General Notices. 617 



also, being round, will not gall or fret the young branches, as rusty nails will, 

 with their square edges. This method, here recommended, is not speculative 

 only, but has been practised some years in those noble and magnificent 

 gardens belonging to the Duke of Montague, at Bowden, in Northampton- 

 shire, though not the wooden pegs, this being what has been since tried with 

 success ; and this method has this further to recommend it, that when the 

 pegs are once fixed (which is much cheaper than nails too) they need not be 

 renewed for many years ; whereas nails, growing rusty, canker the tree, and 

 by their being pulled out and driven often in, spoil the wall to that degree, 

 that no nail will stick in it. Moreover, the rushes are a much less expense, 

 as well as much less dangerous to the tree than shreds, as being less apt to 

 harbour insects and vermin ; and are, above all, useful in peach trees, which 

 may by these means be in an instant of time unlaced from top to bottom, and 

 have such a new disposition given to them as the natural shape of the trees 

 require." 



To make Paper from the inner Bark of M.orus papyrifera. — The tree, if it 

 is to be used for making paper, should be cut down in the beginning of May, 

 or a little later, when it is in full sap ; the branches, after being cut off, may 

 be coated over with any cement which will exclude the air. The bark, worked 

 while fresh, acquires a particular kind of glue, and a portion worked early in 

 the morning, may be made up as paper in the evening. According to the ex- 

 periments of Johannot, the paper contracts in the frames, and it is the albur- 

 num which is peculiarly fit for it. (Kcempf. Amamit., 471. ; and Taschenbuck 

 fur Gartenfreunde, 1706, p. 186.) — H. Carlsruhe, May 20. 1829. 



Cloth from the Nettle and the Bramble. — At Nissa, near Alexandria, in the 

 north of Italy, they manufacture a very excellent cloth from the fibre of the 

 common perennial nettle ( CTrtica dioica) ; but I find that the fibre in the 

 bramble (Julius), in point of strength, is very far superior, although the tissue 

 might be less beautiful. (J. Murray, in Newton's Journal, vol. iii. p. 129.) 



The Marc of Grapes, after being distilled for the purpose of separating the 

 alcohol, is an important assistant to oak bark in tanning leather. The skins 

 being prepared in the usual manner, they are placed in pits with the marc, in. 

 the place of bark. In about thirty-five or forty days' time the process is 

 completed. The expected advantages are, shorter time, reduction of the 

 price of oak bark, a more agreeable odour of the leather than that given by 

 oak bark, and greater strength. (Recueil Industriel.) 



Bone Dust. — The effects produced from bone dust, in the cultivation of 

 the soil, are really astonishing. A gentleman who used the dust of boiled 

 bones on a very dry soil, declares that its effects were visible three weeks 

 afterwards. Boiled bones were but half the price of other bones, while they 

 came much sooner into operation ; and a friend had assured him, that a field 

 which he had dusted five years ago with boiled bones, was now quite as good 

 as in the first year. (Anglo-Germanic Advertiser, as quoted into the Aberdeen 

 Journal of Nov. 14. 1832.) 



Regenerating old Pasture. • — You once took some notice of my accidental 

 discovery of a mode of renewing old pasture, when the moss and coarse herb- 

 age had got the better of the finer grasses. Since I wrote to you upon this 

 subject, I have found the field treated in the way I mentioned (viz., by paring 

 up the turf with a paring spade, and laying by the turf, to be again replaced 

 after the subsoil has been stirred or loosened by ploughing or harrowing), after 

 four years' experience, to be, by the addition of a little lime ashes, so much 

 improved, that this field now keeps fifteen cattle fully better than it did ten in 

 its former state : the land had been in pasture forty years. The coarse grasses 

 and moss being completely eradicated, the improvement is fully more than 

 equal to 1/. an acre ; at an expense of less than 31. per acre, for the paring, 

 ploughing, harrowing, and laying down of the turf again. No doubt the pasture 

 is much improved by the addition of a top dressing of lime ashes ; and I am 

 of opinion, from what has taken place in pasture ground in other parts of my 

 property, that, by a top dressing of lime of from 80 to 200 bushels per acre (the 

 Vol. XV. — No. 116. t t 



