DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



487 



cause we are only willing to give it credit for hav- 

 ing been an excellent State Convention of fruit- 

 growers. 



Of the " legitimacy and vitality " of the BufTalo 

 Convention, as a State Convention, we have not 

 the slightc-st doubt. And we arc confident, not 

 only that it was productive of much good, but 

 that such a convention, held every year, at the 

 i>tate Agricultural Fair, will be of the greatest 

 adA'antage to the coinmunitv. 



But our correspondent has not in the lea.st 

 proved that it was a national convention. He 

 has, on the contrary, admitted tliat it was called 

 solel)'- by the N. Y. State Agricultural Society. 



Now, we understand the nature of a convention 

 to be this: a convention for local purposes may 

 be called by the inhabitants or authorities of a 

 town or village ; that is a town convention. A 

 convention for state purposes may be called by 

 the authorities or inhabitants of a state ; that is a 

 state convention. But if the proper authorities or 

 individuals in various states, for some purpose of 

 national interest, see fit to call a convention, that 

 is properly a national convention. 



Now, the Buffalo convention either was a na- 

 tional convention or it was not. If it assembled 

 pursuant to the call of a state society only, it was 

 clearly a state convention. And this Mr, Allen, 

 then President of the society, declares to be the 

 fact. That the presence of several distinguished 

 poraologists from other states, who were partly 

 attracted to Buffalo by the great Agricultural 

 Fair, gave the Buflalo convention an '' odor of na- 

 tionality" we admit, but it was only an odor. 



The New- York convention, or a.s it is now 

 called, •" the Congress of Fruit-growers," on tlie 

 other hand, was publiclv called by the authorities 

 of at least three ditrercnt states; among them the 

 tvro oldest Horticultural Societies (Mass. and 

 Penn.) in the country; the call was avowedly for 

 a national convention ; and therefore we cannot 

 but think it the only national convention of fruit- 

 growers now in existence. 



Mr. Allen alludes to the executive committee 

 of the N. A. Pom. Convention, appointed at Buf- 

 falo, and from whom, we are told, the late anony- 

 mous circular from Albany purports to come. 

 Will he tell us who compose this committee ? We 

 find no such committee in the published proceed- 

 ings of the Bufialo Convention, and if such a com- 

 mittee really exists, why will tliey not sign their 

 names to their circulars? 



Our readers do not need any remarks from us 

 touching the dictatorial position which our corres- 

 pondent imagines us to assume with regard to 

 pomology or pomological progress in this country. 

 They, at least, know us well enough to feel 

 that our only object in our remarks on Pomologi- 

 cal Conventions was to point out iiow much, be- 

 sides state conventions, the counti-y at large re- 

 quires another, of a national character; and that 

 there can, in the nature of things, only be one 

 body whose authority will be respected. We do 



not care the value of a crab whether such a con- 

 vention meets in New- York or Buffalo, but we 

 must discharge our duty nevertheless in pointing 

 out the dillerencc between a really national and a 

 really local association. 



Special Manures for Vegetables. Two or 

 three correspondents, since the pulilication of our 

 remarks on manures for fruit trees, have express- 

 ed a wish for more light regarding the chemical 

 composition of some of the leading vegetables. 



They complain of the great difficulty of grow- 

 ing certain kinds of vegetables — beans, for exam- 

 ple — in small gardens where the soil has been 

 cultivated a long time, and where, from not being 

 able to change such crops to new soil they fail in 

 growing them, notwithstanding a liberal supply 

 of animal manure. 



What these vegetables want is a supply of 

 mineral manures, and in order to know how to 

 apply these most judiciously, our readers must 

 know something of the chemical composition of 

 each vegetable. We therefore give the following 

 abstract of the inorganic elements which enter 

 most largely into the composition of such vegeta- 

 bles. It is from the analysis of the ashes of tliese 

 plants by De Saussure, Sprengel, and other 

 chemists : 



Peas, 



Beans, 



Celery 



Onions, (hulb) . 



Do ' stnlk, . . 



C;'.uli flower. . .. . 



Cabbage, 



Potato, (roots,) . 



Beet, (root:) 



Carrot, (root,).. 

 Parsnep, (root,). 

 Radish, (root.) . 



2'S 



We have avoided giving the decimals, as we 

 only intend a sufficient sketch of the analysis to 

 furnish practical hints — and the approximation is 

 sufficiently accurate for this purpose. 



The information which the practical cultivator 

 will gather from the foregoing, is something like 

 this ; that potash enters more largely and uni- 

 formly into the composition of vegetables than any 

 other of these elements, and hence that wood 

 ashes are among the most generally useful appli- 

 cations to the kitchen garden. Next to this, com- 

 mon soda (which may be had very cheaply at the 

 wholesale druggists,) is highly important. Phos- 

 phoric acid, (which maybe furnished in the shape 

 of bone dust,) is also an important element, as 

 well as sulphuric acid. Lime and sulphuric acid, 

 also considerable constituents, may be easily sup- 

 plied by manuring with plaster (gypsum.) Silica 

 for the most part enters very slightly into the 

 composition of the above vegetables, with the ex- 



