182 



THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



got in at ov.ra c? all sorts of which stock 

 h required ior !■> xt year. 



Grass P'ots may now be sown down. 

 Ill the majority of cases seed is preferable 

 to the laying of turf, as the finest grasses 

 can be had in suitable mixtures, free from 

 weeds ; but close fine turf, from sandy 

 commons, will make good lawns at once 

 on well-draitied ground, and if laid now 

 will lie established before winter. 



IlAunr Feuixs may still be budded. 

 Sweet oil, applied with a brush, will re- 

 move American blight from apple-trees 

 effectually, witliout injury to the bark. 

 Generally speaking, fruit trees arc in fine 

 condition this season, and there is a pro- 

 bability of the wood being perfectly ripened. 



Heebaceous Plants may be propa- 

 gated largely from side-shoots, dibbled 

 into sandy soil in a shady place, or l)y 

 parting the roots of those that have done 

 flowering'. 



Kitchen Gahden. ^ — Winter greens 

 should, by this time be strong and readj' 

 for their last transplanting as the ground 

 is cleared of potatoes, etc. Sow cabbage 

 for use next spring and summer. Early 

 Battersea, Enfield, and Sprotborough will 

 be the best. Cauliflower to be sown about 

 the 20th. Sow Goleworts about the 8th, 

 for plants to stand the winter. Onions 

 that are bull-necked may be induced to 

 ripen by breaking the leaves near the 

 ground. Get up potatoes as soon as the 

 haulm begins to show signs of decay, with- 

 out waiting till it withers, as they will 

 ripen after they are stored, and the gain of 

 a week or more in their removal may save 

 them from disease, which rarely appears 

 till they are full grown. 



JfiGNOKETTE, to flower In the winter, 

 should be sown about the 10th. Use light 

 sand\' maiden loam, with a little leaf- 

 mould, but no dung. 



EXPERIMENTS IN ESUIT CULTUEE. 



A-MOi'G others, I had the pleasure of mak- 

 ing tl'.e acquaintance of Mr. Pell,' whose 

 n.ime I have often mentioned. This gen- 

 tleman is known to fruit-growers as the 

 owner of a i'umous orchard at Pelham Farm, 

 on tlie ^iver Hudson, containing 20,000 

 jipple-trees, chiefly of that highly prized 

 Newton Pippin, for which London alone 

 i^fFords nn almost insatiable market. 



I was much interested with the histoiy 

 wliich llr. Pell gave me of the chemico- 

 jiliysiological experiments he had for some 

 years been making in his orchard, taking 

 a hundred trees at a time upon which to 

 try a single experiment. One of these 

 trials had been to ascertain if it were not 

 possible to compel apple-trees to produce a 

 good crop of Iruit every year, instead of 

 once in two years only, as is usually the 

 case in Europe as v.'ell as in America. He 

 found that by cleaning oif the rough bark, 

 pruning carefully, slitting tlie bark as high 

 us the iirst branches, and digging in lime 

 around the roots in autunm, he had a 

 lieavy crop the succeeding summer. By 



digging in, the second autumn, stable ma- 

 nure, around them, he had an equally heavy 

 crop the second summer. The general re- 

 sult of his trials is that a crop may by 

 such treatment be secured every year, but 

 he thinks the tree would not live so long a 

 life. Still, if the flavour of the fruit he as 

 good, and the expense of tending not too 

 great, it would be eas\- to have a second 

 set of trees coming forward while the first 

 grows old, as is the case in the peach 

 orchards of New Jersey. There would be 

 less cost in this also, if we adopted Mr. 

 Bell's mode of procedure. He cultivates 

 the land among his trees — a strOTig, deep, 

 sandy loam, on a gravelly subsoil — as if it 

 were open, with every kind of crop except 

 rye. In regard to this grain he states, 

 tliat " it is so injurious that he believes 

 thi-ee successive crops of it would destroy 

 an orchard of less than twentj' years old.'' 

 Is there really, then, some special action 

 exercised upon the soil by this species of 

 grain ? — Johnstone's Notes on North Ame- 



TO COREESPONDENTS. 



Hew TO USE A MowiiTG Machine. — W. D. S. — 

 The following instructions apply speciallj" to 

 SamuelsouB Boyd's P^itent Lnwn Mower, and 

 generally to the machines of other makers. 

 Push tlie machine steailily before you alon^ the 

 turf, at tlie s;'.uie time pressing the end of the 

 hent lever towards the outside of the mathine, 

 which puis the cutting knives in operation; 



and to put them out of gear, move the lever 

 towards the middle. To regulate the height of 

 cutters you have only to turn ihe small hori- 

 zontal whee'.s marked "to lower" or "to 

 raise" in the direction indicated by the arrow, 

 an operation that can be performed instanta- 

 neously, to the greatest nicety, without the 

 necessity for removing the grass bos, or altering; 



