manure down firmly till there is room for six or eight inches of good light soil 

 On the latter plant your seeds. They will soon start, with the slight warmth of 

 the manure, and the box will protect them at night, and during cold and stormy 

 days, till the season is settled. Every mild day you will, of course, raise it up on 

 one side an inch or two, for fresh air ; and in positively warm days, remove it for 

 a few hours altogether. In this way, you will get a crop, at small cost, a long 

 start in advance of the unsheltered growth along side, and have none of the bother 

 and vexation of transplanting from hotbeds. The boxes cost very little, if you 

 make them yourself; and if laid away as soon as there is no further need of them, 

 they will last a dozen years or more. 



When you are planting a tree or shrub, don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish; 

 in other words, so anxious to have it look large, as to be unwilling to cut off a 

 single inch of its top to balance the loss of roots. Remember that if your tree 

 would grow six inches if left " unshortened;" it would grow twelve if properly 

 shortened, besides making far healthier shoots and bigger leaves, to say nothing 

 of its being five times as likely not to die. 



If you are about to turn " orchardist," never buy a large quantity of trees of 

 any nurseryman, on the strength of his own "extensive advertisements. It is 

 easy to say fine things in print; such as "immense specimen grounds," "50,000 

 trees, carefully propagated under the direction of the proprietor," &c. &c. Go 

 and see for yourself; and very likely the "immense specimen ground" may turn 

 out to be a dozen old trees in a grass plat, and the nursery a wilderness of con- 

 fusion. Never, in short, buy a large quantity of fruit trees of any man who is a 

 stranger to you, without inquiring first all about his accuracy, from customers 

 who have dealt with him, and proved his sorts. Such people, who have tasted 

 his quality, are not very likely to tell "long yarns," though advertisements some- 

 times will. 



The neatest and most perfect mode of grafting, is splice grafting. {See Down- 

 ing's Fruits, p. 15.) It can only be done when your stock and scion correspond 

 pretty nearly in size ; but the amalgamation is done in short-hand. Tie the 

 wound over neatly with a strand of matting or coarse woollen yarn, and smear the 

 whole over with thick " shellac paint," and not one in a hundred will fail. 



No large fruit tree is so readily " reformed" as a pear. Many a tree, of twenty 

 or thirty feet high, that stands, at this moment, within ten rods of your door, and 

 bears nothing but fruit that you would be ashamed to offer at a country fair, may 

 be made to bear bushels of Bartletts, or something as good, in three years' time, 

 by the expenditure of a couple of hours, in cutting back and grafting all the 

 principal limbs as soon as the sap is fairly in motion. " Cleft grafting" is the 

 readiest mode for this sort of subject ; and a little practice will enable any one to 

 perform it very quickly. 



If you want to be successful in transplanting, don't be afraid of working in dull 

 weather. If you are shy of a " Scotch mist," buy an India-rubber macintosh. 

 Nothing is so cruel, to many sorts of trees, as to let their tender fibres parch up 

 in a dry wind, or a bright sun. Such weather may be fun to you, but 'tis death 

 to them. 



Dress your lawns with a mixture of guano and ashes ; one bushel of the former 

 to four bushels of the latter. The earlier in the spring it can be put on the better, 

 so that the rains may carry the soluble parts to the roots. A light coat of this, 

 spread broad-cast, is much better for grass than any other manure. 



The best top-dressing for a strawberry bed is burnt sods. Pile up the brush 

 and rubbish you have at hand in layers with the sods, and set fire to the h 

 smoulder away for several days, till the wood is pretty well burnt out 



