DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



ers the following comparison of the horticul- 

 tural advantages of both sides of the water. 

 Looking at the matter in so far as relates to 

 fruit and farm culture — we entirely agree 

 with him — but for ornamental gardening, 

 no climate equals England. 



" In regard to fruit culture, our advanta- 

 ges are still greater. An orchard of fruit 

 trees in this country, even when well at- 

 tended, does not require as much care 

 and labor in five years as it does in one 

 in the greater portion of Europe. A single 

 peach tree in England or France, receives 

 more actual hard labor in one season, than 

 an orchard of one hundred trees in Western 

 New-York; and the price of a single fruit, 

 or at any rate half a dozen, in the markets 

 of London, or Paris, will buy a bushel in 

 New-York or Eochester. We complain of 

 curculio destroying our plums and apricots, 

 and this is one of our greatest drawbacks 

 here, but, notwithstanding, I have seen 

 more plums and apricots on a single tree 

 here since I returned, than on any dozen I 

 saw in England. We have the aphis on our 

 cherry trees here, but they are easily des- 

 troyed. In both France and England I saw 

 both orchards and nurseries of cherry trees 

 almost ruined by them, and they were said 

 to be unconquerable. We have fire blight, 

 and leaf blight here, and both are sad diffi- 

 culties, but in France and England they are 

 not without both these maladies. I saw ap- 

 ple trees very seriously affected in England, 

 with what we designate fire blight, — the 

 ends of the branches black and dead, and 

 there, as here, the real cause is quite un- 

 known to the most skillful cultivators. In 

 France I saw as bad cases of our leaf blight 

 on the pear, as I have ever seen in America. 

 The ravages of birds in Eurore are tremen- 

 dous. It is almost impossible to save a crop 

 of cherries. Nets, scarecrows, and a thou- 

 sand expensive and troublesome devices are 

 practiced, that in this country, where labor 

 is dear, would not be attempted, even though 

 the culture should be abandoned. 



" Fruit stealing has been supposed to be 

 peculiarly an American vice, but it is not so 

 by any means, though, probably, quite as 

 prevalent as elsewhere. In other countries 

 fruit gardens are better protected than in 

 ours, and this gives them a greater degree 

 of safety : but in France I saw several nur- 

 series at some distance from houses, where 

 the fruits were removed as soon as they ap- 

 peared, to save the trees from being broken 

 by the fruit stealers. If in America we were 

 to apply ourselves to culture with the same 



indefatigable perseverance, the same regard- 

 lessness of labor that I have seen in Europe, 

 we could produce results that we do not now 

 dream of, and we Avill come to this by and 

 bye — we are every year approaching it near- 

 er and nearer — our culture is becoming more 

 skillful, more thorough and more success- 

 ful; but we have onl}' made a beginning. 



" In Horticulture, as in Agriculture, the 

 United States of America has a great desti- 

 ny to fulfil. Our territory is not only im- 

 mense, but so diversified in soil and climate, 

 that all the most valuable grains and fruits 

 can be produced in such abundance as will 

 enable us to supply other countries less fa- 

 vored in these respects. The intimate con- 

 nection now established between all paits 

 of the world, has removed the barriers 

 which distance heretofore created, and we 

 have now a clear course. Cultivators may 

 redouble their energies with a sure prospect 

 of reward, and if our government, in its 

 wisdom, should see fit to lend a helping 

 hand, all the better." 



Osage Okange Hedges. — The Osage 

 Orange is growing in favor as a hedge plant. 

 Though the ends of the shoots are, in New 

 England, liable to be nipped by the winter 

 while the plant is young, it grows more har- 

 dy with age and clipping till it becomes 

 quite acclimated. Wherever the peach ri- 

 pens, the Osage Orange will make a good 

 hedge. The following remarks from the 

 Boston Cultivator are interesting in a prac- 

 tical sense : 



Mr. Editor — In a late number of the 

 Cultivator, one of your correspondents re- 

 quests me to give my mode of cultivating 

 the Osage Orange as a hedge. I commenced 

 in April, 1848, with three pints of seed, 

 sown in drills a foot distant from each other; 

 hoeing and weeding them Avell. In the 

 Spring of 1849, I planted 350 yards; dug 

 the trench 18 inches deep, and where the 

 land was poor, spread earth at the bottom 

 that was collected from the wood pile, plant- 

 ed the sets at eight inches apart, and cut 

 them off two inches above the ground. Each 

 plant sent up from two to three shoots, Avhich 

 attained a height of five or six feet that sea- 

 son. The first summer I kept them free 

 from weeds, and made the ground mellow by 

 repeatedly hoeing and digging with the spade, 

 and in the spring of 1850, I cut them down 

 to one foot from the ground, cultivatin 

 before. In July, I again cut them down 

 two feet, and in Sept. trimmed them 



