We never object to answering the queries of correspondents, provided they do not require too long a reply, and that they are on topics of general interest, or such as are not readily found in books: - "The sages say, Dams Truth delights to dwell - Strange mansion"! - In the bottom of a well:

' Questions are then the windlass and the rope That pull the grave old gentlewoman up".

As we have got to rhyming, we answer " Betsy W." by saying that she is doing a service by culling from the entire works of Shakspeare his allusions to botanical matters. His felicity in this is as extraordinary as his other apparently intuitive knowledge. The process, now so common, of changing the character of seedling-trees, is thus expressed in his Winter'$

Tale, Act 4: - "- Ton see, we marry

A gentler scion to the wildest stock;

And make conoctre a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature - change it rather: but

The art itself is nature".

(D. W. Bat). your excellent notice of the Rebecca Grape is superseded by former notices and the official one, in the present number, from the Committee of the Pomological Society. We shall be glad to hear from you again.

(Wm. H. Alenander). We shall be pleased to hear from you.

(H. A. Mish, Harri8burg, Fa.) Tan is an excellent covering for strawberries, both as a manure and a mulch. It should be well spent - say a year from the vat. New tan has proved destructive in many instances. It has not been found of service to any other crop.

Don't plant " cuttings, small evergreens, and seedlings," in weedy ground. If you will, depend rather on the hoe and the rake as "weed smotherers".

Sawdust is a superior article to throw amongst raspberries; but useless, in that form, for any other purpose. If you could char it easily, and throw it into the soakings of your dung-yard, it would probably be the best thing you could do with it. Leather chippings from shoemakers' shops, saddlers', etc, make an admirable mulch for the raspberry, and may often be had for the asking.

Answers To Correspondents #1

(P. T., Canada West.) The most complete work on the melon is that of M. Jacquin, Paris, but now difficult to procure. His list contains eighty-eight varieties, with as many colored figures, each one being accompanied by a representation of a slice of the fruit, to indicate the color and thickness of the flesh and rind; an example is also given of the branch of an individual variety of each class, displaying the foliage, blossoms, and manner of growth. The work is founded on practical experience. The manner of pruning recommended is this: When the plant has four leaves, exclusive of the cotyledons, it is out down to two; the branches proceeding from their axils, having Just unfolded the third leaf, are again out down to two; and if these fail to show fruit blossoms, the same is repeated, when they will invariably do so. The object is to insure the emission of fruit blossoms, which, in the melon, usually occurs on the second ramification from the parent stem, but always on the third.

(W. W. T.) Wait in patience; Rome was not built in even a week.

(Rosa S.) Be sure, when you plant your rose bushes, that the soil is well drained; you may do this in several simple ways. For instance: Dig the holes twice as deep as you have heretofore thought needful, and place in them stones or broken flower-pots; indeed, the latter, if whole, will form an effectual drainage, receiving water instead of soil, and holding it till it disappears. Place them upside down.

(B. W. R.) Of the Duvaua, there are four species in cultivation in Europe, and perhaps in America, all handsome evergreen bushes, with bright, shining foliage; the leaves are small, oblong, and toothed, with numerous small flowers of a greenish yellow, and small, dry berries. The foliage emits, when bruised, a strong but not unpleasant odor of turpentine. A pretty phenomenon, which will interest children as well as grown persons, in exhibited by the leaves of Davaua ovata and some other plants; the leaves, or parts of leaves, "after lying a short time upon water, will be found to start and jump as if they were alive, while at the instant of each start a jet of oily matter is discharged into the water. This circumstance appears to be owing to some peculiar irritability of the parenchyma of the i leaves, which, when acted upon by water, causes the turpentine sacs that abound in them J to empty themselves with violence, and the movement of the leaves may be ascribed to the recoil produced by the discharge.

Thus we have, in every leaf, a sort of vegetable battery, which will keep up its fire until the stock of ammunition is expended." - Botanical Register. The movements of the leaves upon the water have been compared to a fleet of ships employed in manuoevring, or to persons engaged in dancing. - See Loudon's Gardeners' Magazine, vol. ix. p. 377. The Schinus molle presents the same curious phenomena.

Answers To Correspondents #1

(J. P. H., New Orleans). Your beautiful berried plant is the Ilex cassina, A few plants exist in our vicinity, but, in most winters, require protection. Very few broad-leaved evergreens will stand the test of a Philadelphia winter - at least, such winters as the two past have been. Many thanks for your kind favor.

(N. C, Oregon). No. 1, Clarkia pulchella. This beautiful annual is extensively grown in our Eastern gardens. No. 2 we do not recognize from the seed-vessels sent. The yellow-flower belonging to the seed, in the same package, is of Escholtzia Californica, also well known here, and appreciated. No. 3 is Oenothera Drummondii, The other two specimens of bulbous flowering plants we do not recognize. The blue one appears to be very handsome. We shall be pleased if we succeed in raising them, but little success, we fear, will crown the attempt to raise two year old seeds of a liliaceous plant. Most of the handsome annuals of your country have been sent to the horticultural world by Douglass, Nuttall, and other collectors. There are doubtless things that would still prove very acceptable, especially such plants as ripen their seeds early, and before the time of year the parties alluded to explored for them.

(A. D. Jones.) The Herb of Grace of the old writers was the Rue (Ruta graveolens of Linnaeus), and was considered of great efficacy, in medicine, for children as a vermifuge.

Ophelia, in Shakspeare's Hamlet, says to the Queen: "There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace, 0, Sundays!" The gardener, in Richard II, says of the Queen: - "Here did she drop a tear; here, in this place, I'll set a bank of roe - sour herb of grace: Roe even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, In the remembrance of a weeping Queen".

(S. S.) You are in error in supposing there are no scented camellias. "Park's Striped Rose" is slightly odoriferous, as is the myrtle-leaved variety; but you are correct in wishing the tribe were more generally so.

(J. G., Leesburg, Virginia.) Your question is rather indefinite, as you do not say how far the " young gardener" has progressed in his studies. Loudon's Encyclopaedias of Gardening and of Plants, are the best, and, for a "beginner" in botany, there is no book equal to Gray's First Lessons. We still think there is no better work to study for gardening pur-poses than McMahon's, now going through a tenth or twelfth edition in this city.

(John T. Plummer, Richmond, Ind.) "One correspondent says tan is of no service to any crop bnt the strawberry; another, that it is an excellent manure for the raspberry.*' The old adage, that what is "one man's meat is another man's poison," is applicable to the use of tan as a manure. It is very uncertain in its results. Applied to strawberries, we have known it utterly to kill out the plants, and, in other cases, to benefit them remarkably. It no doubt varies in its properties, and this accounts for the different experiences of the correspondents alluded to.

The Autumnal, Boston, Marrow, and Marrowfat Squash, are all names for the same article; the vegetable Marrow is another thing.

"Some say, thoroughly manure fruit-trees; others say, add none at all. "What shall the inexperienced do?" Fruit-trees must have rich soil. Manure moderately at first. If the trees continue healthy, but grow slowly, add more nutriment till they grow vigorously.

"Lindley says: 'It has been ascertained that silex, phosphate of lime, phosphorus, etc, are formed in plants, the aliment of which did not contain them; it is inferred, the presence of such principles depends upon the operation of the vital principle of vegetation.' Dees such a man as Lindley, in the middle of the nineteenth century, mean to say that plants create silex, etc.?" We "guess" so; something of thatsort. Our correspondent should remember, that " though in the middle of the nineteenth century," very little is known of these things. We scarcely know what we mean, even when we speak of vital force. Oxalate of lime has been found, in its granulated state, in the structure of cactuses, without a trace of oxalic acid or lime being found in the soil that supported them. Where would our correspondent suppose it came from?

The Japan Pea has various common names. It is, as you suppose, the Soja hispida of botanists. Many species of Cajanus are used for the same purpose as this, and occasionally get the same common name. Our correspondent recommends it very highly as a productive, easily cultivated, and excellent family vegetable.

FLUSHING, 3d Month 7,1857.

RESPECTED FRIEND: I notice, I think, a mistake in the last number of the Horticulturist (page 149), respecting the Chinese Quince. It is there stated that it is the Cydonia Japonica, "grown here tor the beauty of its bloom." The Chinese Quince, as stated by C. D. Meigs, is the Cydonia sinensis, totally distinct from Cydonia Japonica, or Pyrus Japonica, as it is more generally called, and also from every other variety of the Quince. I am surprised that it should be anywhere stated that the blossoms are "of a fine rose color," for, ff not quite white, they have, at most, but a very faint blush. I have known it to fruit here, but by no means freely. It grows, however, freely, is perfectly hardy, and makes- an upright, handsome tree, with very pretty and striking foliage, and is entirely free from thorns, and in everyway as opposite as can well be imagined to the species with which it is confounded. We cultivate a variety called lutea, but it appears to be identical with the other, and has probably been added to swell some catalogue.

I have been acquainted with a tree of the Chinese Quince, in this town, about twenty years, and I doubt if it has produced, all told, as many fruits.

Respectfully thy friend, John B. Foster, Foreman for Parsons & Co, [Mr. Foster is right. - Ed].