18GG.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
287 
csling question, and one which, we hope, our 
grape-growers will settle, using very dry and 
sifted clay or road-dust, in comparison with sul- 
phur, and report the results. 
Notes on Strawberries. 
A hard winter, and a cold spring with late 
frosts and cold cutting winds, have made the 
strawberry crop as a whole, a tailure. Here and 
there a field has yielded well, but these are excep- 
tions. We attended ilie recent Pittsburg meet- 
ing of tlie Peun. Fruit Growers' Society, where, 
besides Pennsylvanians, there were gentlemen 
present from New Jersey, New-Yorl<, Oliio, In- 
diana, Illinois, and Missouri, all of whom told 
the same stoiy, aud variously estimated the 
present year's crop, at J to } the usual amount. 
In the extensive grounds of Mr. Kuo.k, the crop 
will not exceed t of that of former years. 
With regard to varieties, we are no nearer 
any definite result than before; aud it is not 
possible to say, what one, or what dozen vari- 
eties are best for .all soils and localities. The 
difl5culty in making up select lists of fruits 
which shall answer for a wide range of country, 
becomes manifest when we bring together the 
experiences of cultivators iu widely separated 
localities, net only in our owu country, but 
abroad. An instance of this is found in the list 
of 35 strawberries, recommended last j'car by 
the Imperial Horticultural Society of France. 
Ever since the appearance of the list, the jour- 
nals of that country have been full of criticisms, 
so severe that one is almost induced to believe 
that the Society had proposed the twenty-five 
worst instead of the twenty-five best varieties. 
Wilson's Albany is the variety more generally 
cultivated than any, perhaps than all others; 
yet, in some places, it is perfectly wortldess and 
quite given up. Tfie "Agriculturist," in Southern 
Xew Jersey, is likely to be the leading variety. 
Indeed, the only really good crop of strawber- 
ries wo have seen in quite extended tours, was 
of this variety, in the grounds of Mr. William 
Parry, of Cinnaminson. Its yield there is 
something so remarkable, that he ami his neigh- 
bors speak of it iu terras of the greatest enthusi- 
asm, and will plant very largely of it ; and we 
have similar reports from some other localities. 
Yet this same variety, in the grounds of Mr. 
Kno.x, near Pittsburgh, has a very poor show of 
frait. These facts demonstrate the value of local 
experience. The strawberry is so easily multi- 
plied, comes in fruit so soon, and the varieties 
are so numerous, that it is an easy matter for 
each large grower, or for each local society, to 
soon find out, by actual test, what kinds are 
best suited to their conditions of soil, etc. 
In the methods of cultivation, we also find 
diversities of opinion. In some parts of Illi- 
nois, the i^lants are set and allowed to cover the 
gro\ind ; they get very little attention, and when 
they cease to yield, they are plowed under. In 
Southern New Jersey the plants are allowed to 
cover beds three and a half or four feet wide, 
with two feet alleys between— the bed receiving 
in early winter a dressing of fine stable manure, 
but no mulching of straw. These beds bear 
one and two years. In hill, or stool culture, 
as extensively practised by Mr. Knox, the 
plants are set 18 inches apart, iu rows 18 inches 
from each other. In autumn the ground is 
well mulched with straw, aud the plants lightly 
covered. I-n spring the straw is opened directly 
over the plant, but is not removed. As the run- 
ners appear, they are pinched off; or, if allow- 
ed to get too strong for pinching, they are cut 
Fia;. 1. 
with a knife. Tlie weeds that appear near the 
plants are pulled by hand, and those that come 
up tluongh the straw betweeu the rows, are re- 
moved by the hoe. But few weeds make their 
way up through a heavy mulch, and these are 
destroyed very easily. The hills keep in bear- 
ing three or four years, aud the mulch is kept 
on all the time, replacing each year the annual 
waste from decay, which amounts to a fourth or 
a third of the original quantity. That this care- 
ful culture with many varieties, especially those 
of European origin, will give better results than 
allowing the plants to run, there is no doubt; 
but, that it is the best for all kinds, we are by 
no means certain. We have nowhere seen the 
Agriculturist producing as well when kept in 
stools, as where it is allowed to cover the ground 
with its vines, and, we may s.ay, with its fruit. 
Unusual Ways of Fruit. 
— ^- — 
We are so accustomed to see flowers depart 
from their natural form, that the deviation does 
not strike us as anything remarkable. Indeed 
our most beautiful double 
flowers are as far from the 
natural condition of things 
as possible. A monstrous 
fruit is more rare than a 
monstrous flower, aud we 
sometimes meet with cases 
in which the departures 
from the usual way are ^^ 
curious and interesting. A 
strawberry was sent us 
by a correspondent, which 
bears upon its upper end, 
or the onci farthest from 
the calyx, a tuft of leaves. We do not recollect to 
have ever before seen a similar instance, yet it is 
just what we might expect would occasionally 
occur, Tliough we call a strawberiy a fruit in 
common language, it is 
not so in the strict sense 
of the word. The fruit 
proper is those little 
grains that we usually 
call seeds. These are 
minute one-seeded nuts 
distributed all over or 
sunken into the surface 
of the enlarged and 
fleshy end of the flower- 
stalk or stem. As the 
strawberry then is a bit 
of stem, very much 
changed from the way 
in which we usually see stems, and made to 
serve a certain ofllce, it is not so very strange 
that it should sometimes sport, and that its 
real nature should manifest itself by bearing 
leaves as in the ease before us. Another sport, 
perhaps not so striking, but to us still more cu- 
rious, is the double chcny, fig. 3, one of some 
dozens In'ought us b\' Mr. Thompson, of West 
Farms. It is the usual way of the cherry to 
have a single pistil which ripens into a single 
fruit. It is not unusual for cherry flowers to 
become double, by an increase iu the number 
of petals, but when they do this the pistil be- 
comes abortive. In the present instance, as near 
as can be judged from examining the fruit, and 
without seeing the blossoms, it would appear 
that two pistils were produced In the place usu- 
ally occupied b)- one. Sports like these are not 
only curious, but they are of great interest to 
the botanist, as they often give him an insight 
into the real nature of parts. 
Fig. 3. 
Urine as a Liquid Manure. 
A writei', in the Gardener's Chronicle, (Eng.,) 
finds urine a most valuable fertilizer, when used 
in the following manner: — Human urine, free 
from other slops, is allowed to get quite stale, 
which in a moderate temperature it will do iu 
about a week. In this condition it is strongly 
alkaline, and will turn red litmus paper blue. 
To the urine in this condition, sulphuric acid 
(oil of vitriol) is gradually added until it is 
slightly acid, which is known by its turning the 
blued litmus paper red again. The amount of 
acid required, is about two ounces to each gal- 
lon of urine. To neutralize any excess of acid, 
add about 'i ounces of ground chalk to the gallon. 
Of the liquid thus prepared, one pint, after stir- 
ring it tlioroughly to diffuse the settlings, is di- 
luted with one or two gallons of water, the latter 
proportion being strong enough for most plants, 
and applied at once. This manure ]ias been 
found very serviceable on grass plots in Eng- 
land, and may be applied wherever guano or 
other ammoniacal manure would be admissable. 
The litmus paper is paper colored with an in- 
fusion of litmus. It is blue or red, according 
as it has been subjected to the action of an acid 
or an alkali. The paper, or the litmus itself, 
may be had of an)' good druggist. 
Stopping the Bleeding of Vines. 
Tliough too late for use this year, we give two 
methods recently proposed. A correspondent, 
"C," writes, that having to move an old vine, ho 
cut it back and covered the wounds with copal 
varnish with success, and that he has since used 
the varnish when obliged to prune in spring, 
and finds it stops the bleeding. A writer in the 
London Journal of Horticulture, wipes the end 
of the vine dry, and covers it with a stiff paste 
of cement (hydraulic lime). The application i=i 
repeated two or three hours after the first one, 
and the bleeding efi"ectually stopped. 
The Introduction of the Verbena. 
The following notes in relation to the iutro- 
ductiou of the Verbena into this countrj', are 
from Jlr. Amory Edwards, of Elizabetli, N. .1. 
It will interest the admirers of this now very 
common and popular plant to know some- 
thing of its early histoiy. 
" The Verbenas are natives of Buenos Ayres, 
and were first noticed by John Tweedy, who 
was collecting plants for the Conservatories of 
the Earl of Derby, and a firm in London. 
In 1834 and 1835, I frequently accompanied 
Jlr. Tweedy, a Scotchman, and a hearty lover 
of flowers, who was tlien about sixty years of 
age, in excursions around Bueuos Ayres, and as 
I was about sailing for New York, he gave mo 
a plant of the Terhena Tircediana, [now called 
phlogijlora. — Ed.] (red) and a fragrant white one, 
together with some seed of the Scarlet Petunia. 
These plants I gave in Sept. 1835, to the late 
Thos. Hogg, who tlien had a garden near the 
House of Refuge, now ^Madison Square, and he 
told mo that they were the first Verbenas ever 
in this country, and the first Scarlet PetU(ga. 
A white Petunia had been received before. 
Grant Thoi'burn, in 1837, received a plant of 
Verbena Tweediana from London, where he told 
me that it cost hira two guineas. 
Most of the stock now in tlic gardens in the 
United States is from these plants.oiiginally there 
were but two colors of each — red and white." 
