Vol. IX. — No..)0. 



AND IIORTICIJLTUKAL JOURNAL. 



395 



of ff'tilcs' Island. [Decvvettu the islands of Sumatra 

 ami .lavn.] 



' The writer's c.xperiotice ilous not nllow liiin 

 to spi^ak cit" tho Success with wliicli this method 

 ini^lit he iipplied to_/;i(i'( Ines ; hut he hitlo doubts 

 of its succeeding ; and the adoption of it is reconi- 

 tnended at all events in multiplying such plants, 

 natives of warmer climates, whose stcds do not 

 succeed in //lis counlry. 



' Dr Ilowison has besides frequently remarked ; 

 tliat such brandies of fi-uil trees, as were under 

 the operation of abscission at the time of hear- 

 ing, were more laden with fruit, than tho rest of 

 the trees, which is attributed to a plethora or ful- 

 ness, occasioned by the conimuiiicalion between 

 the branches and the trunk being cut otf by the 

 division of the bark. And he has observed that 

 the roots from a branch under this operation 

 %vere longer in shooting into the hall of straw, 

 when the tree was in leaf than at another time: 

 — on which account he recommends the spring 

 as the best season for making experiments.' 



The quotation from the American Museum here 

 concludes. 



It is proper to add, that though the division as 

 to the bough which is to form the new tree, should 

 i)e made at the place above directed, yet cnre 

 must be taken not to leave a stump behind on the 

 parent tree, for this would damage the stock for 

 the sake of the new tree. The stump, therefore, 

 must next be cut off close to the main branch, from 

 which it was taken ; that the wound may Ileal 

 by bark spreading to cover lite icound from the right 

 and left, and from above the wound ; not to 

 speak of some little elevation of bark, wbich 

 may arise from below the wound. The bark, it 

 mutt be observed will never rise up and cross the 

 end of a. standing slitmp, hut must be looked for 

 as a cover to the branch out of which the stiimp 

 grew. 



I am, Sir, yours, A. B. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Mr Fessenden — A correspondent in your pa- 

 per of the 22d inst. over the signature of 'Vitis,' has 

 undertaken to animadvert upon the committee 

 on fruits, for their projiosal to give a premium of 

 twenty dollars, ' For the best method of cultiva- 

 ting foreign grapes, in open ground, which shall be 

 euperior to any other now piactised in this country, 

 with reference to planting, training, shelter, &c, 

 and for a length of trellis not less than thirty feet ;' 

 to which he has appended some strictures upon 

 the Thomery method. 



The first difficulty ho seems to meet with is 

 whether the premium proposed be for the theory 

 or practice of cultivation and in his question which 

 he formally marks No. 1, he inquires, 'whether it 

 be fora treatise or to he jiaid to the person who shall 

 show by his own practice a better mode of culti- 

 vation than is now in use.' It is not easy to ima- 

 gine how any one can fairly give any other than 

 the latter construction to it ; is it not explicitly stat- 

 ed to be for the best method of cultivating which 

 shall be found to be superior on comparison with 

 others now practised, and is not the trellis for the 

 specimen required to be of a given length ? Has 

 this anything to do with a treatise ? But your cor- 

 respondent has solved his own difficulty ; he says 

 if a treatise only is asked for, then the committee 

 can have no reference to the Thomery method, as 

 they have the Bon Jardinier before them, in which 

 ^at whole system is laid down ; this is very true and 



as the committee did have reference to tho Thomery 

 method the consequent conclusion would be that 

 they did not want a tn;atise. 



As to the several inquiries in relation to what 

 would bo the conduct of tho commiltoo in certain 

 contingencies, I cannot take upon myself to deter- 

 mine. I understand their proposal, according to its 

 evident import on its face, to ai)ply to any new 

 method which shall be superior to what is now 

 practised, and I doubt not their award would he 

 made in conformity to it, whenever- it was convin-- 

 ced the claimant was entitled to it. I do not un- 

 derstand tlifcm to say they think the Thomery 

 mode to be the best in use any where, hut that it 

 is acknowledged in France to be the best in use 

 there, and of this I believe there is no doubt. I 

 acknowledge that I was jileased with the proposal 

 of the Committee ; not that the sum of twenty 

 dollars was much to oiler : but it was a small step 

 towards some improvement in the old fashioned 

 mode, which like our first foreign vines, was im- 

 ported from England many years ago, and which 

 we have been ])ractising upon ever since, with 

 what success, generally, I can appeal to many of 

 our most respectable cultivators in this vicinity to 

 determine. It is well known that several of them, 

 notwithstanding they have with great care, made 

 use of the required precaution of syringes and 

 washes, lime and sulphur, flying tents and fiimi- 

 gators, have threatened to abandon their vines al- 

 together; yet there are some individuals so ortho- 

 dox in their faith in this mode ; arising perhaps 

 from a greater share of success, in perhaps very 

 favored situations ; or from an untiring zeal and 

 a disregard of expense ; that if they hear the 

 Thomery mode mentioned they scent heresy in tho 

 gale and seem determined to decry it at once, and 

 pertinaciously to adhere to a .sys:em taken from a 

 country where it never did succeed for open ground 

 culture, instead of essaying another mode received 

 from a country where itinv: riably has succeeded for 

 the same culture. You are not furnished with any 

 conclusive reasons for resisting the new mode, but 

 you hear, that it will require six or seven years to 

 complete a trellis ; time and money are not to be 

 thrown away ; it will cost a great deal, you are not 

 sure it will succeed in this climate, a cultivator 

 must own the soil. I confess. Sir, I do not see 

 much force in these objections which does not ap- 

 ply to the ordinary mode, and if a substantial, coarse 

 wooden fence, built upon red cedar posts with a 

 decent trellis attached to it, and furnished witli the 

 coping, can be constructed of thirty feet in length 

 and of the requisite height for ten dollars, and I am 

 assured by an exiierienced carpenter that it can, I 

 do not see why one hundred dollars need be expen- 

 ded upon it ; this fence according to usual wear 

 would last for twenty years, a term of durability, 

 three times as great as your correspondent will ven- 

 ture any calculations upon about grapes, at all ; 

 neither do I see the pertinency of the remark that 

 if the committee had offered a premium of one 

 hundred dollars, they would have done a real good. 

 Consistent with the implied censure of the offer of 

 twenty dollars for tlie same object, the amount 

 would not he intended to repay the expenses of 

 the experiment, and your correspondent's ' poor 

 wight,' if he failed of success, would in either case 

 have to sustain the whole loss of it himself, and 

 if he succeeded, his success itself would be his own 

 reward, and the premium simiily an acknowledg- 

 ment for his laudable efforts. 



Your correspondent will pardon me, I hope, if I 



ofl'er to point out an error in his remarks on tho 

 Thomery inotliod in which he says, extending 

 them (the vines) from sir to seven inches only 

 every season until they arrive at their intended po- 

 sition on the trellis. In the rules laid down in the 

 lion Jardinier, it is stated, it (the vine) should not 

 he lengthcued more than twelve or fijlcen inches 

 each year, no very small discrepancy in a writer 

 who undertakes to set matters to rights in so au- 

 thorative a tone as your correspoiidcut. 



Yours, with great respect. 



One of the Committee o.n Fruits. 



Jane 25, 1831. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



CUTTING TREES FOR REPRODUCTION. 



Mr Fessendem. — In a communication from Mr 

 Welles recently published in your paper, it is inti- 

 mated that suckers do not grow from the stumps 

 of large trees when cut, because the stumps hav- 

 ing been left hollow contain water. He supiinsea 

 that if the trees were so cut as to ]u-event this, 

 by letting the water run off, suckers would sprout 

 forth and grow. For the last 20 winters it has 

 been my employment to cut timber. The result 

 of some of my observations on its growth I will 

 state. For a number of these years the trees that 

 1 was cutting, were very old and much decayed ; 

 I observed that no suckers started from the stumps 

 of large trees when cut. 



In the winter of 1823, I began to cut a lot of 

 white oak, full grown, but undecayed — not one in 

 the hundred unsound, the stumps generally per- 

 fectly sound, — diameter from 18 to 36 inches. 



This lot being secure from cattle I expected a 

 fine growth, but on examining the stumps the 

 following summer I could not find a single sprout. 



vSnpposing this might have resulted from the 

 stumps being cut very low, and considerably hol- 

 lowing so as to contain several gallons of water, 

 I determined to adopt a different mode of cutting. 

 Accordingly, in the following winter, with an axe, 

 I cut the sap wood all around the tree, leaving it 

 the lowest on the outsides, I then sawed the re- 

 mainder with a cross-cut saw — the teeth so raised 

 as to leave the stump in a form to shed off all the 

 water. By way of experiment I cut a number of 

 trees in the usual way. This course I followed 

 two seasons, but no advantage resulted as to the 

 growth of wood. 



Since then I have consulted my own conve- 

 nience rather than the growth of suckers in cut- 

 ting my timber. 



After reading Mr Welles' communication on the 

 subject, I examined rising a hundred of the stumps 

 cut in a manner to secure the growth of suckers 

 and have not found so much as a single sprout 

 growing. 



If this be worthy a place in your valuable pa- 

 per, you may publish it. 



Yours, &c, I. Alden, 2d. 



East Bridgtxcater, May Mlh, 1831. 



Caterpillars. — The spotted Caterpillar has 

 committed great ravages in Pennsylvania. Whole 

 forests have been stripped of their leaves. The 

 same reptile has been mischievous in Massachusetts 

 on fruit trees. Some Horticulturists have shaken 

 them from the trees, and then tarred the trunks to 

 prevent their ascending. 



Camphorated spirit applied to the flesh will keep 

 off musketoes for several hours. 



