406 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



July 10,1829. 



means be managed as above mentioned, if sown 

 on tlie surface williont covering. 



Mucb, more migbt bo added if time wonld al- 

 low it, but enough may have already been said to 

 weary the patience of many of your readers who 

 bave seen it used with success for 25 or 30 years, 

 and dare not venture to tr} it. 



A FARMER. 



The High Cranhernj. — Few people seem to be 

 aware that this shrub, or small tree, which grows 

 plentifully in the marshes and swamps around us, 

 yielding rich clusters of verj- handsome fruit, a 

 delicious tart, may be cultivated with ease and 

 success in our gardens and shrubberies. Without 

 knowing that the attein|)t had ever been made, I 

 tried last spring, with some half a dozen shrubs, 

 from Saratoga county, all of which bore the trans- 

 plantiug very well, for they lived, grew as vigor- 

 ously as most vegetables do the first year, and 

 some of them bore fine bunches of fruit. The 

 twigs taken off, put out as cuttings, also took, 

 which shows with what great facility we may 

 .«tock our gardens with cranberries. — Rochester 

 Jldvertiser. 



JVEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1829. 

 DISEASED PEAR TREES. 



Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Northampton. Mass. to 

 the Editor of the New England Farmer, dated June 25, I8'2ij. 



" My pear trees are most severely attacked this 

 season with the blight, or what I call vegetable 

 gangrene, also with the honey dew. I saw in an 

 English publication " a cure for the American 

 blight on pear trees," viz. " lime water and spirits 

 of turpentine." No directions as to proportions, 

 time, or manner of ai)plying it. I am trying a va- 

 riety of e-\[)erinients, but am almost discouraged. 

 The blight is no respecter of soil, aspect, age, vig- 

 or, or kind of fruit. It has attacked the Seckle, 

 Brou'ii Bturre, Early Cathnririe, Messire Jean, Ji'in- 

 tcr and Summer Chaumontelle, Petit Muscat, Bart- 

 lett, Hardenpont de Printems, Beurre Knox, Green 

 Satin, German Muscat, S{C. The last and the 

 Chaumontelle, most fatally. Early this month 

 they were perfectly sound and in vigorous growth, 

 both well set with fruit — they were about from 

 15 to 20 feet high, and not a defective spot on 

 them. In two days they were wilted, and almost 

 charred, ten feet down from the top. The fruit 

 that was perfectly plump and sound, was in forty- 

 eight hours shrivelled up hke a dried apple. — 

 One I headed down to the sound ))arts, and en- 

 grafted with the Bartlett scions." 



Remarks by the Editor. — " Blight," says Loudon, 

 " is a common tertn for injuries received by the 

 vegetable kingdom when in a state of growth, 

 which cannot be referred to any obvious or cer- 

 tain cause, and coming suddenly is said to give 

 them the appearance of being blighted, or blast- 

 ed." Indeed the term blight, applied to vegeta- 

 bles, scarcely gives us a more definite idea of any 

 specific disease than the term death when aj)- 

 plied to animals. The i)ear trees of the respect- 

 able cultivator, who favored us with the above, 

 are probaldy blighted by a disease similar to that 

 described by his Excellency Gov. Lincoln, in a 

 communication for the N. E. Fartner, published 

 vol. v. p. 1. In this Gov. Lincoln observed as 



follows, " I send you two small branches [of pear 

 trees] which forty-eight hours since, were green 

 and vegetating, now dry and shrivelled as from 

 a year's decay. The disease, so far as I have 

 had opportunity to notice it, appears in the sud- 

 den discoloration of the leaf, which becomes 

 sometimes uniformly brown, like the effect of the 

 winter's frost, and in other instances, black in 

 spots, or parts, having the ajjpearance of being 

 stained with ink, or some dark liquid — and the 

 decay of the limb is rapidly downward to the 

 trunk." 



The subject was much discussed in that and 

 subsequent Nos. of the New England Farmer. — 

 By some the disorder was attributed to an insect, 

 called Scolytus Pyri ; by others to too much ma- 

 nure ; others called the disease_^?-c blight, and at- 

 tributed it to a stroke of the sun, Sfc. fyc. The only 

 remedy, which, so far as we know, has been dis- 

 covered for this complaint is to cut away the dis- 

 eased parts of the tree at some distance below any 

 appearance of disease as speedily as possible, and 

 make use of some of the ustial applications, such 

 as grafting cement, Forsyth's composition, &c. to 

 heal the wounds, where the branches are cut 

 away. 



Uniformity in the jYames of Fruits. — At a meet- 

 ing of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 

 June 20, John Lowell, Samui-.l G. Perkins, and 

 Samuel Downer, were chosen a Committee to 

 facilitate an interchange of fruits, the ensuing au- 

 tumn, with the Philadelphia, New York, and Al- 

 bany Horticultural Societies, and others, for the 

 purpose of establishing their synonymes. There 

 is no greater obstacle to the cultivation of fruits, 

 than the great confusion in their names that now 

 prevails. It is no uncommon occurrence for a 

 person in ordering trees from difTcrcnt nurseries, 

 either in Europe, or the United States, to find, 

 after waiting for his trees to come into bearing, 

 that he has the same fruit under three or four dif- 

 ferent names, or to receive some kind of which 

 he already has a sufficient number. The different 

 Horticultural Societies in Fliuiders, London, and 

 Paris, are attemiiling to remedy this evil, and have 

 already accomplished much, although their ficili- 

 ties for the interchange of fruits are not so great 

 as are possessed in the United States. 



Specimens of fruit can be sent to the Society's 

 Hall, No. 52 North Market Street, care of J. B. 

 Russell. 



MANUFACTURING SILK. 



The subscriber having invented a very useful 

 and simple machine for reeling and spooling silk, 

 is desirous of introducing the same into general 

 use, and has deposited one of the machines for in- 

 spection at the Hall of the Horticultural Society,52 

 North Market street, Boston ; where persons who 

 are desirous of engaging in the manufacturing of 

 silk, are respectfully invited to call and examine 

 the machine. All necessary iiitbrniation for the 

 use of the apparatus will be given on ajqjlii'ation 

 at the Agricultural Warehouse, or to tlie invent- 

 er, at her residence in Lexington, near Monroe's 

 Tavern. 



Persons wishing for instruction in the art of 

 spinning, which is considered as a separate branch 

 from that of spooling and reeling the raw silk, 

 may be fully instructed in this very uscfiil branch 

 of industry in the course of a week or ten days, 

 on application to the subscriber as above. 



FRANCES JONES. 



SINCLAIR BEET. 



BIr J. B. Russell. — A few weeks past I re- 

 ceived at one of the meetings of the Hortictiltu- 

 ral Society, a paper of the Sinclair beet seed, which 

 1 understood was recommendetl as a sti perior s^orf: 

 beet, therefore imagining it was valuable .as yield- 

 ing a large crop for animals. Within a few dajs 

 I have conversed with two ex[)cri('nced English 

 gardeners, neither of them more than two years 

 from England ; one of whom is confident that the 

 Sinclair beet produces a vei-y small root, and is only 

 of use for the stalk or stem part of the leaf, which 

 by being planted jiretty thick, is very white and 

 delicate, being boiled for the table. The J3ther gives 

 the same description of a beet as being introduced 

 from France, but did not hear it called Sin- 

 clair. 



1 merely give this hint, that those persons who 

 are cultivating it, and expecting it as a root crop, 

 may be on their guard, lest they may be disap- 

 pointed. Yours, &c. A SUBSCRIBER. 



From the Transactions of the Horticultural Society. 



On a method of growing Asparagus in single 

 roios, as practised by BIr Walter Dickson, of 

 Redbraes,near Edinbugh. By Mr Andrew Dick- 

 son, F. H. S. of Edinburgh. 



(From a letter to the Secretary.) 



Sir — Mr Dickson's method of growing aspara- 

 gus in single rows, of which you have requested 

 an account, is so simple, that little explanation will 

 be required. It occurred to him that jdanting as- 

 paragus in single rows, particularly in the soil of 

 his garden, (which is a light black earth upon a 

 subsoil of sand,) might answer much better than 

 in beds, as it would enable him to introduce ma- 

 nure to the roots, by pointing it in between the 

 rows with the spade. He had observed that the 

 usual mode of dressing asparagus beds by a cov- 

 ering of dung in winter on the surface, was apt 

 to produce canker, and that consequentlj- many of 

 the plants in the beds came up sickly and weak 

 in the spring, and ultimately decayed during the 

 summer. The first plaiitation he made in single 

 rows was ih our Leith Walk Nursery, upwards of 

 twenty-five years ago, and this yet retains its vig- 

 or and produces fine heads. This, I think you 

 did not see when you were at Edinburgh, other- 

 wise you would have noticed he hail err'ed in not 

 giving sufficient room between the rows, which 

 are only two and a half feet a])art. The planta- 

 tions he has since either made himself, or recom- 

 mended to others to make, have been at three 

 and a half feet distance row from row. The 

 plants are planted at nine inches apart in the rows ; 

 the ground has no farther preparation previously 

 to planting, than being dug or trenched to its full 

 depth, and well manured with rotten cow duug. 

 The young plantation you saw at Kcdbraes, has 

 only been made two years, and was so strong as 

 to admit of being partially cut the second year. — 

 Mr Dickson prefers planting in July to spring, and 

 the seedlings of the preceding season. I venture 

 to give it as my opinion, that the produce from 

 two single row's, planted in the way described, will 

 both in quantity and quality, (but jjarticularly the 

 last,) be found superior to three rows of equal 

 length, planted in beds in the usual way ; the fa- 

 cility with which the heads are cut arc likewise 

 in favor of the row system. I may tiuther add 

 that in our northern climate it is of moment that 

 the plants should have all possible benefit of the 



