Domestic Notices. — England. 463 



supply me with scions for grafting. I have a friend at New York who sends 

 me all the best American fruits, which I am planting out also for the same 

 purposes. I have sent a number of things to New York lately ; among 

 others, the common primrose, which is a rare plant there. Walter Lee. 

 " Upper Bath Road, Bristol, March 24. 1827." 



Transplanting Turnips. — " For many years I have sown turnip seed on 

 any little vacant spot, and, when the plants had two or three leaves, planted 

 them out by a line in regular rows ; and nothing can succeed better, or 

 produce finer roots. Hardly one in twenty dies." (Rusticus in Urbe.) — That 

 they should not die, is not to be wondered at ; but do they bulb freely ? 

 If the plants are not placed so deep as before, and only the tip of the tap 

 root made firm by pressure, the upper part of the root may swell. Swedish 

 turnips are allowed to succeed very well when transplanted, but they do 

 not swell so freely when inserted in the ground as deep as cabbages, as when 

 only the lower part of the root is made fast. If Rusticus in Urbe's practice 

 was with Swedish turnips, there is nothing in it either new or remarkable. 

 (Cond.) 



Bird-catching. — " If you will make birds drunk, that you may catch 

 them with your hands, take such meat as they love, as wheat or beans, or 

 such like, and lay them to steep in the lees of wine or in the juice of hem- 

 lock, and sprinkle the same in the place where the birds use to haunt ; and 

 if they do eat thereof, straightways they will be so giddy that you may^take 

 them with your hands." (Notable Things, 12mo. 1814, p. 70.) 



A certain Preventive against Birds taking Seeds oat of the Ground in Gar- 

 dens, fyc. — " Mix together 1 lb. of gas tar, Jib. of brown spirits of tar, and 

 i lb. of grease ; into this dip some shoemaker's thread or twine, and draw 

 it several times over the newly sown beds, supported a few inches from the 

 earth on the tops of sticks." (Robert Gorton, Chemist and Druggist, Wolver- 

 hampton, April 11. 1827.) — The effect is produced by the smell of the 

 sulphurated hydrogen of the tar ; the grease merely keeps a body of it to- 

 gether, to supply evaporation for a greater length of time. Common tar, 

 with a little gunpowder bruised in it, has the same effect. We make these 

 remarks with a view to neutralising that sort of indiscriminate faith which 

 many persons are apt to have in recipes, owing to the natural laziness and 

 love of mystery which belongs to human nature. When a young gardener 

 reads a long recipe for effecting any thing, a safe course for him will be, 

 first, to doubt whether some of the ingredients might not have been intro- 

 duced to prevent the thing from appearing too simple ; and, secondly, to 

 reflect whether he cannot trace the efficacy of the composition to some 

 single ingredient, which would probably have had the same effect alone. 

 There is not a greater bar to the progress of the human mind, than that 

 veil of mystery which it seems, till lately, to have been a part of the business 

 of the learned professions to throw over every kind of knowledge. Let 

 every individual for himself, and in his own profession, doubt in every thing 

 that wears the appearance of mystery, or that he cannot account for on 

 simple principles ; on every subject let him seek for the naked truth, in 

 which alone there is solid satisfaction to the mind, and safety to the 

 conduct. 



An Apple tree, of the Caldwell variety, now stands at Ratclif, near Not- 

 tingham, worth noticing for its rapid growth, large size, and abundant crops, 

 considering its early age. The stock was produced from the seed of a crab 

 sown by Mr. Parr, whose property it is. It was grafted by him 22 years 

 since, and is now 30 feet high and 46 yards in circumference. The produce 

 this year was 120 pecks, of 81 apples each. The Caldwell is a good baking 

 apple, and keeps remarkably well. (E. M. Mather, Old Baseford, Dec. 8. 

 1826.) 



