'36 General Notices. 



branes, and those only near the termination of the shoot. This primal differ- 

 ence is shown through all the after stages of the two trees ; for, even in the 

 oldest specimens of Canadian poplar, the rugged bark is interlaced in a bold 

 and beautiful manner, which in the Black Italian is never, or but faintly, seen. 

 The Canadian, as I before stated, grows much more slowly than the Italian, 

 forms a bole of less length, and produces magnificent branches, to which those 

 of no plant of Italian that I have ever seen are at all comparable. The foot- 

 stalk of the leaf also is much flatter, and the leaf itself larger, and its reticu- 

 lations very different from those of the Black Italian when subjected to 

 maceration, for which all kinds of poplars are eminently calculated. 



To the landscape-gardener the Italian is of far less value than the Cana- 

 dian, for the one never forms so pictorial a tree as the other; and when 

 autumn is approaching, and the foliage begins to show indications of having 

 performed its functions, while the Black Italian is of a dingy and melancholy 

 hue, the other assumes a fine golden tinge, that, with a setting sun, gloriously 

 contrasts with the darker foliage of surrounding Turkey oaks or bristling 

 pines. It may be inferred, that, where length of bole and quickness of growth 

 are sought, the Italian is the more desirable ; and accordingly, both in France 

 and in Belgium, where poplars are much grown as timber, we scarcely see 

 any other kind than the Black Italian. In those countries it will yet take 

 many years before trees are grown, as in our parks, for their own diversity 

 and beauty. The pictorial effect, such as it is, of the Italian poplar they 

 contrive wholly to destroy, by carefully pruning all the side shoots as fast as 

 they are produced. — William Masters. Canterbury Nursery, Nov. 23. 1841. 



Torreya. taxifblia. — You ask if Torreya is alive ? You may remember that 

 the plant 1 am indebted to you for had received a wound on the stem near the 

 root ; from that injury it never recovered, although the plant lingered for four 

 months after I had received it. Being entirely new, 1 tried not only to save 

 the specimen, but also to increase it. For this purpose I grafted shoots on 

 larch, on pines, and on firs, as well as on the common and Irish yews. Those 

 on the pines died first ; the larch followed ; and for a long time I supposed 

 those worked on A bies and Picea, particularly the latter, would have suc- 

 ceeded; but the}', too, perished in their turn. I was now left with grafts upon 

 the yews only, but they were no more willing to favour my views than the 

 rest ; and had I not put a shoot or two into sand, the plant would, I believe, 

 not have been alive in Europe at this time. Their progress must necessarily 

 be slow, but I am not without hopes that, ultimately, from that stock we may 

 succeed in adding a new and beautiful specimen to our hardy evergreens. — Id. 



A Substitute for early Potatoes. — Messrs. Chapman, market-gardeners, 

 Brentford End, Middlesex, are advertising a potato which, they say, if planted 

 in May or June, and taken up in autumn and kept in moist soil, will retain all 

 the qualities of new potatoes till the June following. We have tried some of 

 them on Nov. 23., and we have buried three parcels to be tasted on March 1., 

 April 1., and May 1. Should they prove as good in April and May as they 

 did in November, those who are fond of that peculiar delicacy of flavour and 

 tenderness of texture which are so much admired in early potatoes by ama- 

 teurs, will have obtained the means of gratifying their tastes at much less 

 expense than by the usual mode of obtaining early potatoes by forcing.— 

 Cond. 



Artesian Wells. — Professor Sedgwick, at the Plymouth Meeting of the 

 British Association, after reviewing the general principle of Artesian wells, 

 described two districts in which these operations were attended with very 

 different results. " In the eastern part of Essex, the chalk is covered by sandy 

 beds of the plastic clay, and these by several hundred feet of impervious 

 strata of London clay, all dipping together towards the east. The arenaceous 

 beds below the London clay rise higher towards the chalk than the clay does, 

 and absorb a considerable part of the water from the high grounds. By 

 boring through the clays to this sand, springs of water immediately rise above 

 the surface, and are carried off by natural channels. By this supply of 

 water, the value of the land has been materially increased, since the country, 



