DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



supply them with such simple meals as thej' 

 might require. The house would thus be like 

 a French lodging hotel, and the yearly expense 

 to each tenant, of one or more rooms, would 

 be less than is incurred by occasional visits to 

 the hotels. The idea seemed to me to com- 

 bine economy, utility and comfort, and to be, 

 moreover, a very timely one, with the present 

 increasing taste for permanent homes in the 

 country. 



I will conclude my letter with the hope that 

 some one will give us a memoir of Downing, to 

 be published with his collected works, and to 

 convey a reflex of the beautiful life he led, and 

 the hand-in-hand progress of his taste and his 

 common sense. They were well balanced, and 

 they kept pace and enlarged and brightened, to 

 his dying day. Yours, etc., N. P. W. 



Remedies for the Curculio — A New One. 

 — The Farmers' Monthly Visitor publishes the 

 statement of Joshua Dean, who, at the sugges- 

 tion of the editor of that paper, tried with great 

 success a new remedy which had been used 

 with decided effect by an acquaintance at 

 Nashua. The remedy is, " an ounce of harts- 

 horn (sal ammonia) and a pint of soft soap, dis- 

 solved in three gallons of water." This is 

 thrown on the foliage and frut with a syringe, 

 in the morning, twice or thrice a week. In the 

 experiment described, a simple tin syringe was 

 used, holding about two quarts, and the prepa- 

 ration was applied at four different times to 

 thi'ee plum trees, about as many more being 

 left untouched, The result is. " a dozen plums 

 did not fall " from either of the trees operated 

 on, but they hung so full of fruit, that it was 

 needful to prop the limbs — while not a dozen 

 plums remained upon all the others. This, it 

 appears, was the first crop ever obtained from 

 these plum trees. 



It will be observed that sal-ammoniac (muriate 

 of ammonia) was used, and not salts of harts- 

 horn or carbonate of ammonia, a more costly ar- 

 ticle. The sal-ammoniac was pulverized, and 

 mixed with unslaked lime in equal parts, mak- 

 ing it easily soluble in water — the cost being for 

 1 lb. 1-5 cents, and two cents more for lime and 

 soap, or 17 cents for the whole — cheap enough, 

 to be sure, for an effectual remedy, if this only 

 proves such. 



This remedy, like many others proposed of late 

 years, is very easily tried, and the posfiblity, 

 even, of its success, should be a sufficient in- 

 ducement. In the case related, it appears to 



have been eminently successful, but a single trial 

 is insufficient, as other causes may operate at 

 the same time. The application of thin lime- 

 wash has been very highly commended, yet we 

 have found it quite as much labor to keep the 

 young fruit coated with the lime, as to knock 

 down the insects daily on muslin frames. A 

 neighbor who had for years lost all his necta- 

 rines, tried the lime remedy very thoroughly, 

 not only syringing the trees, but applying the 

 lime with a brush to the fruit, whenever rains, 

 heavy dews, or the chafing of leaves removed 

 the coating ; yet, after spending about three days 

 in the aggregate upon nine trees, he saved only 

 six nectarines from the destroyers. These we 

 afterwards learned were from a tree under which 

 a calf had been kept confined, and whose pre- 

 sence served to frighten the curculios. If the 

 sal-ammoniac remedy operates in the same way, 

 that is by merely serving as a coating, we should 

 very much question its general value ; but if the 

 fumes of the ammonia, which are very strong 

 when the salt is mixed with lime, are the chief 

 repelling influence, it may prove quite efficient. 

 Perhaps the Monthly Visitor can throw some 

 light on this point. 



Good and Bad Taste. — It is a delicate mat- 

 ter to find fault with those, who with great 

 labor and industry have exerted themselves to 

 add to the interest and attractions of our Hor- 

 ticultural exhibitions and State Fairs — espe- 

 cially when the great mass of the people show 

 so little enterprize in supporting them. It can 

 certainly do no harm, however, to point out 

 the difference between good and bad taste, and 

 to enable the industrious and ingenious to ex- 

 pend their labors to better advantage. Good 

 taste can never deviate from fitness and good 

 sense ; hence images of the human figure, built, 

 like cobble-stone houses, of roses and asters, are 

 entirely out of place. Flowers are light and 

 decorative merely, and can never be properly 

 used in constituting the solid material of heavy 

 bodies. The human figure may be imitated in 

 stone or plaster, and wreaths of flowers used 

 sparingly in decorating it, but never in build- 

 ing up its solid portions. The same objection, 

 that of unfitness, applies to the construction 

 of banners, stars, and other odd conceits, of 

 flowers. There must be a natural suggestion 

 of the one from the other, which is not the case 



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