OF HORTICULTURE. MAY, 1847. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. ART. I. On the Cultivation of the Arrow Root in the United States as an Article of Commerce. By Dr. A. MITCHELL, of Portland, Me. In a Letter to Hon. H. A. S. Dearborn. Communicated by Gen. Dearborn. DEAR SIR.-I enclose you a letter from Doct. Mitchell of Portland, one of our most distinguished naturalists, with a small package of seeds of the Arrow Root. I hope you will make an experiment in cultivating that valuable plant, although it is of a southern clime. If it is brought forward in a hotbed, it is possible you may mature the plant. You can publish the letter in your Magazine, if you think proper. With sincere esteem, your most obedient servant, H. A. S. DEARBORN. Hawthorn Cottage, Roxbury, April 5, 1847. MY DEAR SIR, I here enclose you a small specimen of the Indian Arrow Root, sent to me by Dr. Henry Bacon, of St. Mary's, (South Georgia). The article was cultivated by him on his plantation in Florida. I will here call your attention to the cultivation of this plant, and briefly state that the success has met the most sanguine wishes of the cultivator, and bids fair to form one of the articles, as an American product of commerce, both for export and import. The specimen which I send was derived from the root of the (Maránta arundinacea :) there are three species of this genus, viz., the arundinacea, Galánga, comòsa; they are natives of the Indies, a herbaceous and perennial exotic, which 19 VOL. XIII.-NO. V. have been, a long time, cultivated in the West India Islands. The specimen which I send you appears to be the most superior article that I have ever seen of the kind, abounding in an excess of nutritive qualities, and purity of appearance, surpassing that of the West Indies. An intelligent gentleman, Col. Halloes, and a favorite officer of Bolivar, has the honor, I believe, of being the first cultivator of this plant, on a large scale, in our Union. He was driven from his location in Florida by the Indians, after receiving a severe wound in the head by a rifle-shot; he then removed to Camden County, South Georgia, and entered at once into the cultivation of this plant on a large scale: thus you perceive this plant is gradually becoming acclimated in our country, and I have no doubt but a few years will elapse when we shall find it cultivated with success in latitude 36° north. It grows well in a siliceous soil, on a light sandy loam, resists the drought well, with more certainty of a crop than either cotton or corn. I will take the pains to enter into a more minute detail of the facts connected with the cultivation of this article, as proven, amount per acre, &c., and have them reported through you in the agricultural department. The Arrow Root obtains its name from the fact of the Indians using it to extract the virus communicated by their poisoned arrows. With great esteem, I am, dear sir, your obedient servant, We acknowledge our indebtedness to General Dearborn for the communication of Dr. Mitchell's Letter, and also for the package of seed accompanying the same, which we shall make a trial of, and report upon its growth at a future time. It will give us great pleasure to publish the intended communication of Dr. Mitchell in relation to the mode of cultivating the Arrow Root, the produce per acre, the process of manufacture, and the probable profit as compared with cotton, corn, or tobacco. Gen. Dearborn deserves the thanks of every friend of agriculture for bringing this subject before the public, and we trust his efforts to introduce a new and important article of commerce will be seconded by every intelligent cultivator.-Ed. ART. II. Explanations in reference to Two or Three Western Apples; with a Note upon a New Variety called the Butter Sweet. By T. S HUMRICKHOUSE, Coshocton, Ohio. I AM induced to offer a few additional observations, including a correction or two, upon some items contained in Mr. Fahnestock's article, March number of your Magazine, and in your remarks thereunder, in order to guard against misconceptions, which, if left unnoticed, might grow out of them. First-Hart's Orange Sweeting, or, as it may be better to call it simply, Hart's Sweeting. Scions of this apple were first obtained by me from Mr. Isaac B. Hart, of Tiverton township in this county, in the spring of 1841. On referring to my note-book, I find that, on the 6th day of April, 1841, I grafted, by the method of root-grafting, and placed in the nursery, six trees of it; and that I did not extend its cultivation further till 1845, when having, in the preceding winter, examined and eaten of the fruit from the original tree, I, on the 24th of March of that year, grafted seven more trees of it, by the same method, and planted them in the nursery. One of the last-mentioned trees I sent to you last fall, numbered, if I mistake not, LI.; and from another of them the scions were taken which I gave to Mr. Mathews, who sent them to Mr. Fahnestock. The fruit is of a clear yellow; of the size of the Green Newtown Pippin; nearly round; sweet, juicy, tender, and good; keeping till April. It is a seedling raised by Mr. Hart, as he informed me. Second:-Red Pearmain, often called Long Pearmain. This is, in my estimation, a first-rate apple, in this climate, for November and December. It is not, however, a seedling of Ohio, but is one of the varieties originally brought to Marietta from Connecticut; and the name of Red or Long Pearmain has obtained for it here from its color and shape. It is the English Pearmain of Mr. Bateham's list. Third:-American White Winter Calville. This fruit was first offered to the notice of pomologists by myself. I obtained the scions from trees in the orchard of Mrs. Foster, which she had raised from sprouts taken from the tree (since dead) at Mr. Daniel Miller's. Respecting its origin, Mr. Miller informed me that his tree was brought from Virginia about forty years ago, and was a sprout taken from a tree in an old orchard on the south branch of the Potomac; that it was not a grafted tree, and that they had no grafted fruit in the orchard, with which he was well acquainted, where the sprout was obtained. I first saw and ate of the fruit in the winter of 1838-9, and grafted nineteen trees of it in 1841. In January, 1843, I sent a description of it to Wm. Kenrick, accompanied with scions. Last spring, I sent scions to yourself, which you have since informed me were growing. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Foster called this apple the "White Pippin" and knew it by no other name. The name of American White Winter Calville was first given to it by myself. So you see it cannot be the White Winter Calville of the French, after which I named it, on account of its resemblance to that old variety; else, in naming, as I thought, a new variety, I unconsciously hit upon its old name with the erroneous prefix of "American," a thing little likely to take place. It cannot be the same with the French variety, because this apple has been propagated by means of sprouts time out of mind, as I may say; a thing impossible unless root-grafting had been employed upon the first tree in the series, and that tree had established itself upon its own roots, and threw up sprouts from them to be taken and reared into trees. At the time at which this must have happened, had it happened at all, I believe that root-grafting the apple was not practised; and there was, moreover, little or no grafted fruit of any kind. in the part of Virginia from which the family of Mr. Miller removed. Nor would the slightest suspicion now exist of its being the French variety, if I had not unfortunately renamed it. My reasons for giving it the new name I believed to be sufficient at the time; they were briefly as follows:-There are so many apples called "Pippin," with various prefixes and addenda, as to have already brought in great confusion in relation to some of them. The prefix "White" might come at some time to be omitted, since the difference between white, green and straw color, as descriptive of the color of an apple, is often very slight indeed; and we have already "Green Pippins" and "Golden Pippins" and "Yellow Pippins" without number. It bore a very striking resemblance to the French variety, and evidently belonged to the same class. And lastly, inasmuch as the fruit would be first introduced to the notice of pomologists by the new name, I conceived that no inconvenience could result from it. Upon the whole, this case is a good one to exemplify the propriety of the principle of the Fifth Rule as set forth in my article upon the subject of the Uniform Nomenclature of Fruits, (Vol. XII. p. 47), which is,— "That the names given to new seedlings be sufficiently distinctive to guard against and prevent their being confounded with previously named sorts." Had I adhered to it in this case, no doubt would ever have arisen, as I believe there is no foundation for any, of this being a new and distinct variety. Fourth-The varieties before referred to, as well as the Early Pennock, Crimson Nonpareil, Belle de Witt, and Zoar Large Green, have been already widely disseminated among nurserymen by myself and others, chiefly by Mr. Mathews. Coshocton, March 16, 1847. NOTE. Allow me to call your attention to a very fine red apple of medium size, called Butter Apple or Butter Sweet, the origin of which is unknown to me further than that it was first cultivated, as I am informed, in the neighborhood of Wooster, Ohio, whence I obtained two trees in 1839, which are now bearing. It is hardly a sweet apple, very juicy and sprightly, with an exceedingly high musky flavor such as I never found in any other apple. It keeps well into winter. T. S. H. If, as we may infer from the remarks of our correspondent, in whose opinion we place the greatest confidence, the American White Winter Calville is a native variety, his explanation in regard to the name is especially valuable to prevent mistakes hereafter. After our remarks, appended to Mr. Fahnestock's article, had gone to press, it occurred to us that we had received some account of the variety in question before, and, in turning to a former volume, (XI. p. 448,) we found we had done, what is not usual with us, overlooked his communication, and also the fact that, through the kind |
