94 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
OUR MONTHLY CHRONICLE. 
Aucuba japonic a. —To Mr. Standish, of 
Ascot, belongs the honour of having been the 
first in Europe to fruit the Aucuba, a plant 
of which, loaded with its very ornamental 
red berries, he exhibited at the first spring 
show at Kensington on the 9th of March. 
The Aucuba, as is tolerably well known to 
gardeners, produces distinct male and female 
flowers, and all the blotched-leaved indivi¬ 
duals hitherto planted in gardens bear the 
latter only ; but Mr. Fortune whilst in Japan 
sought diligently for plants with male flowers, 
and was successful in obtaining one, though 
not without some difficulty, for the Japanese 
having quite a rage for variegated plants, and 
caring little for the berries, prefer the female 
plant as being the more ornamental in foliage, 
and consequently do not plant that with male 
flowers. These were produced last year at 
Ascot, and Mr. Standish fertilised by their 
means a plant of the green-leaved kind, and 
the result was an abundance of berries, con¬ 
sisting of a hard seed covered with a thin 
skin. If, as is most likely, the seeds will 
vegetate when ripened in this country, they 
will afford a ready means of increasing the 
number of male plants; and when these 
become plentiful enough the Aucuba, and espe¬ 
cially the green-leaved kind, will, no doubt, 
be extensively grown for the ornamental 
effect of its berries in autumn and winter, 
as well as for the sake of its beautiful foliage. 
Cinchona. —Mr. Wilson, of the Botanic 
Gardens, Bath, Jamaica, has succeeded in 
rearing a number of plants of different 
species of this highly important medicinal 
genus. Some of these are now thriving 
young trees two years old, and upwards of 
6 feet in height; and there is every pros¬ 
pect of their succeeding in the more elevated 
mountain districts of Jamaica. Cinchona 
succirubra (Red Bark) is found to succeed the 
best, and at a lower elevation above the level 
of the sea than the others. 
Brussels Sprouts. —M. Bossin, in order 
to hasten the production of side sprouts, cuts 
off the top of the stem about the middle of 
September. Cutting off the tops has long 
been practised in this country at a much 
later period of the season; but if a sufficiency 
of the leaves forming the head are not left, 
and frost ensue, many of the young sprouts 
are destroyed in consequence of being deprived 
of the shelter of the leaves, which in severe 
frost hang down and form a kind of umbrella. 
Doubtless by cutting off the growing point 
the development of the buds formed at the 
axils of the old leaves which have dropped off 
will be hastened, and probably, if the opera¬ 
tion were practised at so early a period of the 
season as M. Bossin recommends, the sprouts 
would be sufficiently strong to escape injury. 
The plan is worthy of a trial where an early 
production of these valuable winter greens is 
a desideratum. 
Effects of the Destruction of Trees 
on Climate. — From the following extract 
from the Albany Country Gentleman , it appears 
that the Americans are beginning to be alive 
to the evil effects of the wholesale destruction 
of trees which has been so long going on in 
their continent:—“ The idea is often advanced 
that our seasons have changed. The weather 
is not now as it was forty or fifty years ago, 
when good Peaches were grown in all parts of 
our country, except in portions of some of 
our most northern states ; and south of New 
York they attained the highest state of per¬ 
fection. But within the last fifteen or twenty 
years, in some sections where they once 
flourished, they cannot now be grown at all; 
and even further south, where trees were 
often met with in perfect health thirty or 
forty years old, now the crop is extremely 
uncertain, and the trees scarcely survive ten 
years. The same influences that have so 
seriously affected the Peach have also proved 
injurious to other fruits, and even farm crops 
have, in some degree, suffered from the same 
cause. The question then arises, "What has 
caused these meteorological changes ? Un¬ 
doubtedly it may be traced to the general 
removal of the native forests over a wide 
extent of our country. In early times thou¬ 
sands of acres of timber were destroyed in 
the process of clearing land for agricultural 
purposes. In later years a more thorough 
clearing has been caused by the great demand 
arising for fuel to supply the numerous rail¬ 
roads that traverse the country in every 
direction. This widespread clearing of the 
timber has not only affected the temperature 
of the atmosphere, but it is the direct cause 
of the sudden changes that mark the seasons 
in later years. Nor is the effect confined to 
the colder portions of the year. Summer 
showers are less frequent, and many of the 
mountain streams are either dried up or much 
reduced in size. No general remedy can be 
devised for these changes; yet in many locali¬ 
ties means may be employed for the partial 
protection of orchards, gardens, and dwellings, 
from the effects of the severest winter winds. 
This may be done, where the nature of the 
surroundings will admit, by planting belts or 
groves of trees on the most exposed sides of 
the homestead. These may often be rendered 
both ornamental and useful.” 
Cotton in Algeria. —There were 8091 
acres of land planted with Cotton last year 
in the three provinces of Algeria, and the 
crop amounted to 3,093,814 lbs., of an esti¬ 
mated value of £154,360. During the years 
1861 and 1862 the ground planted with Cot¬ 
ton did not measure more than 3523 acres, 
and the value of the crop did not exeeed 
