May 25. 
THE COTTAGE GABDENER. 
131 
lioiglit. The tree grows in dry, burning soil, it is sur- j 
rounded by bouses, and is in perfect health. The village 
in which this tree stands derives the apposition ‘ Ulo ’ 
from the tree. When we consider, that at the conquest 
of Mexico (in 1521), the Spaniards allowed the name of 
this tree to be affixed to the patron saint of the village, 
even at that period the tree must havo been of con¬ 
siderable size.” 
This section, therefore, may be named the Giants of 
the Cone-bearers, and the monarch of these giants is 
the Wellingtonia gigantea. The name is a happy sug- 
gestion by Dr. Liudley, for, as ho justly observes— 
“ Wellington stands as high above his contemporaries , 
as the Californian tree above all the surrounding for- 
resters. Emperors and kings have their plants, and wo 
must not forgot to place in the highest rank among 
- them our own great warrior.” 
| The fortunate discoverer of this magnificent tree is 
Mr. William Lobb, the admirable plant collector em¬ 
ployed by Messrs. Veitch. lie sent home seeds, dried 
specimens, and a drawing, in 1853. The seeds havo 
I vegetated, and plants raised from them are now selling 
by Messrs. Veitch. To that drawing, published by 
; those gentlemen, we aro indebted for our present illus- 
! tration; and the following history of the tree, by Mr. 
i Lobb, was published in the Gardeners Chronicle : — 
“ This magnificent evergreen tree, from its extraordinary 
height and large dimensions, may he termed the monarch 
of the Californian forest. It inhabits a solitary district on 
j the elevated slopes of the Sierra Nivida, near the head 
waters of the Stanislau and San Antonio rivers in lat. 38° 
I N., long. 120° 10' W., at an elevation of 5000 feet from 
the level of the sea. From eighty to ninety trees exist, all 
within the circuit of a mile, and these varying from 250 feet 
j to 320 feet in height, and from ten to twenty feet in diameter, 
i Their manner of growth is much like Sequoia (Taxodium) 
1 sempervirens, some are solitary, some are in pairs, while 
some, and not unlrequently, stand three and four together. 
A tree recently felled measured about 300 feet in length, 
with a diameter, including bark, twenty-nine feet two inches, 
at five feet from the ground; at eighteen feet from the 
ground it was fourteen feet six inches through ; at 100 feet 
from the ground, fourteen feet; and at 200 feet from the 
ground, five feet five inches. The bark is of a pale cin¬ 
namon-brown, and from twelve to fifteen inches in thickness. 
The branchlets are round, somewhat pendent, and resem¬ 
bling a Cypress or Juniper. The leaves are pale grass- 
green; those of the young trees are spreading, with a sharp 
acuminate point. The cones are about two-and-a-lialf inches 
long, and two inches across at the thickest part. The trunk 
of the tree in question was perfectly solid, from the sap- 
wood to the centre; and judging from the number of con¬ 
centric rings, its age has been estimated at 3000 years. The 
wood is light, soft, and of a reddish colour, like redwood or 
Taxodium sempervirens. Of this vegetable monster, twenty- 
one feet of the bark, from the lower part of the trunk, have 
been put in the natural form in San Francisco for exhibition ; 
it there forms a spacious carpeted room, and contains a 
piano, with seats for forty persons. On one occasion 1-10 
children were admitted without inconvenience.” 
The botanical description given of this tree by Sir 
W. Hooker ( Botanical Magazine t. -1778), is as 
follows:— * 
“Extremities or terminal branchlets somewhat two-ranked, 
pinnated, drooping, slender, thread-shaped. Leaves small, 
alternate, leathery, palish green, spirally as it were arranged, 
three completing the circuit of the trunk, all of them erect 
* For our illustrations we are indebted to a lithograph published by 
Messrs. Veitch, and to the But. Mug. 
and imbricated, so that the branches, in conjunction with the 
leaves, aro nearly cylindrical. The leaves of the young 
crowded, ovato-lanceolate, acute. Male flowers unknown. 
Of the cones we are only acquainted with fully ripe ones, 
from which the seeds had been removed; they are nearly 
two inches long, by one-and-three-quarters inch broad in 
the widest part, egg-shaped, blunt, stalkless ? woody, com¬ 
posed of a central axis (or apophysis), of a stoutish cylin¬ 
drical form, bearing a number of rather large, thick, spread¬ 
ing scales, of the same substance and texture as the apo¬ 
physis, and forming one with it, by means of the thickened 
base; the thickness of the scale is increased by the entire 
union of the hractea with the scale : its apex dilated, convex, 
transversely rhomboideal, with a transverse, elevated ridge 
or keel, and in the centre a depression with a round pro¬ 
tuberance in its middle. Beneath each scale, according to 
Dr. Lindley, are lodged seven seeds, exactly as in Sciadopilys; 
and these seeds of the same shape, too, as in that genus, 
that is, nearly orbicular, compressed, small, less than one 
line long, scarcely winged at the margins.” 
Early attainment of size is so desirable a quality in 
chickens for the table, as well as for exhibition, that wo 
have made some enquiries upon the subject, and now 
publish the resplts. 
It would bo of much servico if the keepers ot superior 
specimens of any breed, from Turkeys down to Bantams, 
would oblige us by a statement of the weights of the 
young ones at one month, tvyq months, and three months 
old. 
