AC AYE AMERICANA. 
313 
generally given to the seeds of the pine from Riga, Norway, Scotland, 
Hagnenau, &c., and the rule which it is my wish to establish, has thus 
been followed by us, but without our having been able to justify this 
preference by reasonable motives. The same rule will perhaps become 
useful in introducing foreign forest trees, for it is very probable that the 
little success met with has been owing to an improper choice of seed.” 
We have made the above extract because we believe it relates to a 
point of practical arboriculture which is of the utmost importance to 
nurserymen and planters in general. Not that it is a new discovery, or 
idea, of the respectable Professor Bronn, because it has long been acted 
on in Britain ; but it is a satisfactory corroboration of the British nur¬ 
serymen’s practice, who, we believe, are at no inconsiderable expense 
in importing seeds from the continent and elsewhere in order to obtain 
the results contemplated by the Professor. And it is not only in the 
case of forest trees, but in that of all other cultivated plants, that a 
change of seed is one of the best rules of practice which can be followed 
by every cultivator. Even a change of bulbs and tubers, as is exem¬ 
plified in the success of the best flowering plants, and that of the 
invaluable potato, shows how much a change of soil and air is enjoyed 
by these, as well as, perhaps, by every other plant. 
Agave Americana. —At Bute House, the Villa of the Right 
Honourable Viscountess Dillon, at Old Brompton, there is one of these 
splendid and rarely flowering exotics in full bloom. The flower stem 
is rising towards fifteen feet high, surmounted by a fine branched head 
of flowers. Her Ladyship has been at the expense of erecting a canvas 
covered frame to shade, and thereby preserve its beauty as long as 
possible. 
Mr. Briant, her Ladyship’s gardener, states that, he is uncertain as 
to the age of the plant, but has traced its history for at least forty years 
back. It is a plant of the striped variety, which we believe never 
arrives at so great bulk before flowering as the common unvariegated 
sort. The large substantial leaves which have so long involved and now 
surround the stem, seem as if they were solely intended as reservoirs of 
the nutriment required for the development of the fructification; 
because already the lower leaves have lost their plump rigidity, and 
become flaccid and drooping ; and by the time the flowers are expanded, 
the whole of this division of the plant will inevitably perish, except 
perhaps a sucker or two which may rise from the root. This decay 
immediately after the maturation of seed, or development of the head of 
flowers, happens in consequence of the peculiar structure of the genus, 
and which separates it so completely from the genus Aloe , with which 
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