Editor's Letter-Box. 223 



The Bearing Year in Apples. — We have received from a venerable 

 poijiologist, nearly fourscore years old, but who has lost none of the interest in 

 horticulture which characterized him forty years ago, the following reply to the 

 inquiries of "J. C," on page 115 of the present volume, for which we return our 

 thanks : — 



1st. Take scions from a tree in 1871, and put thera into a good and thrifty 

 tree, and do the same in 1872, and you will get fruit in alternate years. 



2d. If you cut off of thrifty trees the growth of 1871, in. the last of July, leaving 

 three or four buds that would come out in 1872, you will force out the next year's 

 buds, and gain one year, and that will give the odd year. 



3d. If you will remove all the blossoms on one half of your tree in the bear- 

 ing year, you will have fruit on that half the odd year. These things I have 

 done successfully. 



I have now in bearing the Victory apple of the odd year produced in this way ; 

 next year the scions of the last year will bear on the regular year. The remarks 

 of yOur correspondent in the June number are good and practical. 



Yours, S. A. S. 



Spring Grove, Brookline, Mass., June 6, 1S71. 



L. B. S. — Earth-worms do no harm in your walks and lawn, beyond the dis- 

 figuration. In flower-pots they are more injurious. If you wish to destroy them, 

 you can do it by watering with lime water. The following recipe has been 

 given for this purpose : Dissolve in a pint of boiling water an ounce of corrosive 

 sublimate and a tablespoonful of common salt. Add to the solution nine gallons 

 of rain water, and with this water the lawn, walks, or pots where the worms are 

 to be found. The lime water, however, commonly proves effectual, and we dis- 

 like exceedingly to have such virulent poisons as corrosive sublimate round. 



D. C. E. — We have never stripped the bark from a tree to bring it into bear- 

 ing, but we have read of more than one instance where it has been done success- 

 fully ; and we have credited the statement that the tree was soon covered with 

 new bark, because we have seen cases where a spot on a tree, from which the 

 bark had been knocked off, became covered, not as is commonly the case by the 

 gradual progress of a lip, but as if the bark had been exuded or secreted from 

 the whole surface of the wound. If successful, the check which it must give to 

 the growth of the tree would naturally bring it into fruit. Still we should regard 

 it as a desperate remedy, only to be tried when all others had failed. If we 

 attempted it at all it would be in June, when trees are growing most rapidly. 

 But we repeat that we would only try it on trees that we wished to kill or cure, 

 for though we have read of a few successful cases, we know not how many unsuc- 

 cessful ones may be unrecorded. 



G. B., Ba>iimore, Md. — When we answered your inquiries about a green- 

 house, we inadvertently omitted to notice that concerning hot-beds. A bed of 

 leaves or tan gives a far milder heat than the horse dung commonly used. 



J. C, Havana, 111. — We have the promise of an article on the cultivation 

 of the Gloxinia from the best cultivator of that plant we know of. 



