PHILLIPS.--A large and handsome variety of excellent flavor, with a very smooth, dark-brown shell. Grafted trees exceedingly vigorous, upright growth, as well as precocious and productive. The original tree is growing in the grounds of the late Whitman Phillips, at Ridgewood, N. J. Several years ago my attention was called to a number of large varieties of the chestnut growing in and near the village, and from these I obtained cions for propagation; but I name only one at this time, reserving the others until more fully tested. This is rather an insignificant number of varieties to be named among the many hundreds that are to be found in almost every town or neighborhood where the chestnut is a native, and yet I have been able to find only one named in nurserymen's catalogues as being propagated by grafting. It is true that nearly all dealers in trees offer seedling American chestnuts, which may mean good, bad or indifferent varieties when the trees come into bearing. Among all of the many thousands that have been raised and planted in the East and West, beyond the natural range of the chestnut, as, for instance, in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, there must be some distinct and valuable varieties worthy of names and propagation. There are not only distinct varieties to be found in every forest, but in some instances the entire product of an extended area of country are distinct in their color, size, and general appearance of the nuts produced; as, for instance, in the woolly chestnuts of the Piedmont district of Virginia, these being so nearly covered with a white down that they remind one of popcorn. Hundreds of bushels of these woolly chestnuts come to our markets, and among them I have often found very large specimens, but so far as known, no effort has been made to perpetuate them. So far as can now be determined, the wild or original European chestnut was much inferior in its flavor, and little, if any, larger than our American sweet chestnut; but by continued selections of the largest for planting, and propagation by grafting, it has attained to its present size and excellence; but this system of improving our native varieties has scarcely, as yet, been attempted, a fact which does not, in the least, redound to our credit. BUSH CHINQUAPIN (_C. nana._ Muhlenberg).--Of this I do not know of any named varieties in cultivation. Plants are occasionally seen in cultivated grounds, and I have one in my garden growing in a sheltered position, where it has fruited for several years. It is a pretty, round-headed, silvery-leaved bush, about six feet high; ornamental, if not specially valuable for other purposes, although the little sweet nuts are always acceptable. As a rule, the seedlings of this species are not hardy in the Northern States, but an occasional one will survive if planted in a light, porous soil and a protected situation.