EDITOR'S TABLE. 



Plan for Fruit House. — I wish to inquire of you for a plan of a fruit-house, in connection ■with an ice-house. It 

 is generally understood that tender and perishable fruit can be kept perfectly sound and good, almost any kngth i.f 

 time, provided they can be kept in a cool place, but little below the freezing point. Such a fruit-house as would 

 preserve Raspberries, Strawberries, Blackberries, Peaches, early Pears, Apples, Apricots, Nectarines, Cherries, ic, 

 the year round, would be a valuable auxiliary to our kitchen. Now, can you, or any of your readers, give me the 

 plan of such a house, through the columns of the Jlorticulturist t John Gage. — Waukegan^ Lake Co., III. 



"We cannot give snch a plan. Berries and stone fruits may be cooled in an ice-house, or they 

 may be preserved a day or two in it ; but they will soon lose their freshness and flavor. 



Effects of last "Winter on Osage Orange Hedges. — I am anxious to have from some of your correspondents 

 who have been engaged in the cultivation of Osage Orange for hedges, what has been the effect on them from the 

 weather of the past winter. 1 have one, about 100 yards long, transplanted three years ago the present spring. The 

 two first winters I protected it slightly with Sedge Grass ; but it having attained the size of a man's thumb at the 

 base, I considered it safe from the cold, and risked it last winter without protection. All the growth of the last year 

 was killed, and many, say about one quarter of the plants, killed down to the ground. They are sprouting from the 

 roots, however, but the beauty of the hedge is gone. It had not the average exposure of shrubbery in the New Eng- 

 land States, and had been well treated and tilled. J. W. Fowler. — Milford, Conn. 



Hedges of various ages on our own grounds have passed this last winter and previous winters, 

 when the cold was more intense, without the least injury. Even yearling plants in the nursery 

 were uninjured, save on the points. In a neighbor's hedge, however, some five or six years old, 

 we have noticed an occasional plant killed to the ground. The plants are over an inch in diam- 

 eter. The plants in this hedge were set thinly in a double row. We think that when they are 

 set close, say six inchs apart, they shelter each other, and are less liable to injury. The most 

 destructive element here, during last winter, was high winds of several days continuance, when 

 the ground was unprotected by snow, and the weatlicr freezing, but not intensely cold. The 

 roots of the Quince were injured in exposed places, just at the surface of the ground, and a little 

 below. This has never occurred before, during our residence in the Genesee Valley — a period 

 of fourteen years ; and it may never occur again. 



Notices o£ BooIiS, IJampIjItts, ^t. 



Farm Implements, and the Principles of their Constrtjction and Use; an elementary and familiar treatise 

 on Mechanics, and on natural philosophy generally, as applied to ihe ordinary practices of Agriculture. 'With 200 

 engraved Illustrations. By John J. Thomas. New York : IIaf.per & Bbotheks, Publishers. 



Mr. Thomas lias done the agricultural community a great service in the preparation of 

 this book. It was much needed. Improvements in the construction of farm implements 

 and machinery have contributed largely to the progress "which has been recently made in 

 the art of cultivation. Compare for a moment our modern plows, cultivators, or horse- 

 hoes, reapers, mowing machines, straw and hay cutters, root cutters, (tc, with the farmer's 

 implements of over five and t-v\'enty years ago, and what a diflference we see. Science has 

 been silently and steadily at work in eftecting the vast improvements, placing ncAv powers 

 in the hands of the husbandman, by which he is not only enabled to cultivate three or four 

 times the amount of land with the same amount of labor, but to do it infinitely better. 

 Besides, this application of science to the improvement of implements and machines has 

 elevated the art of husbandi-y from the condition of a rude, unintellectual routine of 

 drudgery, to that of a pursuit which is daily attracting to it men of wealth, education, and 

 refinement. 



Every farmer, and every farmer's son, must be aware of all this ; a glance among the 

 stock of implements cannot ftiil to suggest to them the service which science and invention 

 have conferred upon them. But it is not enough to know this. The principles upon which 



great improvement are based should be studied. No man should be satisfied 

 merely the possession of the best i)low, or reaper, or thrashing machine ; but should 



