THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE. 



NOVEMBER, 1846. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Horticulture in Mississippi ; Budding Fruit Trees ; 

 Labels for Trees ; Soaking Cucumber and Melon Seeds, Sfc. 

 By M. W. Phillips, Esq., Log Hall, Edwards, Miss. 



The improvement in fruits is rapidly progressing in this 

 State : quite a rage has sprung up to market fruit to New Or- 

 leans. One gentleman within some ten or fifteen miles of 

 me has an orchard of pear trees of several hundred, and will, 

 in 1847, have over one thousand trees. Another this fall will 

 have some three hundred. I can point to one orchard of 

 peach trees that number over one thousand ; — to an apple 

 orchard of eight hundred that was planted this year within 

 four miles of me : my peach orchard numbers over one hun- 

 dred trees, with over three hundred large enough to place in 

 orchard, and over four hundred budded this spring ; — and, by 

 the by, I can show a bud that was put in about the 7th of 

 June, that is now near three inches long ; it will be large 

 enough to remove by fall. 



Our cotton crops, so far as I can see and hear, are fully 

 three weeks behind last year, and are more dependent on a 

 favorable fall than any I have ever seen. Such a wet and 

 grassy year, I never before saw. I cannot get my crop clean 

 under ten days. I never worked in my crop in August before, 

 and have often laid by. clean, before July 4,^ — too soon to 

 form any certain calculation of the crop, but as we are, nine 

 years out of ten, picking before this date, we can of course 

 say, our crops are very backward, when there is no probabil- 

 ity of picking before September 1. Those who know how 

 much depends on the number of days to pick, and the ear- 



VOL. XII. NO. XL .54 



