286 



PRACTICAL HINTS TO AMATEURS. 



self, in winter, about making some boxes 

 to protect them. A few cheap boxes, a foot 

 S'juare, with a pane of glass in the top, to 

 put over tender things at night, will cost 

 you but a trifle, and will give you ten days 

 start of the open ground. 



To have good currants, gooseberries, or 

 raspberries, the old plants should be dug up 

 at the end of three or four good crops, and 

 their places supplied by young ones. If 

 you plant a few cuttings of the two former, 

 as you should do, every spring, you will 

 always have a supply of fresh plants ready 

 at all times : always cut out all the eyes 

 (buds) of a cutting, on that part which goes 

 in the ground — otherwise you will be 

 troubled by their coming up, year after 

 year, in the form of suckers. 



If you have a tree that grows " apace," 

 but won't bear, dig a tench round it, and 

 cut off a third of the roots. This will 

 check its growth, and set it about making 

 fruit-buds. 



Never buy fruit trees in the " market- 

 places," of unknown venders, who have no 

 character to lose. You cannot tell hy " ex- 

 amining the article," whether they cheat 

 you or not ; and you get your tree at half 

 price, only to wish, when it comes to bear, 

 that you had gone to an honest dealer and 

 paid ten times as much, for something worth 

 planting. " Hog-Peach " trees are dearer 

 at a penny, than " George the Fourths" at 

 a dollar. 



If you don't love flowers yourself, don't 

 quarrel with those who do. It is a defect 

 in your nature which you ought to be sorry 

 for, rather than abuse those who are more 

 gifted. Of what possible '-use" is the rain- 

 bow, we should like to know ? And yet a 

 wiser than you did not think the earth com- 

 plete without it. 



Do not grudge the cost and labor neces- 

 sary to plant a few of the best shade-trees 



round your house ; and if you have any 

 doubts about what to plant, stick in an elm. 

 There are few trees in the world finer than 

 a fine sweeping elm ; and two or three of 

 them will give even a common-looking 

 dwelling a look of dignity. If you plant 

 fruit trees, for shade, they are likely 

 to be broken to pieces for the fruit, and 

 they grow unsightly by the time that 

 forest trees grow spreading and umbra- 

 geous. 



There are very few men whose friends 

 build so fair a monument to their memory; 

 as the3^ can raise with their own hands, by 

 planting an elm or a maple where it can 

 grow for a century, to be an ornament to 

 the country. 



Don't be afraid to clip hedges, or cut-back 

 young trees, when you are planting them. 

 You gain more growth than you lose, 

 though you may not be able to comprehend 

 it till you have seen it with your own eyes. 

 Never work your ground in wet weather 

 if you can avoid it, as it makes it clod-like 

 and compact by forcing the air out. And 

 ridge up your kitchen garden ground be- 

 fore winter, so as to expose as much surface 

 as possible to the action of the frost. 



Never lose an opportunity of getting so£?5 

 from the corners of old pastures, or the 

 breaking up of commons or meadows, where 

 they can be spared. Placed in heaps, and 

 rotted, they make excellent mould for ten- 

 der plants or trees ; placed in a pile and 

 burned, they form the best fertilizer for 

 roses and rare flowering plants. 



Send a man about your neighborhood to 

 collect all the bones that are thrown away 

 as useless by persons ignorant of their 

 value. Put them in a large pot and pour 

 sulphuric acid and water over them, and 

 they will all turn to paste, and finally to 

 powder. This is the best possible manure 

 for pear trees and grape vines. 



