Among the many new strawberries introduced the past season, the one above named received considerable favor in the place of its origin. What it will prove elsewhere we have yet to learn; but as the originator has, through W. W. Beebee, secretary Iowa State Horticultural Society, sent us its history, we give it our readers. "It was grown from seed of Wilson's Albany, and selected out of seventy-two seedlings, because of its hardihood of plant, productiveness of quantity, large size, and good quality of fruit. The fruit is large, very firm, deep rich crimson, flesh red to center, very sweet and rich flavor. It has the reputation of holding its fruit after ripe without loss of character for many days".

Mr. Editor : I am pleased to see advertised "the Cedar Hill Tomato." Some nine or ten years ago Mr. John Sill, of Cedar Hill, N. Y., sent me a dozen plants in pots, which I cultivated, and found to be not only early, but superior in every other respect to any I had yet seen. So much was I pleased with them, that I offered them to my friends on all occasions; but they had "no name," and on several occasions my efforts to give the seed away were answered with, "I prefer to get the new varieties." Of course I have cultivated the new ones too, being anxious to get some one that would "ripen three weeks earlier." You shall see how near I have come to it. Late in February last I planted my seed in the house; in proper time potted them in thumb-pots; later, transferred them to larger pots; again, about the 1st of April, transplanted into the ground in my cold grapery ; and again, on the 18th of May, set in the open ground, Keyes' Early, Tilden, and Cedar Hill, all in the same bed, where they had equal care. On the 16th of July we picked our first fruit, each kind having some ripe.

The Cedar Hill far excels the others in quality, is more solid at the center, smooth surface, and very productive, ripens uniformly, and when ripe (I never pick them for family use until they are all red) are quite delicious.

I am indebted to Mr. Sill for another luxury, which I may as well acknowledge in this way with your leave. With the tomato plants came a paper of melon seeds, which he said originated on his place, coming up among his Nutmeg melons. These I planted; the product was a small whitish melon, with light green flesh of exquisite flavor. Saving all the seed, I wrote to the editor of the Rural New Yorker, proposing to give him the seed to distribute among his subscribers; he published my letter and address. Soon there came over three hundred letters from all parts of the country, requesting seeds. In return I received many valuable seeds, though the most were melon seeds, which I did not want; but among them all, none were equal to the "John Sill melon." I send you the seeds saved last year, for your subscribers (pray ask them not to write to me for them), and also some very fine Nutmeg melon seed.

At the meeting of the National Pomo-logical Society in Rochester, 1864, a gentleman presented a melon, the product of seed sent from Japan by Mr. Hogg, which was almost identical with " the John Sill".

W. A. Woodward.