378 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, SefJeMbeb 15, 1857 
its name in Japan ; that it grows from sixty to one hundred 
feet in height, and four to five feet in diameter, with a 
pyramidal-shaped head, and rather erect or horizontal 
branches; that it occurs in great abundance on the three 
great Isles of Japan-, and most probably on the smaller 
ry ptomeria Japonica. 1. An old branch in fruit. 2. A branch of a very young plant. 
ones ; that a tenth part of the forests which cover the shirts 
of the mountains between 500 and 1200 feet of elevation is 
composed of this Japan Cedar.” 
Still nothing was known of the living plants in England, 
or, perhaps, in Europe, until Mr. Fortune succeeded in 
obtaining seeds at Shanghai, in the north of 
China, for the Society. They reached the 
Garden in a living state about the end of May, 
1844, and from these the first plants wejre 
raised. Since that time an abundant supply 
has been received by the Society from the same 
source. 
Cryptomeria Japonica is found plentifully 
about Shanghai, where it no doubt has been 
introduced from Japan; for naval officers who 
have been on that station assure us that it is 
very plentiful in the form of avenues and in 
groves in the neighbourhood of Shanghai, and 
in the other northern parts of China, and that 
it furnishes the principal shelter for the nu¬ 
merous birds during the extreme cold and bleak 
winds in winter, when the thermometer some¬ 
times falls as low as within five degrees of zero. 
There can be little doubt, therefore, that it will 
prove quite hardy in England. 
Some idea may be formed of this Jbeautiful 
tree by imagining such stately objects as the 
Australian Araucarias, particularly Cunningh-ami , 
with a less aspiring and denser habit, and living 
in the open air in winter. Indeed, the young 
plants of C. Japonica and Araucaria Cunning - 
Kami have so great a resemblance that it re¬ 
quires a practised eye to distinguish the one 
from the other. The principal difference is, 
that the Cryptomeria has alternate spiral 
branches, which are rather slender, while those 
of the Araucaria are vertical and placed at 
regular distances. 
This Cryptomeria appears intermediate be¬ 
tween Cupressus and Taxodium, differing from 
the former in a seedling state by having from 
three to five, but mostly four, seed-leaves, while 
Cupressus has but two; and in its more ad¬ 
vanced stages of growth, in its longer, more 
distant, subulate, incurved, spiral, dark green 
leaves, and in the cones having fringed scales. 
From Taxodium it is at once distinguished by 
its spiral subulate leaves, unlike those of Tax¬ 
odium, which are flat and two-rowed. 
In regard to cultivation, the Japan Cedar 
seems as easily managed as the common Chinese 
Arbor Vitae, and like it succeeds in almost any 
kind of soil or situation which is not very poor 
or wet. 
The seeds, like those of all Conifers, should 
be sown in a light, sandy, rather dry loam, and 
should be placed in a cool situation; when large 
enough the plants should be potted singly and 
treated in the usual way, and if properly at¬ 
tended to they will attain a height of from 
twelve to eighteen inches the first year. It ap¬ 
pears to be a very rapid grower.—( Horticultural 
Society's Journal,) 
A NOTE UPON THE WILD STATE OF MAIZE, OR INDIAN CORN. 
When Maize was first noticed by writers on rural affairs 
it had already acquired the name of Turkie Corn, Corn of 
±Asia, Spanish Corn; and hence it was thought to have had 
an Asiatic origin. Parkinson, who wrote in 1C40, even 
ancied that it might be the Bactrian Corn mentioned by 
Pliny.* But Gerarde gave a more correct history of its 
ntroduction:—“ These kinds of grain,” he says, “ were first 
* ‘ 1 radunt in Bactris grana tantae magnitudinis fieri ufc singula 
spicas nostras lequat.”— {Hist. Nut., lib. xviii., c. 7>) (“They say that 
in Bactria the grain is of such a size that one grain is as large as our 
ears of corn.” Theophrastus merely says that a grain of Bactrian Corn 
was as large as an Olive stone.) 
brought into Spain, and then into other provinces of Europe; 
not, as some suppose, out of Asia Minor, which is the 
Turk’s dominions, but out of America and the islands ad¬ 
joining, as out of Florida and Virginia, or Noremberga, 
where they used to sow or set it to make bread of it.” He 
adds, u Wee have as yet no certain proof or experience con¬ 
cerning the vertues of this kinde of corne, although the 
barbarous Indians, which know no better, are constrained 
to make a vertue of necessitie and think it a good food.”— 
(“ Gerarde’s Herball,” by Johnson, p. 88, Edition 1036.) 
Hernandez, in 1651, produced conclusive evidence of the 
American origin of this kind of corn; for in his account of 
