822 
THE GARDENERS' 
CHRONICLE. 
[Dzc. 12, 
vances the summer pruning should be attended 
to, by stopping every shoot at the second bud 
beyond the bunch '(if on spur system, as 
presumed), soon after which laterals will be produced ; 
these should not be allowed to ramble at large, the 
object being to concentrate the plant's energy where 
required most; let them be stopped back.to the first 
bud, and never be allowed to interfere with the principal 
leaves ; not more than a fortnight should elapse between 
every general stopping in this manner during the 
summer, so that the Vines may not receive any check 
from too much wood being taken off at once, and in all 
eases give preference to the principal leaves, the leaves 
of laterals being of much less service to the tree in 
formation of organizable matter; by this means the 
Vines will have a tendency to ripen their wood earlier 
and better. How can it be expected that Vines should 
do well that are probably only stopped once or twice 
during the growing season ? so that they appear as if 
intended to form a shady bower, rather than to produce 
fruit, and then they are so severely thinned, that the 
functions of the plant are completely disordered, and as 
a natural consequence, a host of evils follow, and yet 
I have heard great surprise expressed by some who 
treat their. Vines in this manner, that they do not bear 
frui. No growth whatever should be encouraged after 
the beginning of September, and the terminal shoot 
should be stopped still earlier, the thorough ripening of 
the wood being of the greatest importanee.—J. H. 
Amport House, Nov. 30. 
Canker in Apricot Trees. — What is commonly 
(though improperly) called canker or disease in the 
Apricot tree, and supposed by some to arise from con- 
stitutional debility, by others from some local though 
unknown cause in connection with the soil, (this, I 
think, is fully proved by the numerous and conflicting 
opinions already in print on the subject), is in reality not 
a disease, but an injury received at a time when its 
effect is not apparent. This, I believe, is the only rea- 
son why the true cause and nature of the injury sus- 
tained has not been laid before us hitherto. The well 
known law respecting the erystallizati uids at a 
low temperature will easily account for the vessels of 
the Apricot tree becoming ruptured as its sap freezes, 
and as the vessels on the upper and outward sides of a 
branch are the first to be injured, the number of those 
lacerated will be in proportion to the duration and in- 
tensity of frost. The injury, then, is invariably received 
in the winter or early spring, and its effects not visible 
until the following summer, sometimes not for several 
years. This I have satisfactorily proved by trees which 
were ‘injured in March, 1837, and January, 1838, and 
known at that time to have been so. They were closely 
watched, and for six years afterwards showed more or 
less the effect of those unusually severe seasons by 
branches dying off in the summer. | When a consider- 
able portion ofthe entire number of vessels in the 
transverse section or diameter of a branch are severed, 
the branch will go on as usual until such a degree of solar 
action occurs as will render the number of entire vessels 
remaining disproportionate to keep up the equilibrium 
of circulation. Whenever the demand is greater than 
the supply, the portion beyond the injured part be- 
comes exhausted, and in an hour or two is past re- 
covery. Should the surface of foliage beyond the in- 
jured part not be greater than the remaining number 
of entire vessels can supply, the branch will eon- 
tinue in health until the surface extends beyond the due 
proportion ; whenever that is the case, the first intense 
solar action will kill it. I have shaded branches a little 
before they were quite exhausted, and recovered them 
for a time sufficiently to prove what I wanted. The 
only remedy, then, is protection on the first indication 
of severe frost ; this has been proved to demonstration. 
Gum on all stone fruit trees arises from the same cause 
(severed vessels); this may easily be proved by inci- 
sion, the elaborated sap oozing out at the ends of the 
very great. The harvest is now pretty nearly over, 
and the winter erops good ; though the spring corn has 
suffered from the drought. The Wheat is all of the 
small-eared bearded kind, and with Rye, Oats, and 
Buckwheat, seems to form the greatest part of the crops. 
The Buckwheat was still lying in heaps on the fields, or 
just commenced carting the other grain stacked in smal 
Stacks about the villages, and in many places being 
thrashed out on uncovered thrashing grounds, as in the 
south of Europe, but with flails instead of being trod 
of a railroad from Saratov to Moscow, cutting through 
the best of the corn country, which if carried into exe- 
cution would greatly benefit the country, though of 
course it would not influence the corn trade with Eng- 
land, as it is not from thence (I am told) that we are 
supplied. 
As we approached the Dnieper, coming to Kieff, we 
crossed for several stages a barren, sandy country, 
covered chiefly with Pine forests extending to the 
banks of the Dnieper, and crossing that broad, shallow, 
bl i 
out by horses or cattle. Crossing the g 0; 
Tehernigoff between Orel and this place, the aspect of 
the country changes considerably, as well as that of the 
inhabitants ; the hills ave flattened down, the soil is 
more sandy, all stones disappear entirely, and a milder 
climate allows of a much greater variety of produce, 
but the state of the fields shows that the inhabitants 
have not improved, The Little Russians are of shorter 
stature than the true Russian m»jiks, with rather gipsy- 
looking faces, and shave their beards, but far exceed the 
Russians in laziness, The main erops are still the 
same grain as about Orel, but there is much more 
Hemp, and a great deal of Tobacco (the green-flowered 
kind, N. rustica I believe), with which the government 
of Tchernigoff supplies a great part of Russia in the in- 
ferior qualities. Millet (Panicum miliaceum) is also a 
good deal cultivated and eaten in the form of a kind of 
baked pudding, like the Buckwheat, or simply boiled. 
Flax appears to be much less grown than in the north. 
Close about the villages are generally small fields or 
gardens overgrown with tall Chenopodiums, Amaranths, 
and other weeds, amongst which are their Cabbages, 
fl ,C b ater Melons,and Maize (the 
small kind called in France Mais de la quarantaine), 
with here and there a few French Beans, and all looking 
much better than one would have supposed. from the 
wretched neglected state in which they are left. Every- 
thing indeed shows what resources this country would 
afford, could industry be introduced among the people, 
and capital be laid out in its due application. The whole 
routine of crops is alternating grain and fallow. The 
ground is ploughed or rather scratched over once or 
twice only between two crops. The ploughs seldom 
have mould-boards to turn the soil over, and are often of 
the rudest description, Some I saw were merely a long 
pole with a pair of oxen harnessed at one end, a share 
introduced at the other, and a stick stuck upright in a 
hole, with which a woman walking by the side kept it 
from turning over. Another with a pair of shafts was 
of this form, the upright part made of sticks bound toge- 
ther, and cords connecting the part where the share is 
fastened with the bifurcation of the shafts. These 
ploughs, with their wooden harrows, the flail, the axe, 
the wooden shovel, and the éelega, or little waggon, seem 
to be their whole stock of agricultural implements. 
Their horses are not shod, there being no stones even 
in the towns to wear their hoofs, but they usually pre- 
fer oxen, because horses they say give a good deal of 
trouble in feeding and taking care of them after the 
day's work is over, or when stopping to feed on a jour- 
ney, whilst with oxen they merely slip off their. yokes, 
and let them pick their own food among the straw heaps 
on the stubbles, or by the road sides, according to cir- 
open vessels, the aqueous particles p g, an 
the gummy becoming deposited on the surface next the 
extremity of the branch. Ail store fruit trees of a tender 
nature should be protected in severe winters. This, 
dare say, is unnecessary in the southern counties, espe- 
cially on the coast, but in the midland and northern the 
ense is different. The Apricot, from its early habit, is 
more tender than the Peach, and the Moorpark being 
more tender than most other varieties, and more ex- 
tensively cultivated, accounts: for its failure being so 
much noticed. —Z, 
m 
Foreign Correspondence. 
Kieff, Sept. 16, 1846.*—From Moscow to this place 
we have passed through a portion of the great agricul- 
tural tracts of Russia. The governments of Orel, Tam- 
bov, and parts of those of Tula and Riazan, by means 
of the Oka and the Volga; supply a great part of the 
north of Russia with Wheat, Buckwheat, and other 
grains, Our road lay through Tula and Orel, turning 
off at the latter town from the more direct road to 
Odessa through Charkoff. After leaving Moscow, the 
Pine and Birch forests and marshes of the north gra- 
dually give way to boundless tracts of arable land, inter- 
mixed now aud then with Oak and Birch woods, and 
occasionally noblemen's seats, often in pretty situations, 
with woods and water, a large church, and a straggling 
wooden village about them. The country is undulating 
icul 
When carrying their produce to market, 
or travelling any distance, they go in long strings of 20, 
30, or more, oxen telegas, one man to every two or three, 
generally lying asleep in one of them ; at night they 
draw up on the sideof the road, turn their oxen loose, 
make a large fire where fuel is to be had to boil their 
Buckwheat or meal, and (at this time of year) lie down 
on the bare ground wrapped intheir coats to sleep. In 
going from their villages to the fields to work, they are 
generally half asleep in their telega, and in short, every 
moment that can possibly be spared seems to be de- 
voted to sleep or to drinking spirit, The agricultural 
labours of hedging, ditching, road making, hoeing crops, 
weeding, &c., are unknown. Thestubble is left long on 
the fields in order to take up as little of the weeds as 
possible ; there are no gleaners, possibly owing to the 
working people growing their own corn instead of work- 
ing for farmers, but as soon as the fields are cleared, 
the village herd of cows, calves, sheep, goats, pigs, and 
colts areturned out to feed ia the morning, and brought 
home at night under the supposed care of boys or girls 
who sleep out half the day. I suppose they do manure 
their fields, as a quantity of dung accumulates in the 
large yards, but I have seen no signs of any attempts to 
collect or inerease it—no dung heaps about. With all 
this the crops appear to be good, and the quantity pro- 
duced in some places so much greater than the demand, 
that where navigable rivers are distant (as in the 
Kursk g lam told that grain accumulates 
and even hilly, the soil seems good, and if ag: 
Were a little further advanced, the produce might be 
.. This letter was omitted in its proper place, in order to pab- 
lish those from Odessa. 
for several years, and often ean searcely be sold for 
the cost of cultivation, whilst farther north in the 
governments of Smolensk, Pskov, &c., great numbers 
| of the population die of starvation, There is a project 
almost ig river, came to quite a different kind 
of country on this side of the river. Kieff lies in a 
picturesque situation on the high bank, which is broken 
into a number of deep ravines; and many of the 
plantations and gardens contained within its wide ex- 
tended limits must be very few in the early summer, 
but now everything is completely burnt up. It has not 
rained a drop for three months, and before that the 
rains had been only occasional heavy showers, of which 
all trace is soon lost in the sandy soil. The botanical 
garden attached to the new grand University has 
been only commenced within three years. It extends. 
over broken ground, affording many very pretty situa- 
tions, and is being well laid out, especially the outdoor 
department. The climate is so much milder, and es- 
pecially the summer so much longer than in Peters- 
burgh and Moscow, that Professor Trautvetter is anxious. 
to have as large a collection of out-door trees and 
shrubs as ible, Walnuts, Acacias, Gleditschias, 
and several fruit-trees, such as Pears, &c., which are 
greenhouse plants at Moscow, bear the winter well 
here ; and Guilandina, Catalpa, Sophora japonica, Pe- 
trocarya caspica, &e., do with a very little covering. 
new range of houses is building, with glass only in 
front and on the top, close brick ends, and rooms, store- 
rooms, &e, to the north, along the back ; the whole 
range about 300 feet long, and the central part 30 feet 
high. 
Kieff borders qn the governments which supply 
Odessa with corn for exportation; am ,lam 
told, especially in Volhynia and Podolia, several of the 
Polish landholders have been taking some pains to 
improve the agriculture and introduce new kinds of 
grain. The Triticum Polonieum is said to be much 
cultivated on their estates. There may be, and very 
likely are, several noblemen who may have been making: 
similar efforts in the country we have crossed from 
Moscow here ; but the result does not certainly show 
yet tothe eye of the passing traveller ; and the very 
great waste of land shown everywhere in the broad 
space marked out for the road, in the wide straggling 
towns, and the number of pretexts taken advantage of 
for leaving land unoccupied, proves how little value is 
attached to it. or have I seen anywhere, one of the 
first steps towards imp t, the introd o 
greeni crops (or artificial forages as they are called in 
rance). Potatoes, also, are but very little grown, ex- 
cept near the larger towns, which are well supplied with, 
them, The disease is as yet unknown here. 
Societies. 
LINNEAN SOCIETY. 
Tuesday, Dec. l.—Edward Forster, Esq., in the 
chair. Geo. Busk, Esq., D. B. Chapman, Esq., W. R. 
Fisher, Esq., and Adam White, Esq., were elected 
Fellows.—Mr. R. H. Solly exhibited some monstrous. 
specimens of the branches of a Spruce Fir. A paper 
was read by Mr. Thwaites, of Bristol, on the structure 
of Bacillaria paradoxa. — A paper was read by Dr. 
Joseph Hooker on the vegetati f the Galapag 
Archipelago, as compared with that of some other tro. 
pical islands, &c., of the continent of America, In the 
working out this paper, the author stated he had fol. 
lowed the plan pursued by Mr. Darwin with regard to 
the Fauna of the same district. The relation of the 
Flora of this part of the world is double, the peculiar 
species being, for the most part, allied to plants of the 
cooler parts of America, or the uplands of the tropical 
latitudes, whilst the non-peculiar are the same as 
abound chiefly in the wet and damper regions, as the 
West Indian Islands and the shores of the Gulf of 
Mexico ; also that, as in the case with the Fauna, many 
of the species, and these the most remarkable, are con- 
fined to one islet of the group, and often represented in 
others by similar but specifically very distinct con- 
geners. After giving a history of the islands and 
their vegetation, the author coneluded. The general 
result of this summary of the orders, and of the 
comparison of these and the species with those of the 
continent of South America and the other islands, 
which in peculiarity of Flora for their size, may be 
compared with the Galapagos (as New Zealand, the 
Sandwich group, &c.), is,—first, that there are points of 
agreement inexplicable in our state of knowledge : such 
are the peculiarities of Rubiaeeze, and of frutescentand 
arborescent Composite, which is rendered the more 
remarkable, for the species and genera of these orders: 
contained in one group of islands having little or no 
relation with those of the others. 2nd, That the chief 
points of difference are explicable, and owing chiefly to 
the relation the islands bear to the nearest continents, 
