DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



287 



At Booth's gardens, near Hamburgh — a climate 

 much severer than ours, (as it will not admit of 

 the cultivation of the peach,) there is an extremely 

 pretty climber — the Tropeolum pentaphylluvi* — 

 ■which stands their winters unprotected. I saw there 

 also an evergreen Cupressus dixticha — certainly one 

 of the most graceful of evergreens, which is unin- 

 jured by the severest weather. There is also 

 there a curious ash — Fraxinus hetrophylla — and 

 also a birch — Betula pendula laciniata, which is 

 exceedingly graceful and delicate. Two pretty 

 additions to our weeping trees, are Cotoneaster 

 buxifolia and Cotoneaster microphylla, if trained 

 up to a standard of four or five feet, and then al- 

 lowed to fall down from a head, instead of being 

 grown bushy, as is usually the case. 



Bachelor's Buttons, Four o'clocks,and Chrysan- 

 themums are planted in masses by themselves in 

 the German gardens, with good effect. Yours 

 with much regard, H. W. Sargent. Wodenethe, 

 Fishkill Landing, N. Y., October 18, 1850. 



Taste in Landscape Gardening. — To an 

 American eye, the charm of European gardens is 

 rather owing to the novelty of their natural pro- 

 ductions, than to the style of their arrangement. 

 The grand scale of our scenery renders all tricks 

 paltry by comparison; and the artificial substi- 

 tutes for natural diversity, give a scenic, rather 

 than a picturesque efTect. The elegance of Ver- 

 sailles is apparent and unrivalled; but this quali- 

 ty rather offends than delights, when applied to 

 external nature. At Rome, the clipped, dense 

 evergreens, weather-stained marbles, and humid 

 alleys of the Villa Borghcse, do not win the ima- 

 gination like the vast, uncultivated campagna. A 

 fine English park, with smooth roads intersecting 

 natural forests, is more truly beautiful than a par- 

 terre surrounded by fantastic patterns of box, or 

 studded with bowers and temples, like the back 

 scene of a play. The famous villa of the eccen- 

 tric nobleman near Palermo, assures the traveller 

 to what an extent a love of the grotesque may be 

 carried in converting a residence of fine natural 

 capabilities into an architectural and horticultural 

 museum. Indeed, all experiments in this field of 

 human ingenuity, simply prove that the judicious 

 adaptation of natural advantages to beautiful and 

 useliil results, is all that c^n be wisely attempted. 

 A clearing here, a path there, filling up a hollow, 

 levelling a hill, letting in sunshine and shutting 

 out the view of deformity — in a word, modifying 

 the primitive aspect, and not substituting art for 

 nature, is the sign of a healthful taste. Such is 

 the Aniilo-Saxon tendency as manifest in their no- 

 ble appreciation of forest trees by Evelyn, and in 

 the absence of the finical in most English and 

 American homesteads. A disposition to decorate 

 nature is altogether French; and its appearance 

 on the other side of the channel, has always been 



* This is well known in our green-houses, and we are de- 

 Lghted to hear that it is hardy. Eb. 



coincident with periods of conventional taste in 

 society and letters. The formal elegance of a 

 French garden or villa, differs from the picturesque 

 exuberance of an American woodland or an Eng- 

 lish meadow, just as Shakspeare differs from Ra- 

 cine. The one lays open nature for our cordial 

 recognition ; the other trims her after a classic or 

 fanciful pattern; the one abounds in sugcestion, 

 the other in technicalities. Tuckerman's Charac- 

 teristics of Literature. 



To MAKE Young Pear Trees Bear. — Mr. 

 Downing; I was afflicted by the sight in my gar- 

 den, for 4 or 5 years, of the most luxuriant and 

 thrifty young pear trees, which would not bear, but 

 all their strength ran to wood. Vexed at this, I re- 

 solved to try the eflbct of bending down the branch- 

 es, so as to check the flow of sap and cause them 

 to form fruit-buds instead of wood-buds. According- 

 ly, the first week in Dec, 1847, 1 filled my pockets 

 with stout twine; I drove down some pegs into 

 the ground underneath my trees, (which had 

 branched low, so as to make dwarfish heads;) I 

 then tied a string to the end of every long shoot, 

 and gradually bringing down the end of the limb 

 till it curved down so as to make a considerable 

 bend or bow, I fastened it in that position, either 

 by tying the other end of the string to the peg, or 

 to another branch or a part of the trunk. 



According to my expectation, the tree next 

 year changed its habit of growth, and set an 

 abundance of fruit-buds. Since that I have had 

 plentiful crops of fruit without trouble — taking 

 •rood care not to let many branches go on the up- 

 right system. j1 Delaware Subscriber. 



Protecting Trees against Mice. — Many are 

 the remedies that have been proposed, to guard 

 trees in winter — especially fruit trees — from being 

 girdled by field mice. The simplest of all is the 

 following, strongly vouched for by an experienced 

 and reliable cultivator, Mr. Thomas, in the Al- 

 bany Cultivator: 



'■ Prevention of this disaster," says Mr. T., " is 

 one of the easiest and most certain things in the 

 world, consisting simply in throwing up a little 

 circular bank or mound of earth, around the trunk 

 of each tree, nine or ten inches high. One man 

 will do himdreds in a day, and we have never 

 known a single instance, out of thousands of cases, 

 where it has failed.'" 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



Preserving Bulbs. — W. Otis, (New-York.) 

 Hang the Tiger Flower and Gladiolus roots up in 

 the cellpr for four or five days, until they are dry, 

 and then cut ofTthe tops and pack the roots away 

 in a box, with an inch or two of perfectly dry 

 earth or sand over and under them. The box 

 (with a lid to it to prevent mice, which are very 

 fond of Tiger Flowers, from devouring them,) may 



