Foreign Notices : — Turkey in Europe. 549 



and I am very anxious that you should become acquainted with Signor Mon- 

 tagazza. You ah-eady correspond with Signor Compton. But my principal 

 object in writing to you at present is to inform you, that I have at last (I 

 believe) found in what province of Lombardy the Populus fastigiata (P. 

 dilatata) is indigenous. On receiving your letter containing the queries re- 

 lating to this tree, I immediately wrote to all the botanical friends I have in 

 Italy ; and an engineer at Brescia answered me, that in the province of Bre- 

 sciana, the Populus fastigiata grows spontaneously; and that to prove what 

 he asserts, when the season is further advanced, he will send me the female 

 flowers, and in due time the seed also. He mentions in the same letter a 

 singular practice of the Brescian peasants with respect to this tree. When 

 they want plants of it in any given place, they do not transplant seedlings 

 from the nursery or seed-bed ; but cut them off at the collar, and use them 

 for cuttings or grafts. I am not aware of any theory of vegetable physiology 

 which will show the utility of such a practice. 



I have also been informed that in the garden of Count Origo at Milan there 

 are female plants of P. dilatata ; and that great quantities of seedling self- 

 sown plants are produced every year. Wishing to verify what I was told, I 

 went to the spot to-day, and was convinced of the fact. I only wait for the 

 season to be farther advanced, to make observations upon it, and I will send 

 them to you as soon as they are ready. 



Salisbuna adiantifdlia. — I have at last heard that there is a female plant of 

 Salisbiiria adiantifolia in a garden at Milan, which flowers every year, but I 

 could not learn whether it bears fruit; 1 will make a point of seeing it at the 

 time of flowering. 



In your new edition of the EncyclopcBcUa of Gardening, I am sorry you 

 have put so little information of the present state of gardening in Lombardy. 

 I do not deny, certainly (for reasons which I stated in a former letter), that 

 Italj' is, in this art, far behind the northern nations ; but Lombardy is the 

 most advanced of all the Italian states. You take no notice of the gardens 

 of the Villa Traversi al Desio, and of several others which deserve a notice 

 in your work; such as Villa Litta al Lainata, and the gardens of Villa 

 Melleri al Brianf a, &c. They are remarkable on account of the beauty of 

 their situations, the neatness and cleanness in which they are kept, and for 

 the richness of the vegetable productions which are cultivated in them. 



In p. 6. of the present volume, there is a communication by a M. Klause, 

 a Prussian. Fortunately he concludes his paper by saying that he has written 

 it in a hurry ; and probably his hurry was the cause of his making the mistakes 

 he has done respecting the gardens of Monza. I, who am on the spot, never 

 knew that the gardener's name was Casemetti, at the Villa Reale; and, as 

 the area of these royal gardens measures about 65 acres English, they 

 therefore could not with propriety be called only " tolerably large." Besides 

 this, they certainly never seemed to me to have the appearance of a " nursery" 

 but most certainly of a garden. This statement, I think, affords a strong 

 proof that M. Klause really was in a hurry, and he probably never saw the 

 royal gardens, but only that part of them in which we cultivate young trees, 

 and which we call the nursery. 



In the course of next summer I propose making a botanical and horticul- 

 tural journey ; and if you wish it, I will send you the result of my observ- 

 ations. — G. Manetti. [We shall be most happy to receive it.] 



TURKEY IN EUROPE. 



The great Tree of Baykdere. — " From the middle of this valley rises this 

 great tree, which has been, in latter times, an object of much curiosity to tra- 

 vellers, and represented greater than the Castagna di Cento Cavalli. This 

 is a platanus of tremendous size : it measures 47 yards in circumference 

 at its base, and the branches afford shade to a circular area of 130! I 

 assure you there is no exaggeration in this, for I measured it myself. This 

 vast stem, however, divides into fourteen branches, some of which issue 



Vol. XIL — No. 79. s s 



