372 



NEW ENGLAim FARMER. 



Auo. 



This ' will increase the growth of the lower 

 branches, so that the next season they can be 

 grafted successfully ; the third and fourth 

 season, any limbs left should be removed or 

 grafted, so as to present an entire new top. 



If we examine the body or limbs of a tree 

 covered with sprouts, we shall find it rotten 

 at the heart. If these sprouts are yearly re- 

 moved, the tree will gradually decay and die. 

 If a portion of them sufficient to form a new 

 top, are retained, and a severe yearly prun- 

 ing of the old limbs is given, the whole of the 

 old top may be removed in five years, and a 

 new, healthy, bearing top formed. Dead or 

 decaying limbs rapidly exhaust the life and 

 vigor of a tree ; as long as any part of a tree 

 js alive,^ dead limbs must at some point join 

 the living part, and necessarily be slowly, but 

 constantly, exhausting its vitality. Great care 

 should be u?ed, in cutting off large limbs, to 

 cut thein obliquely, and so close to a growing 

 limb, or sprout, as to have a lip soon form 

 over its edges, which effectually protects that 

 most vital part of a tree, the bark. To en- 

 able any tree to do this, some covering must 

 be applied where the limbs are removed. The 

 best (and we have tried all kinds we have ever 

 heard of) we have ever used, is common tar, 

 made thick, when warm, with brick-dust, pro- 

 cured by grinding to a powder soft brick ; 

 this when kept in a small kettle, can easily be 

 applied, when warm, with a common painter's 

 brush. For small trees or small limbs com- 

 mon grafting wax will answer all purposes ; 

 but from large limbs, it will peel off the first 

 season. Where new tops are formed from 

 shoots, and the old top removed, care must be 

 used not to do it too soon ; if so, the growth 

 is so suddenly checked that the new wood is 

 destroyed. A sufficient number of new shoots 

 or suckers, to form a new top, should be re- 

 tained, and suffered in all cases to grow till 

 one inch or more in diameter at the bottom, 

 and then only a part of the (op removed in 

 one season. Stocks grafted should be left at 

 least twenty inches long. 



We have seen trees in Mr. Goodrich's reno- 

 vated old orchards, with only a strip of live 

 wood and bark of from one to two-thirds of 

 the circumference of the original trunk re- 

 maining, and consccjuen^y so weak as to ne- 

 cessitate careful propping, yet heavily loaded 

 with splendid fruit. 



In closing these somewhat extended re- 

 marks, we must pay our correspondent, "O. 

 II." in his own coin, by repeating his words ; 

 "Please inform us what you think of it?" 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



The Elements of Agricultlre : A Book for Yonng 

 Farmers. By George E. Willing, Jr., Author of 

 "Draininif for Prolit and Draining f>r Hia th," for- 

 merly Agricultural Engineer of tne Cn'ural Park in 

 Now York. Second and Revist d Edilion. New 

 York: Tribune Association. j868. Price $1. 251 

 pages. 



Tliis is neither a scientific treatise nor a Land- 

 book for practical farming. It is merely an at- 

 tempt, the author informs us, to translate into com- 

 mon language, for the use of every-day farmers, 

 that which science has discovered and has told in 

 its own necessarily technical terms, and which 

 practical experience has proven to be of practical 

 value. This, we believe is a difficult task. The 

 old adage that there is no royal road to learning, 

 is just as applicable to the "evei"y-day farmer" as 

 to the sons of kings. And if it were true, as our 

 author asserts in the opening of the first chapter 

 of his book, that a knowledge of the "exact com- 

 position" of plants is necessary to their successful 

 cultivation, a famine such as the world has never 

 known, must at once follow, because it is not proba- 

 ble that one farmer in ten thousand possesses this 

 knowledge. Agriculture is an art, which men 

 learn as they learn other arts ; and it is possible 

 to cultivate the earth successfully and economi- 

 cally with very little knowledge of the chemical 

 properties of soils or plants. 



Still we do not ignore nor undervalue scientific 

 agriculture, or scientific knowledge. We believe 

 that every farmer in these days of many books and 

 papers, and in these days of wise writers, who have 

 all manner of chemical and other scientific terms at 

 least at their fingers' ends, ought to be posted as to 

 their meaning. This Mr. Waring gives in a plain, if 

 not always perfectly satisfactory manner, and we 

 commend the book to farmers and farmers' boys who 

 stumble at the big words they come across in their 

 agricultural reading, and to those alto who wish 

 to know what science is doing for the farmer, and 

 how she does it. 



Five IIcndred and Seven Mechanical Movements, 

 embracing all those which are most important in Dy- 

 namics, U>di>iulic8, liydror-taiics, Putuniuiics, dteam 

 Eiigincp, Mill and other Gearing, Piexscs, IIi ruh gy, 

 and mitfcellani ous Machinery ; and includinu muMV 

 Movemeits never bcfjre published, and fcveial which 

 have only receiitly come into une. By Henry T. 

 Brown, Editur of the ^;nericf/n^r<j8an. New York: 

 Brnwi), Coomhe & Co. Bostou : New England Newa 

 Coniyany. 18o8. 



The illustrations and letter-press descriptions of 

 these five hundred and seven mechanical move- 

 ments arc on opposite pages, so that the one may 

 be readily compared with the other. A copious 

 alphabetical index also facilitates reference. We 

 think the work must be indispensable to artisans, 

 inventors and all who would understand the me- 

 chanic arts, as well as to every one who operates 



