OF

HORTICULTURE.

JUNE, 1849.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ART. I. On the Acclimation of Tropical Exotics in Florida. By the Rev R. K. SEWALL, East Florida. In a Letter to Dr. A. Mitchell, St. Mary's, Geo. Communicated by Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn.

DEAR SIR,-I enclose letters from Dr. Mitchell, of St. Mary's, Georgia, and the Rev. R. K. Sewall, of East Florida, on the Culture of Tropical Plants, which I will thank you to publish in your instructive and highly useful Magazine. With sincere esteem, your most obedient servant, H. A. S. Dearborn. Hawthorn Cottage, Roxbury, May 10, 1849.

MY DEAR SIR,-I here submit to you a correspondence from the Rev. R. K. Sewall, of E. Florida, on the acclimation and cultivation of tropical plants in South Florida. We are truly pleased to learn, that the labors of the cultivator have been crowned with success in the region alluded to, and that the luscious fruit of the Bromeliacea will soon be added by individual effort to the extensive list of our introduced fruits. We have heretofore maintained, that the most active agent in the dispersion of plants is man; and that plants of opposite zones can be brought to exist on food not naturally suited to its constitution by care and proper cultivation. Reasoning from analogy, we are well convinced of the important facts before us-and do anticipate that it will not be long before these small fruiteries, now established by individual enterprise, will become an extensive article of exportation; alike profitable with a ready supply for our home consump

tion, at the 'same time influencing our General Government to aid in the establishment of an Experimental Garden for the introduction of thousands of useful species from Tropical Asia, Africa, and America. You will please publish the enclosed in the Magazine of Horticulture and Botany, edited by C. M. Hovey, Esq., of Boston. With great esteem, I am, dear sir, very respectfully yours, AUGUSTUS MITCHELL, M. D. St. Mary's, Georgia, April 29th, 1849.

HON. H. A. S. DEARBORN.

MY DEAR SIR,-Ar your request, I herewith submit certain facts, relating to the experiment of vegetable acclimation in Tropical Florida, which have passed under my own observation, or have come within the range of my knowledge.

In the year 1828, a gentleman of science and experience strongly urged on government the project of a national acclimating nursery, to be located in Tropical Florida, supported by a train of analogies, meteorological observations, and reasoning, which gave great plausibility to his positions.

So far as experiment has tested his conclusions, they have been fully verified. He recommended, with great confidence in the success of the pine apple tribe, the acclimation of that tropical exotic.

And what has been the result? In Nov. 1847, and Jan. 1848, I made an exploration into Tropical Florida below 28 degrees, and down to 27 degrees 15 minutes. I there found settlers, many of whom had come from the north, and an account of whom I gave you in my last. Nearly all of them had entered upon the culture of the tropical pine apple, and had larger or smaller patches on plantations of the pine plant under process of actual growth.

Mr. Burnham, an original settler, and late representative from St. Lucié county, and one of the most extensive planters of this fruit, furnished me the following statement relative to the pine apple:

"The first slips of the pine I put out 20th August, 1843. I then put out 46 slips. They bore fruit in 1845; the fruit matured about the 10th of July. Since that time, from the original 46 slips, I have increased to 3500 plants, one half of which will bear next July. The apple does as well in Lucié, if not better, than in Cuba. The fruit is larger and finer."

The settlers and planters, I am persuaded, are in error in attempting to cultivate one plant to the square foot. The plants should be three feet apart. The pitahaya, or strawberry pine apple of Yucatan, should be speedily there introduced, together with the large and delicious sugar-loaf pine of Cuba.

The gentleman above alluded to also recommended, "as of immense value, the peculiar species of fibrous Agave, cultivated in Yucatan, whose fresh leaves yield the foliaceous fibres called the Sisal Hemp." A slip of this plant was introduced some ten years since. It has now become acclimated, and is being self-propagated through various sections of Tropical Florida. The plant was pointed out to me on the banks of St. Lucié Sound, where it was spreading itself independent of the skill and care of man.

The same gentleman also remarked, in the same connexion, "that the successful culture of the tea plant of southern China, at Rio Janeiro, will rapidly arrive at maturity in the arid sands of any tropical climate; and that their plucked leaves are speedily prepared for exportation by the most simple apparatus, &c."

I received from H. E. Perrine, Esq., in November last, the following statement:-"At Indian Key, (Tropical Florida,) my father had a tea plant growing in the open air, which he took great pride in, as it demonstrated the truth of what he contended for, i. e., that the soil of Tropical Florida was peculiarly adapted to its growth."

The cocoa-nut tree, I may add, I saw growing on the banks of St. Lucié Sound, from three to five feet high, then recently planted by the settlers.

From the facts above stated, it may be safely assumed that experiment will realize the suggestions of Dr. Perrine relating to the acclimation of other fruits and plants. "Even the cultivated chocolate tree will perish unless protected by the shade of other trees, and can hence be propagated in the marshy woods of Tropical Florida.

"As the pimento tree of Tropical America, and the cinnamon tree of Tropical Asia are disseminated in the most extensive forests by birds and beasts alone, it may be safely predicted that, if a single plant of each shoot comes to matu