VOL.. XII. NO. 43. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURiNAL, 



181 



GREAT VIEL.D. 



Mr. Noah Clarke, jr. of this town gathered on 

 the 26th of Octoher, from one tree on his farm 

 one hundred and nineteen bushels of sound apples — 

 ■the produce of one tree, there being no other with- 

 in fifty rods of it. It was ascertained that they 

 would produce inure than fifteen barrels of cider. 

 This is certainly a great yield, as it is understood 

 they were all (anil none but sound ones) gathered 

 at one time, leaving under the tree all those which 

 had fallen during the fore part of autumn, and hail 

 become materially decayed. — li'estfietd Journal. 



CILTURE OF POTATOES. 



A frequent change of seed is necessary. Any 

 ■sort may be continued fertile and profitable by re- 

 moving them from one county to another every 

 fourth or fifth year, or by raising them alternately 

 on very different descriptions of soil. In the cul- 

 tivation of this useful plant, it appears from many 

 experiments that it requires ample space. In field 

 culture, placing the sets of the strong growing 

 kinds in every third furrow, and those of the 

 dwarfer sorts in every second, are eligible dis- 

 tances. There are different opinions held respect- 

 ing the necessity of earthing up potatoes. On very 

 thin soils, however, it is absolutely necessary. On 

 deeply ploughed, or trenched ground, earthing up 

 the stems is certainly less necessary, because as 

 the under-ground runners, which produce the tu- 

 bers, are inclined to extend themselves as deeply 

 in the soil as the roots, they do not seem to re- 

 quire any additional depth of earth immediately 

 over thein v But this depends entirely upon the 

 open porousness of the soil, and the manner of 

 growth of some of the kinds. Plucking off the 

 flowers increases the size and number of tubers. 

 It is founded on a law of nature, disposing a plant 

 constituted to produce at the same time both seeds 

 and tubers, to yield either one or the other more 

 abundantly, according as either is destroyed. If 

 tubers be not allowed to form, many flowers and 

 apples will be the consequence ; and if the flowers 

 be destroyed as soon as they appear, the tubers will 

 be increased. It is bad management to plant the 

 refuse, or odds and ends of last year's crop, for 

 the sets of this. If potatoes are planted at all, 

 they should be planted well. — Br. Far. Mag. 



From the Greenfield (Franklin) Mercnry. 

 ESSENCE PEDDLING. 



There is not a town in the east, nor a prairie 

 in the west of the United States, where the es- 

 sences and the essence-pedlars of Yankee-land 

 have not been seen and heard of: nor do we be- 

 lieve that there is any business which has been so 

 much celebrated and whose origin is yet so little 

 known. It commenced about twenty years ago in 

 Ashfield, in this county. The first pound of oil of 

 peppermint ever made in this region, and we be- 

 lieve in this part of the country, was made there. 

 The article had previously been imported from 

 abroad, and sold at sixteen dollars per pound. The 

 price was soon reduced to twelve. It went down 

 gradually to eight, and remained stationary for 

 some years, when it was reduced below a remu- 

 nerating price by speculators who overstocked the 

 market. Two or three years ago it was as low as 

 seventy-five cents. It then took a start and rose 

 in eight months to five dollars, but is now reduced 

 again to about three, which is understood to fur- 

 nish a very handsome profit. 



Great part of the surface of Ashfield, was for- 



merly devoted to the cultivation of " mints ;" al- 

 most every house had its still, and a great many 

 pretty properties were made there, while the place 

 enjoyed a monopoly of the business. Latterly, 

 however, it was discovered that the herbs could 

 be raised at much less expense, and without the 

 labor of hoeing, on the virgin soil of Ohio and the 

 western part of New York. Vast supplies are 

 now derived by the Ashfield merchants from 

 Phelps, a town in the last mentioned state. It 

 has been estimated that as many as seventy of the 

 young men of Ashfield make peddling their regu- 

 lar occupation, besides many others not inhabitants 

 of the town, who are supplied with goods from 

 thence. Flocks of twenty or thirty have some- 

 times taken their departure from the place in a 

 single day to the easf, west, north and south, bearing 

 Goods from all nations lumberiug at their back, 



making money and driving bargains with invinci- 

 ble perseverance under the very noses of the sta- 

 tionary traders, and in spite of all the ingenuity of 

 legislation which in all the states has strained ev- 

 ery nerve to break them down. We could men- 

 tion names of those who began with peddling 

 essences, who are now thriving and wealthy mer- 

 chants in the Atlantic cities; men who after pene- 

 trating all the mysteries attending the manufacture 

 of peppermint, spearmint, golden-rod, winter-green, 

 worm-wood, &c. now control the movements of 

 commercial fleets, and decide the daily fate of 

 stocks. The number is of course infinitely greater 

 of those who have made this business an appren- 

 ticeship to regular country trading, and an avenue 

 to moderate wealth. 



GIANT TREES. 



Among the oldest and largest trees in France, is 

 an oak in the burial-ground of Allonville, which 

 measures, above the roots, upwards of thirty-five 

 feet round, and at the height of a man, twenty-six 

 feet. A little higher up, it extends to a greater size, 

 and at eight feet from the ground, enormous branch- 

 es spring from the sides, aud spread outwards, so 

 that they cover a vast space with their shade. The 

 height of the tree does not answer to its girth : 

 the trunk from the roots to the summit, forms a 

 complete cone ; and the inside of this is hollow 

 throughout the whole of its height. Several open- 

 ings the largest of which is below, afford access to 

 this cavity. All the central parts having been long 

 destroyed, it is only by the outer layers of the al- 

 burnum, and by the bark, that this venerable tree 

 is supported ; yet it is still full of vigor, adorned 

 with abundance of leaves, and laden with acorns. 

 The lower part of the hollow trunk has been 

 transformed into a chapel, of six or seven feet in 

 diameter, carefully wainscoted and paved, and 

 guarded by an open iron gate. Above and close to 

 the chapel is a small chamber containing a bed ; 

 and, leading to it, there is a staircase, which twists 

 round the body of the tree. At certain seasons of 

 the year, service is performed in this chapel. The 

 summit has been broken off many years, but there 

 is a surface at the top of the trunk, of the diame- 

 ter of a very large tree, and from it rises a pointed 

 roof, covered with slates, in the form of a steeple, 

 which is surmounted with an iron cross. Wil- 

 liams, in his " Vegetable World," from which we 

 derive these facts, observes that over the entrance 

 to the chapel there is still visible an inscription 

 which states that it was erected by the Abbe du 

 Detroit, curate of Allonville, in the year 1696. 



Even this memorable tree is not without its 

 peer. We have heard of nothing like it in Amer- 

 ica ; but at Oakley, in Bedfordshire, the seat of 

 the Marquis of Tavistock, there is an oak, now in 

 perfect health, which contains about five hundred 

 and twenty-seven cubic feet of timber, and the 

 branches overspread a space of five thousand eight 

 hundred and fifty superficial feet of ground. 



The Chestnut tree grows still larger. In Glou- 

 cestershire, there is one measuring ftifty-tu-o feet 

 round, and still continuing to bear fruit, which is 

 known to have stood there in the year 11.50. It 

 has been called forages " the Great Chestnut of 

 Totworth." Brydone and other travellers in Sicily 

 say that the " famous chestnut tree of a hundred 

 horse" measures the enormous circumference of 

 177 feet; and that some travellers have dug about 

 it, to see if it were a cluster of several trees, or 

 only one ; and they have found that, although di- 

 vided, at or near the surface, into five branches, 

 they are all united in one root. — Mer. Jour. 



SPLITTING ROCKS. 



In the granite quarries near Seringapatam, the 

 most enormous blocks are separated from the solid 



rock by the following neat and simple process. 



The workman having found a portion of the rock 

 sufficiently extensive, and situated near the edge 

 of the part already quarried, lays bare the upper 

 surface, and marks on it a line in the direction of 

 the intended separation, along which a groove is 

 cut with a chisel, about a couple of inches in depth. 

 Above this groove aline of fire is kindled, and this 

 is maintained till the rock below is thoroughly 

 heated, immediately on which a line of men and 

 women, each provided with a pot of cold water, 

 suddenly sweep off the ashes, and pour the water 

 in the heated groove, when the rock at once splits 

 with a clean fracture. Square blocks, of six feet 

 in the side and upwards of 80 feet in length, are 

 sometimes detached by this method. Hardly less 

 simple and efficacious is the process used in some 

 parts of France, where millstones are made. — 

 When a mass sufficiently large is found, it is cut 

 into a round form, several feet high, and the ques- 

 tion then arises, how to divide this into pieces of 

 a proper size for millstones. For this purpose 

 grooves are chiselled out, at distances correspond- 

 ing to the thickness intended to be given to the 

 millstones, into which grooves wedges of dried 

 wood are driven. These wedges are then wetted, 

 or exposed to the dew, and next morning the 

 block of stone is found separated into pieces of a 

 proper size for millstones, merely by the expan- 

 sion of the wood, consequent on its absorption of 

 moisture ; an irresistible natural power thus finish- 

 ing, almost without any trouble, and at no expense, 

 an operation which, from the peculiar hardness of 

 the texture of the stone, would otherwise be im- 

 practicable but by the most powerful machinery, 

 or the most persevering labor. 



TO PREVENT FROST THROWING OUT 

 PLANTS. 



It is the effect of frost to unite more firmly the 

 finer parts of the soil, and to disengage and throw 

 out large substances, such as posts, stones, and 

 plants not well rooted. To prevent young anil 

 newly transplanted plants from being thus injured, 

 press down the ground round them. Strawberry 

 beds and fields of grain should be rolled. It 

 should be done early, rather than late in winter. — 

 N. Y. Farmer. 



