No. 216.] 615 



two or three identically similar. Having been fortunate in obtaining 

 in the preceding year some cowslips of the ombelle sort, entirely 

 white, I made use of them to raise a seed or fecundating species, 

 and thus I was enabled to enfeeble the deep colors of my flowers, 

 and to vary many of them. Now, by hybridizing one with another, 

 the numerous mongrels which I had formed, I arrived at infinite va- 

 rieties, the end of which I could not foresee, and which could not 

 have been created in forty years cultivation from the seed, without 

 this powerful cross fecundation, first between the cowslips of our 

 meadows and those with large flowers, and afterwards between the 

 plants proceeding from these crosses. I am not acquainted wath any 

 plant, which for color presents so many varieties as the cowslip. It 

 may be said to be of all colors from black to white, and among them 

 are flowers, bordered white or yellow, with stars and spots, and so 

 regular that one would think that they had been executed with a 

 pencil. 



The flowering of this plant is one of the most beautiful spectacles 

 presented to us of nature, in the vernal scenes of each returning year, 

 when the cowslip is among the first to announce, as the messenger of 

 spring, the return of fine weather. 



Mon. Hardy, director of the nurseries of Algeria, says that the 

 flowering of the Paulownia, there, is as much retarded as in Paris. 

 He says that he has in the nurseries about 500 dwarf bananas, young 

 and olJ, but has not yet seen their fruit. He attributes this to drought. 

 The nurseries will deliver this year from 90 to 100,000 young trees. 

 The culture of cochineal continues to prosper, and may be regarded 

 as likely to be very productive. 



Hovey's Seedling Strawberry. 



I had a bed of the Hovey variety planted in November, 1844, 

 just before frost set in. In the following spring, as soon as the 

 weather permited, I made between the rows, a furrow about half an 

 inch deep, in which I put guano and covered it with earth, hoping 

 that the roots of the strawberries would reach it. I obtained a superb 

 crop, which I attributed to the guano, considering the miserable bar- 

 renness of the soil on which I was operating. — JYaudin. 



