HENRY WARD BEECHER. (continued 10)

Strange as it may seem, these worthy farmers that go so strong for facts and experience, and who yet deny all facts and all experience that do not tally with their own notions—these very farmers are fond of arguing, and like mightily to have the reason or rationale of things explained; and many a one of them will yield to the theory who will not yield to a fact. Well, then, let us look into the theory of Mr. Y.’s practice. Hear him:

“My universal rule is, to plow my corn land the fall preceding the spring when I plant; and as early in the spring as possible, I cross-plow as deep as circumstances will permit; and as soon as this is done, I commence checking off—the first way with my large plows, and the second with my small ones; the checks three feet by three, admitting of working the land both ways. And then I plant my corn from the 20th to the 25th of March—a rule to which I adhere with scrupulous exactness; planting from eight to twelve grains in each hill, covering the same from four to six inches deep, greatly preferring the latter depth. So soon as my corn is up of sufficient height, I start the large harrow directly over the rows, allowing a horse to walk each side; harrowing the way the corn was planted; and on land prepared as above and harrowed as directed, the hoeing part will be so completely performed by this process, that it will satisfy the most skeptical. Then, allowing the corn thus harrowed, to remain a few days, I start my small plow with the bar next the corn; and so nicely will this be done, that when a row is thus plowed, so completely will the intermediate spaces, hills, etc., be lapped in by the loose earth, occasioned by this system of close plowing, as to render any other work useless for a time. I thin to four stalks upon a hill, never having to transplant, the second plowing being performed with the moldboard toward the rows of corn; and so rapid has been the growth of the corn between the first and second plowings, that this is performed with ease; and when in this stage, I consider my crop safe—my general rule being, never to plow my corn more than four times, and harrow once. My practice is, to put a field in corn two successive years, then grass it, and let it lie eight years—a rule from which I never deviate. Now, I do not pretend that the labor bestowed upon a sodfield to put it in a state of thorough cultivation, does not meet with a fair equivalent from one crop; but I presume no farmer will doubt when I say the second year’s crop from sod land is better than the first, with not more than one half the labor. The best system of farming is to produce the greatest amount of profit from the smallest amount of labor.”

Now what are the essentials of this method?

First—Fertility of soil, kept up by his system of manuring and grass, of which we shall not speak.

Second—Early planting. In consequence of this, the corn matures before the dry season commences, and every farmer knows that plenty of rain will make a good crop of corn in almost any soil. They all know that the essential thing for corn is rain, and there is generally plenty of rain till about the 1st of July. Mr. Young might plant his corn considerably later and have it come up as early, and grow off more rapidly, by soaking it in a solution of saltpetre. Thus would the effect of frost and chilly mornings be in a degree avoided, while we feel confident, from our own experience, all injury from the cut-worm would be avoided.

Third—Close planting. Every farmer must know that to produce the heaviest possible crop, a certain number of stalks must be upon the ground. It is often observed that the great sin of American agriculture is too thin sowing. Grass is nearly always sowed too thin, and the same is true of small grain. In England they sow four and five and sometimes six bushels of oats to the acre; in this country generally not more than a bushel or a bushel and a half. Hence in England they yield three or four times as heavy as in this country; while in this country we never hear of an extraordinary crop where less than three or four bushels to the acre were sown. Now, we venture to affirm that no very large corn crop was ever grown unless it was planted more than usually thick. In the crop of George W. Williams, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, the corn was planted in rows two feet apart, with a stalk every foot in the rows. This crop produced 167 bushels to the acre. But there is another important advantage of close planting. The corn very soon becomes so dense that the ground is shaded, and the growth of the grass is prevented, and the moisture retained in the soil. By this method of cultivation, no grass is ever allowed to absorb the moisture from the earth, or to take up the nutritious gases which ought to be appropriated exclusively to the corn.

Fourth—Deep planting. This probably operates favorably by giving the roots a bedding where the soil is always moist. Another advantage may be that the roots are thus not so liable to be broken by the plow in cultivation. But it must be here noted, that by Mr. Young’s methed, the corn is “laid by” before the roots are so extended as to be liable to much injury from the plow.

Fifth and last—It will be observed that, by Mr. Young’s method, the soil is kept very friable and loose, and that to a considerable depth. This may be considered the all-essential point in husbandry. One of the chief advantages of all manures is, so to divide the soil that the atmosphere, from which plants derive their principal nutriment, may freely penetrate to the roots of the plants. In such a loose soil, too, it is well known that much less rain is requisite than in a stiff, cold, close soil. For this reason, gravel, sand, or sawdust is often the best manure that can be put upon a stiff soil. In the fall of the year, Mr. Young turns down very deep a thick-rooted sod of eight years’ standing. The vegetable matter in the sod will obviously keep the soil very loose for a year or two by mechanical division, as well as by the slow fermentation of this matter in the soil. But this is not all. The soil is deeply broken up before planting; it is harrowed thoroughly as soon as the corn comes up, and then there is a rapid succession of plowing, until the ground is shaded by the corn, and plowing is no longer possible or necessary. No doubt the plow is preferable to the hand-hoe or cultivator in the case of Mr. Young; for it makes the soil loose to a greater depth, and we have already explained that, according to his method, the roots of the corn are not exposed to injury from the plow.

We append to this account of Mr. Young’s method, that of several other cultivators, and are indebted for them to the Western Farmer and Guardian. In Mr. Miller’s account the reader will observe the depth of planting in a stiff clay.

Mr. Sutton’s Method.—Mr. James M. Sutton, of St. George, Delaware, who raised upon seventy-nine acres 6,284 bushels of corn, and who gives an accurate and detailed account of the condition and cultivation of each field, makes this remark in relation to the use of the plow:

“In order to test the advantage of the cultivator over the plow, for tilling corn, he had five rows in this field that he lapped the furrow to, with a plow, previous to going over it the last time with the cultivator. He soon discovered that the growth of these five rows fell short, in height, of those adjacent, and yielded one-fifth less corn.

“There is no doubt but the true mode of tilling corn, especially where sod-ground is used, is to plow deep, and use nothing but the fallow and flake-harrow for its cultivation. By not disturbing the sod plowed down, it remains there as a reservoir of moisture, and an exhilarating principle throughout the season, to the growth of the corn.”

Upon Mr. Sutton’s report of his crop, Judge Buel adds the following:

“The management which led to the extraordinary product of corn, should be deeply impressed upon the mind of every corn-grower. 1, The ground was WELL dunged with LONG manure; 2, it was planted on a grass lay, one deep plowing; 3, it was well pulverized with the harrow; 4, the plow was not used in the after-culture, nor the corn hilled, but the cultivator only used; 5, the sod was not disturbed, nor the manure turned to the surface; and 6, the corn was cut at the ground when it was fit to top. These are the points which we have repeatedly urged in treating of the culture of this crop; and their correctness is put beyond question by this notable result. The value of lime and marl are well illustrated in the second experiment.”

Mr. Charles H. Tomlinson, of Schenectady, N. Y., in giving an account of his experience says:

“The two last years’ corn has been raised in the following manner, on the Mohawk Flats near this city. If in grass, the land is plowed and well harrowed, lengthwise of the furrow, without disturbing the sward. The ground is then prepared for planting, by being marked out two and a half feet one way and three feet the other. The last season, the field was rolled after being planted, with evident benefit, as it made it level. When the corn is three inches high, the cultivator is passed through both ways; and twice afterward it is used in the same manner; no hills are made, but the ground is kept level. Neither hand-hoe nor plow are used, after the corn is planted. Fields manured with coarse manure have been tilled in the same manner. Corn tilled in this way is as clean of weeds as when tilled in the usual way: it is no more liable to be blown down, and the produce equally good. It saves a great deal of hard labor which is an expensive item in the usual culture of corn. Last October, ten rods were measured out in two different places, in a corn-field, on grass land—the one yielding ten, the other nine, bushels of ears. In one corn-field, after the last dressing in July, timothy and clover-seed were sown, and in the fall the grass appeared to have taken as well as it has done in adjoining fields where it had been sown with oats.”

Upon which Judge Buel again remarks: “All, or nearly all, the accounts we have published of great products of Indian corn, agree in two particulars, viz. in not using the plow in the culture, and in not earthing, or but very slightly, the hills. These results go to demonstrate, that the entire roots are essential to the vigor of the crops, and to enable them to perform their functions as nature designed, must be near the surface. If the roots are severed with the plow, in dressing the crop, the plants are deprived of a portion of their nourishment; and if they are buried deep by hilling, the plant is partially exhausted in throwing out a new set near the surface, where alone they can perform all their offices. There is another material advantage in this mode of cultivating the corn crop—it saves a vast deal of manual labor.”

The preceding considerations justify us in recommending, that in the management of the Indian corn crop, the following rules be observed, or at least partially, so far as to test their correctness.

1. That the corn harrow and cultivator be substituted for the plow in the culture of the crop.

2. That the plants be not hilled, or but slightly so—this not to prevent the soil being often stirred and kept clean, and,

3. That in harvesting, the crop be cut at the ground as soon as the grain is glazed.

Again, in reference to the system of level cultivation of corn, Judge Buel remarks:

“The experience of the last two years has been sufficient to admonish us, that without due precaution, our crops of Indian corn will not pay for the labor bestowed on the culture; and yet, that where due attention has been paid to soil, manure, seed and harvesting, the return has been bountiful, notwithstanding bad seasons. Having been uniformly successful in the culture of this crop, we feel justified in repeating some leading directions for its management.”

“After-culture.—In this the plow should not be used if the corn harrow and cultivator can be had, and if used, should not be suffered to penetrate the soil more than two or three inches. The plow tears the roots, turns up and wastes the manure, and increases the injuries of drought. The main object is to extirpate weeds, and to keep the surface mellow and open, that the heat, air and moisture may exert better their kind influences upon the vegetable matter in the soil, in converting it into nutriment for the crop. At the first dressing with the hand-hoe, the plants are reduced to four, or three, in a hill, the surface is broken among the plants, the weeds carefully extirpated, and a little fresh mold gathered to the hill. At the second dressing, a like process is observed, taking care that the earthing shall not exceed one inch and a half, that the hill be broad and flat, and that the earth for this purpose be not taken from one place, but gathered from the surface between the rows, where it has been loosened by the cultivator.”

MR. MILLER’s METHOD.

“Georgetown × Roads, Kent Co., Md.

“I have just finished measuring the corn that grew this year on a lot of mine of five and a half acres, and have measured 105½ barrels and one bushel of ears, making 103 bushels of corn per acre. The following is the manner in which I prepared the ground, etc. The soil is a stiff clay; and one and a half acres of said lot was in clover last year, the balance in wheat. I put 265 two-horse cart loads of barn-yard manure on it: the manure was coarse, made out of straw, corn-tops and husks, hauled into the yard in January and February, and hauled out in March and April, consequently was very little rotted. I spread it regularly and plowed it down with a large concave plow, seven inches deep. I then harrowed it twice the same way it was plowed. I then had the rows marked out with a small plow, three feet ten inches wide, and one and a half inches deep. I planted my corn from eighteen to twenty-two inches apart, and covered it with hoes: just drawing the furrows over the corn, which covered it one and a half inches below the surface. When the corn was four inches high, I harrowed it, and thinned it to two stalks in the hill: in about two weeks after harrowing, I cultivated it: about the 15th of June I cultivated it again, which was all the tillage I gave it. We farmers of the eastern shore count our corn by the thousand: I had 38,640 hills on my lot, and I think my corn would have been better had I planted earlier: I did not plant until the last of April. I think the planting of corn shallow and working it with the cultivator is much the best way, especially on clover lay.”

Mr. Hopkins’ Method.—“Soil and Culture.—The soil is a warm sandy loam. It was plowed deep in the autumn. About the first of May, I carried on, and spread all over the ground, about thirty loads of stable and barn-yard unfermented manure, then rolled and harrowed the ground well, being careful not to disturb the sod, which was timothy, and mown the summer preceding; and on the 9th and 10th of May planted the same, two and a half feet between the rows, and fifteen inches between the hills. It was dressed with ashes when it made its appearance above ground. On the 10th June commenced weeding and thinning, leaving from two to four of the best spears in each hill, the whole averaging about three spears in a hill. After this I ashed it again, using in all about ten bushels of good unleached house ashes. On the 10th of July commenced hoeing, and at the same time took off all the suckers—put no more about the hills than we took from them, but carefully cleaned out all the weeds from the hills. The seed was prepared by simply wetting it with warm water, and rolling it in plaster.

“Harvesting.—The corn was cut up on the 18th September at the ground, and shocked in small shocks; and on the 9th of October it was housed and husked, and subsequently threshed and measured.

“Product.—Ninety-nine bushels of first-rate corn, without even a nubbin of soft or poor grain, owing to the fact, probably, that there were no suckers on which to grow them.”

POTATO CROP.

The potato crop has never been as much attended to in this region as in New York, and New England. We believe, however, that its value is becoming apparent, and that potatoes will be produced to a much greater extent than hitherto. Reserving some remarks of our own to a future number, we insert the methods of cultivation, employed by eminent cultivators.

Spurrier’s Method of Cultivation.—“Be careful,” says he, “to procure some good sets; that is, to pick a quantity of the best kind of potatoes perfectly sound and of a tolerably large size; these are to be prepared for planting by cutting each root into two, three or more pieces, minding particularly that each piece be furnished with at least one or two eyes, which is sufficient. Being thus prepared, they are to be planted in rows not less than eighteen inches distant: if they are to be plowed between, they must not be less than three feet, and if four feet apart the more eligible.

“The best method I have found by experience is to make a trench either with the spade or plow, about five inches deep, and put long dung or straw at the bottom, laying the sets on it at their proper distances, which is from 9 to 12 inches apart, covering them with mold. They must be kept clean from weeds.”

Mr. Knight’s Plan.—“He recommends the planting of whole potatoes, and those only which are of fine medium size—none to be of less weight than four ounces. The early sorts, and, indeed, all which seldom attain a greater height than two feet, are to be planted about four or five inches apart in the rows, centre from centre, the crown ends upward, the rows to be from 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet asunder. The late potatoes, which produce a haulm above 3 feet in height, are to be planted 5 or 6 inches apart, centre from centre, in rows 4 or 5 feet asunder. The potatoes to point north and south and to be well manured.”

Mackenzie’s Plan.—“Work the ground until it is completely reduced and free from root weeds. Three plowings, with frequent harrowings and rollings, are necessary in both cases, before the land is in a suitable condition. When this is accomplished, form the drills; place the manure in the drills, plant above it, reverse the drills for covering it and the seed, then harrow the drills in length.

“It is not advantageous to cut the seed into small slips; for the strength of the stem at the outset depends in direct proportion to the vigor and power of the seed-plant. The seed-plant, therefore, ought to be large, rarely smaller than the fourth part of the potato; and if the seed is of small size, one half of the potato may be profitably used. At all events, rather err in giving over large seed than in making it too small; because, by the first error, no great loss can ever be sustained; whereas, by the other, a feeble and late crop may be the consequence. When the seed is properly cut, it requires from ten to twelve hundred weight of potatoes, from 12½ to 15 bushels, where the rows are at 27 inches distance; but this generally depends greatly upon the size of the potatoes used; if they are large a greater weight may be required; but the extra quality will be abundantly repaid by the superiority of the crop, which large seed usually produces. Plant early in May.”

Barnum’s Plan.—“Plow deep and pulverize well by thoroughly harrowing; manure with compost, decomposed vegetables or barnyard manure; the latter preferable. When coarse or raw manure is used it must be spread and plowed in immediately. Stiff clay soil should always be plowed the fall previous. Lay your land in drills 27 inches apart, with a small plow, calculated for turning a deep, narrow furrow running north and south; lay on the bottom of the drills 2 inches of well-rotted barnyard manure, or its equivalent, then drop your potatoes, if of the common size, or what is more important, if they retain the usual quantity of eyes—if more, they should be cut to prevent too many stalks shooting up together; put a single potato in the drills or trenches 10 inches apart, the first should remain uncovered until the second one is deposited, to place them diagonally in the drills, which will afford more space between the potatoes one way, than if laid at right angles in the rows. The covering may be performed with a hoe, first hauling in the furrow raised on each side the drill, then carefully take from the centre of the space the soil to finish the covering to the depth of 3½ or 4 inches; by taking the earth from the centre of the space on either side to the width of 3 inches, it will leave a drain of 6 inches in the centre of the space and a hill of 14 inches in width gently descending from the drill to the drain, the width and depth of the drill will be sufficient to protect the plant against any injurious effects of a scorching sun or drenching rain. The drains in the centre will at all times be found sufficient to pass off the surplus water.

“When the plant makes its appearance above the surface, the following mixture may be used: for each acre take 1 bushel of plaster and 2 bushels of good ashes, and sow it broadcast as even as possible; a moist day is preferable for this operation—for want of it, a still evening will do.

“The operation of hilling should be performed once and once only during the season; if repeated after the potatoe is formed it will cause young shoots to spring up, which retards the growth of the potatoe and diminishes its size. If weeds spring up at any time they should be kept down by the hand or hoe, which can be done without disturbing the growth of the stalk.

“My manner of hoeing or hilling is not to haul in the earth from the space between the hills or rows, but to bring on fresh earth sufficient to raise the hill around the plant 1½ or 2 inches; in a wet season the lesser quantity will be sufficient, in a dry one the larger will not be found too much. The substance for this purpose may consist of the scrapings of ditches or filthy streets, or the earth from a barnyard that requires levelling: where convenient, it may be taken from swamps, marshes, the beds and banks of rivers or small sluggish streams at low water. If planted on a clay soil, fresh loam taken at any depth from the surface, even if it partakes largely of fine sand, will be found an excellent top-dressing. If planted on a loamy soil, the earth taken from clay pits, clay or slaty soil will answer a valuable purpose; in fact, there are but few farms in the country but what may be furnished with some suitable substance for top-dressing, if sought for. The hoeing and hilling may be performed with facility by the aid of a horse and cart, the horse travelling in the centre of a space between the drills, the cart-wheels occupying the two adjoining ones, thereby avoiding any disturbance or injury to the growing plants.”

Mr. Barnum’s method has attracted great attention, from the fact that he actually raised from 1,000 to 1,500 bushels of potatoes to the acre! When this was first published it was received with great incredulity; calls were made for the method of cultivation, which drew forth an elaborate article from Mr. B., of which the above is but a morsel. It afterward was stated, and the most authentic and unquestionable evidence adduced in proof, that Mr. Barnum raised, upon experiment, at the rate of more than 3,000 bushels to the acre. Now, although the labor and the great amount of seed required would prevent the cultivation of many acres of land thus, yet it is worth a trial in a small way; and if one acre can be made to produce 1,000 bushels, it will be as much as is usually dug from five acres; and it is questionable whether the labor and seed for five acres are not more than that required by Mr. B.’s method for one.

Mr. A. Robinson’s Plan.—He says: “If I plant low ground, I plow my ground in beds in a different direction for the water to drain off, then harrow lengthwise of the furrows and small lands; having a number of them, side and side, I take a light, sharp horse-harrow, and harrow crosswise of the beds, which pulverizes the ground and fits it well for planting, leaving a small space between the rows, which answers for two purposes, one for a guide for the rows for dropping: this is done by dropping in the middle of the tracks of the harrow, which is easily and correctly performed, by any small boy. It also serves completely to fill up all cracks or holes, the seed lying fair and easy. I then drop my manure directly over the seed potatoes, and when covered up, the seed is safe from inundation, by being some inches above the surrounding surface: the seed lies warm under this manure, the rains drain into the middle furrows; I plant three feet distance; it takes the most of the surface that is pulverized to cover the potatoes, and by the time they are twice well hoed, my hills are as I want them to be. They naturally rise high above the surface in the form of a sugar-loaf: this hill is to turn off heavy rains, and it naturally keeps the potatoes from being too moist, and they are often injured thereby. I have found that three feet each way is the most proper distance to insure a good crop; I plant three common sized potatoes in the hill; it is no use to cut them: if cut small, the vines come up small and weak, grow fast and fall down.”

The following method we take from an able writer in the Louisville Journal, signing himself “Grazier:”

“The ground selected for potatoes should be dry, where no surface-water will rest. It should be rich; if not naturally so, it must be made so by a sufficient quantity of good manure. It should be plowed twice, and at least twelve inches deep. After the first plowing, it should be harrowed and cross harrowed; and after the second plowing, harrowed again, and if not very friable and free from clods it should then be rolled. The mold cannot be too fine, as on the depth of the plowing, and fineness of the earth, depend the retention of that moisture so indispensable to the health and maturing of all bulbous roots in particular. The ground thus prepared, should then be opened off in drills, three feet from the centre of one to the centre of the other, and, if practicable, running north and south. When opened, if manure is to be applied, it must then be hauled in carts; the horse going down between the drills, the bed of the cart will cover two drills, where the manure can be pulled out at intervals, in quantity sufficient, not only for the two drills described, but for one on each side in addition; all of which one hand, following with a fork, can easily distribute and spread in the four drills.

“This done, the ground is ready for the seed. I shall first describe the whole of the cultivation and harvesting necessary, and then speak of the seed and its preparation separately. The seed should be dropped in the manure, twelve inches apart, and as quickly as a drill is planted, the plow should follow and cover it in. The double mold-board plow, which is the proper implement for the business, will cover two drills by going once up and once down the field; if the single mold-board plow is used, it will of course cover but one drill by the same operation. When your ground is thus gone over, your land will all be in high drills, and can rest so for about one week, when you must take a two-horse harrow, and harrow your drills across, leaving your field as level as before your drills were opened. There is no danger, as some would suppose, of disturbing your seed.

“In a few days, when you can see your plants distinctly above ground, from one end of your drills to the other, you must take your one-horse plow, and go up and down each drill, running the land side of your plow as close to the plant on each side as you safely can, throwing the earth away from it, which operation will leave your field in raised drills between your plants. In a few days after this you take your double mold-board plow, and go down the centre of the blank drills, covering all your plants nearly out of sight, observing as you go along that the weight of earth is thrown against, and not on, the plants. Then, in some days after, when your plants are well over the top of your drills, take your scuffle, an implement not unlike your cultivator in this country, and for which the cultivator can be substituted, and go over your whole field between the drills, giving the earth a good stirring, and not be afraid of encroaching a little at each side on the drill. At this stage, a boy should follow the scuffle, and pull up any weeds that appear on the top or sides of the drills. In a few days after this, when your plants are strong and well up, you go down the centre between the drills, with your double mold-board plow, the wings well apart, and throw the earth well up to the plants. This must sometimes finish the cultivation, if the vines have spread and are closed too much, but generally the vines will allow it, and the crop be much benefited by one more scuffling; but this time take particular care not to disturb the drill at the bottom, as the bulbs are now forming and spreading; then gently run your double mold-board plow through the whole field again, narrowing the wings of it, which will have the effect of adding the earth, and compressing it to the bottom of the drill, where the bulbs are forming, rather than throwing it up to the stalk at top, where there is sufficient already. This finishes the cultivation.

“To prepare the seed you must select well-shaped, even potatoes, not too small nor too large. Cut them, leaving one good eye at least to every set; prepare them from two to three weeks at least, before you plant; and each day, as you cut, roll your sets in pulverized lime, and spread them on the barn floor to dry: when dry, heap them in a corner till taken out to plant. If this plan is pursued, and the ground selected and prepared as directed, you may rest satisfied that so sure as the laws of nature are invariable, and that like effects follow like causes, as sure will a good and sound crop of potatoes be produced in this climate with no variation in the result, except what may be occasioned by the vicissitudes of the season.

“Ten tons of potatoes, two thousand two hundred and forty pounds to the ton, is considered a fair crop in Ireland. Twelve tons an extra one—equal to three hundred and seventy bushels the first, and four hundred and forty-four bushels the second, allowing sixty pounds to the bushel, which I have found to be about the average weight of a bushel here. I have grown four crops of potatoes in this country, in two different situations and latitudes (six acres the smallest quantity cultivated any season). Each crop was treated in every particular as here described, and in three instances out of the four, I got a little over four hundred measured bushels to the acre. The fourth crop was only about three hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, caused by the peculiarity of the season, which produced an almost entire failure with my neighbors, under their management.”

POTTING GARDEN PLANTS FOR WINTER USE.

Roses, geraniums, chrysanthemums, Cape jasmins, etc., which have been put into the garden borders, should be prepared for removal to the parlor for winter, before frost, else the plants will not be established in the pots when removed to the parlor, and will thrive but poorly.

Select the pot which is to receive each plant, draw a circle about the plant of the size of the pot, then thrust a sharp spade down so as to cut all the roots at the line of the circle described. Let the plant remain, watering it thoroughly; and if it droops, let it be sheltered from the sun. In a few days new roots will begin to form within the ball of earth described by the circle, and in three or four weeks that ball may be carefully lifted, placed in the pot for which it was measured, and it will go on growing as if nothing had happened to it. If one waits till frost, then digs up the plant without a previous preparation of its roots, it will oftentimes not recover from the violence during the winter. But by the method suggested above, roses, etc., will go on growing and blooming through the winter.

There are many who suppose it necessary to leave the second growth of grass undisturbed, to rot on the ground, in order to preserve the fertility of old meadows in grass where top dressing with manure is not resorted to. But such management is oftentimes extremely hurtful, and the injury is proportioned to the amount left untrodden and unfed. If the amount left standing, or laying loose upon the surface, be considerable, it makes a harbor for mice, which will, under cover of the old grass, intersect the surface of the land with paths innumerable, from which they cut all the grass that comes in their way.

MARY HOWITT’S USE OF FLOWERS.

Here is another of those beautiful gems which can never be brought to the light too often. And when more appropriately than in the middle of our spring-time, while bursting buds and fragrant blossoms are delighting every sense?

WHAT ARE FLOWERS GOOD FOR?

“I have said and written a great deal to my countrymen about the cultivation of flowers, ornamental gardening, and rural embellishments; and I would read them a homily on the subject every day of every remaining year of my life, if I thought it would induce them to make this a matter of particular attention and care. When a man asks me, what is the use of shrubs and flowers, my first impulse is always, to look under his hat and see the length of his ears. I am heartily sick of measuring everything by a standard of mere utility and profit; and as heartily do I pity the man, who can see no good in life but in the pecuniary gain, or in the mere animal indulgences of eating and drinking.”—Colman’s Agricultural Tour.

We protest against the sauciness of the italicized line. Mr. Colman never feels any such impulse; and if he does, he ought to suspect his own ears. Nothing is more preposterous than interflagellations among men on the matter of likes and dislikes. Every man selects his ruling passion, and scoffs at such as do not grow enthusiastic with him. A market gardener rails at a florist for fol-de-rol trifles; and the florist looks at the length of the fellow’s ears who has nothing but turnips, onions, and cabages; while a big Miami farmer, who puts in his five-hundred-acre corn-patch, by way of summer amusement, regards both as small affairs. We find no fault with those who possess a super-ardent enthusiasm for flowers; but when they throw it in other people’s faces, and call them brutes and asses, for not liking pretty flowers, we think the thing has been carried quite far enough. We love good manners along with pretty flowers.

THE BLIGHT IN THE PEAR-TREE.[18]

ITS CAUSE AND A REMEDY FOR IT.

The year 1844 will long be remembered for the extensive ravages of that disease hitherto denominated fire-blight. Beginning at the Atlantic coast, we have heard of it in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and as far as Tennessee; and it is probable that it has been felt in every fruit-growing State in the Union where the season of 1843 was the same as that west of the Alleghany range, namely, cold in spring, dry throughout the summer, and a wet and warm fall, with early and sudden winter.

In Indiana, and Ohio the blight has prevailed to such an extent as to spread dismay among cultivators; destroying entire collections—taking half the trees in large orchards—affecting both young and old trees, whether grafted or seedings in soils of every kind. Many have seen the labor and fond hope of years cut off, in one season, by an invisible destroyer, against which none could guard; because, in the conflicting opinions, none were certain whether the disease was atmospheric, insect or chemical.

I shall now proceed to describe that blight known in the western States (without pretending to identify it with the blight known in New York and New England), to examine the theories proposed for its causation, and to present what now seems to me the true cause.

I. Description.—Although the signs of it, as will appear in the sequel, may be detected long before the leaves put out in the spring, yet its full effects do not begin to appear until May, or if the spring be backward, until June. On the wood of the last year will be found a point where the bark is either dead and dry, or else at the same point the bark will be puffed, softened, or sappy with thickened sap—these two appearances indicating only different degrees of the same blight. Wherever the bark is dead and dry, the limb will flourish above it, make new wood, ripen its fruit, but perish the ensuing winter. In the other case, as soon as the circulation of the sap becomes active, the point described shows signs of disease, the leaf turns to a darker brown than is natural to its ordinary decay, being nearly black, and the wood perishes.

The disease, at first, blights the terminal portions of the branch; but the affection spreads gradually downward, and sometimes affects the whole trunk. The time from the first appearance of the blight to that in which any affected part dies, is various; sometimes two or three weeks—sometimes a day only; and sometimes, but rarely, even a few hours consummate the disease.

On dissecting the branch, the wood is of a dirty, brownish, yellow color; the sap thick and unctuous, of a sour disagreeable odor, like that of a fermented watermelon, on the tops of potato vines after they have been frosted. In still, moist days, where the blight is extensive in an orchard, this odor fills the air, and is disagreeably perceptible at some distance from the trees.

Sometimes the bark bursts, the sap exudes, and runs down, turning black; and its acridity will destroy vegetation on which it may drop, and shoots, at a distance from the trunk, upon which the rain washes this ichor, will soon perish. When we come to treat of the cause of this disease, it will be important to remember this malignancy of the fluids.

We are carefully to distinguish these appearances, peculiar to what I suppose ought to be called winter-blight, from another and a summer-blight. In this last, the leaf is affected at first in spots; gradually the whole leaf turns russet color and drops. Along the wood may be seen the hardened trail as of a slimy insect, of an ash color. The wood suffers very little by this summer-blight, and sometimes none. The winter-blight is found on almost all kinds of trees. This summer it has affected the apple, the pear, the peach, the quince, the English hawthorn, privet, black birch, Spanish chestnut, elder, and calycanthus. I enumerate the most of these kinds on the authority of J. H. James, of Urbana, Ohio, and C. W. Elliott, of Cincinnati, having observed it myself only on fruit-trees.

II. Theories.—A variety of theories exist as to the causes of this disease. Some are mere imaginations; some are only ingenious; and some so near to what I suppose to be the truth, that it is hardly possible to imagine how the discovery was not made.

The injury is done in the fall, but is not seen till spring or summer, or even the next fall. Thus, six months or a year intervene between the cause and the effect—a sufficient reason for the difficulty of detecting the origin of the evil.

1. Some have alleged that the rays of the sun, passing through vapors which arise about the trees, concentrate upon the branches, and destroy them by the literal energy of fire. Were this true, the young and tender shoots would suffer first and most; all pear-trees would suffer alike; moist and hot summers would be affected with blight; herbaceous plants would suffer more than ligneous: all of which results are contrary to facts.

2. Some have supposed the soil to contain deleterious substances, or to be wanting in properties necessary to health. But in either case such a cause of the blight appears untrue, when we consider that trees suffer in all soils, rich or poor; that, in the same soil, one tree is blighted and the next tree escapes; that they will flourish for twenty years and then blight; that a tree partially diseased recovers, and thrives for ten or more years without recurrence of blight.

3. It has been attributed to violent and sudden changes of temperature in the air and of moisture in the earth; to sudden change from sward to high tillage; and the result is stated to be an “overplus” of sap, or a “surfeit.” All these causes occur every year; but the blight does not every year follow them. Changes of temperature, and violent changes in the condition of the soil, may be allied with the true cause. But when only these things exist, no blight follows.

4. Others have attributed the disease to over-stimulation by high manuring, or constant tillage; and it has been said that covering the roots with stones and rubbish, or laying the orchard down to grass, would prevent the evil. Facts warrant no such conclusions. Pear-trees in Gibson County, Indiana, on a clay soil, with blue slaty subsoil, were affected this year more severely than any of which we have heard. Pears in southern parts of this State, on red clay, where the ground had long been neglected, suffered as much as along the rich bottom lands of the Wabash about Vincennes. If there was any difference it was in favor of the richest land. About Mooresville, Morgan County, Indiana, pears have been generally affected, and those in grass lands as much as those in open soils. Aside from these facts, it is well known that pear-trees do not blight in those seasons when they make the rankest growth more than in others. They will thrive rampantly for years, no evil arising from their luxuriance, and then suddenly die of blight.

5. It has been supposed by a few to be the effect of age, the disease beginning on old varieties, and propagated upon new varieties by contagion. Were this the true cause, we should expect it to be most frequently developed in those pear regions where old varieties most abound. But this disease seems to be so little known in England, that Loudon, in his elaborate Encyclopedia of Gardening, does not even mention it. Mr. Manning’s statement will be given further on, to the same purport.

6. Insect theory: The confidence with which eastern cultivators pronounce the cause to be an insect, has in part served to cover up singular discrepancies in the separate statements in respect to the ravages, and even the species of this destroyer. The Genesee Farmer of July, 1843, says, “the cause of the disease was for many years a matter of dispute, and is so still by some persons; but the majority are now fully convinced that it is the work of an insect (scolytus pyri).” T. W. Harris, in his work on insects, speaks of the minuteness and obscure habits of this insect, as “reasons why it has eluded the researches of those persons who disbelieve in its existence as the cause of the blasting of the limbs of the pear-tree.” Dr. Harris evidently supposed, until so late as 1843, that this insect infested only the pear-tree; for he says, “the discovery of the blight-beetle in the limbs of the apple-tree, is a new fact in natural history; but it is easily accounted for, because this tree belongs not only to the same natural group, but also to the same genus as the pear-tree. It is not, therefore, surprising, that both the pear and the apple-tree should occasionally be attacked by the same insect.” [See an article in the Massachusetts Ploughman, summer of 1843, quoted in Genesee Farmer, July, 1843.]

This insect is said to eat through the alburnum, the hard wood, and even a part of the pith, and to destroy the branch by separation of part from part, as a saw would. On these facts, which there is no room to question, we make two remarks.

1st. That the blight thus produced is limited, and probably sectional or local. No account has met my eye which leads me to suppose that any considerable injury has been done by it. Mr. Manning, of Salem, Mass., in the second edition of his “Book of Flowers,” states that he has never “had any trees affected by it”—the blight. Yet his garden and nursery has existed for twenty years, and contained immense numbers of trees.

2d. It is very plain that neither Mr. Lowell, originally, nor Dr. Harris, nor any who describe the blight as caused by the blight-beetle, had any notion of that disease which passes by the same name in the middle and western States. The blight of the scolytus pyri is a mere girdling of the branches—a mechanical separation of parts; and no mention is made of the most striking facts incident to the great blight—the viscid unctuous sap; the bursting of the bark, through which it issues; and its poisonous effects on the young shoots upon which it drops.

We do not doubt the insect-blight; but we are sure that it is not our blight. We feel very confident, also, that this blight, which from its devastations may be called the great blight, has been felt in New England, in connection with the insect-blight, and confounded with it, and the effects of two different causes happening to appear in conjunction, have been attributed to one, and the least influential cause. The writer in Fessenden’s American Gardener (Mr. Lowell?) says of the blight, “it is sometimes so rapid in its progress, that in a few hours from its first appearance the whole tree will appear to be mortally diseased.” This is not insect-blight; for did the blight-beetle eat so suddenly around the whole trunk? Now here is a striking appearance of the great blight, confounded with the minor blight, as we think will appear in the sequel.

This theory has stood in the way of a discovery of the true cause of the great blight; for every cultivator has gone in search of insects; they have been found in great plenty, and in great variety of species, and their harmless presence accused with all the mischief of the season. A writer in the Farmer’s Advocate, Jamestown, N. C., discerned the fire-blight, and traced it to “small, red, pellucid insects, briskly moving from place to place on the branches.” This is not the scolytus pyri of Prof. Peck and Dr. Harris.

Dr. Mosher, of Cincinnati, in a letter published in the Farmer and Gardener for June, 1844, describes a third insect—“very minute brown-colored aphides, snugly secreted in the axilla of every leaf on several small branches; … most of them were busily engaged with their proboscis inserted through the tender cuticle of this part of the petiole of the leaf, feasting upon the vital juices of the tree. The leaves being thus deprived of the necessary sap for nourishment and elaboration soon perished, … while all that part of the branch and trunk below, dependent upon the elaborated sap of the deadened leaves above, shrunk, turned black, and dried up,” p. 261.

Lindley, in his work on Horticulture, p. 42-46, has detailed experiments illustrating vegetable perspiration, from which we may form an idea of the amount of fluid which these “very-minute brown-colored aphides” would have to drink. A sunflower, three and a half feet high, perspired in a very warm day thirty ounces—nearly two pounds; on another day, twenty ounces. Taking the old rule, “a pint a pound,” nearly a quart of fluid was exhaled by a sunflower in twelve hours; and the vessels were still inflated with a fresh supply drawn from the roots. Admitting that the leaves of a fruit-tree have a less current of sap than a sunflower or a grape-vine, yet in the months of May and June, the amount of sap to be exhausted by these very minute brown aphides, would be so great, that if they drank it so suddenly as to cause a tree to die in a day, they would surely augment in bulk enough to be discovered without a lens. If some one had accounted for the low water in the Mississippi, in the summer of 1843, by saying that buffaloes had drank up all the upper Missouri, and cut off the supply, we should be at a loss which most to pity, the faith of the narrator, or the probable condition of the buffaloes after their feat of imbibition.

But the most curious results follow these feats of suction. The limbs and trunk below shrink and turn black, for want of that elaborated sap extracted by the aphides. And yet every year we perform artificially this very operation in ringing or decortication of branches, for the purpose of accelerating maturation or improving the fruit. Every year the saw takes off a third, a half, and sometimes more, of a living tree; and the effect is to produce new shoots, not death. Is an operation which can be safely performed by man, deadly when performed by an insect? Dr. Masher did not detect the insects without extreme search, and then only in colonies, on healthy branches. Do whole trees wither in a day by the mere suction of such insects? Had they been supposed to poison the fluids, the theory would be less exceptionable, since poisons in minute quantities may be very malignant.

While we admit a limited mischief of insects, they can never be the cause of the prevalent blight of the middle and western States—such a blight as prevailed in and around Cincinnati in the summer of 1844—nor of that blight which prevailed in 1832. The blight-beetle, after most careful search and dissection, has not been found, nor any trace or passage of it. Dr. Mosher’s insect may be set aside without further remark.

I think that further observation will confirm the following conclusions:

1. Insects are frequently found feeding in various ways upon blighted trees, or on trees which afterward become so.

2. Trees are fatally blighted on which no insects are discerned feeding—neither aphides nor scolytus pyri.

3. Multitudes of trees have such insects on them as are in other cases supposed to cause the blight, without a sign of blight following. This has been the case in our own garden.

III. Cause of the Blight.—The Indiana Horticultural Society, early in the summer of 1844, appointed a committee to collect and investigate facts on the Fire-Blight. While serving on this committee, and inquiring in all the pear-growing regions, we learned that Reuben Reagan, of Putnam County, Ind., was in possession of much information, and supposed himself to have discovered the cause of this evil; and to him we are indebted for a first suggestion of the cause. Mr. Reagan has for more than twelve years past suspected that this disease originated in the fall previous to the summer on which it declares itself. During the last winter Mr. Reagan predicted the blight, and in his pear-orchards he marked the trees that would suffer, and pointed to the spot which would be the seat of the disease; and his prognostications were strictly verified. After gathering from him all the information which a limited time would allow, we obtained from Aaron Alldredge, of Indianapolis, a nurseryman of great skill, and possessed of careful, cautious habits of observation, much corroborative information; and particularly a tabular account of the blight for nine years past in his nursery and orchard.

The spring of 1843 opened early, but cold and wet, until the last of May. The summer was both dry and cool, and trees made very little growth of new wood. Toward autumn, however, the drought ceased, copious rains saturated the ground, and warm weather started all trees into vigorous, though late, growth. At this time, while we hoped for a long fall and a late winter, on the contrary we were surprised by an early and sudden winter, and with unusual severity at the very beginning. In the West, much corn was ruined and more damaged; and hundreds of bushels of apples were caught on the trees and spoiled—one cultivator alone losing five hundred bushels. Caught in this early winter, what was the condition of fruit-trees? They were making rapid growth, every part in a state of excitement, the wood unripe, the passages of ascent and descent impleted with sap. In this condition, the fluids were suddenly frozen—the growth instantly checked; and the whole tree, from a state of great excitability, was, by one shock, rudely forced into a state of rest. Warm suns, for a time, followed severe nights. What would be the effect of this freezing and sudden thawing upon the fluids and their vessels? We have been able to find so little written upon vegetable morbid anatomy (probably from the want of access to books), that we can give but an imperfect account of the derangement produced upon the circulating fluids by congelation. We cannot state the specific changes produced by cold upon the ascending sap, or on the cambium, nor upon the elaborated descending current. There is reason to suppose that the two latter only suffer, and probably only the last. That freezing and thawing decompose the coloring matter of plants is known; but what other decomposition, if any, is effected, we know not. The effect of congelation upon the descending sap of pear and apple-trees, is to turn it to a viscid, unctuous state. It assumes a reddish brown color; becomes black by exposure to the air; is poisonous to vegetables even when applied upon the leaf. Whether in some measure this follows all degrees of congelation, or only under certain conditions, we have no means of knowing.

The effect of freezing and thawing upon the tissues and sap-vessels is better known. Congelation is accompanied with expansion; the tender vessels are either burst or lacerated; the excitability of the parts is impaired or destroyed; the air is expelled from the aëriferous cavities, and forced into the passages for fluids; and lastly, the tubes for the conveyance of fluids are obstructing by a thickening of their sides.[19] The fruit-trees, in the fall of 1843, were then brought into a morbid state—the sap thickened and diseased; the passages lacerated, obstructed, and probably, in many instances burst. The sap elaborated, and now passing down in an injured state, would descend slowly, by reason of its inspissation, the torpidity of the parts, and the injured condition of the vessels. The grosser parts, naturally the most sluggish, would tend to lodge and gradually collect at the junction of fruit-spurs, the forks of branches, or wherever the condition of the sap-vessels favored a lodgment. In some cases the passages are wholly obstructed; in others, only in part.

At length the spring approaches. In early pruning, the cultivator will find, in those trees which will ere long develop blight, that the knife is followed by an unctuous sap, and that the liber is of a greenish yellow color. These will be the first signs, and the practised eye may detect them long before a leaf is put forth.

When the season is advanced sufficiently to excite the tree to action, the sap will, as usual, ascend by the alburnum, which has probably been but little injured; the leaf puts out, and no outward sign of disease appears; nor will it appear until the leaf prepares the downward current. May, June and July, are the months when the growth is most rapid, and when the tree requires the most elaborate sap; and in these months the blight is fully developed. When the descending fluid reaches the point where, in the previous fall, a total obstruction had taken place, it is as effectually stopped as if the branch were girdled. For the sap which had lodged there would, by the winds and sun, be entirely dried. This would not be the case if the sap was good and the vitality of the wood unimpaired; but where the sap and vessels are both diseased, the sun affects the branch on the tree just as it would if severed and lying on the ground. There will, therefore, be found on the tree, branches with spots where the bark is dead and shrunk away below the level of the surrounding bark; and at these points the current downward is wholly stopped. Only the outward part, however, is dead, while the alburnum, or sap-wood, is but partially injured. Through the alburnum, then, the sap from the roots passes up, enters the leaf, and men are astonished to see a branch, seemingly dead in the middle, growing thriftily at its extremity. No insect-theory can account for this case; yet it is perfectly plain and simple when we consider that there are two currents of sap, one of which may be destroyed, and the other for a limited time go on. The blight, under this aspect, is nothing but ringing or decortication, effected by diseased sap, destroying the parts in which it lodges, and then itself drying up. The branch will grow, fruit will set, and frequently become larger and finer flavored than usual.

But in a second class of cases, the downward current comes to a point where the diseased sap had effected only a partial lodgment. The vitality of the neighboring parts was preserved, and the diseased fluids have been undried by wind or sun, and remain more or less inspissated. The descending current meets and takes up more or less of this diseased matter, according to the particular condition of the sap. Wherever the elaborated sap passes, after touching this diseased region, it will carry its poison along with it down the trunk, and, by the lateral vessels, in toward the pith. We may suppose that a violence which would destroy the health of the outer parts, would, to some degree, rupture the inner sap-vessels. By this, or by some unknown way, the diseased sap is taken into the inner,[20] upward current, and goes into the general circulation. If it be in a diluted state, or in small quantities, languor and decline will be the result; if in large quantities, and concentrated, the branch will die suddenly, and the odor of it will be that of frost-bitten vegetation. All the different degrees of mortality result from the quantity and quality of the diseased sap which is taken into circulation. In conclusion, then, where, in one class of cases, the feculent matter was, in the fall, so virulent as to destroy the parts where it lodged, and was then dried by exposure to wind and sun, the branch above will live, even through the summer, but perish the next winter; and the spring afterward, standing bare amid green branches, the cultivator may suppose the branch to have blighted that spring, although the cause of death was seated eighteen months before. When, in the other class of cases, the diseased sap is less virulent in the fall, but probably growing worse through the spring, a worse blight ensues, and a more sudden mortality.

We will mention some proofs of the truth of this explanation.

1. The two great blight years throughout the region of Indianapolis, 1832 and 1844, were preceded by a summer and fall such as we have described. In the autumns of both 1831 and 1843, the orchards were overtaken by a sudden freeze while in a fresh-growing state; and in both cases the consequence was excessive destruction the ensuing spring and summer.

2. In consequence of this diagnosis, it has been found practicable to predict the blight six months before its development. The statement of this fact, on paper, may seem a small measure of proof; but it would weigh much with any candid man to be told, by an experienced nurseryman, this is such a fall as will make blight; to be taken, during the winter into the orchard, and told, this tree has been struck at the junction of these branches; that tree is not at all affected; this tree will die entirely the next season; this tree will go first on this side, etc., and to find, afterward, the prediction verified.

3. This leads us to state separately, the fact, that, after such a fall, blighted-trees may be ascertained during the process of late winter or early spring pruning.

In priming before the sap begins to rise freely, no sap should follow the knife in a healthy tree. But in trees which have been affected with blight, a sticky, viscid sap exudes from the wound.

4. Trees which ripen their wood and leaves early, are seldom affected. This ought to elicit careful observation; for, if found true, it will be an important element in determining the value of varieties of the pear in the middle and western States, where the late and warm autumns render orchards more liable to winter blight than New England orchards. An Orange Bergamot, grafted upon an apple stock, had about run out; it made a small and feeble growth, and cast its leaves in the summer of 1843, long before frost. It escaped the blight entirely; while young trees, and of the same kind (we believe), standing about it, and growing vigorously till the freeze, perished the next season. I have before me a list of more than fifty varieties, growing in the orchard of Aaron Alldredge, of Indianapolis, and their history since 1836; and so far as it can be ascertained, late-growing varieties are the ones, in every case, subject to blight; and of those which have always escaped, the most part are known to ripen leaf and wood early.

5. Wherever artificial causes have either produced or prevented a growth so late as to be overtaken by a freeze, blight has, respectively, been felt or avoided. Out of 200 pear-trees, only four escaped in 1832, in the orchard of Mr. Reagan. These four had, the previous spring, been transplanted, and had made little or no growth during summer or fall. If, however, they had recovered themselves, during the summer, so as to grow in the autumn, transplanting would have had just the other effect; as was the case in a row of pear-trees, transplanted by Mr. Alldredge in 1843. They stood still through the summer and made growth in the fall—were frozen—and in 1844 manifested severe blight. Mr. Alldredge’s orchard affords another instructive fact. Having a row of the St. Michael pear (of which any cultivator might have been proud), standing close by his stable, he was accustomed, in the summer of 1843, to throw out, now and then, manure about them, to force their growth. Under this stimulus they were making excessive growth when winter-struck. Of all his orchard, they suffered, the ensuing summer, the most severely. Of twenty-two trees twelve were affected by the blight, and eight entirely killed. Of seventeen trees of the Bell pear, eleven suffered, but none were killed. All in this region know the vigorous habit of this tree. Of eight Crassane Bergamot (a late grower), five were affected and two killed. In an orchard of 325 trees of 79 varieties, one in seven blighted, 25 were totally destroyed. Although a minute observation was not made on each tree, yet, as a general fact, those which suffered were trees of a full habit and of a late growth.

6. Mr. White, a nurseryman near Mooresville, Morgan County, Indiana, in an orchard of from 150 to 200 trees, had not a single case of the blight in the year 1844, though all around him its ravages were felt. What were the facts in this case? His orchard is planted on a mound-like piece of ground; is high, of a sandy, gravelly soil: earlier by a week than nursery soils in this county; and in the summer of 1843 his trees grew through the summer; wound up and shed their leaves early in the fall, and during the warm spell made no second growth. The orchard, then, that escaped, was one on such a soil as insured an early growth, so that the winter fell upon ripened wood.

7. It may be objected, that if the blight began in the new and growing wood, it would appear there; whereas the seat of the evil, i. e. the place where the bark is diseased or dead, is lower down and on old wood. Certainly, it should be; for the returning sap falls some ways down before it effects a lodgment.

8. It might be said that spring-frosts might produce this disease. But in the spring of 1834, in the last of May, after the forest-trees were in full leaf; there came frost so severe as to cut every leaf; and to this day the dead tops of the beech attest the power of the frost. But no blight occurred that year in orchard, garden or nursery.

9. It may be asked why forest-trees do not suffer. To some extent they do. But usually the dense shade preserves the moisture of the soil, and favors an equal growth during the spring and summer; so that the excitability of the tree is spent before autumn, and it is going to rest when frost strikes it.

10. It may be inquired why fall-growing shrubs are not always blighted, since many kinds are invariably caught by the frost in a growing state.

We reply, first, that we are not to say that every tree or shrub suffers from cold in the same manner. We assert it of fruit-trees because it has been observed; it must be asserted of other trees only when ascertained.

We reply more particularly, that a mere frost is not supposed to do the injury. The conditions under which blight is supposed to originate are, a growing state of the tree, a sudden freeze, and sudden thawing.

We would here add, that many things are yet to be ascertained before this theory can be considered as settled; as the actual state of the sap after congelation, ascertained by experiment; the condition of sap-vessels, as ascertained by dissection; whether the congelation, or the thawing, or both, produce the mischief; whether the character of the season following the fall-injury may not materially modify the malignancy of the disease; seasons that are hot, moist and cloudy, propagating the evil; and others dry, and cool, restraining growth and the dsease. It is to be hoped that these points will be carefully investigated, not by conjecture, but by scientific processes.

11. We have heard it objected, that trees grafted in the spring blight in the graft during the summer. If the stock had been affected in the fall, blight would arise from it; if the scion had, in common with the tree from which it was cut, been injured, blight must arise from it.

Blight is frequently caused in the nursery; and the cultivator, who has brought trees from a distance, and with much expense, has scarcely planted them before they show blight and die.

12. It is objected, that while only a single branch is at first affected, the evil is imparted to the whole tree; not only to the wood of the last year, but to the old branches. We reply, that if a single branch only should be affected by fall-frost, and be so severely affected as to become a repository of much malignant fluid, it might gradually enter the system of the whole tree, through the circulation. This fact shows, why cutting is a partial remedy; every diseased branch removed, removes so much poison; it shows also why cutting from below the seat of the disease (as if to fall below the haunt of a supposed insect), is beneficial. The farther the cut is made from that point where the sap has clogged the passages, the less of it will remain to enter the circulation.

13. Trees of great vigor of constitution, in whose system but little poison exists, may succeed after a while in rejecting the evil, and recover. Where much enters the system, the tree must die; and with a suddenness proportioned to the amount of poison circulated.

14. A rich and dry soil would be likely to promote early growth, and the tree would finish its work in time; but a rich and moist soil, by forcing the growth, would prepare the tree for blight; so that rich soils may prevent or prepare for the blight, and the difference will be the difference of the respective soils in producing an early instead of a late growth.

IV. Remedy.—So long as the blight was believed to be of insect origin, it appeared totally irremediable. If the foregoing reasoning be found correct, it will be plain that the scourge can only be occasional; that it may be in a degree prevented; and to some extent remedied where it exists.

1. We should begin by selecting for pear orchards a warm, light, rich, dry and early soil. This will secure an early growth and ripe wood before winter sets in.

2. So soon as observation has determined what kinds are naturally early growers and early ripeners of wood, such should be selected; as they will be least likely to come under those conditions in which blight occurs.

3. Wherever orchards are already planted; or where a choice in soils cannot be had, the cultivator may know by the last of August or September, whether a fall-growth is to be expected. To prevent it, we suggest immediate root-pruning. This will benefit the tree at any rate, and will probably, by immediately restraining growth, prevent blight.

4. Whenever blight has occurred, we know of no remedy but free and early cutting. In some cases it will remove all diseased matter; in some it will alleviate only; but in bad blight, there is neither in this, nor in anything else that we are aware of, any remedy.

There are two additional subjects, with which we shall close this paper.

1. This blight is not to be confounded with winter-killing. In the winter of either 1837 or 1838, in March a deep snow fell (in the region of Indianapolis) and was immediately followed by brilliant sun. Thousands of nursery-trees perished in consequence, but without putting out leaves, or lingering. It is a familiar fact to orchardists, that severe cold, followed by warm suns, produce a bursting of the bark along the trunk; but usually at the surface of the ground.

2. We call the attention of cultivators to the disease of the peach-tree, called “The Yellows.” We have not spoken of it as the same disease as the blight in the pear and the apple, only because we did not wish to embarrass this subject by too many issues. We will only say, that it is the opinion of the most intelligent cultivators among us, that the yellows are nothing but the development of the blight according to the peculiar habits of the peach-tree. We mention it, that observation may be directed to the facts.

PROGRESS OF HORTICULTURE IN INDIANA.[21]

I am induced to send you some remarks upon Horticultural matters, from observing your disposition to make your magazine not merely a record of specific processes, and a register of plants and fruits, but also a chronicle of the yearly progress and condition of the Horticultural art. I should be glad if I could in any degree thus repay the pleasure which others have given me through your numbers, by reciprocal efforts.

The Indiana Horticultural State fair is held annually, on the 4th and 5th of October. Experience has shown that it should be earlier; for, although a better assortment of late fruits, in which, hitherto, we have chiefly excelled, is secured, it is at the expense of small fruits and flowers. The floral exhibition was meagre—the frost having already visited and despoiled our gardens. The chief attraction, as, in an agricultural community, it must long continue to be, was the exhibition of fruit. My recollection of New England fruits, after an absence of more than ten years, is not distinct; but my impression is, that so fine a collection of fruits could scarcely be shown there. The luxuriance of the peach, the plum, the pear and the apple, is such, in this region, as to afford the most perfect possible specimens. The vigor of fruit-trees, in such a soil and under a heaven so congenial, produces fruits which are very large without being coarse-fleshed; the flavor concentrated, and the color very high. It is the constant remark of emigrants from the East, that our apples surpass those to which they have been accustomed. Many fruits which I remember in Connecticut as light-colored, appear with us almost refulgent. All summer and early fall apples were gone before our exhibition; but between seventy and a hundred varieties of winter apples were exhibited. We never expect to see finer. Our most popular winter apples are: Yellow Bellflower; White Bellflower (called Detroit by the gentlemen of Cincinnati Horticultural Society—but for reasons which are not satisfactory to my mind. What has become of the White Bellflower of Coxe, if this is not it?) Newtown Spitzenberg, exceedingly fine with us; Canfield, Jennetting or Neverfail, escaping spring frosts by late blossoming, very hardy, a great bearer every year; the fruit comes into eating in February, is tender, juicy, mild and sprightly, and preferred with us to the Green Newtown pippin—keeping full as well, bearing better, the pulp much more manageable in the mouth, and the apple has the peculiar property of bearing frosts, and even freezing, without material injury; Green Newtown pippin; Michael Henry pippin (very fine); Pryor’s Red, in flavor resembling the New England Seek-no-further; Golden Russet, the prince of small apples, and resembling a fine butter-pear more nearly than any apple in our orchards—an enormous bearer; some limbs exhibited were clustered with fruit, more like bunches of grapes than apples; Milam, favorite early winter; Rambo, the same. But the apple most universally cultivated is the Vandervere pippin, only a second or third-rate table apple, but having other qualities which quite ravish the hearts of our farmers. The tree is remarkably vigorous and healthy; it almost never fails in a crop; when all others miss, the Vandervere pippin hits; the fruit, which is very large and comely, is a late winter fruit—yet swells so quickly as to be the first and best summer cooking apple. If its flesh (which is coarse) were fine, and its (too sharp) flavor equalled that of the Golden Russet, it would stand without a rival, or near neighbor, at the very head of the list of winter apples. As it is, it is a first-rate tree, bearing a second-rate apple. A hybrid between it and the Golden Russet, or Newtown Spitzenberg, appropriating the virtues of both, would leave little more to be hoped for or wished. The Baldwin has never come up to its eastern reputation with us; the Rhode Island Greening is eaten for the sake of “auld lang syne;” the Roxbury russet is not yet in bearing—instead of it several false varieties have been presented at our exhibitions. All the classic apples of your orchards are planted here, but are yet on probation.

Nothing can exhibit better the folly of trusting to seedling orchards for fruit, for a main supply, than our experience in this matter. The early settlers could not bring trees from Kentucky, Virginia or Pennsylvania—and, as the next resort, brought and planted seeds of popular apples. A later population found no nurseries to supply the awakening demand for fruit-trees, and resorted also to planting seed. That which, at first, sprang from necessity, has been continued from habit, and from an erroneous opinion that seedling fruit was better than grafted. An immense number of seedling trees are found in our State. Since the Indiana Horticultural Society began to collect specimens of these, more than one hundred and fifty varieties have been sent up for inspection. Our rule is to reject every apple which, the habits of the tree and the quality of its fruit being considered, has a superior or equal already in cultivation. Of all the number presented, not six have vindicated their claims to a name or a place—and not more than three will probably be known ten years hence. While, then, we encourage cultivators to raise seedlings experimentally, it is the clearest folly to reject the established varieties and trust to inferior seedling orchards. From facts which I have collected there has been planted, during the past year, in this State, at least one hundred thousand apple-trees. Every year the demand increases. It is supposed that the next year will surpass this by at least twenty-five thousand.

In connection with apple orchards, our farmers are increasingly zealous in pear cultivation. We are fortunate in having secured to our nurseries not only the most approved old varieties, but the choicest new pears of British, Continental or American origin. A few years ago to each one hundred apple-trees, our nurseries sold, perhaps, two pear-trees; now they sell at least twenty to a hundred. Very large pear orchards are established, and in some instances are now beginning to bear. I purchased Williams’s Bon Chrétien in our market last fall for seventy-five cents the bushel. This pear, with the St. Michael’s, Beurré Diel, Beurré d’Aremberg, Passe Colmar, Duchess d’Angoulême, Seckel, and Marie Louise, are the most widely diffused, and all of them regularly at our exhibitions. Every year enables us to test other varieties. The Passe Colmar and Beurré d’Aremberg have done exceedingly well—a branch of the latter, about eighteen inches in length, was exhibited at our Fair, bearing over twenty pears, none of which were smaller than a turkey’s egg. The demand for pear-trees, this year, has been such that our nurseries have not been able to answer it—and they are swept almost entirely clean. I may as well mention here that, beside many more neighborhood nurseries, there are in this State eighteen which are large and skillfully conducted.

The extraordinary cheapness of trees favors their general cultivation. Apple-trees, not under ten feet high, and finely grown, sell at ten, and pears at twenty cents; and in some nurseries, apples may be had at six cents. This price, it should be recollected, is in a community where corn brings from twelve to twenty cents only, a bushel; wheat sells from forty-five to fifty; hay at five dollars the ton. During the season of 1843-’44, apples of the finest sorts (Jennetting, green Newtown pippin, etc.), sold at my door, as late as April, for twenty-five cents a bushel—and dull at that. This winter they command thirty-seven cents. Attention is increasingly turned to the cultivation of apples for exportation. Our inland orchards will soon find an outlet, both to the Ohio River by railroad, and the Lakes by canal. The effects of such a deluge of fruit is worthy of some speculation. It will diminish the price but increase the profit of fruit. An analogous case is seen in the penny-postage system of England. Fruit will become more generally and largely an article, not of luxury, but of daily and ordinary diet. It will find its way down to the poorest table—and the quantity consumed will make up in profit to the dealer, what is lost in lessening its price. A few years and the apple crop will be a matter of reckoning by farmers and speculators, just as is now, the potato crop, the wheat crop, the pork, etc. Nor will it create a home market alone. By care it may be exported with such facility, that the world will receive it as a part of its diet. It will, in this respect, follow the history of grains and edible roots, and from a local and limited use, the apple and the pear will become articles of universal demand. The reasons of such an opinion are few and simple. It is a fruit always palatable—and as such, will be welcome to mankind whatever their tastes, if it can be brought within their reach. The western States will, before many years, be forested with orchards. The fruit bears exportation kindly. Thus there will be a supply; a possibility of distributing it by commerce, to meet a taste already existing. These views may seem fanciful—may prove so; but they are analogical. Nor, if I inherit my three score years and ten, do I expect to die, until the apple crop of the United States shall surpass the potato crop in value, both for man and beast. It has the double quality of palatableness, raw or cooked—it is a permanent crop, not requiring annual planting—and it produces more bushels to the acre than corn, wheat, or, on an average, than potatoes. The calculations may be made, allowing an average of fifteen bushels to a tree. The same reasoning is true of the pear; it and the apple, are to hold a place yet, as universal eatables—a fruit-grain, not known in their past history. If not another tree should be set in this county (Marion County), in ten years the annual crop of apples will be 200,000 bushels. But Wayne County has double our number of trees; suppose, however, the ninety counties of Indiana to have only 25 trees to a quarter section of land, i. e. to each 160 acres, the crop, of fifteen bushels a tree, would be nearly two millions.

The past year has greatly increased the cultivation of small fruits in the State. Strawberries are found in almost every garden, and of select sorts. None among them all is more popular—or more deservedly so—than Hovey’s Seedling. We have a native white strawberry, removed from our meadows to our gardens, which produces fruit of superior fragrance and flavor. The crop is not large—but continues gradually ripening for many weeks. The blackberry is introduced to the garden among us. The fruit sells at our market for from three to five cents—profit is not therefore the motive for cultivating it, but improvement. I have a white variety. “What color is a black-berry when it is green?” We used to say red, but now we have ripe black-berries which are white, and green black-berries which are red. Assorted gooseberries and the new raspberries, Franconia and Fastolff are finding their way into our gardens. The Antwerps we have long had in abundance. If next spring I can produce rhubarb weighing two pounds to the stalk, shall I have surpassed you? I have a seedling which last year, without good cultivation, produced petioles weighing from eighteen to twenty ounces. My wrist is not very delicate, and yet it is much smaller in girth than they were.

In no department is there more decided advance among our citizens than in floriculture. In all our rising towns, yards and gardens are to be found choicely stocked. All hardy bulbs are now sought after. Ornamental shrubs are taken from our forests, or imported from abroad, in great variety. Altheas, rose acacia, jasmin, calycanthus, snowberry, snowball, sumach, syringas, spicewood, shepherdia, dogwood, redwood, and other hardy shrubs abound. The rose is an especial favorite. The Bengal, Tea and Noisettes bear our winters in the open garden with but slight protection. The Bourbon and Remontantes will, however, drive out all old and ordinary varieties. The gardens of this town would afford about sixty varieties of roses, which would be reckoned first rate in Boston or Philadelphia.

While New England suffered under a season of drought, on this side of the mountains the season was uncommonly fine—scarcely a week elapsed without copious showers, and gardens remained moist the whole season. Fruits ripened from two to three weeks earlier than usual. In consequence of this, winter fruits are rapidly decaying. To-day is Christmas, the weather is spring-like—no snow—the thermometer this morning, forty degrees. My Noisettes retain their terminal leaves green; and in the southward-looking dells of the woods, grasses and herbs are yet of a vivid green. Birds are still here—three this morning were singing on the trees in my yard. There are some curious facts in the early history of horticulture in this region, which I meant to have included in this communication; but insensibly I have, already, prolonged it beyond, I fear, a convenient space for your magazine. I yield it to you for cutting, carving, suppressing, or whatever other operation will fit it for your purpose.

BROWNE’S AMERICAN POULTRY YARD.[22]

Let no man turn up his contemptuous nose at this Treatise until he has traced the manifold relations of eggs and capons to cake, company, and civilization. Banish the barnyard, and the universal aldermanhood would shrink and grow lean; cup-cakes and sponge-cakes, omelets, whips and legionary confections, would become mere dreams of remembrance.

Every friend of the trencher, every notable housewife, complacently glorious amidst stacks of praised and devoured cake, has an interest in this book. There is, therefore, a certain interest which every civilized community should take in the progress of the great art of fowl-breeding.

There are striking analogies, also, which should be noticed by every comparative psychologist. The doctrine of transmigration has some of its strongest proofs in the Kingdom of Poultry. The glowing comb, the haughty carriage, the resplendent tail-feathers, and ostentatious crowing of the lord of the barn-yard creation, reveals to the sagacious reasoner either the origin or destination of many other “lords of creation.”

Nor can one mistake the resemblances traceable in the gentler sex of hens. Some there are industrious only in scratching and cackling, but nervous, gadding, restless; never content at home, never so happy as when at work in a new-made garden, and sagacious always of the very spots which are most precious in the owner’s eyes. Are these the types of human busybodies, or are these resemblances only accidental? Others are discreet, domestic, prolific, useful and happy hens, human and feathered. Many there are neglectful. Some fowls are laborious egg-layers, but poor setters; others disdain the pains of laying, but are quite willing of a leisure summer’s month to set awhile upon other eggs.

In the management, too, of their families, can any candid man resist the evidence of resemblances and affiliations between hens and humanity? Here a hen walks forth from her nest with but a single chick; the whole farm is too small for her anxious spirit. On this one precious pledge she bestows more clucking, more research and scratching, than a discreet old matron of many broods would upon five annual generations! And after all, what is the little brat good for—lazy and worked for, but never taught to work, it lives a few months petted and spoiled—dies of neglect, or is anatomized by some science-loving weasel! Other, and unnatural hens there are, to whom the vast brood of peeping, chirping chicks is but a burden. They seem to have thoughts of their own, and are perplexed and interrupted by the cares needful for their household. Could we pry into the secrets of this race, doubtless there would be found to be literary mothers, too busy for the general good to have much time for special duties. We cannot stop now to draw out these analogies, so well worthy the study of mental philosophers; else we should exhibit the distinctions of rank, race, and culture, in this interesting kingdom. There are nice questions of pedigree, there are points in relation to feathers and top-knots, combs and spurs, tail-feathers and wing-feathers, neck-hackles and toes, which are worthy the attention of any Calhoun of the barn-yard. The more savory but homely considerations of fattening, slaying, dressing, selling, stuffing, cooking, carving, distributing, eating and digestion, must be left to our readers’ own reflections. Meanwhile, any man that owns a hen, or has a coop in prospect, may buy this book, certain of his money’s worth. Book-farming and book-fowling are better than nothing.

REFLECTIONS ON THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.[23]

The labor of another year has passed beyond our reach. We can alter nothing, and the past is of no use to us except as a lesson for the future. The soil that the plow ripped up, in the spring, has yielded its harvest, its work is closed, its fruits garnered. The tree whose boughs grew green when the singing of birds proclaimed that spring was come, has ripened its fruit, perfected its growth, its store is gathered, and its leaves are lying beneath it, and slowly returning to the earth from which they sprang. Only here and there, on a bright morning, do we see one of those birds which, a few months ago, builded their nest, watched their young, or taught the nestlings how to fly—young and old, with their grace of motion and sweet notes, are gone to a fairer clime. These changes one cannot help noticing; and no meditative mind can avoid many thoughts which flow out of them. Where are the harvests garnered which grew in the soil of the human heart? What thoughts and generous purposes have been ripened and stored up like fruit, and what ones have fallen and perished like leaves? Our vernal orchards never stood, within our remembrance, in such a glory of bloom; yet when the fruit should have set, most of the blossoms proved vain. And how many good purposes and fair resolutions have so perished within us! Have we, like the trees which we love and care for, made growth, of root and branch? Everything in nature has gradually assumed a preparation for winter. Those frosts and that ice which would have sent such mischief upon the leaves of summer, now lie, without harm, upon orchard and garden. Are we ripe and ready, too, for such a winter as adversity brings upon men?

THE END.