Washington, D. C. 243 



The present year will afford a good opportunity to give them 

 a better trial. If any remarkable varieties are produced, Mr. 

 Breckenridge will give us a good description of each. 



The plants were in fine condition, and had just been taken 

 into the houses and arranged for the winter. We are gratified 

 to record the improvements which have been made in this 

 department of the Institute; for they cannot fail to be of 

 much benefit to the spread of a taste for plants, placed, as the 

 collection is, where the representatives, who assemble at the 

 capitol a large portion of every year, will be occasionally 

 induced to visit the gardens, and become better acquainted 

 with the floral productions of the globe. 



Garden of Dr. J. S. Gunnell. — The cultivation of the ca- 

 mellia now occupies the leisure time of Dr. Gunnell, to the 

 exclusion of other plants. We found his house full of seed- 

 lings and recently imported varieties ; and already the young 

 plants of the crop of seeds of 1845 had begun to appear above 

 the ground. 



Since our last visit. Dr. Gunnell has produced a very beauti- 

 ful crimson variety, equal in form to the old double-white ; 

 he has named it Van Buren, after his friend the Ex-president ; 

 it is the produce of a seedling of his own. A very superior 

 white has been produced from the single white. Great quan- 

 tities of seedlings were set with flower buds, but we have not 

 yet learned whether any of those which flowered the past 

 winter were of sufficient merit to deserve a name. 



Dr. Gunnell practises the plan of pinching off the growing 

 shoots of such seedling camellias as have terminal buds, 

 which almost invariably induces the buds to open. Cultiva- 

 tors are often doomed to much disappointment, after looking 

 forward five or six months, to see a bud of promising appear- 

 'ance open, by having it suddenly, as the first spring growth 

 commences, drop ; this arises from the sap being directed into 

 a new channel, and consequently no longer strengthening the 

 bud just as it needs it most. By sacrificing the young shoot, 

 which is of no value whatever, unless the variety proves a 

 fine one, at least one year of time is saved by this operation. 

 Having many hundred seedlings in our collection, we have 

 often experienced the loss of a year ; one of the very choicest 

 seedlings we have ever flowered cast its bud when it was 



