46 Notes and Recollections of a Tour. 



character, elevated situation and sheltered aspect, numerous 

 recently introduced species, which Mr. Frost had nursed 

 along by means of protection in winter, keeping off heavy 

 rains, mostly in good health and thriving condition. And, 

 as results of attempts of this kind, we might notice the grand 

 Chili pine, (Araucaria imbricata,) which was formerly consid- 

 ered as a greenhouse plant, and when first planted, in 1822, 

 at Dropmore, was protected in this way for several seasons ; 

 the specimen is now one of the finest in Britain, being up- 

 wards of thirty feet high^ clothed with its rigid leaves to the 

 ground, and altogether one of the most imposing trees among 

 the Coniferous tribe. This tree is undoubtedly hardy in 

 the climate of Philadelphia, and further south, and we shall 

 not be satisfied that it is not hardy even as far north as 

 Boston, planted in dry soil, a sheltered situation, and protected 

 till it has acquired some size. The protection alluded to is a 

 kind of bee-hive shaped frame, made of any kind of green 

 wood which can be bent into shape; over these are stretched 

 matts of two thicknesses, having betioeen them a layer of 

 fern, (or, what might be used in its place with us,^where that 

 could not be procured, dry moss,) about six inches thick, 

 with also a covering of the same over the roots. We have 

 protected a Deodar cedar something in this way the present 

 winter, in order to test its hardness. 



Besides the Araucaria, there is the finest A'^bies Dougldsii 

 in England, that noble species discovered by Douglas, near 

 the Columbia River, and introduced by the London Horti- 

 cultural Society, in 1826, when plants were raised from seeds 

 received from Mr. Douglas. The tree is upwards oi forty 

 feet high, and bore one cone for the first time, in 1835, and in 

 1837, upwards of a dozen. In 1843, it bore a quantity, but 

 at the time of our visit, it had none upon it. Mr. Frost kind- 

 ly promised to send us several of the seeds when it again pro- 

 duced a crop of cones. There is no doubt of its hardness in 

 our climate. There were also fine trees of Picea Webbid^ia 

 and Pinus insignis, the former twenty feet, and the latter 

 fifteen feet high, both superb specimens. P. insignis is anoth- 

 er of Douglas's discoveries in California, and first sent to 

 England in 1833. It is no doubt sufficiently hardy to stand 

 the climate south of Philadelphia, and perhaps even the lati- 



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