DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



domes of bloom not six inches higli, but from 

 eighteen to twenty-four inches across. This is 

 the time to begin them. 



The Rostiezer Pear. — We have fruited this 

 Viiriety for many years, and )iave always esteem- 

 ed it as nearly oi" quite unequalled in quality 

 among summer pears, standing quite as high 

 among these, as the Seckel does among autumn 

 varieties. We are therefore gratified to find in 

 the last number of Hoveys' Magazine, the fol- 

 lowing remarks by the editor, who. as is well 

 known, has a very extensive knowledge of fruits. 



'■ The Rostiezer is certainly one of the finest 

 of our summer pears ; hitherto we have thought 

 it too small to give it a high rank, notwithstand- 

 ing its delicious, spicy, Seckel-like flavor; but 

 its smallness has been the fault of cultivators ; 

 this year it comes up to the full size of a medi- 

 um pear, being here as large as the St. Ghis- 

 lain, and we have seen specimens even much 

 larger from other places. It is an enornnnis 

 bearer, and hangs, as the usual phrase is, " like 

 strings of onions," from the tree ; we counted 

 no less than nine handsome pears from one clus- 

 ter of blossoms."' 



The Potato Disease. — Any experiment that 

 tends to throw additional light upon the disease 

 in potatoes, is deserving of consideration, be- 

 cause, althougli it may uQt explain tlie cause sa- 

 tisf\ictorily. yet it is only by the accumulation of 

 facts, such as the apparent influence of divers 

 modes of growth upon it, that we can hope at 

 last to trace out the principles upon which the 

 presence or absence of thedi^aase is dependant. 

 A. Mens. Bayard has communicated to the hor- 

 ticulturists of Paris, the result of an experi- 

 ment made by him in an altogether new direc- 

 tion, the result of which he gives in the follow- 

 ing account: •'' Upon my property in tiie com- 

 mune of Jaille-Yron, in the department of the 

 Maine and Loire, the potatoes grown in 1850 

 were generally bad. Before planting, in 1851, 

 I cut some potatoes into sets, and forced into 

 each set, according to itssize, one. two or three 

 dry peas. A piece of ground w-as })lanted with 

 these sets, and an adjoining piece with sets with- 

 out peas. Notwithstanding the dry summer, 

 the peas grew strong and flowered, and the po- 

 tato stems pushed vigorously. The potatoes 

 containing peas produced a crop without disease, 

 which kept well through the winter, and part 

 them were used the present year in June, for 

 Part of the crop of the sets planted with- 



out peas, were diseased. Whilst the above ex- 

 periment was going on in a field of heavy land, 

 a similar one was made in a kitchen garden, 

 where the soil was light, and the result was the 

 same. The potatoes with peas were healthy, 

 but those without rapidly indicated signs of ill- 

 health. During the growth of the pea stems 

 and potato stems, some were pulled up and ex- 

 amined, and it appeared that the early vegeta- 

 tion of the pea had carried off the excessive hu- 

 midity from the potato." Assuming that upon 

 i-epetition this experiment in other parts, is 

 found to give the same results, there can be lit- 

 tle doubt that the concluding sentence indicates 

 the cause, nanieh', the absortionby the roots of 

 the peas of a portion the water contained in the 

 sets. This is a strong evidence in favor of the 

 correctness of the now very general opinion, 

 that excessive moisture has much to do with the 

 disease. M. 



Sweet Bovgh — Color of Apples. — "Does 

 the Sweet Bough everhave afaint blush? Some 

 specimens exhibited at our State Fair called 

 the Bough, had a blush, but I can find no de- 

 scriptions that mention it." J. A. D. The 

 Sweet Bough, in common with nearly all green 

 or yellow apples, has a faint blush when grown 

 fully exposed to the sun — and this is so com- 

 mon or almost universal with apples of tliis 

 class, thatpomologistshave regarded it as hardly 

 necessary to mention as a distinctive point. 



Different seasons, soils, and stocks, produce 

 various results in coloring apples. We have 

 known the Rhode Island Greening, in some 

 years, to be a full deep green, on every part of 

 the tree; and in other years, to have very gen- 

 erally a deep reddish brown cheek. The Por- 

 ter is usually remarkably free from a brown 

 tinge ; yet during the growth of the fruit towards 

 the close of summer, it has been seen to have 

 conspicuous stripes of red in the sun, but which 

 entirely disappeared when fully matured. A 

 long warm season does not always produce the 

 highest color — it was observed a few years since 

 at one of the Ohio fruit conventions, that the 

 specimens from the warm region of Cincinnati 

 were not nearly so much reddened as those 

 from the cooler shores of Lake Erie at Cleveland. 

 An interesting incident under this head once 

 occurred in the case of the first specimens of 

 JeweVs Red which we fruited — they maintained 



