Root Grafting, 6f'c. 51 



for budding the rose ; the growth the first year is truly as- 

 tonishing, though probably on the same size pear stock, it 

 would be as great. My reason for inquiring — page 430, 

 November number — about this kind of grafting was. a friend 

 sent me eight different pears grafted on apple stocks. I had 

 expressed to him an unfavorable opinion of the plan, he 

 boasted of the size, and would prove to me I was wrong. 

 Before August, four of the eight were dead, and the residue 

 not promising, except two, Meadow and Butter. Upon no- 

 ticing his own trees, I find the ends of branches have decayed, 

 and that the trees seen by me are unhealthy. 



I have seen many apricots worked on the peach, and I can 

 see no objection to it, our peach trees not being, in this partic- 

 ular region, so liable to decay as with you. I would recom- 

 mend grafting in the earth, so that the apricot could be under 

 the earth. We have no other stock here that will suit, our 

 Chickasaw plum stock not being large enough, and is too slow 

 in growth : our native plum, though large enough, is too slow. 

 What do you work apricot and plums on? The plum will 

 not live on the peach, — so says an intimate friend, zealous in 

 the cause, but young in it. I have never tried. 



When giving you my experiment with soot and saltpetre for 

 cucumbers and melons, I ought to have included purple eg^ 

 plant ; for this last it seems a soak, that is well adapted to 

 pushing vegetation forward, as well as keeping off a fly, or 

 flea, that destroys them. I could not succeed to get a plant, 

 save under glass, until I tried this steep. I have, from time 

 to time, tried ashes, soot, salt, lime, dry dust, smoking the 

 plants in the morn, with tobacco smoke from my cigar, but 

 they were not effectual. At length, in 1844, I tried the steep 

 first on the egg squash, and noticing some change, I tried it 

 immediately on cucumbers and from that time. I declare to 

 you, I have not seen a striped bug around my plants. 



I differ from any person, except a lady now in Virginia, in 

 the mode of planting cucumbers. I make a rich, light, deep 

 tilled bed, about ten by sixteen or eighteen feet ; I then mark 

 off rows north and south, two feet apart, and draw up into 

 ridges, as high as can be, with a hoe. I then rake down the 

 ridge, so as thoroughly to pulverize the top, and plant my 

 steeped seeds some two inches apart ; cover lightly and press 



