DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



99 



There are many who have supposed from its 

 name, that this is positively a sweet currant. On 

 trial, it proves to be only comparatively so, being 

 in fact only less acid than the common Red Cur- 

 rant. 



Myatfs Victoria has fruited this season, and is 

 a large and excellent sort. 



The Madeleine Pear. — Dear Sir: The Made- 

 leine Pear is now in perfection with me. It has 

 fruited for two years past; but I am obliged to 

 say that generally it does not ripen well. It is apt 

 to rot at the core. Is this a defect common to the 

 variety ? J. W. Baltimore, July l-Wi. 



The Madeleine, and we may add, almost all 

 other pears, must be ripened in the house. If left to 

 ripen on the tree, they have little or no flavor, anil 

 soon decay. If picked as soon as they are fully 

 grown, begin to colour well, and part readily from 

 the tree, they are melting, juicy, high flavored, 

 and delicious. We cannot too often urge this upon 

 the attention of all novices in the pear culture. 

 When once they have made the trial, they will 

 never again think of allowing pears to ripen on 

 the tree. — Ed. 



Century Plants in Bloom. — We have paid a 

 visit to a specimen of the Jlgave americana, now 

 being exhibited at the conservatory of Messrs. 

 Dunlap and Thompson, Broadway, New-York. It 

 is not yet in full bloom, and will present an inte- 

 resting appearance in about a fortnight. 



We learn that this plant, and a companion to it 

 now shown at Boston, have just arrived from Ja- 

 maica, whence they were brought by an enterpri- 

 sing gentleman, formerly of Northampton, Mass. 

 He is at least determined that the present age 

 shall not be ignorant of the appearance of the 

 renowned Century Plant ; since, besides these two 

 in our principal cities, he has himself sailed with 

 two more to Europe. 



The Agave disappoints most of its visitors, who 

 expect great beauty in the individual blossoms, 

 which have very little. The fact is, this plant is 

 al waj's shown under a disadvantage of a too cramp- 

 ed apartment — some green-house or exhibition 

 room. 



, It ought, when it begins to flower, to be planted 

 out in a fine lawn. There, its gigantic height, 

 and its truly noble proportions woulil strike every 

 beholder, and it would be universally admired. A 

 plant that throws up a flower stem like a tree, 

 thirty feet high, with branches disposed with won- 

 derful symmetry, and tliousands of blossoms, can 

 never be seen to advantage, except upon a large 

 open lawn. 



The idea that the Agave blooms but once in a 

 century is long ago exploded. In its native coun- 

 try it blossoms at ten to twenty years old. In our 

 green-houses, want of space and want of heat often 

 retard its flowering three times this period. 



Cherries in Western N. Y. — At a recent ex- 

 hibition of the Horticultural Society, at Rochester, 

 about twenty-five different varieties of cherries 

 were shown. A fruit grower from the vicinity of 

 New-Haven, who was there at the time, says that 



he has never seen such finely grown fruit, as were 

 most of the specimens. 



The leading and almost only kinds in the mar- 

 kets at Rochester, are, the Black Tartarian, Black 

 Heart, Bigarreau, and Black Bigarreau; with the 

 common Morello, ad libitum. 



Dovvner's Late, Sjjarhawk's Honey, and Ameri- 

 can Amber, are now (July 4,) in perfection, but 

 they are not cultivated in suflicient quantities to 

 appear in the baskets of the fruit dealers. 



The late heavy rains have done much damage to 

 some of the varieties, among which are the Black 

 and Napoleon Bigarreaux. In many instances, all 

 the fruit on thrifty and heavily laden trees, has 

 entirely deca3'ed, in from 12 to 24 hours. 



On the sandy plains just north of the city, the 

 cherry-trees have been, this summer, infested 

 with Rose bugs, in great numbers, to the inconve- 

 nience and loss of the owners of the trees. These 

 insects prefer the parenchyma of the leaves upon 

 which they feed, whereby the fruit is much in- 

 jured, or destroyed for want of proper nourish- 

 ment. In some cases, however, they bite or punc- 

 ture all the cherries. I have violently shaken a 

 small tree, when so many of these bugs would drop, 

 as literally to cover the ground. J. W . Bissell, 

 Rochester, N. Y., July 7, 1846. 



Note on the Rose Bug. — In loose sandy soils 

 the Rose bug is often a serious annoyance to the 

 cultivator. It finds an easy access, and a warm 

 and genial home in such soils, while it propagates 

 but slowly in heavy soils. We understand from a 

 friend, who has suffered greatly in his garden by 

 Rose bugs, that for two years past, he has plough- 

 ed or turned up the surface of the soil at the ap- 

 proach of winter, leaving it as loose and as much 

 exposed as possible to the action of the frost, since 

 which he has been but little troubled by them. 

 The frost destrovs them in a larva state. — Ed. 



Manures : Nature's Reciprocity System. — 

 Mr. Downing: The indefatigable Liebig, after 

 his searching analyses into the nature ami wants 

 of vegetables, has arrived, it seems, at the con- 

 clusion, that, although other substances will be 

 occasionally beneficial, yet we must resort to the 

 Barn-yard for the only substance which contains 

 all the elements that plants require! 



To my mind, there is something satisfactory in 

 being brought back, after a tour of impatient search 

 for fertilizers, to the simple usage of the earliest 

 agriculturists, and there is a moral lesson taught 

 by this result, which makes us admire, as well as 

 rely on the wise and beneficent laws of the Crea- 

 tor. He has so ordered it that the animals, and 

 the land which sustains them, shall not only be 

 mutually necessary and beneficial to each other, 

 but all-sufficient ; tliat when he decreed that man 

 should live <' by the sweat of his brow," and to 

 struggle with "thorns and thistles," he provided 

 not onl3' the most powerful aiil at the threshold of 

 every culturist, but a substance which would 

 have been a nuisance if it had been useless. 



The pursuit of the natural sciences often con- 

 ducts us to positions, whence we can "look through 

 nature, up to nature's God," and it adds a charm to 

 the fascinations of country life, that it aflbrds us 



