2G6 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 21, 1878. 



propagation so much as to the continual losses occurring by 

 severe weather after the plants have become established. 



A week or two ago we referred to some exceedingly 



fine Cockscombs which had been grown by Mr. Hawes, gar- 

 dener to Mrs. Rhodes, Henerton, near Henley-on-Thames. 

 The heads were stated to measure from 20 to 30 inches in 

 diameter. We are informed that some of the " combs " exceed 

 the last-mentioned size, the largest of them being 31| inches 

 across. This is the largest size which we remember to have 

 seen recorded. The oolour of these heads we are also informed 

 is extremely rich. 



A gardener, writing from Lincolnshire, states that 



amongst a large number of varieties of Potatoes which he has 

 had growing side by Bide, the American Breadfruit has proved 

 the best both in respect of cropping and quality. The Rector of 

 Woodstock is also found to be exceedingly good ; but the palm 

 of supremacy is awarded to Breadfruit. American Potatoes 

 are unusually good this year, the hot season having suited 

 them. An exceptional season and a specially favoured garden 

 are not sufficient to test the merits of a Potato ; a variety to 

 be of real worth must be goo,d over an average of seasons and 

 in soils of various characters. We have known Early Rose, 

 for instance, to be of splendid quality, while produce from the 

 same stock of seed and growing in a different soil has been 

 quite uneatable. It will be well if the American varieties are 

 becoming acclimatised to England, for there is no question as 

 to the superior cropping qualities of some of them, and of the 

 handsome appearance of their tubers. 



A Californian botanist has sent to the Rural Press an 



account of the results of a careful measurement of the famous 

 big trees of California. The " Father of the Forest " has 

 been said to have sprung from the earth soon after the Deluge, 

 but the rings in his shattered trunk show that his full age at 

 base is probably 1500 years. His alleged 40 feet diameter 

 proves to be only 18 feet, measured at 6 feet from the roots. 

 This correspondent adds — " One oft-repeated story is true, 

 however, that of a passage through a part of his body large 

 enough to admit horsemen. This passage, burnt out of his 

 heart, commences at a point 66 feet from the roots, and ex- 

 tends 120 feet, coming out where was once a knot-hole, now 

 enlarged by relic-seekers to a wide doorway. I saw several 

 ladies ride horses of medium size through this wooden tunnel, 

 and one day while passing, riding one of my horses and lead- 

 ing the other packed with bulky specimens, I turned into the 

 cavity and rode safely through. The ceiling overhead is 4 feet 

 to 6 feet thick, so the grand promenade for visitors above is 

 perfectly safe." He mentions another monster tree, the stump 

 of which he measured with his tape-line, " held at the other 

 end by a Puritan master builder from Boston," and the longest 

 diameter, including bark, at 5 feet from the base, was found 

 to exceed 27 feet. He says alBO : — " The South Park Grove 

 contains about five hundred trees, some of them of the largest 

 class. One, the home of 'Trapper Smith,' is a vast swollen 

 trunk at the base, 90 feet in circuit and 30 feet in diameter. 

 The ' Livery Stable,' which has received twenty-two horses at 

 a time into its hollow base, is 84 feet in circuit. A fallen tree 

 is 15 feet in diameter 20 feet from the roots. A cavity is burnt 

 in it sufficient to comfortably shelter twenty-five or thirty 

 horses, or to afford the passage of a Concord coach and its 

 four-horse team for over 200 feet. These dimensions do not 

 materially differ from some published statements, but counts 

 and estimates of the rings reveal only 1200 to 1500 in number. 

 Other groves visited afforded corroborative evidence that, 

 though the dimensions, being easily determined, are often 

 given accurately, the age has been generally grossly exagge- 

 rated." 



To Crystallise Grasses. — The long feathery Grasses 



are best for this purpose. They must be thoroughly dry, 

 formed in the desired shape, and fastened securely before 

 being put in the bath. To make the solution, take 1 lb. of 

 the best alum, pound it quite fine, and dissolve it in a quart 

 of clear water over a slow fire, but do not let it boil. Take a 

 deep jar and suspend the bouquet in it by a string from a 

 stick laid across the jar. When the solution is milkwarm 

 pour it over the Grasses, cover it up, and set it away for 

 twenty four hours. Then take them out oarefully, and let 

 them hang several hours in the sun till all the water is drained 

 away. Then set them away, and do not move them for two 

 or three days, when they will be entirely dry. If dried rapidly 

 Jiear the fire they will look as if powdered with snow. For 

 blue crystals use a saturated solution of sulphate of copper in 



hot water. For yellow use the yellow prussiate of potash ; 

 for ruby use the red prusBiate of potash. These crystallised 

 bouquets should be kept under glass shades or their beauty 

 will soon fade. 



The importance of planting timber tbees has recently 



engaged public attention, not only in England, but in America, 

 and for the encouragement of tree planting in Canada the 

 Toronto Globe says — " The importance of replacing by fresh 

 efforts extinct forests, or those which are in process of gradual 

 removal, is receiving official consideration. The act of the 

 Dominion parliament passed last session grants an additional 

 quarter section, on payment of a trifling fee, to every settler 

 on Dominion lands who plants thirty-two acres in successive 

 annual instalments." In England also the systematic plant- 

 ing and intelligent management of plantations would be of 

 great public benefit. 



ORNAMENTAL AND USEFUL TREE-PLANTING. 



No. 6. 

 For ornament and eye-servic9 we cannot overlook the Cy- 

 presses, Thujas, and Junipers, though British experience of 

 them as timber is absolutely nil. The traditions of the 

 growth, durability, and soundness of the upright Cypress 

 (CupresBUs sempervirens) in its southern home are founded on 

 its having had a soil and climate less humid and drier than 

 our own, where after three centuries of acclimatisation it does 

 not reach half the height it attains in Italy, and is still chiefly 

 valued as a f astigiate tree, of kindred merits with the LombaTdy 

 Poplar. Hardier and kinder with us is the glaucous C. Law- 

 soniana, a hardy, rapid, graceful grower, which deserves Mon- 

 gredien's praise, as " one of the most beautiful trees of a 

 beautiful tribe." Its burden of pea-sized cones, which have 

 a glaucous bloom when young, enhances the beauty of its 

 foliage and graceful aspiring habit, in which last feature it 

 differs from a somewhat earlier importation from the same 

 country (California) — viz., C. macrocarpa, which is rather hori- 

 zontal than vertical, and is apt to suffer from the lodgment 

 of Bnow on its brittle rival leaders. Still C. macrocarpa is 

 worth a place for its grass-green foliage, in which, as in other 

 points, it is a greater contrast to Lawson's Cypress than the 

 hardy Cypress from Nootka Sound. (C. macrocarpa was in- 

 troduced in 1847,Nutbaensis in 1850, and Lawsonianain 1852. 

 — Mongredien, pp. 79-81). Of the Thujas, all of which are hardy 

 North Americana, the most graceful, compaet and well-clothed 

 is T. Menziesii or Lobbii, though Thuja gigantea is very dis- 

 tinct in its flat glossy branchlets. Oar last special word must 

 be devoted to the Sequoias or Redwoods, in which genus the 

 S. sempervirens, a feathery, airy, and Fir-like Californian giant, 

 introduced to this country in 1843, deserves more notice than 

 the prominence and pretensions of its sister S. gigantea (more 

 familiarly known as the Wellirjgtonia) allow it to enjoy. Its 

 rapid growth (in its own country to the height of 300 feet) is 

 often with us retarded by the loss of its leading shoots, but in 

 a sheltered yet airy site, with a deep and parous soil of average 

 quality, it should prove a valuable pyramidal tree. The speci- 

 men of it at Kew is a little over 40 feet ; but at Whitfield 

 Park, in Herefordshire, a group planted in 1851 were 45 feet 

 high in 1868, at which time they were growing at least 3 feet 

 in a year. Of shining dark green foliage and red-barked, their 

 aspect ia very striking, and their growth in moderate shelter 

 is far more rapid than that of the Wellingtonia or the Larch. 

 The froBts and the west winds are the Sequoia's chief peril. 

 But the Sequoia sempervirens cannot expect to hold its own 

 in comparison with a tree of which the traveller says that 

 "if it were set by itself in a plain it would show like the Eddy- 

 stone lighthouse." The so-called Wellingtonia, or Mammoth 

 Tree as the Americans have dubbed it, was discovered in_1850 

 in the grove of Calaveras in Upper California, since which it 

 has been found in seven or eight other groups in the groves 

 of the Sierra Nevada. In one of these, the Mariposa group, 

 many trees are 90 feet in girth and 300 feet in height ; whilst" 

 a broken specimen in the Calaveras Grove (18 feet in diameter 

 at the point of f raoture, 300 feet from the ground), is calculated 

 to have stood 450 feet high in its full growth. By counting 

 the concentric rings it is reckoned to be 1100 years old : and it 

 may be that our remote descendants may see veritable Mam- 

 moth Trees of marvellous age and etature in this country to 

 which it was introduced by Mr. W. Lobb in 1852, and in which 

 it is quite hardy, though a little apt to get its glaucous-green 

 foliage embrowned by severe winters. By common consent 

 no English park or pleasaunce of any size allows itself to be 



