

 acres which the forest of Fontainbleau contains, twenty-five thousand 

 are now covered with pines of different ages, and a million of plants 

 could be taken from them without being missed. It is in the ancient 

 plantations, now become forest timber, that the superiority of the Pinus 

 sylvestris appears over the maritime pine. This latter at first grows 

 more quickly, but at present they are of the same height. The mari- 

 time pine sometimes appeared to me to have a larger trunk, but it 

 scarcely gets higher, whilst the other pushes forward vigorously, and 

 does not novr appear to have arrived at more than half its elevation. It 

 is always as straight as a taper, with a gray bark, but little indented. 

 The maritime pine, on the contrary, is never perfectly straight, and its 

 bark much thicker and rougher, is of a darker gray. Hence nothing is 

 more easy tlian to distinguish the trunks of the two trees by the bare in- 

 spection of the bark. 



Masts of Ships. — I said above, that M. Larminat began to graft, 

 about ten years ago, the Laricio pine on the Pinus sylvestris. 1 must 

 add here, that it was for the useful purpose of multiplying this precious 

 tree for the benefit of the navy. His first attempts being crowned with 

 full success, he has continued to execute a certain number of grafts eve- 

 ry year. It is really a beautiful thing — a graft of the Laricio pine on the 

 Pinus sylvestris of ten or twelve years old; they grow with wonderful 

 vigor, and excel in length and bulk all the pines of the same age, which 

 have not been grafted. The expectations of M. Larminat will not be 

 disappointed, and one day the forest of Fontainbleau will furnish to 

 the navy masts of immense size. There is so much analogy between 

 these two species, that their graft never forms a swelling, when not in- 

 terfered with. The point of union can only be known by the color and 

 different roughness of their barks, which are clearly divided at the point 

 of junction. " There are now fifteen thousand of these grafts in the for- 



