Foreign Notices. 513 



the land. Professor Way prefers using two parts of the bones undissolved, 

 on the principle of their more continued and permanent benefit. I would, 

 however, very particularly direct attention to a sort of bone manure not in 

 general use (perhaps owing to its limited supply), which, being very fine, 

 requires no digesting with sulphuric or muriatic acid, and which is both im- 

 mediate and permanent in its effects. This bone manure is the sawdust of 

 a button factory. When I lived, in 1839, at Leigh-court, in Somersetshire, 

 the late P. J. Miles, Esq., had, from a button factory in Bristol, a large 

 quantity of this dust fur his Turnips, and its effects were astonishing. The 

 progress of the plant after the first shower of rain, was extraordinary ; so 

 great, indeed, that it induced Mr. Hatch (who was then gardener there,) 

 to try it on many things in the garden, and with favorable results. Among 

 other things he tried it on Pine plants, and the effects produced were won- 

 derful. In 1842, Mr. Spencer, gardener at Bowood, used this same bone- 

 dust for Pelargoniums, and with good results. The roots that were emit- 

 ted into the soil containing the bone-dust, were as large as moderate-sized 

 goose-quills; and the plants, in consequence of their having such strong 

 and vigorous roots — powerful absorbents of food — grew to a size almost 

 incredible. And not only were they large, but they were strong and 

 vigorous enough to support their trusses without the aid of sticks, although 

 many of the trusses consisted of 12, 13, and 14 flower? each. The plants 

 had only a few sticks at the commencement of their growth, merely to keep 

 the branches at regular distances from each other. The flowers were half 

 as large again as usual. I well remember Mr. Brown, late of Slough 

 Nursery, who happened to call at Bowood while the Pelargoniums were 

 in bloom, expressing his surprise at the number of flowers on each truss, 

 the size of the flowers, and at the vigor of the plants : he added that 

 he never in his life saw any thing like them. Some of these plants kept 

 up a succession of flower from four to six months. A few that were 

 *' spotted'' were put in soil containing the bone-dust, and in 10 days, 

 they had put on so many young leaves as to completely hide the " spot- 

 ted" ones. This dust was purchased cheap at the factory in Bristol in 

 1839, but its value being soon ascertained, in 1842 the price was more 

 than doubled, and the dust inferior. I do not know what quantity of 

 dust is to be had annually in this country, but this 1 do know, that if 

 we could reduce our bone manure to the finely divided state of this dust, 

 we should then have a most valuable fertilizer without additional labor or 

 expense. — {lb. p. 637.) 



Root-Pruning Fruit Trees. — We have, from time to time, placed before 

 our readers, the best information on the subject of Root-Pruning, believing 

 the practice in many cases to be of great value. We therefore with pleas- 

 ure copy the following additional evidence of the success attending root- 

 pruned trees. — Ed. 



The question of root-pruning fruit trees is one of decided importance, not 

 to gardeners alone, but to a vast number of amateurs and private persons, 

 whose small plots of ground are too frequently encumbered with unfnulful 

 trees — spared only from year to year under a hope that they will ultimately be- 



