274 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[September, 



a brace, etc., is often convenient in a barn, or 

 other out-building. By the use of crooked timber 

 a frame may be made much lighter and more 

 durable than where only straight logs are used. 

 There are many implements in which crooked 

 timber is best, as the knees of wood sleds, stone 

 boats, etc. The farmer should study to use a 

 natural bend in a tree whenever an opportunity 

 offers. — American Agriculturist. 



The American Plane or Sycamore Tree. — 

 At the Montreal Forestry Congress, Mr. Caldwell, 

 of Cincinnati, said : 



"The monarch of our forests is the sycamore 

 tree. It is a rapid grower and not destroyed by 

 insects. I am indebted to ' Zadok Cramer's Navi- 

 gator,' published in 1808 at Gittsburg, Ga., for 

 facts which would be incredible if I had not seen 

 the enormous sycamores, which, however, I did 



not measure. I have seen a section of a hollow 

 sycamore tree used as a smoke house to smoke 

 meat ; another as a bin to hold grain ; another as 

 an ash-hopper to catch ashes ; another as a well- 

 curb. This tree grows near the water courses and 

 does not thrive so well elsewhere. The ' Navi- 

 gator' named above says : ' It is known to have 

 measured sixteen feet in diameter, four feet from 

 the ground, and this only a common size. One 

 has been known to be sixty feet in circumference. 

 In the hollow of another a man turned himself 

 around with a ten foot pole, at right angles to his 

 body, sweeping inside the tree. On the farm of 

 Mr. Abram Miller, in Scioto county, Ohio, is a 

 hollow sycamore tree, into which thirteen men 

 rode on horseback on the 6th of June, 1808 ; there 

 was room for two more ; the fourteenth was pres- 

 ent, but his horse would not enter the strange 

 apartment.' I say, further, this tree is valuable 

 for housebuilding and for cabinet work, but it is 

 not the most valuable." 



Natural History and Science. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



THE MAPLE SUGAR CROP. 



BY W. F. BASSETT, HAMMONTON, N. J. 



In reply to your correspondent's queries I would 

 say : Yes, there is always sap in the trees, but certain 

 conditions are necessary to make it flow. The 

 principal requisites are freezing and thawing, but 

 a good " run " of sap must be the result of a com- 

 bination of favorable circumstances. The best 

 runs occur when, immediately after a snow storm, 

 or a rain which is followed by a freeze, we have 

 warm weather with wind southwest or northeast ; 

 and it often runs pretty freely with wind northwest 

 or east, but never with wind south ; and if any 

 considerable time intervened between the storm 

 and thawing weather, especially if accompanied 

 by drying winds, we rarely get much sap — almost 

 the only exceptions being when very damp south- 

 west or northeast winds accompany the thawing 

 out. Now if we have cold dry winds for several 

 days after each storm, or if nearly all the thawing 

 is done by south winds, there will be very little 

 sugar made. It seems to make very little differ- 

 ence whether winter sets in with the ground frozen 



deeply or snow covers it with no trost in. I have 

 known very good and very poor sugar seasons to 

 follow either. 



EFFECTS OF CROSS-FERTILIZATION 

 ON FRUIT. 



BY B. J. C. 



An opinion seems to be gaining converts among 

 some careful observers of facts, which seems at 

 first view to have a very narrow basis to rest upon, 

 and indeed, quite at variance with all of our pre- 

 conceived notions, in regard to the phenomena of 

 reproduction in the vegetable kingdom. I allude 

 to the opinion, which I have lately heard advanced 

 more as a statement of observed fact than expres- 

 sion of opinion, that cross-fertilization not only 

 modifies the characteristics of the progeny result- 

 ing therefrom, but that the size, appearance and 

 other qualities of the fruit produced during the 

 season of impregnation must and will, in a greater 

 or less degree, exhibit some of the qualities of the 

 staminate parent, as well as those of the one bear- 

 ing the fruit. For example, the fruit of a straw- 

 berry, of a pistillate variety, growing near a given 

 staminate one — by the aid of which the greater 



