NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



43 



The investigations of modern travellers have ex- 

 plained a great number of allusions and intricate 

 passages of Scripture, which have heretofore re- 

 mained almost a dead letter to a large majority of 

 readers. But let us see what the Doctor says 

 about "the horn." 



"All married women here, wear a horn, some- 

 times a cow's horn from ten to twenty inches long. 

 They also go veiled. David, the Psalmist, spoke 

 of this horn. The position of this singular orna- 

 ment indicated the feelings of its fair possessor. 

 If, happily, no sorrow mars her peaceful cot, the 

 horn will be erect; but, if sorrow dwell in her 

 habitation, it will be seen to drop down. 



He witnessed a marriage ceremony among this 

 peculiar people, and in the procession noticed only 

 one horn, perhaps the mother of the bride. The 

 bride was escorted by a large number of young la- 

 dies singing plaintive airs. All the women cover 

 their faces in that country. It would be the height 

 of immodesty for one to go with her face uncovered 

 in the open street. Rebecca of old, when being 

 sought in marriage, took her veil." 



giving to whole races and nations, I sent her an 

 engraving from Mr. Catlin's frightful picture of a 

 'Chippewa Dance to thank the Great Spirit for 

 Green Corn.' She thought that to a Spirit, that 

 favored the growth and presided over the harvest- 

 ing of such a product, just such a demonstration 

 would bo acceptable. The demoniacal orgies in 

 Avhich those Chippewas were indulging, could m 1 

 be more fittingly introduced than at a Green ( orrj 

 Festival." — Paris correspondent N. Y. Tribune. 



THE FIRST EAR OF CORN. 



You are probably aware that corn (Indian corn) 

 is unknown in Paris. It is neither known as 

 green corn, nor as sweet corn, nor as pop corn ; 

 as corn in the kernal, or corn on the ear. It is 

 rarely seen, even when ground into Indian meal. 

 I speak of Paris and the neighborhood only ; for I 

 believe that it is cultivated in the South of France, 

 to a limited extent, under the name of metis 

 was, some weeks ago, at a dinner party, given by 

 an American gentleman, at his chateau, in a sub- 

 urb of Paris. Upon the table were green corn and 

 sweet potatoes, results of perhaps the only efforts 

 ever made to acclimate them here. As the corn 

 was passed around, you might have distinguished 

 the Americans from the French, by noticing who 

 accepted and who declined. The former were 

 eager to renew an acquaintance long since inter- 

 rupted, while the latter fought shy and kept the 

 waiters at bay. It fell to my lot, however, to 

 initiate into the mysteries of this novel vegetable a 

 young French lady at my right hand. To her, the 

 ear upon her plate was a revelation. Its shape 

 was anomalous, its odor singular, and, moreover, 

 the manner of eating it was barbarous. Before 

 attempting its demolition, many an unanswered 

 inquiry passed through her bewildered little brain 

 Was the outside a mere rind, inclosing the pulp in 

 the interior'? Or was it nutriment to the core, 

 and succulence to the centre 1 Did it have a stone 1 

 Did it intoxicate like the maguey 1 Would the 

 juice start forth, as from a ripe tomato, at the first 

 immersion of the teeth 1 Might it not be poison- 

 ous, like the nightshade or the toadstool ? By this 

 time, her ear was ready, buttered, salted, and each 

 row slit through the centre. I flatter myself that 

 the utter failure of the experiment can in no way 

 be attributed to want of skill here. My pupil ate 

 about half a double row, and then retired from the 

 field, content with the laurels she had won, but per- 

 plexed by the cob, and sorely teased by the tissue- 

 like-skin in which kernels were involved. The next 

 day she was taken sick, and was compelled to keep 

 her room. Anxious to prove to her that however 

 lightly she might treat the offending vegetable, it 

 was made, in former times, the subject of thanks- 



PEARS RUNNING OUT. 



Any person conversant with fruit, who will take 

 the trouble to walk through the markets of Phila- 

 delphia, where more Seckel pears are to be seen 

 than anywhere else in the world, cannot but be 

 struck with the very small size of these pears. IT 

 he has besides been in the habit, as we have been, 

 of seeing the Philadelphia markets at this season, 

 for some years past, he will make the comparison 

 between the Seckel pears of Philadelphia now, and 

 those of ten or fifteen years ago. Then, the Seckel 

 pears might be seen by the wagon load, large, fair, 

 ruddy, and handsome, as well as delicious. If you 

 mention this present degeneracy to a Philadelphian, 

 he will shrug his shoulders, and say, "yes, the 

 Seckel pear is no longer what it once was : I am 

 afraid it is rimning out." 



And yet, if you go to Boston, which is far from 

 being so favorable a climate for fruit culture as 

 that of Philadelphia, you will see Seckel pears so 

 large and fine that you almost doubt their being 

 the same fruit. If you are curious to investigate 

 the history of the Seckel pear culture in the two 

 places, you will not long be at a loss how to ac- 

 count for the difference. In Philadelphia, they 

 trust to nature, and a soil once highly fertile. But 

 the Seckel pear trees have exhausted the soil, be- 

 cause it had only a certain amount of pear tree 

 elements, and languished for more food. In Bos- 

 ton, they know that nature is a hard mother, and 

 they rely on art, trenching the soil twice as deep 

 as nature makes it, and supplying an abundance of 

 food for the growth of the tree and fruit. Hence 

 the average size of the Seckel pear in Philadelphia 

 has dwindled down in twenty years from an inch 

 and three-fourths in diameter to a little more than 

 an inch ; while, in Boston it has been raised by 

 high culture to between two and three inches in 

 diameter. 



Some soils, however, contain in themselves an 

 almost inexhaustible supply of natural food for 

 fruit trees. Even long culture wears out such soils 

 slowly, because the mineral elements of fertility 

 gradually decompose and form new soil. We have 

 before us a couple of Seckel pears, of extraordinary 

 size and beauty, sent us from Brandon, on the 

 James river, Virginia, one of the largest and old- 

 est estates in America, having been cultivated since 

 the earliest settlement of the country. This es- 

 tate still shows large fields, which under the pres- 

 ent good management (i. e. the judicious applica- 

 tion of lime,) yield thirty bushels of wheat to the 

 acre. But the Seckle pear trees here, without 

 any special attention, still bear larger and finer 

 fruit than we have seen in Philadelphia. It is use- 

 less, with such proofs of the effects of soil and cul- 

 ture upon fruit, for our Philadelphia friends to 

 talk about the "running out" of so modern a pear 

 as the Seckel. It is the soil which has run out, 

 not the variety. — Doivning's Horticulturist. 



