57^ description of a 7ieiv F^-uit Tree. 



plant will dye yellow. The species grow in common soil, and 

 are readily increased by layers, or by cuttings of the roots." 



To these modes of increase, by seeds should be added, as 

 shown above, and these, if obtained off trees whose blossoms 

 were impregnated by those of contiguous males, would doubt- 

 less germinate readily. Smith, in his English Flora, vol. iv. 

 p. 238., also says of the ii/ippophae rhamnoldes : — " Berries 

 somewhat elliptical, orange-coloured, simply but powerfully 

 acid, pleasant enough when preserved with sugar. These ber- 

 ries afford a kind of sauce to the poor in Sweden and the south 

 of France." 



But notwithstanding these accounts, in several specimens 

 that we have seen, we have not been so fortunate as to meet 

 with one producing fruit, or that we were told did so. Still, 

 as the trees of H. rhamnoides grow readily in English gar- 

 dens, and the species of i^ippophae are dioecious, it may be 

 that all our trees of H. rhamnoides were males, as we know 

 that one of them was. If, therefore, the Shepherdm or ^ip- 

 pophae argentea can be made to grow as rapidly and readily 

 with us as H. rhamnoides does, and especially the fruit-bear- 

 ing sex of it (we have not seen the plants already in England 

 do so at present, be they of which sex they may), it will 

 merit our very best attention. 



As means of promoting our success in the adventure, we 

 solicit our American correspondents to tell us the kind of 

 soil in which Shepherd/^ argentea is found in its native sta- 

 tions, and that in which it best succeeds when under culture, 

 the degree of moisture most congenial to the plant, and the situ- 

 ations it prefers relatively to shelter, aspect, and other parti- 

 culars. We also require to know the relative distance at 

 which the trees are planted in America, in order to compute 

 the number requisite to stock any proportion of ground ; also 

 the average crop of berries in relation to any quantity of 

 ground occupied by the trees which have yielded that crop ; 

 moreover, as the plant is dioecious, what proportion of males 

 should be interspersed among the females to cause them to 

 fructify more certainly and more abundantly. 



Besides requesting answers to the preceding queries, we 

 trust that every person who orders plants will insist that some 

 male or barren plants be sent along with the female or fruit- 

 bearing ones ; for, independently of the beneficial office the 

 former may effect in fructifying the latter, and in thus pro- 

 viding abundant crops and moreover perfect seeds by which 

 to increase the plant, we think it a shame, in the case of dioe- 

 cious species, that only one sex should reach us, thus forming 

 as it were but half of the species. This case appears in the 



