When grown in open grounds, it assumes a regular-conical form. Its leaves are numerous, large, glabrous, and of a rich green color. In the month of August, they contrast strikingly with the brilliant scarlet of the carpels, or seed-vessels, numerously interspersed; and, at the first approach of autumn, suddenly change to a straw color, which pleasantly blends with the more vivid and gaudy hues of the neighboring forests.

It annually produces an abundance of seeds, which are perfected about the first of September. These, falling among leaves and rubbish, vegetate freely during the spring following, and, in such situations, make only a few inches of growth in the course of the season. The small seedlings can be readily detected in autumn by their large, acuminate, and yellow leaves, conspicuous near the surface of the ground, among surrounding herbage.

The cultivator should now secure a supply of them. Removed with a ball of earth by aid of a gardener's trowel, they will suffer little from transplanting; and, if packed in moss, may be transported successfully to a great distance. Unlimited numbers can be thus obtained in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

If their removal be delayed till the ensuing spring, not a plant will then be found. All in the intervening time will have been gnawed to the crown of their roots by rabbits; and in this condition, and at this age, they will not send up sprouts. Hence young trees of this species are not often found, even in our most secluded forests.

The bark and young wood of all the magnolias are favorite food of the rabbit; and the trees are frequently attacked by them in gardens and lawns, unless carefully protected.

A more common method of obtaining young cucumber-trees is by sowing the seeds. It should be borne in mind, that, if the seeds of this or any other species of this genus become dry, no subsequent management will cause them to vegetate. As soon as they are mature, a point decided by the opening of the valves of the carpels, they should be separated from their attachment, and cleansed from their oily external coat by rubbing with sand and water. This coat contains an acrid principle which is thought to re-act on the seeds, and impair their vitality. They should be either planted immediately, in the manner hereafter directed, or may be

packed in crocks, or boxes, with a liberal supply of slightly moistened sand. It requires attention to preserve the requisite share of moisture till the next spring, and guard against depredations of mice. Thus packed, they can be conveyed to any desired distance. Contracts with our farmer-boys would secure abundant supplies.

2. M. CORDATA (Heart-shaped-leaved Magnolia).—The elder Michaux found it in a few and limited localities in Georgia and South Carolina. It was described by him as a new and distinct species. Doubts are entertained whether it is other than the acuminata, which is now known to sport in variety.

The leaves of the cordata are said to be "broad-ovate, sub-cordate." It had never been introduced into this vicinity until Francis Parkman of Boston kindly sent me several seedlings a year since. Their leaves are oblong and acuminate, hardly distinguishable from the acuminata of our forests.

At the same time, a seedling acuminata, under high cultivation in my garden, exhibits leaves unusually large, and of an ovate and profoundly cordate form. Flowers of the two kinds may present essential specific differences. Loudon describes the color of the cordata as white and purple ;' Derby, as "yellow, streaked with red;" while Meehan says it is "yellow." The colors of the acuminata are yellow and glaucous-green, with a slight tinge of blue. Further observation must determine their relationship.

3. M. GLAUCA (Beaver-wood, Sweet-bay Tree). A swamp in Gloucester, on Cape Ann, in Massachusetts, is the most northern locality of this species. From thence it is abundant in favorable localities near the seashore far to the south. It is not a native of any of the North-western States, though it succeeds well under cultivation as far north as Lake Erie.

No species is more productive of seeds: every flower is sure to be followed by a well-filled carpel. Seeds frequently sow themselves, and young plants spring up spontaneously in adjacent grounds. These, with suitable care and protection, will grow into good-sized shrubs. On its own roots, this species will not, in this latitude, approximate any nearer to the magnitude of a tree. To develop satisfactorily its beauties, it must be propagated on the acuminata stock; and happily it is the most ready of all kinds to succeed by the process of budding. By it, an important change and

improvement in its habits are effected. We can show some convincing examples.

A glauca standing in my grounds, started from a seed in 1842, is now seven feet high. The trunk, eighteen inches above the ground, measures six inches in circumference; and its top extends into several lateral branches. A dozen or two of inferior flowers are annually produced. Its aspect is that of an old and decrepit shrub, unworthy of attention.

In beautiful contrast, and contiguous to it, may be seen another glauca, with a large and spreading top, more than twenty-one feet high, with a body thirty-seven inches in circumference at its largest expansion. Its leaves and flowers surpass the others in size, numbers, and perfection. During a period of about six weeks, in the months of June and July, it puts forth daily a profusion of pure white blossoms, the neat and chaste appearance of which by day, and the agreeable odor at evening, excite admiration. At the approach of night, the perfume, mingling with falling dews, is disseminated a great distance along a thronged public thoroughfare, and elicits many exclamations of wonder and surprise, uttered in as many varied accents as were heard from the readers of the epitaph of "Poor Yorick."

This tree is probably the largest specimen of the glauca in the Union, certainly in the more Northern States; and it illustrates both the feasibility and the advantages of employing the acuminata for the stock in propagating this species. It originated from a bud cut from the seedling glauca, just described, when that was four years old. The bud was inserted into a young cucumber tree of a similar age in the summer of 1846.

Similar soil and cultivation have been afforded to each. The one is a mere shrub, that has already passed its maturity; the other a good-sized tree, vigorous and healthy, annually extending as large a growth as in its early years. Dr. Jared P. Kirtland.

OUR SQUIRRELS.

It does not appear, at the first glance, that our squirrels, in their yearly labors, have any great influence on the interests of agriculture and horticulture and we doubt, if the question were asked, if more than five persons out of ten would have formed any opinion in the matter; their probable reply being, "Oh! the squirrels are not of much importance either way. They live principally on nuts, and do not trouble us much, with the exception of the little striped ground-squirrel that pulls up our seedcorn."

But these little animals are of more importance than people usually believe them to be, and we will show this in a brief sketch of the habits of each of our more familiar species.

with its congeners the fox-squirrel and black squirrel, is well known. Its food, as most persons are well aware, consists almost entirely of nuts and it is to this fact that the multiplication of our forest-trees is very largely indebted; for its habit of burying the different nuts as a provision against the necessities of winter, covering them, to the depth of two inches or a little more, in the rich forest-mould, secures for them the most certain germination. This squirrel is a very liberal provider for its future wants; and all who are conversant with its habits know how busy it is in burying them, from the time of the early ripening of the nuts until the ground is covered with snow.

Now, these nuts are not placed in one deposit, or two, or half a dozen : for accident might destroy such cachés; or they might be placed by heavy falls of snow or thick formations of ice beyond the reach of the depositor, who would then be left without food through the most inclement season of the year. No: by an exercise of the highest instinct, if not actual reason, they are buried each by itself in every available spot in the woods, whether on the hillside, or beneath a fallen and rotten trunk of a tree, or on the edge of a swamp, — anywhere that it may be found when occasion calls for it. And we all know how this little animal goes through the woods in the heavy snow, digging down to its buried treasure with almost unerring precision. We have said it is a liberal provider; and what is the proportion of the nuts it eats of the whole number it deposits? Not one-fourth; and as it instinctively buries only those nuts that are perfectly sound, without insect-stings, or germs of rot, of course all that are left buried sprout, and spring from the ground, miniatures of the parent tree. It is well known that only a very small proportion of those nuts that are left on the surface of the ground, exposed to the action of the elements, ever mature and sprout; they rot and shrivel, or become the food and burrowing-place of noxious insects: and it can very readily be seen that it is on the labors of the arboreal squirrels that an extension of the growth of our forest-trees depends. It is not alone in the confines of the woods that the nuts are buried; but all along their borders, sometimes rods away from them, in the open fields and prairies, do these active animals make their deposits: and people who live in the prairie countries, in which are belts of oaks and chestnuts, often find the young of these trees growing at a considera