1881. 1 
DUCHESS OF OLDENBURG APPLE.-WEEPING WILLOWS. 
121 
this season, mostly lemonade bottles; and a 
number of them, for experiment, contain water 
two years old. It is the practice of some 
gardeners to allow a few inches of wood to 
remain beyond the bunch, but the best-flavoured 
and soundest berries with us have always been 
on wood cut nearly close above the bunch and 
rubbed with Thomson’s Styptic. We believe 
that as little moisture as possible should be 
drawn up beyond the bunch. But the main 
points to ensure successful keeping are early 
ripening, and doing it thoroughly in order to 
secure abundance of sugar in the berries.—M. 
Temple, Impney. 
DUCHESS OF OLDENBURG 
APPLE. 
[Plate 544.] 
OR the specimens of the very handsome 
early Apple, which Mr. Fitch has re¬ 
presented in the accompanying figure, 
we have to thank Mr. Killick, of Maidstone, a 
most successful cultivator of hardy orchard 
fruits. The variety is well worth growing for 
its beauty alone, but for an early kind it is 
also very good in quality. Dr. Hogg says it 
is excellent, and of the first quality, and 
though Continental authorities scarcely rank it 
so high as this, their lower estimate may be 
owing to their less suitable climate, the variety 
being naturally a very hardy one, of Russian 
origin. The fruit is large for an early sort, 
roundish, slightly angular at the apex, with 
both the large closed eye and the slender 
stalk set in a deep cavity. The skin is greenish- 
yellow, streaked over the whole surface, but 
most strongly on the exposed side, with deep 
cerise-red disposed in irregular lengthened lines 
and patches. The flesh is whitish, crisp, juicy, 
and pleasantly flavoured. It ripens about the 
middle of August, and continues in use during 
the month of September. The tree is a free 
grower, and remarkable for the dark colour of 
its young wood. M. Leroy gives the following 
synonyms of this variety :—Borovitsky, Boro- 
wiski, Baroveski, and Charlamowski d’Au- 
tomne; to which Mr. Scott adds that of 
Smith’s Beauty of Newark. 
Concerning the history of this Apple, Leroy 
writes :—“ Originally from Russia, this Apple 
got to us before 1844, since in 1846 I in¬ 
scribed it already, but as rare and quite new, 
in my catalogue. The Belgians possessed it 
much sooner, under its synonym Charlamowski, 
which our pomological congress attributed to 
it, again, in 1867. In England, Lindley has 
proved that the Horticultural Society of London 
received it from St. Petersburg, in the course of 
1824, it having been sent from a garden of the 
Tauride, or Crimea. This assertion was con¬ 
firmed in 1839 by the German author Dittrich, 
who regards this apple as proceeding from the 
Tauride, or at least from the Caucasian Pro¬ 
vinces bordering on it. The late Prevost, of 
Rouen, to whom I had given it, characterised 
it in 1848 in the Pomologie de la Seine 
Inferieure , and supposed it to have originated 
in England or America, an opinion which, it is 
now known, is erroneous.”—T. Moore. 
WEEPING WILLOWS. 
NE of the most popular and widely- 
disseminated of weeping trees is the 
Kilmarnock Weeping Willow , the his¬ 
tory of which may not be uninteresting. It 
was discovered growing wild in a sequestered 
corner of Monkwood estate, near Ayr, in Scot¬ 
land, by Mr. John Smith, an enthusiastic lover 
of plants and a zealous collector. From him, 
Mr. Lang, a nurseryman at Kilmarnock, pur¬ 
chased one plant in the year 1844. Sir W. J. 
Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, received two 
plants in the spring of 1852, and having 
observed how exceedingly ornamental it was, 
informed Mr. Lang that he thought very highly 
of it, and that it was much admired in the 
Royal garden at Kew. The name Kilmarnock 
Weeping Willow was given to distinguish it 
from the common Weeping Willow and the 
American Weeping Willow. Of all weeping 
trees, it is the one best adapted for small 
lawns, garden plots or yards. Very handsome 
plants may be obtained, grafted on stems 6 to 
8 feet high, for training into umbrella heads. 
Grafted low, say 3 to 4 feet high, with the 
head nicely kept and the branches trailing on 
the ground, it becomes a novel and interesting 
object on the lawn. For rounding off or com¬ 
pleting the end of a belt or border of trees or 
shrubs, it is very appropriate. 
Another well-known pendulous variety is 
the American or Fountain Willow , which 
forms a very handsome specimen when budded 
standard high. While it can be trained in 
umbrella form like the Kilmarnock Willow, it 
is a much stronger grower, and requires more 
space. On account of its vigorous growth, it 
is much more difficult to keep in shape than 
the Kilmarnock, and, all things considered, is 
hardly equal to that variety for ornamental 
planting. It is a trailing species of American 
Willow, grafted standard high, and was intro¬ 
duced from France about the year 1852.—W. 
0. Barry, Rochester , New York,. : 
