Cultivation of Coniferous Trees. 
145 
found convenient to grow a few acres of cattle-cabbages, to come 
in in August, September, and October, when the layers will be 
barest and the roots not ready. But from what we have seen 
we should not be much disposed to give cabbages a place in 
our system of cultivation, or, if at all, only upon a very limited 
scale. A few acres, — some two or three, will perhaps be well. 
In a dry season second-crop clover makes but a short " swath," 
and then a few cabbages will be very useful. 
Jiushmere, fysicich. 
VIII. — O/i the Introduction and Cultivation of the neiver Coni- 
fer(e and other Forest Trees, with special reference to the Climate 
of Great Britain and Ireland By Egbert Hutchison. 
The thirst for novelty which may be regarded as one of the 
prevailing tendencies of the age in which we live, is no less con- 
spicuous in the science of Arboriculture than in any other 
department of the many and varied occupations which engross 
the mental and physical energies of the present day. As a conse- 
quence of this desire to introduce " something new," and to add to 
the numerous varieties of Coniferae which are already well known, 
and ornament our pineta and woodlands, the admirers of this in- 
teresting class of plants have been accumulating from all quarters, 
during the last thirty-five years, a hoard of seeds and specimens, 
both of coniferous and hard wood trees, which have been pro- 
miscuously planted by their introducers, unfortunately in too 
many cases without the slightest regard to their suitability to the 
soils and situations into which they have been imported. We 
need not wonder, therefore, if many of the efforts to introduce 
new varieties have proved futile, in so far as the capability of 
such plants to become valuable timber-yielding trees is con- 
cerned, or that the hopes of their planters should have been dis- 
appointed in finding that, after much expenditure of time and 
trouble, not to mention expense, they had obtained only shrubby 
and half-hardy evergreens where they had expected to rear 
useful timber-trees. Several of the earlier introduced of these 
recent importations having however succeeded well in certain 
soils and situations, as we shall afterwards specify, arborists have 
profited by the experience thus gained, and it is satisfactory to 
observe that, adapting their operations to the requirements and 
habits of the pines and trees which they wish to cultivate, 
planters are now becoming, year after year, more successful in 
rearing for ornament and use many of those rarer varieties which, 
VOL. v.— S. S. L 
