12 J^eiv method of obtaining an early crop of Grapes. 



that is, to go over all of the hedge with a sharp knife, cutting 

 down again only the strong luxuriant shoots to within three 

 or four inches from where they started, leaving all the weak 

 shoots untouched. This will be the means of making the hedge 

 still thicker at the bottom; and it will be the last time that there 

 will be any need of cutting so near the roots. 



The fourth year the whole hedge ought to be brought into a 

 good shape; and the shape of a hedge which I like to see best, is 

 as near the shape of the first letter in the alphabet as any thing I 

 can refer the reader to. I have seen hedges more than a mile in 

 length of this shape, five or six feet high, and so thick at the bot- 

 tom that a small dog could not have possibly found a place to 

 have passed through it. The snow can never be of the least in- 

 jury to a hedge formed in this manner: besides, who likes to 

 look at a hedge thick at the top and thin at the bottom, when the 

 remedy is at hand. Clearing away weeds, &c. once a year from 

 the roots of the hedge, should not be neglected the first three or 

 four years. J. W. Russell. 



Mount Auburn, Cambridge^ Dec. 14, 1837. 



Art. III. J^eio method of obtaining a very early crop of 

 Grapes, in Forcing-houses, as practised in Hamburgh. Com- 

 municated by Prof. Torret, N. York. 



[The following interesting article on the culture of the grape was 

 translated from the German, and laid befoi'e the New York Horticultu- 

 ral Society, by Mr. Poiilson, of Hell Gate, and was forwarded, thi'ough 

 the kindness of Dr. Torrey, its President, for insertion in our Magazine. 

 —Ed.] 



The Horticultural Society of Hamburgh, at a sitting in Nov., 

 1835, offered a premium of eight Hamburgh ducats, to be award- 

 ed in 1837 to that individual who should succeed in producing 

 the largest quantity of highly flavored grapes, not less than half a 

 pound in weight, at a period not later in the season than the 15th 

 March. 



Mr. H. Davis, superintendent of the forcing-houses of E. 

 Steer, Esq., in Hamburgh, has succeeded by a new, and, until 

 now, unpractised management in ripening highly flavored grapes 

 by the 14th of January. Mr. Steer having exhibited at the 

 meeting of the Horticultural Society three difierent kinds of 



