vol,. XIX. NO. 40. 



AND HORTICULTURxVL REGISTER, 



31£ 



ing hud to lilt- niiiiibpr and condition of the trees, 

 tlie kind oC fruit, and tlie mode of treatment, which 

 must be cK-scribed, $,50 



For the second best, ;W 



Chiims to be addressed to Bi.'njaniin Guild, IW]., 

 ill Boston, free of expense, on or before tlie first 

 day of September next. 



Claims for the premitims on vegetable and irriiin 

 crops, nianores, experiments and inventions, to- 

 gellu-r u itii the evidences required, are to be in 

 wri;inL', and sent free of expense to Benj. Guild, 

 Ksq., in Boston, Assistant Recording Secretary, on 

 or before the first day of December next, and they 

 will be examined by the committee, previous to the 

 5tli day of December. 



It IS understood that, whenever merely from 

 want of competition, any of th(! claimants may bo 

 considered entitled to the premium, under a literal 

 construction, yet, if in the opinion of the judges, 

 the object so offered is not deserving of any re- 

 ward, the judj.es shall have a right to reject such 

 claims. Persons to whom premiums shall be 

 awarded, may, at their option, have an article of 

 plate with suitable inscriptions, in lieu of the money. 



In cases where pecuniary premiums are offered, 

 the 'J'riistees may, having regard to the circum- 

 stances of the competitors, award either the Socie- 

 ty's gold or silver medals, in lieu of the pecuniary 

 premium annexed to the several articles. 



If any competitor for any of the Society's pre- 

 miums shall he discovered to have used any disen- 

 giMuious measures, by which the objects of the So- 

 ciety liave been defeated, such person shall not 

 only forfeit the premiums which may have been 

 awarded to him, but be rendered incapable of be- 

 ing ever after a competitor for any of the Society's 

 premiums. 



The Treasurer will pay all premiums awarded, 

 on demand. 



All premiums not demanded within six months 

 after they shall have been awarded, shall be deem- 

 ed to have been generously given to aid the funds 

 of the Society. 



By order of the Trustees, 



PE'l'ER C. BROOKS, 

 ELIAS PHINNEY, 

 JOHN C. WARREN, 

 HENRY CODMAN, 



March, J841. Committee. 



From the Farmer's Gazette. 



CANKER WORMS— CHICKENS. 



Mr Storer — I wish through the medium of 

 your (I'azette, to call the attention of our citizens 

 to a fact which occurred within my own personal 

 knowledge; and if like causes produce like effects. 

 {and I see no reason in this case why they will not,) 

 a fact of importance to all who are sufferers from 

 the ravages of tlie canker worm. The fact is this : 



In the spring of 1840, I purchased three hens, 

 which raised a brood of chickens each. When my 

 fruit trees in my garden became literally covered 

 with the canker worm, I thrashed them with a pole 

 to the ground, where they were picked up by the 

 chickens as greedily as they would pick up corn 

 or grain. Several times a day I fed them in this 

 manner, until I had entirely cleared my trees of 

 the worms. Now, as to the result: in the month 

 of November last, in some very ivarm days, when 

 the moths were crowding up the elms in front of 

 my residence by hundreds, I made repeated ex- 



aminations of my fruit trees in the garden, for the 

 purpose of preventing the moths from ascending ; 

 but to my surprise, I found (nor could I discover) 

 but a single moth on a tree in my garden, where 

 there had been for several successive years before, 

 as many millions of worms as tlirro were locusts in 

 Egypt. 



This method I believe, will be found altogether 

 the most simple and economical, of ridding effec- 

 tually our gardens of this troublesome insect, for 

 it will be found that the chickens while youn?, are 

 of immense advantage in oilier res|iects than mere- 

 ly to (^lear off the canker worms. The millions of 

 insects of every descri|)tion, which are revelling in 

 luxury on our cucumbers, our cabbages, and in 

 fact ever;/ vegetable in the garden, at a heavy tax 

 upon our labor and patience, are ei)lireh/ eradii;ate<l 

 by these industrious birds. As soon as it is light 

 in the morning, and before the cut worm has fin- 

 ished his depredations upon our beans and cucum- 

 bers and retreated in safety to his bed in the 

 ground, they have found and stopped his mischief. 

 Then again, in the winter you have the pleasure 

 of picking their bones in a fricassee, or a pie, or 

 any other method you prefer. 



But their value as a complete annihilator of the 

 canker worm, is beyond praise. Let a farmer but 

 sf-t four or five coops in his orchard of a hundred 

 trees, and by a little attention for a few days in 



cleaning the trees, his work is done for years the 



race is deslruijtd. It is, in my opinion, better than 

 all the lead pipe in the country, and no expense. 

 Yours, &c., G. F. H. R. 



^tew Haven, March 10, 1841. 



THE DAHLIA. 

 The Dahlia certainly deserves to rank amongst 

 the finest flowers of the garden. Its size, texture, 

 and almost endless variety makes it a favorite wlier- 

 ever it is introduced. A few observations on its 

 cultivation may not be altogether uninteresting to 

 the lovers of flowers. It has been but a few years 

 since it was cultivated in this neighborhood ; for 

 several years at first the roots generally were de- 

 stroyed during the succeeding winter, and wo had 

 to receive an annual supply from the east. Expe- 

 rience taught us that we had killed them with kind- 

 ness, like many fond mothers do their children. 

 We put them up, and were so very careful of them 

 that the warmth, I suspect, rotted them. Raisins 

 some plants from the seed, most of them produced 

 single flowers, and were not thought worth any 

 care to preserve them. They were taken up and 

 laid in a heap in the garden, and covered up with 

 earth, taking care to cover them deep enough to 

 prevent the frosts of winter from reaching them : 

 next spring they were lound to be in perfect preser- 

 vation. Since that I have left them in the garden 

 during winter where they growed, and if a little 

 earth or trash of any kind is piled over them, to 

 prevent the frost from touching them, they are uni- 

 formly found in fine health in the spring. No root 

 can be more hardy which is so easily destroyed by 

 frost; they can resist frost little better if any than 

 the sweet potato, but they will lie in the ground 

 for two years and remain sound if not touched by 

 frost I would advise those who prefer letting 

 them remain where they grew, to rai^e them in 

 the spring and again return them to the ground af- 

 ter dividing the bunch of roots. In taking them 

 up, the ground is made loose and better prepared 

 to give a fine plant than if the root remains, and it 



is beneficial to divide the clump of roots, indepen- 

 dent of multiplying your stock. But one stock 

 should be allowed to grow, even if tne whole root 

 is left in the ground. No root will throw out a 

 shoot that has not a part of ti.e old stock where it 

 enters the clump of roots; in dividing them that 

 must be well attended to, for ih.' largest root, bro- 

 ken off below this juncture, may be cast aside it 



is useless to plant it. 



Nothing grows better from the slips than the 

 dahlia — the hardest, best limbs should be chosen 

 and cut off iinmedi.Uely below the joint when plant- 

 ed ;— water them well and keep ti.e sun off of them 

 for a week. I have had thorn to bloom finely the 

 same season, and they furnish a supply of roots for 

 the next spring. Since the difficulty of preserving 

 the roots through winter is obviated, I have no 

 doubt the dahlia will soon be cultivated in every 

 flower-garden in the country ; I know no flower 

 which is a greater ornament. They bloom from 

 the seed the first season, if planted very early. — 

 J^ashvitk Agriculturist. 



Intemperance. — It is this that fills the dockets 

 of our courts with cases of dishonesty and fraud ; 

 that furnishe-i the loathsome dens of our jails with 

 inhabitants, and supplies our gibbets with victims. 

 It lays the axe to the root of all happiness : de- 

 stroys all order, peace and quiet in com uunities, 

 and is the death of all tViendship, esteem, and love 

 in families. It is the poison of friendship, the bane 

 of society, the ruin of governments, and the grave 

 of religion ; — it enfeebles health, destroys wealth, 

 overthrows happiness, and blights the moral feel- 

 ing I No human imagination has ever yet con- 

 ceived one half the horrors of this giant vice ; in 

 its ferocity it regards neither age, sex, or condi- 

 tion ; the crowned head is not too high for the 

 fiend to drag to the gulf of ruin, nor the beggar too 

 low for it to plunge into the vortex of wo. This 

 vice alone costs our country annually one hundred 

 millions of dollars, and gives us in return, nothing 

 but poverty, blasphemy, infidelity and crime ; and 

 while it opens up the flood-gates of misery upon us, 

 it is, vampyre-like, sucking away our strength and 

 exhausting our energies — weakening the means of 

 our existence and paralyzing the arm of our might ! 

 " In a single year," says an eloquent writer, " could 

 all the effects of this vice bo collected into one 

 group it would present to the eye an army of three 

 hundred thousand drunkards — not made up of the 

 old, the feeble and decrepit, but of the middle-aged, 

 the stout and the hearty, enlisted from all profes- 

 sions, the shop, the counter, the bar, the bench, 

 and the pui.pit — seventyfive thousand criminals, 

 and two hundred thousand paupers: and in the 

 group would be seen thirty ihousand of our coun- 

 trymen annually dragged to the grave ! With 

 such an army Bonaparte might have overrun all Eu- 

 rope, and decked his brow with the garland of uni- 

 versal triumph !" — A^os/i. 



Cause of Decay of Rida Bagas. — A Roxhury, 



(Mass.) correspondent of the New Genesee Farmer, 

 thinks the rot in ruta bagas is caused by too early 

 sowing. lie says: "I have, the last fourteen 

 years, cultivated both the sugar beet and ruta baga, 

 raising from 2000 to 3000 bushels for my cows. I 

 have almost invariably found that when I sowed 

 early, my roots were n ore or less rotted. The last 

 season I sowed from the 15th to the 20th of June, 

 and I had scarcely a defective one." 



