THE GEISTESEE FARRIER. 



right kind bf fruit? Some of his letters show fine 

 horticultural taste, but it evidently is not well in- 

 structed. A man's mode of thinking is often very 

 much affected by the character of his dessert. 

 Many of Mr. B.'s heretical notions (evidently con- 

 cocted immediately after dinner) may be accounted 

 for by his wrong selection of pears. His civiliza- 

 tion in this direction seems never to have gone 

 beyond Osbaud's Summer, White Doyenne, Onon- 

 daga, Vicar of Winkfield, Glout Morceau, and that 

 clau. Indeed, from some of his articles, I should 

 think he had been fed mostly on the Bon Chretien. 

 I think 1 could prescribe for Mr. B. a pear regime 

 that, if strictly followed for six months, would 

 make him almost orthodox. ♦ 



CULTIVATION OF BULBS. 



The editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle gives 

 some excellent suggestions on the cultivation of 

 bulbs, which are not merely empirical, and there- 

 fore much clexirer and more useful than such direc- 

 tions usually are. We make some extracts from 

 the article ; 



" A propliet is not wanted to declare that what 

 thing soever has to be made to grow rnust have 

 s*me means of feeding — -that is to say, of imbibing 

 the matter out of which growth has to come. We 

 omit all comparison with the animal kingdom and 

 refer only to that of plants, and the unsuspected 

 analogies between organs of vegetation apparently 

 most dissimilar. The seed is the type of every 

 growing part — that must be conceded. The power 

 of growth does not reside in the skin or husk of 

 the seed, but in a little white fleshy body lodged 

 .within it, named the embryo. When the embryo 

 's called upon to grow, the ^rs^ thing which liap- 

 pens is the production of a root, which dips down 

 into the soil where food is to be found. There it 

 . ftxes itself and begins to feed, which power secur- 

 ed, then, and not before, a young stem, the begin- 

 ning of the future plant, makes its appearance. If 

 from any accident the embryo root in which tlie 

 teeding power resides is destroyed, then the yoimg 

 stem, finding nothing to nourish it, perishes. Thus 

 we see that if a young plant is to grow, it must in 

 the very beginning have parts wherewith to feed; 

 and this is as true in the case of a bulb, or a cut- 

 ting, or newly-transplanted plant as of a seed. 



'' But what is the common way, among the un- 

 skilled, of treating a bulb, when grown in water? 

 A Hyacinth glass, as transparent as possible, is 

 filled with water, and placed at a window, or on a 

 mantlepiece, and then the bulb is dropped into its 

 place, touching the water or not as the case may 

 be. Observe the efliect. While a few roots are 

 strugghng into existence, and before any considera- 

 ble action can be established in them, the bud, 

 stimulated by light, its great vivifier, pushes up- 

 ward and takes to itself the food stored in the bulb 

 for the formation of all the new organs. But the 

 force of development being much greater in the 

 leaves than in the roots, the former rapidly extract 

 from the bulb the food which Nature has stored 

 therein, and the sprouting roots are starved. Then 

 comes the mischief. The bulb contains only a 

 limited quantity of food, and of itself can form no 

 more ; what it had is soon exhausted by the grow- 



ing leaves, which then begin to suffer from the 

 starvation of the roots, or feeders, by whose action, 

 if in a vigorous state, an amjjle su|)ply of fresh 

 food would have been extracted from the air and 

 water. From this time forward all goes wrong; 

 the_ ends of the leaves wither, the young flowers 

 shrivel, the very bulb becomes offensive, and the 

 plant is only fit to be thrown away. It is obvious 

 that the failure will liave arisen from leaves being 

 allowed to sprout before roots Avere provided to 

 feed them. This was brought about by exposure 

 to light. The remedy is the complete exclusion 

 of light until roots have formed in such abundance 

 as to be able to supply the leaves with whatever 

 amount of fresh food may be required. In dark- 

 ness, and in a cool ]>!ace, roots will form abund- 

 antly, but leaves will be dormant until light is 

 admitted to them." 



CULTIVATE YOUR OECHAEDS. 



As Avell might you expect a good crop of corn in 

 an unplowed meadow, as to expect a good crop of 

 fi.ne ajjples on trees standing in grass-land. No 

 crop requires so much food, or as good culture, as 

 the orchfird ; and none will retui'n such abuiulant 

 remuneration. Scarcely a larmer in the country 

 but has some tree or trees that bear an abun- 

 dant crop of fruit every year, and as surely soiJie 

 extra feeding is found to be tlje cause. The tree 

 stands where it receives the wash of a yard, or in 

 someplace where it accidentally receives an abund- 

 ance of nourishment. Cultivation with buckwheat 

 insures a healthy orchard and abundant crops; yet 

 the plowing should not exceed two inches in depth. 

 Trees should be annually washed witli strong ]\e 

 of wood ashes and annually jiiuned, so that the 

 top would be open. The ground should receive an 

 annual dressing of manure, uv annual crofis of fine 

 apples can not reasoujibly be expected ; but with a 

 good supply of manure, with a light surface cul- 

 ture sufiicient to kill all vegetation, or with a crop 

 of buckwheat, there would seldom be a failure 

 of a crop. Every intelligent farmer ought to 

 know and practice this. 



In my next I will give you some facts which will 

 demonstrate tlie foregoing positions. 



Elgin, Illinois. 



D, C. SCOFIELD. 



The Gardeners^ Chronicle has a most interesting 

 account of a Cottagers' Vegetable Show in Sud- 

 bury. Both tlie vegetables and flowers were of 

 such singular excellence that they attracted a great 

 deal of attention, and the report says that tliey 

 would have done credit to tiie International Sliow 

 in London. The privilege of showing is strictly 

 limited to the working poor, and no market or 

 other regular gardeners can receive a prize. A 

 great deal of emulation is excited, as the i)rizes and 

 extra prizes are very large, the latter always being 

 some garden implement. 



-— 1^ I m 



The International Pomological Congress, which 

 met at Namur last autumn, made a great effort to 

 fix upon the names of well-known fruits, so that 

 there should no longer be such confusion as there 

 now exists. They intend to publish a table, which 

 shall be a resume of the labors of tlie different po- 

 mologlsts of France, Germany, America and England, 



