494 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



this subject, but will state that in the Isle of 

 Thanet, on the River Thames, where much seed 

 wheat is grown, and where seeds of vegetables 

 and herbs are grown to a large extent, the com- 

 post heaps are formed as follows: three or four 

 inches of pretty good loam and turf, then six or 

 eight inches of seaweed brought up from the 

 beach in the immediate vicinity; then six or 

 eight inches farm-yard manure, then loam, and so 

 on, until the heap is several feet high. This is 

 left twelve months to decompose ; the grains raised 

 are beautiful, large, plump and heavy; now here 

 the ingredients are clayey loam to absorb. Sea- 

 weed contains soda, and a good proportion of the 

 phosphates. The barn-yard manure, besides its 

 soluble salts, contains ammonia; and the solid 

 parts are by fermentation converted into charcoal 

 and humus, which absorb the ammonia and pre- 

 serve it for the use of the crop. Here then is not 

 only every ingredient the plant requires, but also 

 the store-house of alumina and charcoal, from 

 which it extracts its food as wanted. 



" I remember a discussion on the subject of 

 whether manure was better used in a green state 

 or after it had been kept for a year or more, and 

 had become a black saponaceous mass. The 

 question appeared to be settled in favor of this 

 latter state, and this agrees witii my own experi- 

 ence. If a manure heap be fermented under a 

 good cover, it is converted into a Idaok carbonace- 

 ous mass, containing nearly all the ammonia con- 

 densed in its pores, and is a most powerful ma- 

 nure." 



Hints from the South. — If your correspond- 

 ents read as much of horticulture, &c., as they do 

 of other matters, they would find much that they 

 esteem to be quite new, to be really quite old. 

 A reverend gentleman from the state of New- 

 York, — one as fond of fruits and flowers as any one 

 who delights to aid others, — tlie Rev. A. B. Law- 

 rence, now in Louisville, Ky., instructed me in 

 the art of bwiding with terminal biuU in the sum- 

 mer of '44 or '45, and told me, I think, that he 

 had been taught it long, long ago in New- York 

 state. 



I see some ready hand is giving a cut back- 

 wards at somebody. All I have to say about it, 

 is, — go ahead. I have seen a letter from one 

 man, who was " immensely superior" to all other 

 nurseries; and as to accuracy, why. Old Master 

 could not hold a candle to him, for he did some- 

 times make a mistake ; see " Curious Pomonal 

 Freak," page 292, where a Russet grew, by mis- 

 take, instead of a Greening. I tell you, there are 

 some folks who need a severe rasping down, and 

 I hope " Old Digger" will do it. I have been 

 cultivating a few plum trees from the north, 

 (price 50 centh each,) for 15 years or over, and, 

 as yet, have only seen a few hard things, which 

 would make a pig squeal to taste them, and cause 

 crab apples, cranberries and vinegar to blush for 

 sweetness ! But in sober earnest, I think I can 



point to hundreds of dollars, swindled out of a 

 small part of this country. 



Please solicit " An Old Digger" to continue his 

 notes. I love that sort of Jigging; and assure 

 you, that an article in each number like that, will 

 aid the circulation of your paper more than two 

 and forty sort of advertise-communications, from 

 the greatest grower of strawberries, from the 

 land of charlatanry. Many of us need plain, 

 straight-forward remarks ; as — " 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 — " Don't be afraid to clip hedges, or cut 

 back young trees, when you are planting them." 

 Such compact advice is worth more than a dozen 

 catalogues of forly thousand kinds of fruit, &c. 



There are many of us, " outside Barbarians," 

 who would like to see you continue your "notes 

 about green-houses. We want practical informa- 

 tion. I have been a reader of flower gardens and 

 orchard directories, and all that matter, for years; 

 and, save Mr. Loudo.v, I never could get hold of 

 anything but what was too high learned. Foreign 

 works are quoted, visits to very extensive green- 

 houses — but stop, I firm striking back handed; and 

 that I leave to " An OKI Digger." I am sincerely 

 your friend, A Cynic, in Miss. Feb., 1849. 



Severe Winter. — The past winter has been 

 one of remarkable severity, the temperature of 

 part of the month of February having been lowei 

 thi'oughout the middle and eastern states, than for 

 13 years previously. 



No winter since 1836 has been so severe upon 

 half-hardy trees and plants. A considerable num- 

 ber of those which usually bear the winters here 

 without suffering the least injury, have lost a good 

 jiart of their last season's growth, and in some 

 parts of the country even plum and peach trees 

 have sufl'ered much by the sudden thawing of the 

 bark after severe frost, cau.sing it to split open, 

 breaking the sap vessels, killing the trees. 



North of us, and in New-England, we learn 

 that the germ of the peach bud is destroyed, so 

 that there will be no crop of peaches in those dis- 

 tricts this season. Indeed, we learn from a friend 

 near Boston, that the blossom buds of the cherry 

 also show, on being cut across, the dark centre 

 which tolls tliat they also have been injured by 

 the excessive cold. Tiie mercury*at Boston fell, 

 we understand, to thirteen degrees below zero. 

 Twelve degrees below is sullicient to kill the 

 heart of the peach blossom buds. In New- Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania we believe the peach crop is 

 uninjured. 



In our own garden we find only about one bud 

 in tea of peaches and apricots destroyed, — the re- 

 mainder ai'O sound and good ; cherries are not at 

 all injured. The mercury with us sunk to 10 

 degrees below 0. In some gardens within a few 

 miles of us, however, in colder sites, the buds are 

 nearly all killed. 



We are glad to find that those two fine new 



