240 
CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
forest is left undisturbed, they are always 
composed of such or such kinds in almost un- 
changed proportion. Not so when fire has 
swept over and destroyed the pristine race of 
trees : then others spring up, which before 
were either not at all there, or in the minority. 
So where Pinus ponderosa is removed by fire, 
Abies rubra will fill that space to suffocation ; 
if, after a few years, it is burnt again, another 
tree takes the place. — Lond. Journ. Hot. 
New Apples. — The Pitrnaston Golden 
Pippin, is a variety raised by Mr. Williams of 
Pitrnaston, from a kernel of the true Golden 
Pippin. It is a vigorous grower. It is 
a very sugary fruit, in use about the same 
time as its parent variety. This variety, 
which has been in bearing eight or ten 
years, continues to improve in flavour. 
The Pine Apple is another variety of the 
Golden Pippin, raised upwards of sixty years 
since by Mr. White of Whitby. It is larger 
than its parent, but resembles it in shape ; its 
season of perfection is from December till 
February. The Stoke Park Pippin very 
much resembles the others. It bears well, 
but the wood is disposed to canker. It was 
raised more than twenty years since by Mr. 
Foley, of Stoke Edith. These three are all 
dessert varieties of great excellence, as indeed 
might be supposed from their nearness to the 
old Golden Pippin. 
Striking Cuttings. — The absolute neces- 
sity of cutting all the pieces intended for 
striking, close under a joint or leaf, is main- 
tained up to the very last writing of the very 
best writers. Yet there are those who main- 
tain, and with some degree of confidence, that 
hard-wooded things will strike away from a 
joint ; that is to say, that if there is a joint 
above ground to grow from, there need be no 
joint under ground to strike from. This has 
been proved, saysMr. Fairbairn, with Camellia 
stocks, which have been struck by hundreds 
with a leaf and a bud above ground, and 
half an inch or more of wood, without a joint, 
under ground. It is said, that the roots strike 
all round and in great abundance, and not par- 
tially, as is often the case when cut up to a 
joint. Mr. Logan says, that Fuchsias strike 
as freely at the parts between the joints as 
they do at the joints, and the roots are better 
developed than they ever are at a joint. If 
this be true, and there is no reason to doubt 
it, coming from two persons who own it has 
been their practice for years, it will double 
the capacity of all plants to propagate, and 
save one joint of every two, which is no small 
object. Presuming this to be the case with 
some plants, it cannot be with all, and we 
much doubt if it would do with any soft 
plant ; they would rot instead of striking 
root. 
Celery. — A contemporary writer avers 
that the wild Celery from the waste side of 
a high road, taken up young, and planted 
out in trenches, in the same way as we plant 
out the garden sorts, proves as solid and as 
fine as plants of the same size from properly- 
saved seed. We doubted it at the time, and 
procured some to try the experiment; we found 
it wild Celery when it was grown as well as 
we could grow it, and nothing but wild Ce- 
lery. So far from its being like the garden 
Celery, it was not worth garden room ; we 
therefore conclude, that the writer who thus 
hastily put forth his opinion, founded perhaps 
in part on fact, doubtless picked up his plants 
where the waste of some garden was thrown, 
and in reality found garden Celery. Nor is 
it likely that so much pains would be taken to 
keep seed from the best only, and to preserve 
each particular sort as select as possible, if 
wild Celery would prove as good as the 
cultivated kinds. We should not have in- 
serted such a letter without our opinion of its 
fallacy. 
Petunia fragrans. — This is a rich purple 
flower, with violet shade upon it. It is of course 
valued for its perfume rather than its form ; 
we have seen flowers which are very rich, 
though there is a point in the divisions of the 
corolla which is contrary to the standard, though 
very few are without the points at present. 
The blooms had travelled a long way, and had 
not much perfume when they arrived. 
Stocks. — A writer in one of the news- 
papers, fancies that it is the age of Stock seed 
that makes the flowers double. It has long 
been thought that blooms improved by the 
age of the seed, but there are many facts that 
tell against that being the only point in the 
Stock seed ; for instance, one man shall sow 
half a packet of seed, and another shall sow 
the other half ; one shall have nearly all single, 
the other nearly all double. Now how is this 
to be accounted for by such rule, when both 
seeds are from the same packet ? It was a much 
more rational conclusion of a former writer, 
that it was caused by starving the plants at a 
feeble stage of growth. 
Late Raspberries. — Mr. John Mearns 
thus describes his mode of obtaining a strong 
autumnal crop of fruit of the red and white 
Antwerp Raspberries : — " In May remove 
the young fruit-bearing shoots from the canes, 
leaving, in some cases, one or two eyes; in 
others cutting them clean off. Under either 
plan, they soon show an abundance of vigor- 
ous shoots, frequently three or four from each 
eye, which produce plenty of blossoms in the 
beginning of July; and on these a good crop 
of fine Raspberries is borne in August, when 
all the regular produce on the plants not thus 
treated is consumed." 
