FOREIGN NOTICES. 



567 



let them be planted in a well trenched and mannrod i 

 soil. It" the leaves arc developed, care must be | 

 taken to prevent their ilairgin<^. This may be ! 

 done by placinir over them some lonj^ litter, sutli- ] 

 cir^nt to answer the purpose without excluding 1 

 lij^ht and air. The younji phints will soon be es- 

 tablished, and will grow rapidly. No leaves must 

 be taken oil' the first year, as the object is to con- 

 vey all the elaborated sap possibJe to the stem for 

 future use. If the ground is good, and kept free 

 from weeds, no more care is required, and abun- 

 dance of line stalks can be taken oil" next spring. 

 An exposed situation, with plenty of sun and air, 

 will of course bring tiiis production to greatest 

 perfection ; but it will produce good crops wiihout 

 having these advantages fully. Every house with 

 a garden, however small, may thus furnish the 

 table of its owner, with little expense and trouble. 



But rhubarb pos.^esses the advantage of being 

 forced with as much ease and as cheaply as it is 

 grown in the open air. This, may be done by 

 growing it against a wall in a sunny aspect, and 

 covering it when required with pots or boxes, over 

 whicii fermenting materials must be placed. But 

 decidedly the best method is to take the roots into 

 the house to be forced. For this purpose thej' 

 must be grown exactly as recommended above, 

 that as much power may be treasured up in the 

 roots as possible. To fake up exhausted plants 

 from a crowded bed, which has been stripped of its 

 leaves during the season, is to deprive them of 

 their natural advantages, and to expend the forcing 

 process on weakened and imperfect subjects. Let 

 cuttings, with a crown to each, be nov^: put in, in 

 the best possible situations, and by autumn the)' 

 will be admirably adapted to your purpose,. When 

 the foliage is withered take up the roots, and put 

 them singly into large pots or boxes.. These may 

 be stood away anywhere, and introduced, two or 

 three at a time, into a warm situation. The wri- 

 ter placed his pots this winter in a dark closet, at 

 the back of a kitchen range, and the rhubarb grew 

 rapidly. Every house can Hnd some spot having 

 the advantage of greater warmth than the ordinary 

 temperature. Rhubarb may thus he had at any 

 time, and a good supply kept up until it is produced 

 in the open air. It is very necessary to get it as 

 early as possible, as its value is much lessened 

 when gooseberries are plentiful. H. B. Garden- 

 er's Chron. .... 



The Form.^tion of Butter. — Upon this im- 

 portant subject I forward for insertion an article 

 from the " Year Book of Facts" (1846); in which 

 I think " Hantonienses" will .see his idea fully car- 

 ried out — the air-churn. "The Bishop of Derry 

 has invented the atmospheric churn. Instead of 

 the present unscientific mode of making butter by 

 churning, his lordship accomplishes this measure 

 by the simpler manner of forcing a full current of 

 atmospheric air through the cream by means of an 

 exceedingly well devised forcing pump. The air 



passes through a glass tube, connected with the 

 air pump, descending nearly to the bottom of the 

 churn. The churn is of tin, and it fits into another 

 tin cylinder provided with a funnel and stopcock, 

 so as to heat the cream to the necessary tempera- 

 ture. The jiump is worked by means of a VNinch, 

 which is not so laborious as the usual churns. 

 Independently of the happy application of science 

 to this important department of domestic economy, 

 in a practical point of view it is extremely valua- 

 ble. The milk is not moved by a dasher, as in the 

 common churn ; but the oxygen of the atmosphere 

 is brought into close contact with the cream, so as 

 to etiect a full combination of the butyraccoiis 

 parts, and to convert it all into butter. On one 

 occasion the churning was carried on for the space 

 of an hour and forty-tive minutes, and 11 gallons 

 of cream produced 26 lbs. of butter." E. Hulme. 

 [The inventor is ,a Mr. Weston, of Liverpool — not 

 the Bishop of Derry.] ^g. Gaz. 



The Propagation of Fruit Trees and other 

 Trees from Cuttings. — From observation I am 

 inclined to imagine that many kinds of fruit trees, 

 deeiduous ornamental trees, shrubs, and roses, 

 may be propagated from branches and cuttings, a 

 plan which appears to me to be of some impor- 

 tance ; for almost every orchard, plantation, shrub- 

 bery, and rosary bears witness to some extent that 

 unsuitable stocks for budding and grafting have 

 been selected. 



A circumstance that occurred in the spring of 

 1845 served to confirm my opinion, that many trees 

 and plants could be successfully cultivated from 

 branches and cuttings. During the winter of 

 1844, a considerable quantity of refuse prunings 

 from the shrubberies, parings of grass edgings, 

 sweepings of walks, and refuse from borders, were 

 accumulated for the purpose of being converted 

 into useful manure by charring. The beginning 

 of February, 1845, was chosen for packing it to- 

 gether for that purpose ; there were from 20 to 

 25 loads of it, and the greater proportion of it was 

 in a green, moist state, intermixed with a consi- 

 derable quantity of earth, and therefore it took a 

 considerable time to char. The weather the whole 

 time was severe frost, with a cutting north-east 

 wind; nevertheless, the charring went on satisfac- 

 torily, and when accomplished, on taking the heap 

 to pieces for the purpose of sifting and storing 

 away the contents in a dry situation, I was de- 

 lighted to observe at the base of one side of the 

 kiln that a quantity of moss-provins and other rose 

 prunings, together with Jasminum fruticans and 

 branches of other plants, had put forth abundance 

 of beautiful healtliy roots. They had been cast 

 upon the kiln at the finish of packing, and had 

 become intermixed with the sweepings and rak- 

 ings of half decayed leaves, gritty sand, and other 

 earthy refuse ; others within a lew inches of those 

 that had put forth healthy roots were completely 



