I have some very fine and rare fruits which were sent over by ex-Gov. Hubbard, of Texas, while Minister at Japan, viz. : Three varieties of pears, all apple-shaped, better than Leconte and Kieffer, and beginning to bear at two years of age. The plum : "Bougoume" ripens the 10th of May here - the very earliest of plums, very large, golden yellow. I also have a cherry from Japan, not fruited yet, which I expect will bear, and do well here. - J. L. Normand, La.

The Michel Strawberry is much praised in the Southwest. L. M. Pyles, of Arkansas, writes of it as follows in the Fruit-Growers' Journal :

I have just returned from the State Horticultural Fair, where I met a great many berry growers from different parts of the State, and it has been the universal experience of all the growers that they would have made no money out of the berry crop this year, except the few who had the Michel berry, and they all say - "If it had not been for the Michel, I would have been left on my berry crop this year." They ripened about four days later than last year, and, though they bloomed all winter, produced a good crop, and went into market at paying prices until the advent of the berries farther north about May the 20th, and now, the 26th, finds them full of ripe fruit and white with bloom after being in bearing since April 18th, when the first crate was shipped from here.

A few words of instruction concerning this berry are necessary : 1st, if you have set them less than four feet apart, take up every other one and prepare more ground and reset; 2d, keep the runners off till late in the season ; 3d, don't let them mat and get thick in the rows. If you do, you will have a good crop of early fruit.