134 Southern Horticultural Trip. 



charge, and extended to us every courtesy that could be desired. We first 

 visited Dr. Parsons's place, about six miles from the cit}'', famous in Revo- 

 lutionary times as Jasper's Springs, now occupied by Mr. Brown. Here 

 we found a large pear-orchard in good condition ; the varieties being chiefly 

 Duchesse d'Angouleme, Seckel, and Bartlett, — mostly the last. The pears 

 come into market the middle of August, and bring sixteen dollars per 

 bushel in Northern cities. Here, too, were early strawberries, planted in the 

 interstices of the brick lining to a ditch. The latter was about three feet 

 deep, and four feet wide at the top ; the sides sloping to a width of a foot at 

 the bottom. At the date above mentioned, the strawberries were in bloom, 

 with some green fruit ; but we did not learn how much this process had 

 hastened the ripening. The earliest strawberries command three dollars 

 per quart. In this garden was a Scuppernong grape-vine, whose stem is 

 six inches in diameter, covering a trellis forty feet square, which, in the 

 damp, hot atmosphere, had sent out multitudes of aerial roots, some of 

 which were four feet in length, frequently taking root in the ground. In 

 the ornamental grounds were an arbor of Solfiterre and Chromatella roses : 

 the stem of the latter was four inches in diameter, and covered a large 

 space. 



But what astonished us much were two splendid specimens of that rare 

 evergreen, the funereal cypress {Cupressus funebris), thirty feet high, with 

 heads of gracefully-drooping branches twenty feet broad. Here, too, were 

 CuprcssHs Lawsoniana, fifteen feet high, stem ten inches in diameter ; Tax- 

 odium se?fip€n'ire?is, twenty feet high; Thuja aui'ca^ — a most beautiful tree, 

 seven feet high and four feet broad, the leaves in compact laminae, radiat- 

 ing from the centre ; laurustinuses and Cape jessamines ; and a double 

 white camellia in bloom, from which nearly a hundred dollars' worth of 

 flowers had already been sold this season at twenty-five cents each. 



The judge next took us to the McAlpine Plantation, with which family 

 he is connected. The avenue leading from the road to the house is a mile 

 long, andilined throughout with noble live-oak trees, in the rear of which, 

 in straight .lines, are a hundred neat brick negro tenements, most of which 

 are not occupied. 



After receiving ithe hospitality of the proprietors of the mansion, we 

 were treated to oranges picked from the chamber-window ; the tree being 

 more than twenty feet in height, and full of magnificent fruit. In the 



