CRITIQUE ON THE FEB. HORTICULTURIST. 



see that no burrowing place is left for them. Hardly an effective composition can be in- 

 vented, but what will hurt the trees more in its application, than the mice will in gnaw- 

 ing them, or that will not, after a little time, lose its pungency, or its peculiar preventive 

 properties, and the vermin work their destruction in spite of it. A thousand nostrums 

 have been invented for this bark-preservation during winter, but I have found the spade 

 better than them all. 



The quick-lime, and the water, and the soot, may be tried, however, and if it will do no 

 good against the mice, it will certainly do the tree no harm. 



Hints for Country Houses. — I think I could take that old home of Sir Walter Ra- 

 leigh's, and by throwing a long low veranda along the front, and shifting the chimneys 

 into the body of it, make a very respectable alFair in the waj' of a country residence; but 

 I would not build such a house to start with. 



Your hints, in the way of alteration, are good, and if more people would act upon such 

 hints, in improving substantial bodied old houses, which happen to stand on the places 

 they buy, instead of tearing them away, and building something in their places not half 

 as good, they would do better. 



I once knew a company of gentlemen who bought a large farm for the purpose of laying 

 it out into lots of several acres each, for their own residences. On a part of it was an old, 

 substantial, uncouth looking house, that had long been used as a tavern, and as they pro- 

 posed changing the line of the highway which ran by it, the old tavern was thrown back 

 into the enclosure some distance. It had trees around it, and some capabilities. One of 

 the party chose this and the ground around it for his own, to which the rest, thinking it 

 of no value, consented. He was a man of taste, and went to work, spending not half the 

 money upon it, that the others did in getting up their cellar walls, and made it the most 

 inviting and admired of the whole! Such things may be frequently done, if folks will 

 only think so. 



The Curled Leaf on the Peach Tree — An ingenious essay and theory, this of Mr. 

 GooDDRicH — and quite observant, at least. All of us, who grow peaches, have had the 

 curled leaf more or less, for the past two years. But I doubt the cause to be what he sug- 

 gests. Why should the peach trees in Delaware and Ohio, have it at the same time, where 

 the weather was not half so cold as in Western New-York; and not so cold either, as has 

 usually been the case in and about Utica, when no curl took place? The truth is, these 

 curls, and other maladies, come and go in all sorts of seasons; we neither know why nor 

 wherefore. Mr. G.'s trees appear to have been more deeply affected than many others. I 

 saw many that were badly curled, which bore good crops of fruit, although the curled leaves 

 fell off, and were replaced with new ones, which fact would contradict a part of the theory 

 in question. 



This article is valuable, however, in recording the presence of such a malady; and al- 

 though we may not see the curl again fur years, it may hereafter be referred to with profit 

 in other questions. 



Our Improving Agricxdture. — There is a freshness and a raciness in Mr. French, 

 which always makes him a most welcome visitant to your pages. There is, too, a vein 

 of sound practical sense running through his remarks, most edifying to his readers. 



The very soul of a periodical like the Horticulturist, next to the labors of an energetic, 

 discriminating editor, is the thoughts of intelligent, practical correspondents upon the le- 

 gitimate subjects connected with it. There is no better way — none so good, even — to build 

 up a paper and give it character, influence, and usefulness. This correspondence, too, 

 should be wide-spread; it should come from every state and territory in our broad Union. 



