318 



Gurneyism. — Cultivation of Fruit. 



Vol. X. 



the instinct of his theory. His usual prac 

 tice was to gather his seeds from seedling 

 trees, and to take them from as many differ 

 ent trees as were to be found within the 

 range of his yearly autumnal rambles, and 

 from those particular seedling trees afford- 

 ing the highest evidence in their fruit that 

 the process of amelioration was begun and 

 was going on in them. At first, his visits 

 necessarily extended to the seedling orchards 

 upon the Ohio and Monongahela rivers in 

 what were called the "settlements;" but 

 when the orchards of his own planting be- 

 gan to bear, his wanderings, for the purpose 

 of collecting seed, became more and more 

 narrowed in their extent, till the time of his 

 departure further westward. 



Still true, however, to the instinct which 

 first drew him to the Van Mons theory, for 

 the production of new ameliorated varieties 

 of the apple, he has continued occasionally 

 to return in the autum to his beloved orchards 

 hereabouts, for the double purpose of con- 

 templating and ruminating upon the results 

 of his labors, and of gathering seeds from his 

 own seedling trees, to take with him and 

 carry on by their means reproduction at the 

 West. Recently, his visits have been alto- 

 gether intermitted. Our hope is that he may 

 yet live in the enjoyment of a green old 

 age — happy in the multitude of its pleasing 

 reminiscences. — Magazine of Horticulture. 



Coshocton, Ohio, Feb. 24, 1846. 



Gurneyism. 



This term, of whose meaning perhaps 

 nineteen twentieths of our readers are utter- 

 ly ignorant — is applied to a new and parti- 

 cular kind of manuring, which has been 

 employed with signal success by Mr. Gurney, 

 a farmer in East Cornwall. The operation 

 consists in covering grass land with long 

 straw, coarse hay, or other fibrous matter, 

 about twenty pounds to the fall; allowing 

 this covering to lie till the grass spring 

 through it, which it does with astonishing 

 rapidity, to the desired length, and then rake 

 it off to allow the bestial to reach the pasture. 

 The covering is then applied to another por- 

 tion of the field ; the operation of removal 

 and covering being repeated so long as the 

 straw or hay remains sufficiently entire to 

 admit of convenient application. The mer- 

 its of the system which is yet in its infancy, 

 were thus stated by Mr. Gurney at a late 

 meeting of the East Cornwall Experimental 

 Club. About seven weeks since, he had 

 covered half a field of grass, of three acres 

 in this manner, and about a fortnight ago, 

 when examined, the increase had been found 

 to be at the rate of upwards of five thousand 



pounds per acre, over the covered portion of 

 the field. At the time the straw was raked 

 off and laid in rows twelve feet apart in the 

 field, and 115 sheep were put on the grass 

 with a view to eat it down as quickly as pos- 

 sible. After they had been there about a 

 week, they were succeeded by 26 bullocks, 

 to eat off the long grass remaining, and 

 which the sheep had left. The field was 

 thus grazed as bare as possible. The same 

 straw was now again thrown over the same 

 portion of the field from which it had been 

 raked ; and on inspection that morning, he 

 had found the action going on as powerfully 

 as on the former occasion. He thought the 

 sheep, on first raking off the straw, were not 

 so fond of the grass as they were of that un- 

 covered ; but after twenty-four hours expo- 

 sure to the sun and air, he thought they 

 rather preferred it. He had forty acres now 

 under the operation, and in consequence of 

 it, he had pasture when his neighbours had 

 none." Fibrous covering, or Gurneyism, as 

 thus described, is certainly a cheap and con- 

 venient mode of manuring; all that is want- 

 ed is only fiirther experiment to test its 

 general applicability. — Chambers' Journal, 



Cultivation of Fruit. 



The following extracts from a letter recently receiv- 

 ed from Robert Chisolm, of Beaufort, S. C, by the edi- 

 tor of the American Farmer, are taken from that paper. 

 Every hint in relation to the propagation of fruit, or 

 its improvement, is valuable to the farmer and the 

 marketman. We again repeat, that adequate care is 

 too frequently neglected in this matter, by too many 

 among us. — Ed. 



" 1 have just received a large lot of all 

 kinds of fruit trees from Paris, which to my 

 surprise came out after a voyage of nearly 

 90 da3's, in better order, and are doing ap- 

 parently much better than Apple, Peach and 

 Pear trees received early in the winter from 

 an honest nurseryman on Long Island, I 

 believe the experience of our seaboard gene- 

 rally, is in favour of European trees over 

 Northern. Thus far in the year my fruit 

 trees promise most abundant returns for the 

 liberal manuring, little attention and poor 

 soil I have given them. My soil is either a 

 very stiff red clay very near the surface, or 

 a very thin soil upon a hard sand, of the na- 

 ture of quicksand. The most productive 

 Apple trees that I have, are upon the Doucin 

 or half standard stock, and next upon the Pa- 

 radise or dwarf. The trees I have are most- 

 ly from Italy, and have succeeded well thus 

 far, that is, they have borne well, and the 

 fruit has been as fine as any I have ever eat- 

 en in this country, and very superior to any 

 thing I have ever eaten in Europe. Apple 



