254 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JujfE 





other, if the soil possesses anything like a fair 

 degree of fertility ; hut this looked like indis- 

 criminate slaughter, and could not be thought of 

 for a moment. The finest specimens of garden 

 products, which we see exhibited at horticultural 

 shovvs, are those -which have been well thinned 

 and allowed every opportunity to develop them- 

 selves freely; and the same is true of ornamen- 

 tal plants, where a full, rich and luxuriant growth 

 and bloom are obtained through the adoption of 

 the same principle. — Country Gentleman. 



THE INTERIOR OP WORTH AMERICA. 



Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 has collected facts representing the interior of 

 the United States, which will command the atten- 

 tion of scientific men and statesmen. The in- 

 duction from these facts is, that the entire region 

 of the United States west of the 98th degree 

 west longitude, (say the western boundary of 

 Minnesota,) with the exception of a small portion 

 of Western Texas and the narrow border along 

 the Pacific, (including California,) is a sterile 

 vxiste of comparatively little value, and which can 

 never be available to the agriculturist. The im- 

 portance of this statement will be more fully 

 comprehended when it is considered that the line 

 of Prof. Henry, which extends southward from 

 Lake Winnipeg to the Mexican Gulf, will divide 

 the surface of the United States into two nearly 

 equal parts. 



The intense heat and extreme dryness of this 

 region, which will make the Great American 

 Plains a barren waste forever, is caused to a large 

 extent, according to Prof. Henry's theory, by the 

 fact that the returning Trade Winds, sweeping 

 over the elevated masses of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, are deprived of their moisture ; in other 

 words, the heated air which ascends at the equator, 

 saturated with moisture it has extracted in its 

 passage over the ocean, after depositing a portion 

 of its vapor in the tropics at the rainy seasons, is 

 further dessicated by the ridges and mountains 

 which it meets, the vapor being condensed on the 

 windward side by the cold due to the increased 

 vertical height, and it finally passes over and 

 strikes the plains as dry as a sponge Avhich has 

 been thoroughly squeezed. Without moisture 

 there can be no fertility, no agriculture ; and a 

 great portion of this wilderness, according to 

 Prof. Henry, is as irredeemably barren, for the 

 purposes of agriculture, as the deserts of Africa. 

 If this theory be true, it will greatly modify the 

 opinions which have been entertained by politi- 

 cians and statesmen of the future destiny of the 

 "Great West." 



Soap Suds for Curhaxt Bushes.— A cor- 

 respondent of the Indiana Fariner says : "I have 

 found the cultivation of currants to be very profi- 

 table. By care and attention I greatly increased 

 the size of the bushes and the quality of the 

 fruit. My bushes are now about six or eight feet 

 in height, and are remarkably thrifty. The cause 

 of this large growth I attribute, in a great meas- 

 ure, to the fact that I have been in the habit of 

 pouring soap-svds and chamber-ley around their 

 roots during the summer season. I am satisfied, 

 •"rom my own experience and that of some of 



my neighbors, that the treatment will produce a 

 most astonishing effect upon the growth and pro- 

 duct of the bushes, and would advise others to 

 give it a trial." 



JFcn- the New England Farmer 

 TALES OF A TRAVELLER. 



Somebody who signs "Far East" in the last 

 weekly Farmer, and whose knowledge seems to 

 exceed his faith, seems disturbed at my seeing 

 white pines and hemlocks in the neighborhood of 

 Baden-Baden, and thinks the discovery "will 

 create quite an uproar amongst the botanists." 

 He says truly that the trees in question "are held 

 to be natives of the new world only." ladian 

 corn and tobacco are held to be natives of the 

 new world only, but fields of them are growing 

 all along in Germany. I am myself a native of 

 the new world, and yet there are many who would 

 testify that they saw me in Europe last summer. 



But as to the white pines near Baden-Baden, 

 On the 3d day of August last I walked out with 

 three friends from Canada, v^p a short, steep hill;, 

 close by that city of fashion and folly. I was 

 struck at finding myself among white pine trees, 

 which extended over many acres, covering the 

 steep side hill so far that I could not see their 

 termination. They looked thrifty, and as if they 

 might have had forty or fifty years' grovi'th, and 

 the ground beneath them was coYcred with their 

 leaves. I was as much surprised at the sight as 

 our "Far East" friend is at the statement, and 

 while my companions reposed on the grass, I 

 wandered off to find a branch low enough to ex- 

 amine, and finally returned with a handful of 

 twigs, and explained to them my botanical no- 

 tions. They weie white pines, as we all knew, 

 though we were as much surprised at meeting 

 them as they were at meeting «s, so far from 

 home. The hemlocks I saw at the "old castle/' 

 six miles, I think, from the watering-place. There 

 is a heavy forest close about the ruins, and large 

 trees growing up inside the walls, indicating the 

 great antiquity of the structure. I took one of 

 my friends back a long way to convince him that 

 there were large maples growing there. The 

 woods look as wild as a New Hampshire moun- 

 tain, and we spoke of the remai'kable variety of 

 forest trees, as we looked down upon them from 

 the towering old walls. As to how our native 

 trees came there, history is by no means silent. 

 Loudon, in his Arboretum, vol. 1, p. 147, says : 



"The margraves of Baden have, from the ear- 

 liest ages, been much attached to planting and 

 gardening. The worthy old margrave Charles, 

 who died about 1805, and one of his sons yet 

 alive, may be reckoned amongst the most zealous 

 promoters of the planting of foreign trees and 

 shrubs, in proof of which we need only refer to 

 the parks at Carlsruhe, Schwetzingen, Mannheim 

 and Baden-Baden." 



