178 



Cj4 barter's Jttonthlg. 



Communications for this- department mnst reach the Editor 

 on or before the 10th of the month. 



^I^^'The Editor cannot answer letters for this department pri- 

 vately. 



Polygonum, Smart or Snake Weed again. 

 — "Plowman" sends us the following : I send you 

 this ' crap' trom the " Domestic Encyclopedia," in 

 5 vols., first American edition, published in the 

 city of Philadelphia in the year 1804, by James 

 Mease, M. D. (See vol. 4, pages 513, 310, and vol, 

 5, pa^^e 360, &c. ): 



"Polygonum, a genus of plants comprehending 

 33 species, ten of which are natives of Britain, the 

 following are the principal, viz : — 



Spotted Snake Weed, Persicaria Polygonum. 

 This speces is slightly acid and astringent. It is 

 eaten by goats, sheep and horses, but refused by 

 h:gsandcow^. Woolen clot'i, previously dipped 

 in a solution of alum, acquires a yellow color from a 

 decoction of this plant. An effusion of the dried 

 plant, or a decoction of the fresh plant, is a power- 

 ful promoter of urine, and very useful in ths 

 gravel. 



Water Pepper, Lake Weed or Biting Snake 

 Weed, [Polygonum hydropipery) possesses a very 

 acrid taste ; valuable as a medicinal plant. It im- 

 parts £. yellow color to wool. The Water Pepper is 

 refused by evetij species of cattle. 



[Encyclopedias give only the facts so far as known 

 at the time of making the book. No doubt it was 

 believed at that time that no cattle would eat Poly- 

 gonum, hydropiper ; but our Baliimore correspond- 

 ent's specimens were from this plant, and, as he as- 

 sures us, the cattle eat it greedily, the Encyclopedia 

 must, in that instance, be wrong.] 



Variegated Norway Spruce— F B., Deh- 

 ware, 0. — I have a Norway Spruce that has sported. 

 Many of the young shoots are variegated with 

 creamy wh te ; "-he white is not distinct, but I think 

 it will be very pretty. I think the color superior to 

 Retinospora ohtusa aurea variegata. Do you know 

 if any variegated form of the Norway Spruce is in 

 cultivation ? 



[These are no^ uncommon in seed beds, — but no 

 effort seems to have been made to perpetuate them; 

 probably those who have them not knowing how 

 easily the Norway Spruce can be raised from layers. 

 If your variegated branches are very pretty, we 

 would recommend yDU to increase it this way.] 



Disease on Pear Trees. — Mr. Feast, Cockeys- 

 ville, Md. , sends us specimens of diseased Pear trees, 

 with the following remarks : "The enclosed Pear 

 branches I send you are more or less affected with 

 electricity. It must have taken place after the 

 wood had made its growth. Apparently, some va- 

 rieties are more subject to it than others. Doyenne 

 d' Angers, Glout Mirceau and- Easter Beurre w^ere 

 killed ; Bartlett, Seckel, and some others, but few 

 branches injured ; others, again, the whole tree 

 black to the ground, excepting three or four feet of 

 the upper branches. 



Its effects were never so visible as at this time. 

 Many of the largest trees, both on Quince and Pear, 

 I have had to cut entirely down. They are affected 

 in various ways: some the tip ends of the branches, 

 others the centie of the tree gone ; whilst others on 

 the side, are so much disfigured that it will be im. 

 possible ever to recover any shape , unless headed 

 down entirely. 



I am not the only one that has suffered: it is a 

 general complaint around the city of Baltimore. 

 The branches selected will show you in what way the 

 injury takes place. 



This is the first time I ever observed the black- 

 ness in the wood. Some varieties are black to the 

 ground, like standing a blaze of fire." 



[The specimens sent were not killed by what is 

 called "fire blight," but mere samples of " winter 

 killing," which results from a previously weakened 

 vitality. In trees newly transplanted in the fall, es- 

 pecially such trees as Tulip tree, English Oak, and 

 Weeping Willow, precisely similar injuries to the 

 bark on the sunny side often occur ; and it is very 

 general on all trees which suffer from leaf blight in 

 summer. The Lawton Blackberry, for ins ance, 

 which is as hardy as any thing can be, even with an 

 Arctic winter, where the leaves die away healthy in 

 the fall, has the canes turn black, and die away 

 just as these Pear shoots do, with quite light frost, 

 when the Blackberry rust kills the leaves early,— 

 and Pear seedlings which have had the leaf blight 

 in summer die away just as these shoots have done. 

 The remedy is to fight the leaf blight ; and the best 

 way to fight it is to keep the Pear orchards in well 

 cultivated sod.] 



A Pistillate Plum. — J. II. C, Byershnrg^ 

 Tenn. — I here send you some blooms of the Peach 

 and Plum cross. I want you to examine them and 

 see what they are deficient in. 



[These were remarkable specimens of apparently 

 Plum flowers, but without either petals or stamens. 

 Nothing but a mass of open buds with pistils in 



