Notes and Gleaiiiiigs. 3 1 1 



smooth fruit of the highest flavor. I have seen the Hartford Prolific Grape on 

 clay land ripen up with fine bunches, and hold on well to the stem, while four 

 hundred feet distant the same grape on sandy ground ripened its fruit with more 

 or less of green ones, or irregular, as is often the case with Isabella in uncon- 

 genial soils ; and, when it came to be gathered, more or less of the berries 

 would drop. This development of the quahties of fruits in varied soils is as 

 yet but little studied ; and with the grape, were it not that wine-making is one of 

 the points of profit from planting, I fear it would receive less notice than it now 

 does. It appears to me that he who sends out a new grape for the crazy, gullible 

 pubhc to buy, ought, at least, to make a statement of the soil as well as location 

 in which it has proved a competitor or superior in value with some other variety 

 that is known to succeed in similar soil ; nor should a new grape ever be sent 

 out until it has been tested by growing side by side with varieties already 

 known and in cultivation. 



With the grape, a great deal has been said about the weight of must by the 

 saccharometer, and some varieties have received a favorable tone therefrom ; 

 when, had the acidometer been used at the same time, and the result stated, the 

 tone would have gone down several degrees. I was surprised recently to learn, 

 that, in one of the great wine districts of the West, they knew little or nothing 

 of the acidometer. 



'■'■ A Plea for the Kitchen-Garden.'''' — It is too true that the kitchen-garden 

 receives too small an amount of thought, labor, and care from the great majority 

 of our farming people ; but we must hope to introduce " The Journal of Horti- 

 culture " into every family, and then see what a change "ill come " over their 

 dreams." We must remember, however, that our people, our Yankee people 

 especially, are not the peasantry of the old country ; and the man who, in the 

 old country, could live and labor in their way on a truly vegetable diet, no sooner 

 gets here, and learns to move with the rapidity and energy of Americans, than 

 he finds he needs the " lard oil in his boiler : " in other words, a greater amount 

 of vital force is expended here under our rapid system of moving, and our clear 

 atmosphere, in one day, than would suffice for three days in that country where 

 slow movements, vegetable food, bread, and sour wine, are the habits and sup- 

 port of the people. I would favor the more general growth of a greater variety 

 of vegetables, as every such thing tends to expand the mind of man ; but it is 

 this very rapid exhaustion of our vital energy, stimulated, if you will, by " pork 

 and potatoes," that has helped to build us up so rapidly into an immense 

 nation. Barachel. 



How SHALL I PRUNE MY DwARF Pears ? — This is the sum of a long letter 

 from one of our readers, in which, however, he tells us that "some of his neigh- 

 bors do not prune their dwarf trees at all, and yet are getting good crops ; while 

 others have pruned away all the lower branches up to some two feet in height : 

 and, according as he reads, neither practice is correct." 



The items of pruning, concerning dwarf pears as well as other dwarf trees, 

 have been, perhaps, given from time to time by various authors in a little too 

 much of the professional order ; and consequently a good many planters have 



