General Notices. 185 



ances. The trunk is hollow at the base, with a large opening on the south- 

 west, through which boys and men may easily enter. It had, probably, 

 passed its prime, centuries before the first English voice was heard on the 

 shores of Massachusetts Bay. It is still clad with abundant foliage, and, 

 if respected as its venerable age deserves, it may stand, an object of admi- 

 ration, for centuries to come." p. 131. 



Trees become objects of affectionate interest, and their un- 

 timely loss we properly deplore. An instance to the point, 

 in the case of a beautiful sassafras (Sassafras officinale Nees 

 Vonese7tbeck.) 



" The sassafras never grows to the size of a tree of the first class. One 

 was growing in 1842, in West Cambridge, which measured more than 

 three feet through at the base, and rose without a limb more than 

 thirty feet, with a trunk very straight and slightly diminished, above which 

 it had a somewhat lofty and broad head. It was nearly sixty feet high, 

 and had been long growing by itself. It was felled and its roots dug up, 

 to alloiv a stone wall to run in a right line. Such pieces of barbarism are 

 still but too common. A tree so beautiful and lofty, and of such rare dimen- 

 sions, such an ornament to a bare hill-side, sacrificed to the straightness of 

 a wall!" p. 323. 



[^To he continued.'] 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Cultivation of Annual Flowers. — " Well grown Annuals contribute 

 much to the gaiety of the garden ; and although not quite so well adapted 

 for masses as some of our half-hardy plants, yet they are extremely eligible 

 for borders and mixed beds. They are frequently treated with too much 

 kindness, sown in soil of too rich a character, and, of course, ' run too much 

 to leaf.' We would advise all those, who can spare the means, to devote 

 two little frames to their especial cultivation at this period, the one with 

 bottom-heat, the other without it. That with bottom-heat would be better 

 with a plunging material, possessing a permanent heat of 70°, the pots 

 placed very close to a clear glass roof, and matted up at night. The other 

 frame, without bottom-heat, should be raised a foot above the ground level, 

 where water cannot possibly stand, and should be filled to within a foot of 

 the glass with cin'der ashes. They should be both well watered with boiling 

 water previous to placing the pots to destroy all insects. We would raise 

 both the tender and hardy kinds in the frame with heat ; managing the 

 sowings in a successive way, according to the period in which they were 

 required to blossom. The hardy, however, would have to be removed to the 

 18* 



