58 
distant from the palm house, and any difficulty arising from friction in 
the pipes (for hot water can be, and is, used as well as steam) or by 
violating the laws of gravitation, is overcome by a steam pump in the 
return pipe near the “boiler. We learn from the Superintendent’s 
Report, dated January Ist, 1892, that the heating apparatus has abun- 
dantly fulfilled the conditions i imposed; ‘an even temperature of 58° to 
* 60? being maintained during the coldest night of this winter, when 
* the thermometer reached 19? below zero, with a strong wind blowing.” 
The Waukegan Nurseries—The nurseries of Messrs. R. Dou uglas 
and Sons are situated on the western shore of Lake Michigan, about 
35 miles north of Chicago. Mr. Douglas has an extraordinary practical 
knowledge of native American trees, having observed them for 50 years 
or more under widely different conditions. Here was siis begun the 
raising of conifers from seed on a vast scale. After many experiments 
and some costly failures, Mr. Douglas AG aa that the methods 
pursued in England could not be trusted in the hot, dry climate of the 
United States, but he finally succeeded in securing proper conditions e 
shade and moisture by the device of covering high — with t 
leafy boughs of forest trees. Under such frame es, at the time of "e 
visit in mid July, I saw hundreds of thousands of fine healthy seedlings 
of such plants as the white pine, European larch, Colorado pu spruce 
(Picea mu^ white spruce ( Picea alba), Abies concolor, The 
Colorado Douglas fir is also grown here largely, the form from the 
Pacific Coast ding not hardy. Here also I had the pleasure of seeing 
probably the first seedlings ever raised of the weeping spruce, Picea 
reweriana, a rare conifer first figured in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for 
April 17th, 1886. The trees grow on the north side of the highest 
peaks of the Siskiyou range in N. California, where in winter the snow 
lies 15 or 20 feet deep, so it may be presumed that the species wiil be 
hardy enough with us; it is to be hoped that it will thrive under culti- 
vation, as there are but few groups known in a wild state, consisting of. 
few individuals. 
Some of the strange forms of conifers propago and prunis 
Írom Waukegan are the very dwarf, compact form of t 
arborvite known as Douglas's little gem, the "Waukegan e 
juniper (J. Sabina, var. prostrata), a silver-tipped A 
a golden form of the same species, and a remarkably den en d 
juniper. 
I had the opportunity of seeing and examining in flower Teas' hybrid 
catalpa in the nursery ; it is intermediate between C. Kempferi and 
bignonioides, and is hardy at Waukegan, whilst C. bignonioides 
cannot withstand the severity of the wi inters. 
In a second-growth wood on high ground, not far from Mr. Douglas’s 
nursery, in a spece hardly more than an acre in n extent, I count ted an 
noted no less than 24 species of trees and shrubs, and as unde oath 
observed the American cowslip (Dodecat/eon Meadia), bere called 
shooting star, Adiantum pedatum, Osmunda, Indian 'T 
triphyllum), Podophyllum Lowe x tllium sessile, conspicuous hy 
reason of its blotched leaves and purple flowers, and in open spots 
Lilium superbum and Campanula americana. 
On low ground by Lake Michigan, at a spot called Big Dead.River, 
I saw European larch, Scotch fir, and Austrian pine, which had been 
planted.by Mr Douglas; all were thriving aud promised to etim timber 
trees. On the sand dunes the most characteristic plant was the creeping 
juniper J. Sabina, var. prostrata, which makes a dense green carpet a 
few inches indi and binds the sand, a task it- shared in some ae with 
