1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



305 



heads ; frequent stirring the soil tends to en- 

 courage heading. 



Celery. — Prepare your beds and set it out, 

 if not already done, although set now it often 

 matures as early or goes ahead of earlier set. 

 Manure high and work into the bottom of your 

 trenches, and set the plants nine inches apart 

 in the rows, which should be at least three 

 feet apart. 



Corn may still be planted for late use, can- 

 ning or drying. A quick, rich soil is needed. 



Cucumbers. — Save some of the earliest and 

 best, grown on the second and third joints of the 

 vine, for seed ; keep others picked off as they 

 com© in size for use, gather for pickles and 

 salting; hoe and keep clean of weeds. For 

 pickles, seed may be planted early in the month. 



Egg Plants need encouraging by frequent 

 hoeing, giving liquid manure, &c. ; earth up 

 and stir the soil frequently for a mulch. 



Herbs. — Cut them when about to come to 

 flowering, dry them in the shade, or an airy 

 room in the house, and when well cured, put 

 up in paper bags or boxes, and lay away where 

 they will keep dry. 



Rhubarb. — Keep the seed stalks cut down, 

 not allowing them to grow, as it injures and 

 exhausts the roots ; a little manure worked in 

 around the roots has an excellent effect in as- 

 sisting them to recover the spring cutting. 



Seeds. — The gardener who suffers all his 

 earliest and best fruits to be gathered for eating, 

 &c., and saves none to ripen, except late ones, 

 soon finds that his crops deteriorate, or run out, 

 and is obliged to renew his seeds from other 

 sources ; whereas had he saved from each va- 

 riety some of the earliest and best specimens, 

 they would not only have held their own, but 

 might have improved in quality. All our cul- 

 tivated vegetables have been brought to their 

 present state of perfection by careful selection 

 and saving of seed, &c., and judicious culture ; 

 and unless great care is used to retain these 

 qualities, they are apt to deteriorate. All 

 vegetables are as capable of improvement as 

 animals, by superior breeding, by using cor- 

 responding means. 



Sweet Potatoes. — Plants may be set the 

 first of the month, in warm early localities, in 

 conical hills or on ridges either, raised ten 

 inches high, and well supplied with manure in 

 the bottom. Set two plants to a hill, if in 

 hills ; on ridges set the plants sixteen inches 

 apart. Hoe those already set by using the 

 hoe or garden rake, and hauling the soil up 

 the ridge or hill, — see that the vines are kept 

 from rooting at the joints, by lifting, &c. 



Turnips. — Sow Swedes or rutabagas early 

 in the month ; white or English turnips from 

 the middle to the last. 



Gooseberries. — Thin the fruit, where thick, 

 using that removed for cooking ; those left will 

 be all the better for it. If you desire extra 

 sized berries of this or the currant, thin to 

 only a few on a bunch, and pinch off the end 

 of the shoots, giving liquid manure liberally. 



Should the borer or currant worm infest the 

 bushes, use diligence to destroy both moth 

 and worms. Various devices are recommend- 

 ed for their destruction. Remove needless 

 shoots, to save future pruning, and give the 

 strength to bearing canes and fruit. 



Strawberries. — As soon as the last of the 

 crop is gathered, weed the bed thoroughly, 

 fork in manure around and between the plants, 

 and keep the runners cut, unless you wish new 

 plants, when the ground should be well en- 

 riched and forked up mellow, and the runners 

 encouraged to root therein. New beds may 

 be formed by spading up through the old ones', 

 leaving a ridge of plants between to spread 

 their runners over the newly spaded ground. 

 W. H. White. 



South Windsor, Conn., 1868. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 CIRCULATION OF SAP. 



The Farmer of the 16th copies from the 

 Maine Farmer a few lines about the flow of 

 sap, which, to a Vermont farmer who has 

 watched this phenomenon for forty years, 

 makes the darkness surrounding this subject 

 unusually visible. 



"Spongioles," says the writer, "have a mys- 

 terious power of eliminating sap from the 

 eairth." 



Of course sap includes the sugar also, which 

 is a part of the sap. Mysterious, I should 

 think, must be the power that makes sugar 

 down there in the cold dark ground, frozen 

 solid from ten to thirty inches. Suppose the 

 sugar to be elaborated during the summer by 

 the action of sun, air and light, the pro- 

 cess will be a mysterious one, but has many 

 analogies In nature's great work shop. Hy- 

 drogen and carbon, large constituents of 

 sugar, are evolved largely in all directions, in 

 summer. It may well be doubted whether 

 sugar is "eliminated" from the roots of the 

 cane. 



Again, — neither the axe, the gouge, nor 

 the auger show that the sap comes wholly 

 from below. Further, — let there be three 

 warm days in April, swelling the buds of the 

 maple, and the sugar tastes of huds. In 1866 

 I made- seven hundred pounds of "budded 

 sugar," as we call it here in Vermont. Ev- 

 ery old sugar-maker knows that the sap will 

 run freely for hours when the mercury is fall- 

 ing and icicles forming from the spout to the 

 bucket. On the theory that sap descends in 

 cold weather, the pores of the wood being 

 pinched, we should look upward for the sap. 

 There is something curious and not yet ex- 

 plained about the flow of sap. In all the 

 pores opened in the side of a tree by a hole 

 half an inch in diameter and three-fourths of 

 an inch deep, — in all of these pores and fibres, 

 from top to root, there is not room for the 

 barrel of sap that often issues thence. The 

 air must be in a peculiar condition to produce 



