1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



45 



" Bring coronatitms and sops in wine 

 Worn of paramons." 



Sops in ivine, says Brand , were a species of flowers 



among the smaller kind of gillittowers or pinks. 



How the name came to be applied to apples it is 



difficult to tell, but not any more so in this case 



than in that of numerous other varieties. 



DURABILITY OF TIMBER. 



The piles driven at the AVoolwich Dock yards, 

 thirty-seven years since, and prepared by the pro- 

 cess of Mr. Kyan, are perfectly sound, while sim- 

 ilar piles not so treated have required renewal 

 twice during that time. This Kyanizing of tim- 



ber is performed by immersing it for, a time in a 

 weak solution of corrosive sublimate. Could not 

 the same advantages be availed of when setting 

 posts for fences? Suppose the posts l)e entered 

 in the ground butt- end up, and a small augur- 

 hole of half an inch in depth in the upper end, in 

 which might be placed a small quantity of corro- 

 sive sublimate, and then the hole plugged. Should 

 any moisture be resident in the stick, (and no de- 

 cay can occur without it,) would not the corrosive 

 sublimate be slowly dissolved and carried through 

 every pore of the wood, and if so, would it not add 

 materially to the durability of the wood ? We 

 should like to see this tried, and would like to live 

 long enough to report fully upon its effects. — 

 Worki7iff Farmer. 



CANKER-WORMS. 



i& 



Our old friend and correspondent, Dea. Fowler, 

 of Danvers, who is untiring in his attention to the 

 cultivation, and the enemies, of fruits and fruit 

 trees, has sent us a small bottle containing sever- 

 al grubs of the canker worm. He says, in a note, 

 "I think it would be well to call the attention of 

 your readers to the tarring of their trees at this 

 time, as a great many grubs or female canker 

 Worms are now running." 



In accordance with this timely hint we copy 

 from the 2d vol. of the Farmer , -page 401, some re- 

 marks made by Mr. Fowler in that volume, and 

 which we accompany by engravings of the male 

 and female grubs, the worm, and the insect in its 

 pupa state. 



Dear Sir: — I hardly know what to say in re- 

 gard to the canker-worm. I am inclined to think 

 the old mode of the application of tar around the 

 body of the tree, on strips of cloth, canvass, or 

 gunny-bags, six inches wide, and fastened around 

 the trunli, is as good a mode to prevent the grub 

 from ascending the tree, as any other that has yet 

 been found. My mode has been to use tarred 

 cloth ; the tar, when thick, I made thin with oil. 

 I stuff hay, cotton, or sea-weed between the tree 

 and the lower edge of the cloth, to catch the drip 

 of the tar ; this serves likewise to tire, perplex, and 

 perhaps entangle the grub, l^efore it gets to the 

 tar on the cloth. I think, if the tar is properly 

 and seasonably applied in the spring, it will prove 

 effectual. But some, on the contrary, think that 

 tar must be applied in autumn, say the first of No- 

 vember. From a close observation of the canker- 

 worm, I am inclined to think but few of the eggs 

 deposited in the autumn are hatched in the spring ; 

 as only a few males ascend in the fall and winter, 

 most of the eggs prove barren. 



The cloth should be taken from the trees as 

 soon as the grubs are done running, and the tar, 

 should there be any, scraped from the trees. 



Yours, S. P. Fowler. 



For the New England Farmer. 



AGRICULTURE A CHEMICAL ART. 



Mr. Editor : — Dr. Justus Liebeg, in his work 

 entitled "Organic Chemistry of Agriculture and 

 Physiology," says — "Carbonic acid, ammonia and 

 water, yield elements for all the organs of pilants. 

 The atmosphere and the soil offer the same kind 

 of nourishment to the leaves and roots. The for- 

 mer contains a comparatively inexhaustible sup- 

 ply of carbonic acid and ammonia ; the latter, by 

 means of its humus, generates constantly fresh 

 carbonic acid, while, during the winter, rain and 

 snow introduce into the soil a quantity of ammo- 

 nia sufficient for the development of the leaves and 

 blossoms." The air by which the gi-owing plant 

 is surrounded, the soil which is the medium of its 

 roots, the fluid by which its food is dissolved and 

 rendered appropriable by those roots, the decom- 

 posable animal and vegetable matters which em-, 

 body its aliment, and the entire vegetable organ- 

 ism itself — its roots, stalk, branches, leaves, buds, 

 blossoms and fruit, together with its sap or circu- 

 lating fluid, are chemical compounds. Of these, 

 the common air is perhaps the most simple in its 

 composition, yet in this we find a number of ele- 

 ments, viz : oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbonic 

 acid, and ammonia, together with certain other 

 principles which are perhaps incidental, but which, 

 no doubt, have their appropriate spliere of action 

 in the great circle of vegetable reproduction and 

 life. AH these are of a strictly chemical cliarac- 

 ter, and are characterized by energies and affini- 

 ties equally ample and sublime. To illustrate this 

 remark, oxygen, or vital air, combines with nitro- 



