1539] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



223 



without such design. It is not that calcareous 

 soil is necessary to make the vines grow luxuri- 

 antly; nor always to make them yield a heavy 

 crop of fruit. But we deemed it essentia! to 

 make the vines as regularly and certainly produc- 

 tive in well ripened fruit, as in other regions, and 

 still more, to render it fit for wine of sufficient 

 strength, and best quality. Climate may have 

 much agency in preventing equal success in this 

 country; but the defect of the soils hereto/ore 

 used is not the less certain, and alone, as we think, 

 a sufficient cause of general failure. It was on 

 these grounds that we urged on vine-culturists, 

 through Ihis journal, to use calcareous manures; 

 and by private correspondence also, on Mr. Her- 

 bemont particularly, vvho had done so much for 

 this branch of industry, we endeavored to impress 

 the propriety of making highly calcareous at least 

 as much of a vineyard as would serve for a sepa- 

 rate making of wine. Butthough he was satisfied 

 with the correctness of the views, his location, 

 remote from calcareous manures, prevented his 

 putting them to practical use; and until reading 

 the foregoing article, we had not heard of any 

 such designed experiment, or even of any compa- 

 rison of results, between the products of vines on 

 calcareous and non-calcareous soils. Our own 

 position, removed from our land and cultivation, 

 and therefore being incapacitated from superin- 

 tending either, forbade any such trial of a new and 

 costly culture, merely for experiment with a view 

 to the promotion of public interests. 



In regard to the peculiar fitness of calcareous 

 soils ibr mulberry trees, our opinions were more 

 lately formed, but not the less decided ; and in 

 this also, the first positive and unquestionable evi- 

 dence is furnished in lacts stated in the foregoing 

 letter. The facts which had induced our forming 

 this opinion, (and which was stated in the last, 

 and in previous numbers of the Farmer's Regis- 

 ter,) were the following, which seemed full and 

 sufficient. 



On our own farm, and elsewhere on the borders 

 of James River, where the great diversity of na- 

 tural soils afforded excellent grounds for such ob- 

 seivations, both the white mulberry and the na- 

 tive mulberry trees are a common growth on the 

 hill-sides, and the few other places where the 

 marl reaches the surface, or affects, by admixiure, 

 the character of the soil. And on the hundred- 

 fold more extensive table lands, of poor and acid 

 quality, mulberry trees are rarely found. The 

 remarkable and seemingly peculiar fitness of the 

 river hill-sides for this growth is generally known 

 to the residents ; but it is not known, what is cer- 

 tainly true, that the presence of calcareous earth 

 in these soils is the sole cause of this peculiar 



fitness. So strongly has the fact been impressed 

 on some cultivators, though without inferring the 

 cause, that the white mulberry is considered as a 

 troublesome cumberer of the ground on some ara- 

 ble lands, the growth of which it is difficult to 

 keep down and impossible to eradicate, by the pe- 

 riodical cultivation of grain crops. Very recently, 

 ive heard an excellent farmer object to planting the 

 moras multicaulis on his land, because he feared 

 that it would so spread as to become as trouble- 

 some an intruder in his fields, as he had already 

 found the white mulberry to be. It ma}' be re- 

 membered by some of our readers, that the native 

 mulberry leaves which were of such extraordina- 

 ry large size, as staled at page 417, vol, VI. Far. 

 Reg. were from a young tree which grew in a bed 

 of poor sandy marl. 



What has been already stated on this head, 

 however defective and incomplete as proof| will 

 be enough to induce those who will think and rea- 

 son to pursue the investigation of the subject, and 

 supply the unquestionable and direct evidences 

 which we have not to offer. Sooner or later, it 

 will be a truth of universal acceptation, that, in 

 addition to all the other advantages offered in the 

 use of calcareous manures to agriculture, that 

 both vine and mulberry culture, in a peculiar and 

 remarkable degree are improved by their libera! 

 application. 



From Loudon's Gardener's Magazine. 

 NOTES TAKEN FROM THE NARRATIVE OF A 

 HORTICULTURAL JOURNEY IN GREECE, DU- 

 RING THE SUMMER OF 1S37. 



By Eugene Jlchille Baumann, of the BoUwyller 



Nursery. 



I know not whether a short account of the pre- 

 sent state of horticulture and agriculture in Greece 

 might not interest some of your readers. It is 

 true that this country is daily visited by travellers, 

 your countrymen in particular, vvho, in their nar- 

 ratives, infinitely more interesting than mine, in- 

 troduce every thing worthy of notice ; but this cel- 

 ebrated country presents so many curiosities of all 

 sorts, that horticulture, the subject which parti- 

 cularly interests me, and which is at the very low- 

 est ebb, could never have particularly attracted 

 the attention of any one having a different mis- 

 sion fi'om mine. 



Alter having visited almost every part of Italy, 

 where I found many tilings to interest me, I arriv- 

 ed at Trieste in the spring of 183S, regretting much 

 to be obliged to leave that fine country. At Tri- 

 este, however, I received the necessary instruc- 

 tions from my friends lor undertaking a still lon- 

 gerjourney. I was to proceed to Athens in Greece. 

 The object of my journey was to open some com- 

 mercial negotiations with the amateurs of the 

 country, as well as with those persons at the head 

 of the government vvho miijrhl be liivorable to aa 



