Notes and Gleanings. 241 



We extract from the letter of a Western correspondent, dated June, 1867, the 

 following items about native plants : — 



"The v\o\&'[.?< [Viola pedata) vi^xQ beautiful beyond description two v;eeks 

 ago. If these I send prove true to their professions, some of them will be 

 nearly pure white, some pansy-petaled, and all very large. 



" This violet {V. pedatd) has tried my love more than any Western plant, 

 serving me as Cypripedium acaiile and Rhododendron used to do in my Eastern 

 home. They would do well enough for one year : they rarely appeared after that. 

 This violet will not stay where there is anything commonplace, abhors 'fuss- 

 ing,' and is in several respects an exception among social plants. I hope it 

 will be friendly to you. I have put my spring-planting in a place which will not 

 be disturbed by rakes or rollers, to give it another trial. 



" I wish you could have seen the four or five acres of violets from which these 

 were taken. And yesterday I wished every lover of flowers could see the lady- 

 shoes (Cypripsdid) as I saw them at home. One side of the marsh where the 

 white infant-socks {Cypripediiun candidiiin) are found has a belt of woodland, 

 large oaks and hickory- trees, throwing a deep shade over a strip of meadow half 

 a dozen rods in width. The sward was gay with yellow-slippers {Cypripedium 

 pubescens), the largest and most fragrant I ever saw ; and in the wind they seemed 

 giving fantastic kind of welcome to the only admirer they ever had seen. 



" Seven years ago, I gathered them in the same spot, without remarking their 

 abundance : now they were thick as dandelions. 



" I brought home from my journey after C. candidiiin a treasure of ostrich 

 fern {Struthiopteris Gcrinanica) ; this season being just what they need for 

 their perfecting : a root of this is a picture from tropic suggestions. My speci- 

 mens, I do believe, beat Brazil ! Fifteen or twenty fronds from one root, and 

 these a yard and a half high ! I have almost divided a Sunday between admir- 

 ing them and my little Allosorus, obtained a week earlier, and already fruit- 

 ing. " J. C. C." 



Good Wine. — Messrs. Editors, — In a recent very brief horticultural excur- 

 sion, it was my good fortune to have an opportunity of tasting, and critically test- 

 ing, side by side, a number of samples of the very choicest foreign and American 

 wines ; and the conclusions I reached with regard to the different kinds seem to 

 me worthy to be noted down. The wines criticised were Concord, Ives's Seed- 

 ling, Catawba of Mottier's most famous vintage, a good Burgundy, an excellent 

 claret, a Hockheimer of undoubted purity, Steinberg wine brought by a trusty 

 person direct from tlie cellar of the Steinberg vineyard, and last, though not 

 least, two samples of pure lona wine. 



The Concord, in my opinion, stood at the bottom of the list, witli the Ives's 

 Seedling next above it ; both of them, in comparison with better varieties, coarse, 

 rough, and very far below Mottier's Catawba. This last, the Catawba, was rich 

 and delicate, with only the least possible "tang" of the foxy, native flavor. 



The Hockheimer was superior to the Catawba, but inferior to the alinost 

 priceless Steinberg wine ; this last, in my judgment, reaching the highest degree 

 of excellence. 



