284 



NEW ENGLAND PARMER. 



March 30, 183^iLi.'> 



(stltttm lor ihi- 



Fiii tilmer. ) 



HORTICULTURAL IfEMS. 



From Loudoii's Gnrdenei''s Magazine for 1826. 



Among the new and remarkable vaiieties of fruit 

 presented to the London Honicultural Society, we 

 notice the following : 



" Esopus Spitienber jh apple, an American sort, 

 requiring the protection of a wall : large, beauti- 

 ful, and of an exquisite flavour. It is said to iiave 

 originated in the neighbourhood of Albany. By 

 Geo Caswell, Esq. in his garden at Saccombe park, 

 Hertfordshire." 



This apple, if I am rightly informed, was first 

 produced as a seedling, in the garden of the ances- 

 tors of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, near this 

 city. It shows indications of having passed its me- 

 ridian, as both the tree and fruit seem to have de- 

 teriorated. In some situations, however, particu- 

 larly on the alluvions of the Mohawk, it still re 

 tains Its high roputation. And I tliink from cal- 

 careous soils it is more bland, or less acid, than 

 from soils which are not so. It has been the most 

 esteemed dessert apple of our orchards ; and it 

 cannot but be gratifying to the lovers of good fruit 

 to learn, that a new seedling Spitzenbergh, in 

 Ulster county, promises to supply the place of 

 the declining parent. The fruit is rather more flat, 

 and soniewiiat less acid, and yet possesses the high 

 flavour of the old variety. I introduced it into my 

 nursery in 1825. 



Among the books presented to the same society, 

 I notice several volumes of the New York Board 

 of Agriculture. 



Action of poisons upon the vegetable kingdom. — 

 M. T. Marut, of Geneva, has lately made some 

 curious e.xperiments upon the eflects of poison up- 

 on the vegetable kingdon. By causing plants to 

 grow in poisonous mi.xtures, or by introducing 

 poisons into their system, it wns found that tlie ef- 

 fect upon vegetation was ue.o.rly the same as upon 

 the functions of animals. The experiments were 

 generally made with plants of the kidney bean, 

 and the comparison was always made with a plant 

 watered with spring water — Juur. Roy. Inst., Oct. 



[We have two diseases, one of the plum and 

 the other of the pear and apple, which I have long 

 ascribed to animal poisons. That th-? canker of 

 the plum and morello cherry is owing to some- 

 thing more than an e.xtravasation of the natural 

 3ap, is evident from the fact, that the natural sap, 

 or prepared juice, of stone fruit, becomes a vege- 

 table oxyde, or gum, on coming in contact with 

 the o.\ygen of the atmosphere ; also from another 

 fact, that gum has only a slight tendency to pu- 

 trefaction, and but partially and seldom affects the 

 iiealth of the trunk or branch from which it exudes, 

 riie canker of the plum, on the contrary, seems to 

 undergo a rapid decomposition, is in a short tinir 

 reduced to an impalpable powder, and if left to its 

 natural course, soon poisons and destroys brancli, 

 trunk and root. Tliis disease is not owing to cli- 

 mate, to soil nor to aspect : for where care is us- 

 ed to cut off" and burn the affected branch, the dis- 

 ease is stopped ; and udiere these precautions are 

 omitted, it continues to increase. The e.xperiments 

 of M. Marut show, that an animal poison, injec- 

 ted into a tender branch, might cause tumors ;that 

 the poison might ne disseminated in the sap, and 

 produce ultimate death. 



I have read much that has been written on the 

 disease of the pear, but nothing that has been per- 

 fectly satisfactory. The disease shows itself first 



111 l!ie extremity of the brandies. The leaves and 

 bark become brown, then black, and the limb is 

 found to be dead to its e.xtrenio point. Some have 

 found insects in the bark, and in tlie pith of the af- 

 fected branch. I have not been able to discover 

 any. on critical examination. I therefore suspect 

 that they are rather a consequence, than a cause, 

 of the disease. On examination, i found that the 

 dark, or diseased colour, extended farther down 

 the branch in the cambium, or the new forming 

 concentric layer, than in either the bark or sap 

 wood. I inferred from this fact though f do not 

 intend to say that rny inference is correct, that pois- 

 on had been injected into the cambium through 

 the bark, near the extremity of the limb, and had 

 been carried down, by the descending sap, to the 

 extent of the aff'ected part ; and that the vitiated 

 sap and the disease had been slopped only by the 

 want of circulation or propulsion in the extremity. 

 For it will be remembered, that sap must pass to 

 the leaves, and be elaborated, before it can pass 

 down between the bark sap-wood.] 



Grapes. — The physicians of Geneva send some 

 of their patients to the Pays de Vaud, during 

 vintage, to take what is called a regular course 

 of grapes ; that is, to subsist three weeks entirely 

 on this fruit, without taking any other food or 

 drink. In a few days a grape diet beeomes a- 

 greeable, and weak persons, and also the insane, 

 have found great relief from subsisting on it for 

 three or four weeks. 



[lean corroborate the value of "a course of 

 grapes" from personal experience. Wlien recov- 

 ering from a severe bilious fever, my physicians 

 permitted me to eat grapes and peaches. They 

 constituted almost my entire diet for weeks ; and 

 I experienced no injury, but essential benefit from 

 their use.] J. B. 



PLOUGHING IN GREEN CROPS AS A 

 MANURE. 



The mode of «nriching land by ploughing in 

 green crops was practiced by the Romans 1600 

 years ago, and is_ now in use in England, Italy, 

 and other parts of Europe. In this country the 

 practice is very limited, though highly rocominenH- 



ed by some of our agricultural writers. In this ' to me, and a very great saving over flax dressed 

 vicinity the few attempts to recruit worn out lands i by hand. Any number of persons may dress at 

 in tiiis way, which have come to our knowledge, j the same machine, that the propelling power ad- 

 have not been very successful, and have tended to mits. I should think a horse power quite ad- 



sun, appears through a microscope to be surri 

 ed with a cloud of steam. Let any person 

 the lip of the finger at the distance of the 12tl 

 of an inch from a looking glass, and the surfs 

 the glass will soon be dimmed by the matter 

 ing from the finger 



Many experiments have been made to ascei 

 the quantity of perspirable matter which is e 

 from the skin. It is stated in the N. E. Enci 

 pedia, that Mr Cruickshanks put his hand i 

 glass vessel closed at the wrist, and by keepii 

 there an hour, he collected 30 grains of a lii 

 which had issued through the pores of the ski 

 On repeating the experiment in the evemD] 

 collected 12 grains. The mean of of these 

 grains. Taking 91 grains per hour, andsuppi 

 the hand to be one sixtieth part of the suriai 

 the body, the perspiration in 24 hours woulj 

 mount to 5 pounds 3 ounces troy. Sanctorius 

 five-eighths of all the aliment (food and drink) 

 ceivedby the mouth is carried off by perspiral 

 Do'lart says seven-eighths Others estimate 

 much less, making it about two pounds per day' 

 The quantity of sweat, or perspirable matter varic 

 according to the climate, season of the year, age 

 sex, state of the health, &c 



It is by the peculiar smell which the substi 

 emitted from the skin gives to each individi 

 tliat the dog can discover his master, and 

 trace him to a distance. [Hamp. Ga; 



FLAX DRESSING. 



A machine for breaking and dressing Flax, 

 lately been introduced into the state of New Yol 

 which is said to be a valuable improvement 

 any machine befi re ilBed for that purpose. Jud 

 Tiffany of Schoharie (N.Y.) states in a letter to 

 a gentleman of this town, "that this machine is 

 very cheap and simple, the flax is struck and dreai 

 ed on both sides at once, by a single and simpjl 

 operation. It dresses perfectly and with sill^ 

 softness. I have seen women spinning the toW, 

 who pronounced emphatic approbation of tlie oas^ 

 with which it was spun. 



" On comparison by weight, it shows a great 

 saving over any flax dressing machine yet kuowfl 



nliils 



itiesli 



lied 10* 



JIJB, • 



Lplii 



hwi 



discourage the practice. In a neiohboring town, 

 a farmer turned in successively on the same land 

 three green crops — rye, oats, and buckwheat, and 

 then, in tho-autuinn of 182.5, and was a very light 

 crop ; the clover was cut the last season, and was 

 hardly worth mowing. The crops did not indicate 

 that the soil had been much meliorated by the 

 vegetables ploughed in, and the farmer is half in- 

 clined to he of Lord Karnes' opinion, that " the 

 best way of converting a crop into manure is to 

 pass it tiirough the body of an animal." Tiie ex- 

 periment was made on a silicious sandy soil. The 

 result might have been different on a clayey or 

 loamy soil. [Hamp. Gaz.] 



PORES OF THE HUMAN BODY. 



By applying a good microscope to the skin of 

 the human body a multitude of small pores w'ill be 

 seen, through which perspiration is continually 

 issuing It is calculated that there are a million 

 of these pores in every square inch, and 2,016,000,- 



000 in the whole body of a middle-sized person 



The naked body, exposed to the rays of a burning 



equate for three or four persons to dress, and 

 each person to dress from six is ten pounds per 

 hour, according to the state of the flax. It is also 

 very useful in dressing broken hemp." 



The soil of our state is well adapted to the 

 growing of flax and hemp, and both can be raised 

 with little labor and expense ; the great difficulty 

 is in dressing, as the ordinary way by hand labor, 

 is so slosv and expensive, that our farmers find it 

 an unprofitable and discouraging branch of Agri- 

 culture. By the use of the improvement suggest- 

 ed, these objections would, in a great measure be 

 done away,^and .vb should enjoy the satisfaction 

 of no longer being so largely dependent on for- 

 eign countries, for the important articles of linen 

 and hemp. 



The machine will not cost moro than 95 or $30. 

 Bath Inquirer. 



A Savanah paper of the 14th inst. states that the 

 market there is already supplied, in censidera- 

 ble abundance, with the flowers and vegetables of 

 spring. Green peas have made their appearance. 



