392 May's Victoria Currant. 



towering edifices that can be erected." Such a garden would 

 form a school for the study of the noble trees which enrich 

 our forests, and make them as familiar as the commonest 

 plants of our gardens, and furnish a fund of practical in- 

 formation in regard, to their growth, habits, usefulness in 

 the arts, and. adaptation to the purposes of ornamental land- 

 scape. 



But we have not room to follow the train of ideas which 

 Dr. Mitchell's article calls up : of the importance of the sub- 

 ject, all will agree, and we hope that something may soon be 

 done, especially in our own State, to induce our land-owners 

 to preserve what remains of our primitive forests, and to com- 

 mence, at least in a limited way, the plantation of new ones 

 on what are now considered unimproveable lands. — Ed. 



Art. II. May^s Victorio Currant^ with an Engraving of 

 the Fruit. By the Editor. 



In our article upon the cultivation of the currant, in a pre- 

 vious volume, (Vlll. p. 325,) we offered some remarks upon 

 the importance of raising currants from seed with a view to 

 the production of new and improved varieties. Among the 

 smaller fruits, none possess a greater value than the currant, 

 and yet none have received less attention at the hands of cul- 

 tivators. Mr. Knight, impressed witli the idea that very su- 

 perior kinds would be the result of proper attention to the 

 growth of seedlings, wrote an article upon the subject v.'hich 

 was published in the Transadions of the Society. He also 

 raised a great number of seedlings, and three of them were 

 thought to possess ^uch merits as to be deserving of names. 

 The gooseberry has been improved fr( rn a small and austere 

 berry to a very large and delicious fruit : the strawberry has 

 also been produced of such size and flavor as to be scarcely 

 recognized as the offspring of the wild berry of the woods and 

 pastures. And why may not the same success attend exper- 

 iments to improve the currant ? There is no reason to do.ubt 

 they will, and we may yet hope to see currants nearly as 



