28 



Gardening. — Destruction of the Rose Bug. 



Vol. VI. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Gardening. 



Mr. Editor, — My garden at the present 

 time presents an admirable lecture on horticul- 

 ture. Although the season has hitherto been 

 propitious, to a degree not often experienced, 

 my crops are uniformly short and unhealthy; 

 and with more than an usual attention to 

 cleaning and dressing, its appearance is mean 

 and disagreeable, and all this discomfort and 

 unthriftiness arises from the single circum- 

 stance of working it in the spring while the 

 land was wet! Every one knows that the 

 season for gardening opened wet and cold, 

 but as I always love to have things early, I 

 thought I could not wait for belter weather, 

 and accordingly began dressing my beds with 

 a good coat of rotten manure, and turned it 

 in while the land was wet, and cold, and 

 heavy, thinking it better to be early in my 

 planting than to wait — but how far have I 

 been out in my reckoning ! My parsneps and 

 carrots never attempted to make their appear- 

 ance at all, although the land was twice 

 sown ; my peas, which always before grew 

 tall and yielded abundantly, are not more 

 than half the height of the sticks, with pods 

 short and but half filled, while my onions are 

 not the fourth of a crop; my cabbages are 

 blue and stunted, and all the other crops are 

 disgracefully poor and ragged, and this, in 

 consequence of working the land while it 

 was wet, and cold, and heavy. It is my in- 

 tention the ensuing autumn to try the plan 

 adopted by a friend who resides a short dis- 

 tance from me, and is sure to obtain first-rate 

 crops in his garden — by good luck, as I have 

 always thought, but he says it is because he 

 always trenches up the land as soon as the 

 crops are removed in the autumn, laying it 

 dry for the winter and digging in the manure 

 at that time instead of in the spring, so that 

 on turning the land for planting at that sea- 

 son, the dung is brought up to the surface, 

 perfectly rotted and sweetened as he terms 

 it ; when it forms a surface-dressing, which 

 he assures me is the cause of his uniform 

 success: and, indeed, I have often observed 

 that his crops do not suffer like mine for want 

 of rain, his land always lying light and open 

 on the surface, which he is convinced is oc- 

 casioned by the top-dressing formed by the 

 dung. And another thing I have observed, 

 he never uses the rake while digging for 

 planting his crops, his land turning up mel- 

 low and sufficiently pulverized without it, and 

 this he says is owing to the dung, which is 

 thus brought to the surface, after lying all 

 winter to meliorate that part of the soil 

 which is then turned up to form the seed-bed 

 of the crops. Now, there is reason in all this, 

 and I begin to wonder that the thing did not 



occur to me before, and has never yet got 

 into practice. I should add, he uses long 

 dung for the purpose of digging in, which he 

 says operates in a two-fold way, first mechani- 

 cally, by keeping the land light and open, 

 permitting the winter rain to pass off into the 

 subsoil ; and second, chemically, by giving out 

 its "pabulum" or food of plants in the spring, 

 when brought into contact with them at the 

 surface, just at the time it is required, and in 

 the proper state of decomposition to be taken 

 up by them in solution; the only way, he is 

 convinced, in which it can enter into their 

 circulation. Now there appears so much good 

 sense in what he says, that I suspect 1 was 

 wrong in attributing his uniform success in 

 gardening to good luck ; and on my last visit 

 to him, 1 was convinced of the superiority of 

 his management, by finding that I could half 

 bury my shoe in the fine surface-mould of 

 his garden-beds, while mine lies hard and 

 tight as a brick; — there must be some good 

 reason for this difference, his land being pre- 

 cisely of the same nature as my own. It is 

 also a fact, that his crops are by no means so, 

 liable to blight as mine, nor is he troubled as 

 I am with insects of all shapes and colours 

 and sizes; and this, too, he attributes to the 

 mode which he has adopted, saying, he is 

 never afraid of blight, if he can get his crops 

 strong and healthy. He is much pleased with 

 the communication signed R. W. in the last 

 No. p. 274, and intends to subsoil his garden 

 the present autumn, calculating great benefit 

 to arise from the washings of the long dung 

 penetrating into the loosened subsoil during 

 the rains of winter, and declaring it to be his 

 opinion that the system will become general, 

 both in the garden and in the field ; and in 

 this opinion he is joined by many. 



Your Subscriber. 

 Del. Co., June 12. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Destruction of the Rose Bug. 



It is said, the destruction of the rose bug 

 has been accomplished by Mr. Haggerston, 

 gardener to Mr. Gushing, of Massachusetts, 

 for which a premium of one hundred dollars 

 had been offered by the Horticultural Society. 

 The application consists of a solution of soap 

 made from whale oil, in water, which, when 

 sprinkled over the plants infested with the 

 bugs, effectually destroys them. Now, would 

 not the same application be as effjctual in 

 the destruction of bugs of every other descrip- 

 tion, particularly those which prey upon the 

 vines of the squash, melon, &c. 1 I see no 

 reason why it should not, for it must operate 

 on all, one would suppose, in exactly the 

 same way — " but in what way does it ope- 

 rate]" might be asked, and this is a question 

 which I have not yet heard answered. 



