326 DOG- WOOD IN VIRGINIA. [CHAP. XXXVIII. 



they would not long ere this have repealed the 

 navigation laws ? The advocates of the opposite 

 policy appeal to the recent law for admitting Ameri 

 can corn duty-free into England, as demonstrating 

 the sincerity of the British government. But in this 

 controversy it happens, as usual, that class-interests 

 are espoused with all the personal zeal and energy 

 with which men pursue a private object, while the 

 cause of science, and the general good of the public, 

 being every body s business, are treated with compa 

 rative apathy. 



When I arrived in Virginia, April 29th, I found 

 the woods everywhere enlivened by the dazzling 

 white flowers, or bracteae, of the dog-wood (Cornus 

 florida), the average height of which somewhat ex 

 ceeds that of our white thorn ; and w r hen, as often 

 happens, there is a back -ground of cedar or pine, the 

 mass of flower is almost as conspicuous as if a shower 

 of snow had fallen upon the boughs. As w r e some 

 times see a pink variety of the wild thorn in England, 

 so there occurs here, now and then, though rarely, a 

 pink dog-wood. Having never remarked this splen 

 did tree in any English shrubbery or park, I had 

 some fine young plants sent home from a nursery to 

 several English friends, and, amongst others, to Sir 

 William Hooker, at Kew, who was not a little di 

 verted at my zeal for the introduction of a tree \vhich 

 had been well-established for many years in the 

 British arboretum. But now that I have since seen 

 the dwarfed and shabby representatives of this species 

 in our British shrubberies, I am ready to maintain 

 that it is still unknown in our island. No Virginian, 



