2098 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



lowisfa white, veined, with a fine close grain, and moderately hard. It is 

 easy to work, receives a fine polish, and resembles in its general appearance 

 citron wood. It is, he says, much more solid and strong than the ordinary 

 white woods of Europe ; and, though the tree is closely allied to the Coni- 

 fers, it has nothing resinous in its nature. In China and Japan, the salis- 

 buria appears to be grown chiefly for its fruit, the nuts of which, as Dr. Abel 

 observes, are very generally exposed for sale in the markets of China; though 

 he was not able to ascertain whether they were used as food, or as medicine. 

 In Japan, according to Ksempfer, they arc never omitted at entertainments; 

 entering into the composition of several dishes, after having been freed from 

 their austerity by roasting or boiling. They are reputed, he says, to be useful 

 in digestion, and in dispelling flatulence. Thunberg says that even the 

 fleshy part of the fruit is eaten in Japan, though insipid or bitterish ; and 

 that, if slightly roasted, skin and all, it is not unpalatable. Some of the fruit 

 which ripened in the Botanic Garden of Montpelier were tasted by M. Delille 

 and MM. Bonafous of Turin, who found their flavour very like that of 

 newly roasted maize. M. Delille says that, after roasting the nuts, he found 

 nothing in the kernels but a farinaceous matter, without the least appear- 

 ance of oil; notwithstanding what Kaempfer incidentally mentions to the 

 contrary. M. Peschier, a chemist of Geneva, discovered in the husk of the 

 fruit an acid, to which he gives the name of acide gengo'ique (See Biblio- 

 theque Umverselle de Geneve, as quoted in Ann. de la Soc. d'Hort. dc Patis, 

 torn. xv. p. 95.) Bunge says that the Chinese plant a number of young 

 trees of the salisburia together, in order to produce a monstrous tree, by 

 inarching them into one another ; but Delille thinks that this may probably 

 have been done in order to unite male and female trees, for the sake of 

 fertilising the fruit. In Europe, hitherto, the use of the tree has chiefly 

 been as a botanical ornament; but it is suggested by Loiseleur Deslong- 

 champs and others, that, as it grows with great rapidity in the south of 

 France, it may be planted as a timber tree, and applied to the same uses as 

 the ash, of which it has the advantage of being more solid, and having a 

 greater specific gravity. 



Soil, Propagation, Culture, $c. The salisburia, judging from the specimens 

 in the neighbourhood of London, thrives best on a deep sandy loam, per- 

 fectly dry at bottom ; but it by no means prospers in a situation where the 

 subsoil is wet. Were this not the case at Purser's Cross, the trees there 

 would, doubtless, have been much larger than they are; as, though one of them 

 is the highest in England, yet the head is not so ample, nor the trunk so 

 thick, as that in the Mile End Nursery, which is in a sandy soil on sand. 

 The situation should be sheltered, but not so much so as for many exotic 

 trees, which have longer leaves, and more widely spreading branches; such 

 as the Magnolia acuminata, the Ontario poplar, and the Platanus occi- 

 dentalis. In Scotland, the salisburia is considered rather tender, and is 

 planted against a wall. It is propagated by layers, of two-years-old wood, 

 which generally require two years to be properly rooted; but, on the Con- 

 tinent, it has been found that, by watering the layers freely during the sum- 

 mer, they may be taken off in the autumn of the year in which they were 

 made. Cuttings made in March, of one-year-old wood, slipped off with a 

 heel, root in a mixture of loam and peat earth in the shade; and their 

 growth will be the more certain if they have a little bottom heat. Cuttings 

 of the young wood, taken off before midsummer, and prepared and planted 

 with the leaves on, in sand, under a bell-glass, will, we have no doubt, suc- 

 i a '1 perfectly. In France, Loiseleur Deslongchamps informs us that, in some 

 •-.oil-, and situations, cuttings grow with such rapidity, that in three or 

 four years they form plants Oft. or 7ft. high. (Avuvn., &c, torn. xv. p. 96.) 

 Poiteau obserw ■ that, in some cases, plants raised from cuttings and layers 

 are apt »" form a crooked head of slow growth; but that, after the trees are 

 two or three years old, if they are cut over by the surface, or pegged down 

 *<> the ground, they will throw up shoots like other trees that stole; one of 



