That there should be hybrid walnuts is nothing strange or wonderful, and we often marvel that there should be so few of them in regions where two or more species are growing in close proximity in the same forest, or elsewhere, but from whence came these specimens in Massachusetts is somewhat of a mystery. We may safely conclude, however, that the hybridizing did not occur there, but somewhere else, and either the nuts or small seedling trees were introduced and planted where these hybrid specimens are now growing. It is possible that they are descendants of the old hybrid walnut tree of New York city, mentioned by Le Conte and Dr. Torrey, some one having sent nuts or seedlings to friends in Massachusetts, and the three trees described by Prof. Sargent are merely those which have survived until the present day, these retaining the hybrid characteristics of their parent. These hybrids may or may not possess any special economic value, but they are of considerable scientific interest, and for this reason alone are well worthy of careful preservation and extensive propagation. _Butternut Sugar._--It has often been claimed that sugar can be made from the native butternut tree, and while it is true that the sweetish sap flows readily from wounds made in this tree in early spring, the amount and quality of sugar to be obtained from it is scarcely worthy of serious attention. In my boyhood days butternut syrup and sugar were considered as "sticky jokes" of the sugar camp. [Illustration: FIG. 77. FLOWERING BRANCH OF HYBRID WALNUT. _J. regia_ × _J. Californica_.] =Hybrids in California.=--Mrs. Ninetta Eames, writing, in the _American Agriculturist_, of new varieties of walnuts in California, refers to certain species and varieties growing in that State, as follows: "On one of the avenues in Santa Rosa there are some dozen or so ornamental shade trees, which invariably attract the passers. It is not only that they are uncommonly beautiful, but that there is something unfamiliar about them. One unhesitatingly pronounces them 'walnuts,' from their unmistakable likeness to both the English walnut and the native species found growing along the streams of middle and southern California. They are, in fact, a cross between the _Juglans regia_ and _J. Californica_, the wild black walnut of this State. In its appearance, this magnificent hybrid is nicely balanced between both parents, but it is superior to either of them in beauty and luxuriance of foliage, and in its phenomenal growth. There is, indeed, but one tree, the eucalyptus, that grows more rapidly. In speaking of this quality in the new walnut, Mr. Luther Burbank says: 'It often excels the combined growth of both parents, adding twelve to sixteen feet to its hight in one year. Given like conditions, a budded six-year-old hybrid is twice as large as a black walnut at twenty years of age.'