32 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 361. 



desirable for the preservation of sucli places as the Pali- 

 sades. 



Jean Francois Boursault. 



EVERY one knows the Boursault Rose, of a race of 

 hardy climbers, whose parent is the European Rosa 

 alpina, although probably very few people know much of 

 the man, once a conspicuous character in Parisian life, 

 whose name it now best commemorates ; and we are glad 

 of the opportunity to publish some facts concerning him, 

 for which we are indebted to our correspondent, Monsieur 

 Edward Andre, of Paris. 



Jean Frangois Boursault was born in Paris in 1752, or, 

 according to the Dictionnaire Larousse, toward 1760, and 

 died in Paris in 1842. He was the great-grandson of Edme 

 Boursault, a poet and author of some celebrity, and the son 

 of a linen-draper in easy circumstances of the Quartier des 

 Innocents. Boursault early left Paris to follow a band of 

 traveling players, making for himself some reputation in 

 his earliest roles. Admiration for his ancestor, the dramatic 

 author, influenced his choice of the theatrical profession, 

 and out of respect to the memory of his name, which he 

 did not want to run the risk of having hissed, he adopted 

 that of RIalherbe, which he retained as long as he continued 

 on the stage. Boursault established a French theatre at 

 Palermo, but being unfortunate and his affairs involved, he 

 took advantage one day of King Ferdinand's passing to 

 throw himself into the sea. This excellent method of get- 

 ting his head above water, as a wit of the time remarked, 

 succeeded admirably. A crowd collected, the curiosity of 

 the king was excited, and Malherbe, who had been 

 fished from the water, was brought before him. The 

 actor described his miserable condition in such a 

 dramatic manner that the sympathy of the king was 

 moved and he gave him money enough to pay his debts. 

 Returning to Paris at the beginning of the Revolution, 

 Boursault plunged into the movement with enthusiasm, but 

 soon afterward returned to the stage, and had built for him- 

 self in the Passage des Nourrices, between the Rue St. Martin 

 and the Rue Quincampoix, a theatre which he called 

 Th(5atre Moliere. In 1806 Boursault changed the name of 

 his theatre, which he now called Theatre des Varieies 

 Etrangeres, and undertook to play Shakespeare, Schiller, 

 Lope de Vega, etc., an undertaking which soon failed. 

 Next we find him engaged in cleaning the streets of 

 Paris. His street-cleaning contract and the gambling- 

 houses, which he obtained control of later, made him 

 immensely rich, and he became known for his taste in hor- 

 ticulture and his collections of plants. The garden of his 

 villa in Rue Blanche and his gallerj' of pictures were among 

 the most famous in Europe. He collected in his hot-houses 

 the rarest plants of the two hemispheres. In 1830 he 

 bought for three millions of francs the Salle Ventadour and 

 became director of the Opera Comique. This venture vi^as 

 not successful, and he was on the point of failing, but 

 eventually was able to save his fortune. After this, with 

 the capriciousness of old age, Boursault sold his famous 

 gallery, pulled down his hot-houses, which were the richest 

 and best-stocked in France, and, perhaps, in Europe, de- 

 stroyed his park, building oa its site two rows of houses, 

 which now form the Rue Boursault. This was his last 

 fantasy and his last undertaking, for he died shortly after- 

 ward, leaving a large fortune. 



Gi'een Ash in the West. 



AMONG hard-wood trees the Green Ash has been 

 more extensively planted in the west than any other 

 species, and the method pursued illustrates better, perhaps, 

 than in the case of any other tree, the lack of forest knowl- 

 edge on the part of planters. The Ash is a light-foliaged 

 tree, and, though slow in growth, it requires full sunlight 

 for its best development. Planted in solid plats, or mixed 

 by rows with other species, it does not shade the ground 



enough to prevent the growth of weeds and grass, and 

 hence in the west the strong prairie grasses check its 

 growth very seriously. Planted pure in this way, the trees 

 are also apt to grow crooked, and, therefore, when they 

 have attained useful size they are of much less value than 

 if they had been forced to grow straight, as they do when 

 closely surrounded by Box Elders or other good shade- 

 makers. 



The Green Ash has a wide western range, extending 

 from the Dakotas to Texas, and following along the streams 

 from the Missouri to the mountains. Although it prefers 

 the deep moist soils of river-bottoms, it can be grown better 

 on upland than many other trees, liut its growth in such sit- 

 uations is much slower than it is in moister ground. In the 

 forest plats of the South Dakota Agricultural College, at 

 Brookings, Green Ash is grown more slowly than White 

 Elm, Black Cherry, White Birch, Box Elder or the Poplars, 

 but faster than Burr Oak and Black Walnut. Planted 

 among Box Elders at Brookings it reaches up for the light, 

 and there is little doubt that at ten years of age the Ash 

 will equal, if not overtop, the Box Elder. 



I was much interested in the forest-trees growing in the 

 town of Hastings, Nebraska. In the early settlement of 

 the country, about twenty years ago, Mr. Alexander planted 

 a tree-claim near the town, which, in course of time, was 

 divided into town lots, and now the best residence street 

 of Hastings is made beautiful by these plantings. A great 

 many Green Ash are included in this artificial grove, and 

 so greatly do the trees vary in size and in the shape of 

 their seeds that I was strongly of the opinion that there 

 were both White and Green Ash in the plantation. A com- 

 parison of the seeds with that of While Ash as grown here, 

 however, proves all the Hastings trees to be Green Ash. It 

 indicates a very great range within the species, both as to 

 habit of growth and form of seed, and explains the very 

 common error, in the west, of mistaking Fraxinus Penn- 

 sylvanica, var. lanceolata, the Green Ash, for F. Americana, 



the more common eastern species. r^ 1 a tjt r,- 

 Washington. Uiarles A. Kejfer. 



Hybrid Oaks in Western Missouri. 



NOT having given much attention to the Oaks of 

 Jackson County, Missouri, beyond noting their 

 geographical and geological distribution, and not having 

 observed any hybrids, I had come to think that there were 

 none in this part of the state. Engelmann had observed and 

 described a number of forms from eastern Missouri and 

 western Illinois, and had even proposed several of these as 

 species, but they have all been enumerated as hybrids in 

 the last edition of Gray's Manual. Supposing that hybrid 

 Oaks were comparatively rare, I had not taken the trouble 

 to watch out for them until my attention was attracted by 

 a remarkable one, which I at first thought was the offspring 

 of Quercus alba and Q. Muhlenbergii, and since then I have 

 learned that these hybrids are comparatively common. Of 

 the six hybrids mentioned below I do not recollect to have 

 seen any one described, and they certainly are not given 

 among those in Gray's Manual. 



Several years ago I observed a tree which seemed to be 

 the offspring of Quercus alba and Q. macrocarpa, near 

 Courtney, Missouri. This was the first I had seen here. 

 The general appearance of the tree was that of Q. macro- 

 carpa, the leaves even being lyrate, but the fruit was plainly 

 that of Q. alba. I gave the tree little attention at the time, 

 and it was not until I had discovered the tree mentioned 

 above that I thought of it as a hybrid. Three }fears ago I 

 found another tree which I took to be a hybrid between 

 Q. alba and Q. Muhlenbergii. I had sent this io Dr. Britton 

 and Professor Trelease as Q. alba x macrocarpa, and the 

 former wrote me that the fruit was exactly of the eastern 

 Q. Prinus, but it is a clear Q. macrocarpa X Muhlenbergii, 

 as I afterward ascertained by a critical study of the tree 

 and the species in the neighborhood of it. 



Two years ago I found what I took to l)e a hybrid of 



