out both the north-west and the north-east winds of winter. Hollies, too, may be planted in a clump, with very pleasing effect to the beholder. I consider a regularly formed clump of hollies to be the perfection of beauty, in grouped arboreal design. One single tree of mountain ash in the centre of this would add another charm to it, and would be of use to the ornithologist at the close of summer. When the holly trees are in full bearing, and the berries ripe, we may roam a long while through the whole extent of British botany, before we find a sight more charming to the eye than the intermixture of bright red and green which this lovely plant produces.

I have a fine circular clump of hollies here, under which the pheasants are fed; and to which, throughout the whole of the winter, a vast number of sparrows, green linnets, buntings, blackbirds, and some starlings resort, to take their nocturnal repose in peace and quiet. The holly sheds a large proportion of its leaves after the summer has set in. These remain on the ground in thick profusion. So formidable are their hard and pointed spikes to the feet of prowling quadrupeds, that neither the cat, nor the weasel, nor the foumart, nor the fox, nor even the ever-hungry Hanoverian rat, dare invade the well-defended territory. Hence the birds, which in yew trees and in ivy would be exposed to inevitable destruction from the attacks of these merciless foes, are safe from danger in the holly bush.

People generally imagine that the holly is of tardy growth. It may be so in ordinary cases; but means may be adopted to make this plant increase with such effect as to repay us amply for all our extra labour and expense. Thus, let us dig the ground to a full yard in depth, and plant the hollies during the last week of May, taking care to puddle their roots well into the pulverised soil. We shall find, by the end of September, that many of the plants will have shot nearly a foot in length, and that not one of them has failed, let the summer have been ever so dry. Small plants, bought in a nursery, and placed in your own garden for a couple of years, will be admirably adapted for the process of transplanting. Had I been aware in early life of this encouraging growth of the holly, it should have formed all my fences in lieu of hawthorn, which, after arriving at full maturity, suddenly turns brown in summer, and dies in a few weeks, without having given any other previous notice of near approaching decay.

Birds in general are not fond of holly berries; but many sorts will feed upon them when driven by "necessity's supreme command." Thus, during the time that the fields are clad in snow, and the heps and the haws have already been consumed, then it is that the redwing, the blackbird, the fieldfare, and the stormcock, numbed by the cold, and bold through want of food, come to the berry-bearing holly close to your house,

and there too often fall a prey to the gun of the designing fowler.

In these days of phantom schemes and national extravagance, when work is scarce and penury fast increasing, the holly tree is doomed to suffer from the lawless pilferer's hand. When least expected, you find it arrested in its growth. Its smaller branches by degrees lose their vitality, and, by the end of the following year, one half of the tree appears as though it had received a blast from the passing thunder-storm. This declining aspect of the holly has been occasioned by the hand of sordid mischief. It is well known that birdlime is produced from its bark. In the spring of the year, at earliest dawn of day, our finest holly trees in this neighbourhood are stripped of large pieces of their bark by strolling vagabonds, who sell it to the nearest druggist. So common has this act of depredation been in this vicinity, that I should be at a loss to find a single holly tree, in any hedge outside of the park wall, that has escaped the knife of these unthinking spoilers.

Some six or seven years ago, there stood in the ornamented grounds of my baronet neighbour a variegated holly of magnificent growth, and it bore abundant crops of berries; a circumstance not very frequent in hollies of this kind. Many a half hour have I stood to admire this fine production of nature; for it was unparalleled, in this part of Yorkshire, in beauty, size, and vigour. But, at last, it was doomed to perish by a plundering and an unknown hand: one morning in spring I found the whole of its bark stripped off the bole, for full 2 ft. in length. Notwithstanding this disaster, the berries became ripe in due time; whilst its leaves apparently retained their wonted verdure upon the greater branches. Even the year following it was alive, and put forth new leaves and blossoms; but the leaves were of a stinted growth, and the berries did not attain their usual size. During the course of the third year from the day of its misfortune, the whole of the foliage fell to the ground; and then the tree itself became, like our giant debt, a dead unsightly weight upon the land.

Walton Hall, Jan. 19. 1843.

Memorandum. -The stormcock sang sweetly here every day throughout the whole of December, 1842, a circumstance never known before in my time. — C. W.

Feb. 13. The late hurricane has made sad havock amongst my trees. The ring-doves cooed, this year, a full fortnight before their time. Still, the fine weather has not induced the chaffinch to sing a day sooner than his wonted period. The blackbirds had begun to arrange things for their nuptials, but old Boreas appeared last week and peremptorily forbade the banns.-C. W.

ART. X. On the white Oak of the United States (Quércus álba L.). By G. C.

In answer to your enquiries respecting the white oak, I have to state that it grows in all the middle States in America; it grows some distance south of Pennsylvania, but I do not know how far. I know it does not grow in the extreme southern States. It grows north of Boston, but it ceases to grow in Maine; therefore the oak that comes from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, &c., is but of little value. White oak is good for building purposes; and the timbers of the old houses, barns, mills, &c., built with it, which is the case with most of them, are as sound, after standing 150 years, as those in this country that are built of English oak. White oak is the principal timber used in shipbuilding all the line-packets are built with it, timbers, planks, and knees; and all the government ships of war are pretty much built of live oak, but planked with white oak. White oak is excellent for machinery, far surpassing any wood that we have in this country, being so much stronger and so much tougher than our ash. All the naves and sides of their light waggons and other vehicles are made with it, also the hoops or bows that go over the tops, whether covered with leather or canvass; also the spokes of the wheels, and being so much tougher than our oak they are made much less; the rims, or felloes, also, are sawed out of white oak plank, and being so much stronger than our ash or elm they are not near the size we have them, and will last as long again, as the wood is so much more durable. Shafts of all waggons, carts, &c., are made of it, let them be ever so heavy or ever so light. For coachpoles it is better than lance-wood, because it is lighter, and will not fly; it is better than our ash, because you can make it less, and it will not snap off like ash. All the frames of their railroad cars and steam-engines are made of white oak, and they make them lighter than we do with English oak, because it is tougher; also staves for casks, vats, &c. The white oak is the wood generally used there, more than oak and, ash both put together are here, as it has the qualities of both, and is much superior. This wood enables the Americans so much to surpass us in carriage and steam-boat building. We are a quarter of a century behind them, at least. A gentleman's carriage here will weigh more than two of theirs; and there is as much difference between a steam-boat at New York and one at London, as there is between a gentleman's carriage and a common cart. When the white oak is small, it is fit for hoops for barrels, &c. ; when it is as big as your arm, it is fit for all purposes that our ash is; and, as it gets larger, it is fit for all purposes that I have enumerated, and many others. I should say a nice warm sandy loam will suit the growth in this country. I do not think it would do in the deep clays, like our oak. I think a soil adapted for elms would suit it better. Southampton, Dec. 2. 1842.

The American White Oak (Quercus álba L., Encyc. of Trees and Shrubs, p. 862.).—“ A laudable anxiety to introduce this species on a large scale has existed in England from the days of Elizabeth to the present time; and, during this period, hundreds, nay thousands, of pounds have been expended in the importation of acorns. Bartram, Michaux, Cobbett, and a host of nurserymen, besides private gentlemen, have all signally failed. Cobbett, alone, expended many hundred pounds in his efforts to accomplish this object; and every plant he raised, I have no doubt, cost him a crown. Nurserymen do sometimes succeed in obtaining a few plants from a large importation of acorns; but at so great an expense, that no gentleman can afford to plant them: and this I call failing, failing to introduce this invaluable tree, for the purpose of forming plantations on that scale necessary to render it worthy of consideration in a national point of view. Acorns cannot be gathered from the tree on account of the expense, though even this might be submitted to, if the

acorns would retain their vitality during their transit to England. The acorns generally germinate in a slight degree before dropping from the tree; consequently, if they are dried, they are, in effect, malted; if packed in a moist state they heat, or they germinate and the radicle perishes for want of soil and moisture. Young plants cannot be got from under the trees, because the acorns, as they drop, are eaten by wild turkeys, squirrels, pigeons, and other animals, or by swine. Some of the American oaks have thick and hard shells, and do not naturally germinate until the spring. With these sorts there is no difficulty, after they are once collected. They can be packed in moss, dry sand, or simply thrown into a barrel by themselves." The writer goes on to state that he is packing plants of the white oak to be sent to England, in perforated flour barrels, the plants being mixed with fresh moss; and that he has no doubt that they will arrive safe. The letter from which the above is an extract is dated New York, Nov. 21. 1841. Thirty thousand plants arrived safe in 1841, packed in the manner described, and they are now (1843) in a thriving state, in a favourable soil and situation in Surrey.

Acorns of the white oak, or of any other, may be brought over with perfect safety, if bedded in moist live moss, and planted as soon as they arrive, with out pinching off the extremity of such of the radicles as may have pushed above an inch in length. (See Arb. Brit., vol. iii. p. 1867.)

Plants of the white oak may be obtained by the thousand from several nurserymen in the South of England, who have procured them from the gentleman who introduced the 30,000 plants above mentioned.- Cond.

"In the Descriptive Catalogue of the Derby Arboretum," M. Vilmorin observes, you have stated that the leaves of Quércus álba, when they die off, neither take the colour of yellow nor red, like the other American oaks. In my plantations at Barres, in which there are above fifty plants of this species, more than a half of them in the autumn take the colour of a beautiful purple violet." [This we have stated in the Arb. Brit., vol. iii. p. 1865., and the Encyc. of Trees and Shrubs, p. 863.] "Neither do I admit the truth of what Cobbett says, that the leaf of the white oak is among the least curious and beautiful of the American oaks; on the contrary, I consider it one of the most beautiful, and, I should say, one of the most remarkable (le plus distingué) among those of the oaks of America. Its general form, the graceful outline of its lobes, profoundly sinuated and rounded; their consistence at once thin and firm; their upper surface smooth and of a clear green, which contrasts agreeably with the beautiful glaucous hue of the under side; their petioles sometimes of a bright red; in short, all these features have always appeared to me to give this leaf a charm, and a positive beauty, distinct from those of every other. I speak, it is true, of the leaves such as they show themselves on young and vigorous plants; perhaps on large trees they lose a good deal of their beauty. I acknowledge, also, that in matters which are judged of merely by the eye, every one judges according to the impression which he has received; and what I wish to say is, that my impressions are in favour of the leaves of Quércus álba. It is this partiality which has induced me to break a lance in its favour, as the chevaliers of other times did for the lady afflicted and molested, whom they took under their protection." -Vilmorin. Paris, Feb. 6. 1843.

The acorns of the white oak, in America, are preferred before all others for fattening swine; and the swine are so fond of them, that they will not eat any other acorns as long as those of the white oak last. A good white acorn year is always a good year for pork. — J. D. Feb. 15. 1843. [A young gardener who spent six months travelling in America, and who is now very anxious to go to China as a natural history collector.]

ART. XI.

Dimensions of large Trees and Shrubs, collected with a view to a Supplement to the Arboretum Britannicum.

It is our intention, in the course of the present year, to publish a Supplement to the Arboretum Britannicum, chiefly for the sake of introducing descriptions and figures of the new species of pines and firs introduced from Mexico by the Horticultural Society, and of certain trees and shrubs recently raised from Himalayan seeds (all given in our abridged Arboretum); but partly, also, to record the dimensions of remarkable specimens of trees and shrubs now growing in Britain, which have been sent us since the Arboretum was composed, or which may be sent in the course of the next three months.

We shall therefore be greatly obliged to our readers and correspondents, if they will cooperate with us in this matter, and send us dimensions of large specimens with as little delay as possible.

Large Trees at Stratfieldsaye, the Seat of His Grace the Duke of

Wellington.

A Norway Spruce (A'bies excélsa), 110 ft. high.

This is the highest tree in the grounds; its girt at 4 ft. from the ground is 10 ft., and at 20 ft. high 8 ft., gradually tapering upwards.

A Cedar of Lebanon (Cèdrus Libàni), 100 ft. Apparently in its prime. A Silver Fir (Picea pectinàta), 102 ft., branching to the ground."

A Weymouth Pine (Pinus Stròbus), 92 ft.

A Pinaster (Pìnus Pináster), 86 ft.

A Hemlock Spruce (Abies canadensis), 46 ft. A very handsome plant.

A Tupelo tree (Nýssa biflòra), 31 ft. Growing vigorously.

A Liquidambar (Liquidámbar Styraciflua), 69 ft.

A Tulip tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera), 87 ft.

A Scarlet Oak (Quércus coccínea), 96 ft. Girt at 7 ft. high 9 ft., with a very fine head.

A common White Oak (Quercus pedunculata), 80 ft. Girt at 4 ft. high 15 ft. 9 in., and at 15 ft. high 14 ft.

A Lombardy Poplar (Pópulus fastigiàta), 101 ft.

The Elms (Ulmus campestris var.) in the avenue average from 70 ft. to 80 ft. high, and girt at 6 ft. from the ground from 12 ft. to 15 ft.

The above are the highest trees at Strathfieldsaye, but there are a great many of each variety nearly as high.-JOHN JOHNSON. Stratfieldsaye Gardens, Feb. 11. 1843.

ART. XII. Notice of Two new American Roses lately introduced.

By J. W. B.

Ro`sa rubifòlia élegans, the Prairie Rose. A fine climbing rose of very robust. habit, often making shoots of from 10 ft. to 12 ft. in the season. Flowers semi-double, in clusters of from eighteen to twenty-five in each, and of a deep pink colour. Found by R. Buist of Philadelphia, in the state of Ohio.

R. Buist.

Rosa rubifòlia var. Prairie Queen. A seedling of Ròsa rubifòlia élegans, which was raised by Mr. S. Feast of Baltimore. Of a stronger habit than R. r. élegans; flowers quite double, and imbricated, in clusters. Similar, but superior, to the strong-growing varieties of Noisettes. Colour bright pink. R. Buist.

Mr. J. W. Brown, who brought over a plant of each of the above roses from Mr. Buist, saw both in flower in Mr. Buist's nursery in the summer of 1842, and bears testimony to the truth of the above descriptions by Mr. Buist.-London, Dec. 1842.