266 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[JtJLY, 
find wliat an interesting and very showy collec¬ 
tion may be brought together at the cost of 
only a little trouble. Were we obliged to give 
up one or the other from our garden, the 
natives or the exotics, we should part with the 
exotics, and hold on to the wdldlings. 
--- mu -— 
New Tops on Old Pear Trees. 
That the pear is a long-lived tree, the famous 
Endicott and Stuyvesant pear trees, going back two 
hundred years and more, attest. Yet we frequent¬ 
ly find trees that look old at fifty years and less, 
with dead limbs, mossy trunks, and fruitless 
houghs. These old trees are often seedlings or of 
poor varieties, that have offered no particular in¬ 
ducement to their owners to care for them. A crop 
of astringent or sour pears is not much missed when 
it fails. These old trees sometimes occupy lawns 
or fields near the house, and will repay abundantly 
the little care that is needed to give them a new 
start, and to graft them with standard varieties. 
Some twenty years ago we took up one of these 
stunted old trees at a distance from the house, and 
removed it, with a block of frozen earth, upon a 
stone-boat to a rich border prepared for it in the 
fruit yard. It made a growth of a foot of wood the 
first season. It was then grafted with an improved 
variety; the grafts took kindly, began to bear 
the third year, and have yielded good crops of de¬ 
licious fruit ever since. Five years ago we grafted 
an old tree in the garden, which bore only indiffer¬ 
ent winter pears, about second-rate for cooking, 
with the Paradise of Autumn. We begun to get 
pears the second season from the grafts, and have 
had them in increasing quantity every year since. 
Last year it yielded over three bushels of splendid 
fruit, worth at least twenty dollars. The secret of 
success with these old trees is to stir the soil all 
around them as far as the roots extend, to manure 
liberally, to cut out all the dead wood, and about 
the second season, when the tree has got a good 
start, to commence grafting. We take three sea¬ 
sons to put on a new top, beginning with the high¬ 
est limbs and working down. In renewing the 
vigor of the tree, almost any kind of manure or 
compost is available. Wood-ashes is one of the 
best fertilizers. Old bones, well buried, will pay a 
large interest on their cost. The contents of the 
privy vault and the cesspool, composted, are ex¬ 
ceedingly valuable in renovating these old trees. 
In stirring the soil, care should be taken not to 
break the roots with the plow. We attach about 
equal importance to the stirring of the soil, and to 
the fertilizing, in the process of renovation. 
A Pilgrimage to Torreya. 
BT rROF. ASA GRAY. 
Dear Editor.— Ordered to go south until I should 
meet the tardy spring and summer, I was expected to 
follow the beaten track to East Florida. But I wished 
rather to avoid the crowd of invalids and pleasure- 
travelers, and turned my attention in preference 
to Western Florida, determined that, if possible, I 
would make a pious pilgrimage to the secluded 
native haunts of that rarest of trees, the Torreya 
taxifolia. 
All that I knew, or could at the moment learn, 
was, that this peculiar evergreen Yew-like tree— 
prized by arboriculturists for its elegance, and dear 
to us botanists for the name it bears and commem¬ 
orates—grew on the banks of the Apalachicola 
river, somewhere near the confluence of the Flint 
and Chattahoochee, which by their union form it. 
It was there discovered, nearly forty years ago, by 
Mr. Henry B. Croom, and had since been seen, at 
two or three stations, by his surviving associate, 
Dr. Chapman, of Apalachicola, author of the 
Southern Flora. Mr. Croom, upon ascertaining 
that he was the fortunate discoverer of an entirely 
new type of coniferous trees, desired that it should 
bear Dr. Torrey’s name ; and the genus Torreya 
was accordingly so named and characterized by the 
Scotch botanist, Arnott. It is of the Yew family, 
in foliage and in male flowers much resembling the 
Yew itself, but more graceful than the European 
Yew-tree, wholly destitute of the berry-like cup 
which characterizes the latter genus, and with the 
naked seed itself flesliy-coated, and larger than an 
olive, which it resembles in shape and appearance. 
One young tree, brought or sent by Mr. Croom 
himself, has been kept alive at New York—showing 
its aptitude for a colder climate than that of which 
it is a native—and has been more or less multi¬ 
plied by cuttings.* Sprigs from this tree or its 
progeny, were appropriately borne by the members 
of the Torrey Botanical Club, at its Founder’s 
funeral, two years ago, and laid upon his coffin. 
But very few botanists have ever seen the tree 
growing wild, and in its full development. I was 
desirous to be one of the number. 
Among the broad, black lines with which the 
railway map is chequered, I found oue which ter¬ 
minates at Chattahoochee. This was the objective 
point, and the way to it seemed plain enough, 
though long. Pilgrimages to famous shrines by 
railway, in the Old World, are now-a-days systema¬ 
tized and made easy. The untried one which I 
undertook, appeared to offer no privation nor 
difficulty, except the uncertainty whether I should 
be fortunate enough to find the grove which I 
sought. And, indeed, there was little privation to 
speak of. It was, however, rather trying to us, (i. 
e ., to myself and my companion in travel and life), 
when, after leaving Savannah on an early April 
morning, with the assured understanding that we 
should reach Chattahoochee late that evening, we 
learned that we were to be left for 20 hours at a 
small hamlet on the borders of East Florida, named 
Live Oak—a manifest Incus a non lucendo, as there 
were no Live-Oak trees in the neighborhood, but a 
prevalent growth of Long-leaved Pines. There was 
some good botanizing to console us, and, thanks to 
the railroad conductor for directing us aright, un¬ 
pretending, but truly comfortable quarters for the 
night. Then, the next day, resuming our journey 
after a twelve o’clock dinner, which we were to 
mend with a supper at Tallahassee, we were at 
length informed that we were to be supperless; 
that the stations, both of Tallahassee and Quincy, 
were out of town and out of reach of all edibles ; 
that Chattahoochee station, to be reached after ten 
o’clock, was only a freight house on the wild and 
wooded bank of the river, built upon piles in the 
swamp, reached at “ordinary times over a mile of 
trestles, and now so overflowed that it probably 
could not be reached at all, certainly not that 
night; that the train would stop for the night two 
or three miles back in the woods, where the agent 
had taken up his abode in a box-car; that the town 
of Chattahoochee, a mile away, large as it appeared 
on the map, consisted mainly of a state-prison and 
a couple of grocery shops—neither of which were 
quite proper for passing a night in, even if we 
could reach them ; in fine, that our only course 
would be to sleep in the car (which made no pro¬ 
vision for it), and crave from the agent of the road 
a share of his breakfast. 
The kind and intelligent fellow travelers as far 
as Tallahassee and Quincy, who gave us this dis¬ 
heartening information, finding that we were not 
disposed to stop short of our object, remarked that 
they had set us down as eminently philosophical 
people, since we had passed a night at Live 
Oak and still possessed our souls in patience, (a 
view which a couple who had stopped at the hotel 
there practically confirmed), and so left us with 
their good wishes, but evidently faint hopes. The 
weekly steamboat, which was to call at the landing 
next day, would eventually relieve us; and so we 
resolved to make the best of it. The worthy 
* The Agriculturist for May, states that the tree spoken 
of, or its seed, “ was brought from Florida by the late 
distinguished Major Le Conte.” I am confident that 
this is a mistake, and that. Le Conte knew nothing of this 
tree in its native station. If my recollection is correct, 
at least two seedling trees were placed in Dr. Torrey’s 
hands by Mr. Crootn, one of which was consigned to A. 
J. Downing, of Newburgh, the ultimate fate of which 
is unknown to me, the other to Mr. Hogg, senior, which, 
as the Agriculturist states, is now in Central Park. 
young conductor, who was to sleep in the car also, 
kindly proffered a share of his supper; but we 
fortunately had a bottle of cold tea, some crusts 
of bread ten days old, and wafer-biscuits, upon 
which we scantily supped, and then, folding 
around us such drapery and wraps as we had, lay 
down to sleep upon the couches which the conduc¬ 
tor ingeniously arranged for us, by some skillful 
adjustment of the car-seats. In the morning, after 
due ablutions made at the tank of the locomotive, 
we were hospitably welcomed by the agent, Gem 
Dickison, and his son, to a much needed share of 
their breakfast in the stationary box-car, which 
served both as bed-room, parlor, and dining-room. 
To our great delight we found that Gen Dickison 
knew the tree which I was in search of ; and it was 
arranged that his son should conduct me to the 
locality, not far distant. So striking an evergreen 
tree could not fail of notice. The people of the 
district knew it by the name of Stinking Cedar or 
Savine —-the unsavory adjective referring to a 
peculiar unpleasant smell which the wounded bark 
exhales. The timber is valued for fence-posts and 
the like, and is said to be as durable as Red Cedar. 
I may add that, in consequence of the stir we made 
about it, the people are learning to call it Torreya. 
They are proud of having a tree which, as they 
have rightly been told, grows no where else in the 
world. 
My desire for a sight of it was soon gratified. 
Making our way into the woods north of the rail¬ 
road track, along the ridges covered with a mixed 
growth of pines and deciduous trees, I soon dis¬ 
cerned a thrifty young Torreya, and afterwards 
several of larger size, some of them with male 
flowers just developed. 
As we approached the first one, I told my com¬ 
panion that I expected to find, under its shade, a 
peculiar low herb, which I described, but had 
never yet seen growing wild. And there, indeed, 
it was—greatly to the wonderment of my compan¬ 
ion—the botanically curious little Croomia pauci- 
flora, just as it was found by Mr. Croom, when he 
also discovered the tree, nearly forty years ago, 
probably at a station several miles further south. 
I was a pupil and assistant of the lamented Torrey 
when Mr. Croom brought to him specimens, both 
of the tree and of the herb, both new genera. The 
former, as I have stated, was named for Dr. Torrey 
by his correspondent, Arnott. The latter was dedi¬ 
cated to its discoverer, by Dr. Torrey. I well 
remember Mr. Croom’s remark upon the occasion, 
that, if his name was deemed worthy of botanical 
honors, it was gratifying to him, and becoming to 
the circumstances, that it should be borne by the 
unpretending herb which delighted to shelter it¬ 
self under the noble Torreya. It is not, as Mr. 
Croom then supposed, exclusively so found ; for it 
grows also in the central and upper portions of 
Alabama and Georgia, where Torreya is unknown, 
but where I fancy it may once have flourished. I 
can not here detail the reasons for this supposition. 
There is a second Tcrrreya in Japan, founded on 
Thunberg’s Taxus nucifcra, of which I saw original 
specimens at the British Museum, in the winter of 
1838-9, and then identified the genus. There is 
likewise in Japan a second Croomia, very probably 
in company with the Torreya. A third Torreya 
inhabits California , hut it has no associate Croomia. 
I have formerly treated of the peculiar distribu¬ 
tion of these genera and species between the 
United States and Japan, have collocated a large 
number of equally striking similar instances, and 
have offered certain speculations in explanation of 
them. The views maintained have been more and 
more confirmed, and are now adopted by the lead¬ 
ing philosophical botanists. 
The few hours devoted to this first search for 
Torreya, pleasant as they were, yet were too scant¬ 
ily rewarded to satiate my interest. I saw no tree 
with trunk over six inches in diameter, and found 
no female blossoms. It was necessary to hasten 
back to the railway car, to await the expected sum¬ 
mons to the steamboat. I bore with me, besides 
my botanical specimens, a stick of Torreya, suitable 
for a staff, which I propose to make over to the 
President of the Torrey Botanical Club, for the of¬ 
ficial baton. Before long the whistle of the steam- 
