26 



T H E N E W G E N E S E E F A R M E R , 



Vol. 1. 



l.!>VBO\"S 81 BLRBAX CJAKDDXER. 



Ta'.a ni05t faeciimling work, wUicU is one of thc- 

 latesi from ihc nuthor's pen, should be in ibe haiule of 

 every person who possesses nny tn£tc in gardening or 

 rural affairs. It is n large octavo, and couipiiccs *' the 

 choice of a suburban or villa residence, or of a situation 

 on which to form one ; the arrangement and furnish- 

 ing of the houae ; the laying out, planting, and gener- 

 al management of the garden and grounds ; the whole 

 adapted to grounds from one perch to fifty acres and 

 upwards in extent ; and intend.'d for the instruction 

 of those who know littleofgardeningand rural affairs, 

 and more particulorly for the use of ladies." 



Thiowork is unlike the Encyclopedia of Garden- 

 ing, in being exclusively of a practical nature. It is 

 neither historical nor statistical, nor physiological, any 

 farther than astvictty practical work should be. It is 

 not, however, a mere body of julea, which the reader 

 is to follow without knowing why he does so ; but the 

 reason of every operation is given, and the principle 

 on which it depends accompanies every direction. — 

 What the author promises in his introduction is well 

 fulfilled : — "It is our intention to endeavor to give our 

 rcoders a morei ntimate knowledge of the subjects treat- 

 ed of, than has hitherto been attempted in works of 

 this kind. Iiidtcad of a mere didactic calendar, or a 

 dictionary of plants to be cultivated, directing what 

 works are to be done in each month, or what opera- 

 tions are to be performed in the culture of particular 

 plants or trees, we shall endeavor to convey such a no- 

 tion of the structure and nature of a plant, as to show 

 the necessity and advantages of cultivating it ; and 

 such an idea of the nature of soils, as to show the im- 

 provements which may be made in them, by mechan- 

 ical operations, and the application of manures. We 

 shall treat of the various operations of gardening, 

 whether performed on plants, or on the soil ; and for 

 the performance of every operation, from the most 

 mechanical, to the most scientific, wo shall assign a 

 reason. Let not its reader be alarmed, however, lest 

 we shiuld go into minute scientific details, only capa- 

 ble of being understood by the botanist and chemist, or 

 by the professional gardener : so far from contempla- 

 ting this, our intention is to conlina oursLlves to the 

 simplest and most important features ; to treat every 

 subject in such a manner as to be understood by those 

 who have little knowledge of either gardening or coun- 

 try affairs." 



It is impossible that a person so well versed in t'lc 

 principles of domeitic economy, and ofcufinaiy and 

 ornamental gardening, should not render himself in- 

 teresting and instructive to the reader ; — one whose 

 whole soul is in the subject, caimotfail to impart to oth- 

 ers t'.ic same fouklncss for the delightful pursuit of which 

 ho treats ; and no one, who is not naturally destitute of 

 all taste, can read this book without beconring deeply 

 interested in the employment of gardening, and with- 

 out odding to the correctness of his discrimination, both 

 in its useful and ornamental departments. The style 

 of the author, as is well known, is entirely plain, and 

 sometimes, far from being pleasing ; as for instonce, 

 the inelegant repetition of ideas on the third page ; 

 but his great elrenglh lies in planning and c.vecuting 

 works of neatness and utilihj eombincd — in this respect 

 t'i3 work is an inexhaustible fund for profit, taste, and 

 economy ; for while he points out the best mode of 

 laying out and planting the grounds of the most weal- 

 thy, where cost is «o consideration, ho no less gives 

 direct! ins for the ornament of the smallest front yards 

 and gardens, and with a particular view as to expense. 

 Even the mode of erection of the clothes lines is not 

 forgotten. 



We must, however, strongly enter our protest a- 

 gain.3t the practice, approved by the author, of ])lacing 

 in gardens and ornamental grounds, statues of pagan 

 doitlns; it must be a perverted morality, ^'^hich delights 



to contcinplriie cliuracters, who, as an eccentric person 

 observed, had they lived in modern days, ''would have 

 been tried at the Old Bailey and executed at Tyburn." 



We consider this work as more peculiarly adapted 

 to this country, not only from its general choracter, but 

 because, being confined to subuibon grounds, it neces- 

 sarily relates to those of limited extent ; for no one, 

 who feels any sympathy with the spirit of our repub- 

 lican institutions, can ever wish to see liere the im- 

 mense domains of the nobility, kept in the higheet state 

 of finish, at an enormous expense, supplied by the 

 hard labor of hundreds of oppressed and industrious 

 poor. 



^Ve are promised a second part to this work, to be 

 entitled the fiubvrban Horticulturist, which will em- 

 brace all the departments of the cultivation of the sub- 

 urban garden. 



We close our r«arKS with the observation, that we 

 think every person icA? lircs in a house, may read this 

 book to great profit. We hope hereafter to give our 

 readers some extracts from the work. 



For the Xcw Gciicsce Fanner. 

 THE WEATHER OF THE PAST YEAR. 



t3 E 



n 







Number of fair days is 187. 

 " cloudy " 178. 



Wind from the West, in the year, 99 days. 

 " " N. W. " 61 " 



" " S. W. " 60 " 



" " S. " 43 " 



" " N. " 38 " 



" " N. E. " 31 " 



" " E. " 17 " 



" " S. E. " 11 " 



First frest, Sept. 13, and 



First snow, after summer, Sept. 27. 



Blue-birds appeared March 23. 



R >bins appeared March 95. 



Elm and iVlople in llower April 9. 



Ilepntica triloba or Li\erwort, April 12. 



I)l)ig;ea repens, Trailirg arbutus, April 21. 



The temperature is tnki n three times aday; atsercn 

 A. M., two v. M., and rt.nc P. M. 



Rochester. Lat. 42, 02 N. and Long. 73. 56 W., 

 tbout 500 feel above lida vtuir. 



For the .Yctr Ccnesee Farmer. 



OBSERVATIONS OX 8XO^V. 



Winter is upon ue. The earth looks like one wide 

 waste: when will nature wake into life again? No 

 pulse of vegetable existence seems to move ; yet, its 

 mighty Author holds all its organization ready for 

 high activity at the call of his voice. Now, the 

 earth is wrajjiied in the covering prepared for all the 

 colder regions. Snow, what a curiosity it is; how 

 icautiful its folnis, how useful in its place, how Icnc- 

 ficial 10 the labors of men. 



1. liB curiosity, congealed water, solidified but ex- 

 panded water; how it sifts down fiom its great foctory 

 ii the sky. I;s color; why is it white? why was 

 not it hhuk, but that it would have been a true pall 

 spread over nature, too dismal, too repulsive, to be 

 endured. IJow small are its flakes, so as to be borne 

 on the breeze, and not to bear down by its weight the 

 vegetable world by its power of accomulalion. But 

 its whiteness, who has explained; Even the wisest 

 has only said, because it was so formed. How easily 

 too it changes to water. Yet it requires so much of 

 the matter of heal to efi'ect the change, that it slowly 

 disappears, and the desolation of great and rapid 

 floods from the dissolving snows of spring or winter, 

 is prevented. 



2. Its/urm. Have you watched it, and noticed its 

 various and beautiful shapes? At one time snow takes 

 the form of a s(ar of six delicate rays, cquoUy distant 

 from each other, or including an equal angle, and of 

 equal length. At another time the ends of the rays 

 are/ci77;r(/, and at another, small rays diverge from 

 these principal rays at the same angle, and sometim.cs 

 those divide again, all at the same constant angle. 

 Sometimes two flakes are united by their opposite rays, 

 so OS to form a beautiful object with a pinnate or 

 wing-bke form. Sometimes it is a small ball, nearly a 

 globe, or uneven, or with rays projecting at the angle 

 already mentioned, sixty degrees, (at which angle 

 water always begins to crystalize as congelation taket 

 place;) or with theee radiations on the balls, more or j,s 

 less pinnate. The stellated form of snow, sometimes 

 has the end of the rays divided into three parts. — 

 Sometimes the space between the rays is filled up en^ 

 tircly, and a fiat, thin flake of ice falls like tnow; and 

 sometimes only as a single crystal in the foim of spi- 

 culac. How singular, that attraction, or electricity, oi 

 any agency, should arrange into these beautiful forms 

 the fields of vapor in the unbtalle and unchanging 

 atmosphere. 



3. The advantage of enow, as a covering to the 

 earth in winter, is most obvious. When it lies aianj; 

 considerable depth on frozen ground, the internal heal 

 of the earth melts the frozen crust, and the way it 

 prepared for the water of the dissolving snow to past 

 into the earth and supply the springe with pure and 

 wholesome streams. 



Snow is a poor conductor of heat, and hence ili 

 forms a protection to the earth; the cold of the at 

 mosphcre has no eflecl upon ihc earth, and is confined 

 to the atmosphere. .Hence the roots of vegetables, 

 and especially of winter grain, and of the valuable 

 common grasses, are less liable to injury. The func- 

 tions of organization are interrupted for a shorter pe-l 

 riod. The roots, too, are not so much exposed to b'( 

 torn and injured by the expansion of the water, as i 

 freezes at the surface of the earth, or soil. The greaij 

 expansion of water as it congeals, takes place at thi 

 point of congelation; as the cold of ice increases, il] 

 contracts like other bodies. When roots freeze in the 

 earth and with the earth, they would not be laceratcc 

 f they could expand with the expanding ice; bu' 

 when they are confined by frost in the earth frozen, 

 they cannot contract as the earth contracts, by the in. 

 crease of cold. This result is, to a great extent, pri 



IE 



