PUBLISHED BY J. B. RUSSELL, AT NO. 02 NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Warehouse.)— T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL.. X. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 16, 1831. 



NO. 18. 



(B © SKI at w ST a "Sii a a © sr Sa 



height of ahnut two fept, the third spiiiiff at about ailensis of Micliau.x) are considered much the bc?t. 



— ■- ■ [three feet from tho yrouiid, with yome side pruii- Tlieje can be no difTerenco hetweoii tlic boijghs 



ON LIVE FENCES. [iiig. The nc:xt summer yimr hedge is eomplete broken from this ti-ec, iiiid the boughs g-rou'tng-, be- 



Mr Fessende.n — III your paper of the 2d No-j and you may keep it at the hei<;ht and thickness cause when broken off, evergreens preserve the 

 veml)er I noticed a communication from Judge' desired al the expense of a hitle pruniiij,'. i vital principle diinng a considerable time. 



Buel of Albany nursery upon live fences. It I have also tried plashing. In 1818orl9my. Here are a few facts, lo show that if Europeans 

 always gives me much pleasure to obtain any in- 1 gavdftner, who was an Eiiglislinian, highly recoin- Iiave just discovered this proper(y of evergreens, 

 formation from one who so well unites the theory [mended it and at last persuaded me to let him at- , i' ^vas known and used a long time since in New 

 of horticulture with the practical results of his tempt it upon a young ami thrifty hedge made of , Englaiul by cjvilized man. The writer of this, 

 own experience. In many of his statements I Crab apple. He did it as it appeared to me very preserved several Orange plants during the last 

 fidly agree with him. From long experience I am! skilfully, but it was a very long and tedious opera- | "iuter by covering them with heiidock boughs, 

 convinced of the superiority of live fences, both i tion and the result was the hedge was ruined, and never once thought of his having made a 

 as regards efficacy and economy. I also highly His mode of operating (which is I believe the discovery, because he has known this property of 

 approve the manner of setting out the young common one) was to suffer the main stem to re- ' evergreens from his infancy. 



quicks, which he describes. Idifter from hitri only lUiain upright, while all the side ones were partial- ! \Vith regeyd to the philosophy of then- actions, 

 as to the material or plant of which the hedge is ly cut and bent down nearly horizontally, and so as I am one of your plain t«//^ and because folks, 



made, ami as to the advantage of splashing or i confined either by interlacing or by staking th 

 as the English call it plashing. Ulown ; they did not thrive however — they perish- 



For the last twenty years I have paid great at- ed by degrees and I was at last forced to prune 

 tention to this subject and will give you the result j away ail the horizontal branches, and lost at least 

 of my experience. The first hedge I set out (about I four years' growth. 



■500 feet in length) was of the English Hawthorn With the Buck-thorn I have never found plash- 

 or Quickset. The result was decidedly unfavora- ing to be in any degree necessary or useful. If 

 ble. The plant is not adapted to this climate — j nianaged in the way I have described, m three 

 it appears better suited to the moist atmosphere of i years the hedge will be complete, requiring after- 

 England ; our long summer drought, injures it, it i,s wards very little care and nearly as thick, and 

 peculiarly subject to the attacks of the borer, a sp6- 1 quite as impervious below as above. 



cies of mildew or blight almost invariably assails it 

 early in August, by which it loses its leaves and 

 by the midille of August or first of September as- 

 sumes a wintry ajipearance. 



My next experiment was with the tl'ree thorned 

 acacia recomtnended by Judge Buel. The liedge 

 was not more than fifty feet in length, but was 

 placed in excellent soil and carefully attended. I 

 had supposed that the long thorns with which the 

 plant is armed Vifonid have made it peculiarly 

 efficacious as a fence. The result was even more 

 unfortunate than before. Prune and clip it as I 

 would, I could never make it grosv thick ; it aj)- 

 pears to have a decided tendency to shoot upwaiils 

 rather than to spread ; the thorns grow only upon 

 or near the upper branches, and below there was 

 nothing but the bare stems to serve as a fence. It 

 would often too, lose as much during a hard win- 

 ter, as it had grown during the whole summer. 

 After a fair trial of near ten years I dug up the 

 whole and replaced it with the American Buck- 

 thorn (Rhamnus cathan';.-.is ;) with this I have 

 been completely successfid. It has it is true but 

 few thorns, but it grows naturally so thick as to 

 be a complete protection to the land inclosed by 

 it. It shoots early in the spring and holds its 

 verdure till very late in the fall. If properly 

 managed, it is so close below that a rabbit could 

 scarcely work its way through, while above the 

 strong branches are so wattled and interlaced, that 

 a man could not scale it, nor a bull force his way 

 through it. 



I have now in different places at least half a mile 

 of this hedge which 1 shall be very happy to s'low 

 to any of your correspondents who tnay wisli to 

 see it. 



The mode of cultivation is very simple — .t is 

 set out either in the fall or spring in the maimer 

 recommended by Judge Buel ; if in the fall, it is 

 clipped the next spring within about nine inches of 

 the ground. Next spring it is clipped again at the 



Very sincerely yours &c, 



E. Hersy Derby. 



Salem, J^ovemher S, 1831. 



US): OP EVERGREENS AS A PROTECTION 

 AGAINST COLD. 



Mr. Fessenden — In the proceedings of the 

 Mass. Hort. Society of October 15, 1831, pub- 

 lished in your paper of the 19th, same month, is 

 a letter on the acclimating of the Pinus pinea ; 

 in which an old yankee notion is made to pass for 

 new European discovery — the utility of ever- 

 greens as a protection against the effects of cold ; 

 and as I am stickler for yankee knowledge when 

 it is equally as good as that which comes over the 

 sea, I take the liberty to state a few facts. 



In the early settlement of New England, hunt- 

 ing was a profitable employment; the hunters tra- 

 versed tlie wilderne.ss in the depth of winter, in 

 search of game for the sake of the fur which na- 

 ture had provided for the preservation and com- 

 fort of all the animals of a cold region ; these hun- 

 ters always protected themselves from the inclem- 

 ency of the weather by temporary botigh houses — 

 evergreens of course. Although this may not be 

 a historical fact, yet it is a well authenticated tra- 

 dition. The white hunters no doubt borrowed 

 the contrivance from the aborigines. 



A venerable soldier of the revolution has in- 

 formed me that he was with that part of the expe- 

 dition against Quebec in 1775, which marched 

 through Maine ; during the march it is known that 

 the army suffered greatly from the weather, from 

 which many protected themselves during night 

 by evergreen tents. 



It is a well known fact in New Hampshire, 

 that pine and hemlock boughs are a great protec- 

 tion against cold — farmers frequently cover their 

 potatoes and other routs, with them during very 

 severe cold, to keep them from freezing. In New 

 Hampshire the boughs of the hemlock (Abies can- 



I will try and give you the ' why and because' of 

 this (act. 



Some bodies are better conductors of heat than 

 others, and those which conduct the best, are the 

 worst preservers against cold. The leaves of ev- 

 ergreens in a green or living state have the pro- 

 perty of beinaslow conductors of heat ; therefore, 

 they keep the^Jp«at in and cold out, or more proper- 

 ly they keep the he.it in only. As soon as the leaves 

 become dea.d and dry, they become conductors of 

 heat ; therefore, are not useful for the purposes 

 imder consideration. G.reen wood is a slow con- 

 ductor of heat ; when dried and baked it is a con- 

 ductor ; when reduced to charcoal it is a non-con- 

 ductor — and when further reduced to ashes it 

 again becomes a conductor. 



MUford, Cct. 24, 1831. New Hampshire. 



By the Editor. — The author of (he article alluded to 

 did not, we believe, mean to assert that there was any 

 tiovclly in the principle, of protecling plants from cold 

 by surrounding them by evergreens ; but the applica- 

 tion, of that principle to prntecling and acclimating 

 plants, was for aught that appears an ' European dis- 

 covery.' 



SWEET POTATOES. 

 To the Editor of the New England Farmer. 



In your paper No. 13, I have f;een some in- 

 quiries respecting sweet potatoes. In Bucks Coun- 

 ty, some sixty years ago, I was well accquainted 

 with raising Sweet Potatoes. They grow best in 

 a light, sandy soil, and the general practice was to 

 till the hills, say four or five inches deep with ma- 

 nure from about the wood pile. 



The only dificulty in raising them in great abun- 

 dance was to preserve any seed from rotting in 

 winter. The general practice was to buy their 

 seed every year in Philadel|)hia at from four-pence 

 to six-pence per lb. for very small roots or sprigs 

 of roots. 



A curious old farmer surmounted the difficulty 

 of preserving seed, in the following- simple man- 

 ner. 



He dug his seed before any frost, and dried them 

 well in a warm dry room, then dug a hole under his 

 kitchen hearth and packed them therein very dry 

 sand ; so particidar was he to have this sand per- 

 fectly dry that he baked it on boards in his oven ; 

 then had a hearth stone neatly dressed to cover 

 the hole; and preserved them perfectly sound un- 

 til time to plant gardens. 



The mystery is, that Sweet Potatoes, to pre- 



