372 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A LESSON FROM A SHARP TRICK. 



The New York Tribune tells the story about Forsythe, who was a shrewd 

 Scotchman living contemporary with Thomas Andrew Knight about a hundred 

 years, who was in charge of the Royal Gardens at Kew, near London, in the 

 reign of George III, and managed to create a sensation by showing to distinguished 

 oflBcials from abroad, as well as to other?, various trees in which large wounds 

 were handsomely healing over, and attributing the wonderful recuperation to a 

 something which he applied, and of which he held the secret. These taking 

 stories of Forsythe's, who, had he lived in our time and country, would doubt- 

 less have been made commissioner of agriculture, were retailed with such addi- 

 tions and estimates as led to a grant of many thousand pounds to him by the 

 government on condition of his making public the ingredients and proper use 

 of the composition for the benefit of mankind. The mixture was nothing but 

 simple loam and cow-droppings beaten together, audits use of course secondary 

 to the clearing out of all decayed parts, and to the stimulus to active growth 

 by culture. 



Knight was then president of the royal society, and published articles show- 

 ing the absurdity of Forsythe's claims, but his good pen was no match for the 

 Scotchman's tongue and red-tape. The incident served however to impress an 

 important fact in tree treatment. In the proper amputation of a branch the 

 cut must be smooth, the bark around must be in healthy condition and carefully 

 saved so that it may cover the wound by gradual extension ; and a coating like 

 the air and water-proof basilicon-plaster or salve of the surgeon must be used 

 over the cut as a substitute for the wanting bark or skin. Where this care has 

 been neglected and decay has set in or has proceeded so far as to make cavities 

 in the trunk the dentist's processes must be imitated — all the decayed portion 

 scooped clean out and the hollow plugged with a mixture of loam and cow- 

 dung which should be capped with some waterproof coating. 



MULCHING. 



The Germantown Telegraph talks sensibly about mulching strawberries for 

 winter protection, when it observes that many persons are induced by what 

 they read to act so as to heartily regret it when the spring comes round. We 

 have known people to act on this suggestion, and cover their strawberry beds 

 with manure, and find the whole completely rotten in the spring. And yet a 

 little covering with the right kind of material is not a bad thing. If the plants 

 are left entirely unprotected the leaves are browned and often destroyed; 

 while it must have been noted by every observant gardener that the best fruit 

 comes from plants that have managed to keep their leaves bright and green 

 till their spring flowers appear. And this is why a covering of snow the whole 

 winter is so good for the strawberry crop. As we have remarked, when the 

 leaves are browned the crop is small ; but when the snow covers the plants all 

 the winter long, they come out in the spring in the best possible condition. 



But we can not always depend on the snow. It does not always come, or 

 continue in the regular way. So if some light material can be put over the 

 plants that will not smother and rot them, and yet will be just enough to make 

 a shade from the winter sun and a screen from frosty winds, it will be doing a 

 good turn to the strawberry plant. Manure is bad. There is salt in it. 



