CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
239 
with the melons he outs late in the Autumn : — 
He wraps them in paper, and lays them in a 
basket, the sides and bottom of which is also 
covered with paper ; he then lays a sheet of 
paper over the whole, and places the basket in 
a pine stove for a period of eight or ten days, 
by which means the fruit acquires an excellent 
flavour, and is esteemed a great acquisition to 
the dessert during November. 
Exhibiting Strawberries. — A very great 
improvement might be effected upon the pre- 
sent plan of showing Strawberries, by which 
each fruit is picked separately. The evil of 
this is, that it discourages the small grower. 
Where a person has a large quantity of Straw- 
berries growing, he can go over the whole and 
pick merely the finest fruit ; and, as a matter 
of course, a dish so made up is better than can 
be produced by a person who lias not half so 
many to gather from. A plan is adopted with 
forced Strawberries in someof our best English 
gardens, which might with propriety be taken 
advantage of at exhibitions. When in flower 
the trusses are thinned to ten blossoms ; these 
are carefully set, and produce ten fruit, which 
being properly selected, grow and ripen about 
the same time, and come nearly of equal size ; 
the whole truss is then cut like a bunch of 
Grapes, and thus sent to table. A similar 
plan adopted at exhibitions would be a test of 
growing Strawberries, and would give the 
small grower a chance of competing with the 
grower of large quantities. Suppose a dish 
to be required to consist of four trusses, each 
to have ten fruit on them, there would be no 
escaping a rigorous test of culture, and every 
grower would have an equal chance. The 
plan here referred to, that of the thinning of 
the blooms, might be advantageously followed 
in the culture of Strawberries generally, and 
a greater quantity of finer fruit would be 
secured. — M. 
Sizes of Flower-pots. — The following 
list gives the size of each number, in inches, 
at the London potteries : — 
* cr ° ss Deep. 
Thumb-pots, sixty to the cast, are tlietop - 
inside ., 2| 21 
Sixties ; that is, sixty to the cast . 3 3.\ 
Forty-eights ; that is, forty-eight to 
the cast 4J 5 
Thirty-twos; that is, thirty-two to 
the cast 6 5 
Twenty-fours ; that is, twenty-four 
to the cast 8J 8 
Sixteens ; that is, sixteen to the cast 9^ 9 
Twelves; that is, twelve to the cast 11 j 10 
Eights ; that is, eight to the cast .12 11 
Sixes; that is, six to the cast . .13 12 
Fours ; that is, four to the east . . 15 13 
Twos ; that is, two to the cast . .18 14 
The above arc about the sizes in inches ; for 
at each pottery they rather differ in size, and 
the pots do not shrink alike during the burn- 
ing. Some potteries make them a trifle larger, 
but that is of no consequence to plants. — ■ 
Glenny's A Imancrc. 
Conifers of Oregon. — The bulk of the 
woods over the whole of Upper Oregon, con- 
sists of the majestic and valuable Pin us pon- 
derosa, attaining an average height of 150 
feet, and not seldom a trunk from 4 to 8 feet 
in diameter, beautifully rounded, and clothed 
with reddish brown bark ; the wood is very 
durable and heavy, on account of the great 
quantity of resin diffused through it ; hence 
it is called " arbre de gomme," by the Cana- 
dian voyageurs. The Indians eat the seeds 
of this pine, but they are insipid, even when 
roasted. Another Pinus, of inferior stature, 
growing in small groves, comprises the whole 
of that genus over that immense region. This 
species is called " Pinette noire" by the Ca- 
nadians. It never attains a greater height 
than from 40 to 50 feet, and very rarely so 
much ; it has a grayish black and coarse bark. 
This is the pine of which the Indians eat the 
young cambium, which they scrape off" with a 
knife, after removing the bark. It is a very cool- 
ing and by no means unpleasant article, of food. 
These are the trees of the level plateaux, on 
stony rocky sandy soil. Far more sombre and 
dense trees, than P. ponderosa, fill with per- 
fect darkness the deep defiles in the Green 
mountains, and principally the majestic Thuja 
gigantea ; its average height is 200 feet, and 
the diameter of the trunk 10 to 12 feet, some 
larger. These trees are as straight as can be 
imagined, forming a slender pyramid with 
their many horizontal and slightly refracted 
branches, fringed with dense branchlets, and 
elegant broad fan-like foliage. The trunks 
are mostly hollow ; the wood splits very easily, 
and is lighter, though not less durable, when 
exposed to weather, than cedar-wood. The 
bark is used by the Indians for various pur- 
poses, as for roofing their huts ; they make a 
trail sort of canoe with it, and bags for carry- 
ing their roots, and use it for binding their 
fishing apparatus. Abies balsamea, and cana- 
densis, both attain considerable size; the former 
is generally found near rivers, the latter is 
rare. A few trees of Abies Donglasii grow 
scattered in Upper Oregon, not in the Green 
Mountains, but here and there on the banks 
of the Columbia River. A species of Larix 
occurs on most of the grassy slopes, inter- 
mingled with A. rubra and alba. Lower 
parts of these mountains, especially towards 
Columbia River, are often closely beset with 
A. rubra ; and such tracts are impassable until 
the fires have once swept through them, which 
destroys annually an immense quantity of 
timber. It is a curious fact, that while the 
