268 Domestic Notices. 



more than a hundred clusters of buds, each cluster containing from ten to 

 forty buds and flowers. It is the most beautiful object we ever saw. — Ed. 



The Means Grass. — I send you a package of seed of what is known here 

 as the " Means grass," and is celebrated for its extraordinary productive- 

 ness and nutritive qualities, when used for "soi/mo-," especially milch 

 cows. As it is nearly allied, botanically, to the sugar cane, it may have a 

 very large amount of saccharine material in it. I received this seed from 

 Dr. Bachmann of Charleston, who is much interested in it. He says it is 

 Sorghum Halepenn of modern botanists, Hb\c\xs of the elder. It is peren- 

 nial and spreads in the ground very fast by its stolones or rattoons, and if 

 too tender to endure your winters, may be taken up and kept in the cellar ; 

 ma}' be planted four or five feet apart. It grows four or five feet high, as 

 strong as the Gama grass, and may be cut in Carolina four or five times a 

 year. Pray distribute it among any members of the Horticultural Society 

 who may wish it. Mr. Camak has got at last a few live roots of the true 

 muskeet grass from Texas — very curious. I may be able to send you some 

 next season. — Yours, resfectfully , M. A. Ward, Athens, Ga., May, 1846. 



The Hog Artichoke of Tennessee. — I intended to have sent you some 

 tubers of the true hog artichoke of Tennessee, with remarks, but they are 

 too much grown. Suffice it at present, that I am astonished that no one 

 has yet corrected the mistake which has gone and is going the rounds of 

 agricultural periodicals, calling it the Jerusalem artichoke — the Solanum 

 tuberosum. It is a solanum, certainly, and very closely allied to the tu- 

 berosum but specifically distinct, as a single glance at the tubers would con- 

 vince any one — they being long and shaped more like an inverted parsnip 

 than any thing else ; there are other distinctive characters, but I had better 

 send you the thing than attempt to describe it. What the species is, per- 

 haps nobody but Dr. Gray or Torrey can tell, but it is certainly not the old 

 tuberosum. It was, as far as I can learn, brought first from the Red River 

 country into Mississippi, then to Tennessee, and probably is a native of 

 Texas or Mexico. — Very respectfully, yours, M. A. Ward, Athens, Ga., 

 May, 1846. 



[We trust Dr. Ward will not omit, at the first opportunity, to give us a 

 more full account of this artichoke. We shall also be pleased to receive a 

 few of the tubers the coming autumn. — Ed.] 



Hovcy''s Seedling Straioberry. — The character of your Seedling straw- 

 berry has been long established at the North and at the West. I can now 

 safely report that, so far south as this, it withstands our summer droughts 

 and (what is perhaps a severer trial) our winter's sun, at least as well as 

 any other variety now in cultivation. I have now a plant with one scape, 

 having nine perfect berries on it — four of which already exceed three inches 

 in circumference, and two measuring three and three quarter inches. — 

 Yours, M. A. Ward, Athens, Ga., May, 1846. 



Whyte's New Deep Red Blood Beet. — This superb variety of the beet 

 should be introduced into every vegetable garden. A correspondent who 

 tried it last year, states that nothing can be finer than this variety, being 

 sweet and of the deepest blood red. — /. W. J. 



