290 
THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
The cucumber tree, Magnolia acuminata, is a stately 
tree in a congenial clime, but here it does not get beyond 
a shrub. It bears thin, oblong leaves, pointed at both 
ends, somewhat downy beneath ; the flowers are pale 
yellowish green, and open late in spring. 
Magnolia cordata, or yellow cucumber, is but a small 
tree in its native habitat; it has ovate leaves and yellow 
flowers. These two magnolias bear fruit that when 
young closely resembles a cucumber, hence the name 
“ Cucumber tree.” 
Liriodendron tidipiferi, familiarly known as “ tulip 
tree,” is another member of the magnolia family that is 
easily grown from seed, and a most beautiful shrub it 
makes for a large pot on the lawn. The leaves have 
short side-lobes, and the end is blunt, as if cut off; 
the flowers are like an orange-and-green tulip, and open 
late in spring. 
This variety is said to be a tall, handsome tree when 
grown where the climate is favorable, and to it, I be¬ 
lieve, we are indebted for the white wood of commerce 
so extensively used in cabinet work. 
Mrs. G. W. Flanders. 
FAMILIAR FRUITS. 
“ What wondrous life is this I lead ! 
Ripe apples drop about my head ; 
The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; 
The nectarine and curious peach 
Into my hands themselves do reach ; 
Stumbling on melons, as I pass, 
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.” 
UAINT old Andrew Marvell gives a very pretty and 
poetic impression of a fruit garden. How much 
more he might have said had he known that we are in¬ 
debted to the Queen of Flowers herself for many of our 
familiar fruits—but botany and poetry rarely go hand in 
hand, more’s the pity ! 
The natural family Rosacese, of which we take the rose 
as the most prominent type, includes all the most impor¬ 
tant fruits of the temperate zone; thus the apple, pear, 
plum, apricot, peach, nectarine, almond, quince, straw¬ 
berry, raspberry and bramble. Of all the fruits of the 
colder latitudes the apple is most serviceable. It is culti¬ 
vated to the sixtieth degree of north latitude, and under 
favorable circumstances attains a great age. We read of 
some trees in Herefordshire that lived a thousand years 
and were highly prolific, but some authorities give two 
hundred years as the duration of a healthy tree grafted on 
a crab stock. In the extreme North the apple is scarcely 
known: the people of Lapland showed Linnaeus what 
they called an apple-tree, which they said bore no fruit 
because it had been cursed by a beggar-woman to whom 
the owner had refused some of the apples. The botanist, 
however, found it to be the common elm, a tree very 
scarce in that severe climate. 
The apple, like most other European fruits which now 
appear native, is probably indigenous to the East. The 
prophet Joel, speaking of the trees of Syria, says., “ The 
vine is dried up and the fig-tree languisheth ; the pome¬ 
granate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple-tree, even 
all the trees of the field are withered.” Pliny speaks of 
the cultivation of apples near Rome, and gives enthusias¬ 
tic praise to the art of grafting, while Hesiod and Homer 
make no reference to the process. Grafting has done 
much to multiply varieties, of which more than a thousand 
are now known, and all presumably from one stock. 
Henry VIII. of England did much to encourage the cul¬ 
tivation of this fruit. One of his statutes makes barking 
an apple-tree a felony. By the way, this fruit gives the 
origin of the English name for a street-vender, “ coster¬ 
monger,” since the familiar old English apple was the 
“ costard ” and the vender thereof was a “ costard- 
monger.” 
Shakespeare speaks of the improvements in apple cul¬ 
ture, as when Justice Shallow says to Falstaff, 
“ You shall see mine orchard, 
Where, in an arbor, we will eat a last year’s pippin, 
Of my own grafting.” 
In the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, Gerarde, the 
herbalist, says, “ I have seen about the pastures and 
hedgerows of a worshipful gentleman’s dwelling, two 
miles from Hereford, called Mr. Roger Badnome, so 
many trees of all sortes, that the servants drink, for 
the most part, no other drink than that which is made 
of apples. The quahtie is such that, by the report of 
the gentleman himselfe, the parson hath for tythe 
many hogsheads of cyder.” The original of the culti¬ 
vated apple (botanically Pyrus malus ) is the wild crab, 
a thorny tree, bearing acrid fruit, indigenous in most 
parts of Europe. The pear ( Pyrus communis ), like 
the apple, is armed with thorns in its wild state, but it 
differs from the latter tree in having naturally a pyramidal 
form of growth. It is found in a wild state all over Eu¬ 
rope, including Russia as far north as latitude 57°. We 
find the pear among the fruits described by Homer as 
forming part of Laertes’ garden, while Pliny mentions 
several sorts grown in Italy from which fermented drink 
was made. It is probable that the Romans introduced 
the fruit to England, where it was at first chiefly culti¬ 
vated by tne clergy, Tradition says that King John was 
poisoned by a dish of pears given him by the monks of 
Swinstead, while an old account-book of Henry VIII. 
makes an item of twopence “to a woman who gaff the 
kyng peres.” Marco Polo states that the Chinese have 
pears, white, melting and fragrant, weighing ten pounds 
each. The ingenious Venetian’s statement, however, is 
not borne out by fact, or our California growers might 
hide their diminished heads, for the Californian fruit too 
often seems to lose in flavor what it gains in size. 
The old city of Worcester, England, and its environs 
have ever been noted for pear culture; three of these 
fruits are borne in the arms of the city. 
We may imagine that the original of the apple of the 
