DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



experiments in disinfecting night-soil, and fetid 

 chamber slops, in warm weather, I find it puts 

 a quietus upon the odors most perfectly — and 

 for this purpose fully equal to fresh burned 

 coal. Try it, ye skeptics, who profess to de- 

 light in rich foliage and luxuriant growth. 



Wood ashes, leached or fresh, is another in- 

 valuable auxiliary to the tiller of the soil ; and 

 remarkable is it, that the farmer and gardener 

 will, even now, sell his ashes at a few cents a 

 bushel, iu exchange for soap, at a loss of a 

 thousand per cent! As a single fertilizer for tree 

 culture, it is the most valuable of any. 



In my orchard of an hundred rather old ap- 

 ple trees, whose beauty had departed, and 

 whose fruit was bitter, and miserably poor, I 

 have already wrought a favorable change. 

 Around each tree the soil has been trenched, 

 two feet deep by two feet wide, at from six to 

 eight feet from the bole; the roots cut off 

 smoothly with a well ground spade, and the 

 trench filled with a compost of chopped sod, 

 hair, leached ashes and chip manjiire. well incor- 

 porated, scattering the soil taken out upon the 

 surface. The trees were then somewhat prun- 

 ed and grafted ; the loose bark and moss care- 

 fully scraped away, and a wash of whale oil 

 soap, sulphur and sand, put freely upon them. 

 The grafts took well ; the trees put on a new 

 dress, and already have they assumed a health- 

 ful vigor. What they will attain by another 

 season's growth, we can readily imagine. This 

 orchard was well manured, deeply plowed, and 

 put into potatoes which turned out well. 



An experiment made here, vi'ith salt, in po- 

 tato culture, may be useful to record: It has 

 been contended that common salt, both was, 

 and was not, valuable to the growth of this 

 crop. I experimented somewhat largely, and 

 offer the results: 



Upon 100 sets, I placed directly in the hole, 

 when planting, a gill of common salt, which 

 killed about fifty per cent. To another 100 

 sets half a gill; all came up and grew. Upon 

 another 100 sets none ; the tubers and haulm 

 showed no observable difiercnee among the 

 different lots. To another 100 sets that were 

 treated each with half a shovel full of leached 

 ashes, a marked difference was readily seen; 

 they were not more vigorous,but better colored, 

 and yielded better. As connected with this ex- 



periment I would remark that Jlat hoeing, and 

 not hilling up, is far preferable for this, and all 

 other crops requiring regular moisture at the 

 roots ; indeed, it is one of the most mistaken dog- 

 mas of the age, that garden beds are universally 

 made high, and curved, or rounded on the sur- 

 face, and the paths or walks left sunken, when 

 in truth, the reverse should be the case. Our 

 summer showers are few and far between, and 

 should be carefully caught upon the spot where 

 they fall, instead of allowing them to wash the 

 surface of its fertility, to be carried by the 

 paths to some neighboring brook, or, perchance, 

 enrich some neighbor's low land. In evidence 

 of this, I would adduce the fact, Avell known 

 to observing persons, that the soil under a tree 

 of ten or more inches in girth, is never mois- 

 tened beyond a few inches in depth, from the 

 middle of May to September, that is from the 

 opened leaf to the fall rains. Is it not rea- 

 sonable then, that in our climate we have no 

 spare moisture. Did I dare offer an immature 

 opinion, I shouldattribute to this fact the blight 

 of pear trees, &-c. In the observations I have 

 made, the trees thus affected have in all cases 

 been in a light porous or shallow worked soil, 

 and affected at a time when evaporation is at 

 its greatest point, the roots having exhausted 

 the surrounding moisture in greater ratio than 

 the supply. In deep and well trenched soil, 

 with a suitable mulch, I have never yet seen a 

 blight. 



Pear seedlings in our neighborhood are gen- 

 erally considered a failure, losing their foliage 

 early and suffering greatly from blight — while 

 mine, on the contrary, grown on subsoiled 

 land, well dressed with ashes, hair and scoriae 

 have flourished finely, ripening well their wood, 

 and had not, up to the 5th of December shed 

 their leaves. They were then covered by a 

 heavy fall of snow. Of several hundred pears 

 from the yearling to the bearing, which I plant- 

 ted early in the spring in similarly prepared 

 land, each having a mulch of spent tan, not an 

 instance of blight has occurred ; while a neigh- 

 bor is deeply sorrowing the \osso( forty beauti- 

 ful trees. It may, I feel assured, be a settled 

 axiom, that the pear can not be successfuily 

 grown on light soils, neither will they thrive 

 without that specific aliment, well incorporated 

 in the soil, which goes to make up the wood. 



