256 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
quiries as to -where the things -we bring to notice 
may be had. Some nurseryman or florist -will 
yet find it to his interest to propagate our native 
plants and offer them for sale. It is only be- 
cause people do not know where to find them 
that they are so seldom cultivated. The Lung- 
wort was formerly called Ptdmonaria Tirginica, 
and is found in the Western part of New York 
and in most of the Western States. The root- 
leaves, not shown in the engraving, are from 
four to six inches long; the stem is from one to 
two feet high, and terminates by a cluster of 
trumpet shaped flowers of a very rich purplish 
blue color. It belongs to the Borage family, 
which includes the beautiful Forget-me-not, He- 
liotrope and several other choice garden plants. 
Spake Corners in the garden can be filled 
with something more profitable than the bur- 
dock, plantain, and grass, which are so frequent- 
ly left to occupy them. A few radishes, half a 
dozen heads of lettuce, a cabbage, or a cauliflow- 
er can be put almost anywhere, and their being 
planted will give sufficient motive to keep the 
ground around them clean, which would other- 
wise be left as a nursery for growing weeds. 
Some of the Less Known Pears. 
As a people, we are as much in a hurry about 
fruits as we are with other matters, and many 
varieties have been condemned without a fair 
hearing. This is especially the case with pears, 
many of which, though condemned at first, 
have, by the good qualities they presented after 
the trees became old, commanded recognition. 
Mr. P. Barry prepared for our Horticultural 
Annual a long list of these reclaimed varieties, 
with illustrations. In the abundance of material 
at hand for that work, we were obliged to omit 
a number of these pears, and we give the en- 
A 
4", 
Fig. 1. — BEURRE BERCKMA.NS. 
gravings of some of them now, with Mr. Bar- 
ry's notes upon their productiveness and quality : 
Beurre Berckmans. — One of Bivort's new 
varieties; medium size, pale yellow, melting, 
juicy, sweet, excellent. Ripe in October and 
November. Keeps well. Tree very productive. 
^™ 
Fig. 3. — BONNE SOPHIE. 
Bonne SpPHTE. — A new variety of much 
promise; medium size, melting, delicious. Sep- 
tember and October. Tree an abundant bearer. 
SouyenirD'Esperen.— An excellent late au- 
tumn or early winter pear, from Belgium, resem- 
bling the Winter Nelis, but the tree is a vigorous 
erect grower. Fruit large pyriform, obovate, 
tapering to the crown ; color dull yellow, with 
a mottled red cheek. Flesh melting and vinous. 
—. «*»«. >-«. 
Making Manure in Summer. 
— » — ■ 
With manure enough and labor enough, no 
man knows what may be the limits to the pro- 
ducts and profits of the cultivation of the earth, 
in the garden or the field. We make most ma- 
nure in winter, because then our stock is con- 
fined, and all the droppings, with the litter and 
waste of fodder, are readily accumulated. Cows 
yarded every night, leave their droppings and 
urine where the}' may be used, to compost with 
muck, litter, etc., to greater advantage, in sum- 
mer than in winter, because the temperature 
of the season keeps the compost heaps in a 
more active fermentation. Thus, the value of 
the manure made in summer from a given num- 
ber of cows, or other animals, may be nearly as 
great as in winter, though, if they are pastured, 
they may be in the yard less than half the time. 
Swine used simply as pork producers or 
breeders, are oftentimes of profit, but on three- 
quarters of the farms west of the Alleghanies, 
if the value of the manure made by pigs were 
left out of the calculation, they would show a 
loss on the balance sheet of the farm. To em- 
ploy them as manure makers to the best advan- 
tage, in connection with either private or mar- 
ket gardens, give them a covered yard, having 
a tight bottom, and open on the south for the 
sun to come in ; give them also the free use of 
their rooting powers, until they are taken up to 
fatten ; feed them well, and supply them daily 
with sods, weeds, peat, bog parings, etc., and it 
matters little how much you give them, they 
will -work up an incredible amount and make 
better manure of it than the best exposed barn- 
yard manure you can make or buy. Every 
gardener, and not less every farmer, ought to 
begin the growing season with half grown hogs, 
not with a lot of little pigs. They should re- 
ceive as regular attention as the rows of vege- 
tables or plants, for they are preparing the raw 
material with which to produce next year's crop. 
The accumulations in the hog-pen should he 
leveled off, and mixed somewhat by hand, but 
the hogs ordinarily do this themselves tolerably 
well. If left thus water-soaked, and trodden 
hard, the manure will be of the rankest, strong- 
est character imaginable, and besides so tough 
and stringy that it can only be gotten out with 
great labor. It is best, therefore, to take time, 
some rainy day, about once a month, to clear 
the pen out, and lay the materials up in a' 
oompact compost heap, well trodden, and if 
possible, under cover. The action of the air 
will cause rapid and usually complete fermen- 
tation, and once or twice working over of the 
heap at times, to check excessive heating, will in- 
sure an abundance of fine and excellent compost. 
•-. — a i— *-•. 
About Horticultural and other Patents, 
The greatest embodying of stupidity, (the 
Agricultural Department always excepted), is 
the U. S. Patent Office. In " Walks and Talks," 
Mr. Harris speaks of having the "right" to use 
petroleum as a vehicle for paint, given him. If 
we had a barrel of petroleum, we should use it 
as we pleased, and should like to see anyjuiy 
of twelve honest men who would say that we 
had not a perfect right to mix it with any known 
substance. So with a patent for saving paint, 
that has been sent us with permission to use it. 
It is merely to fill the pores of the wood witli 
some powder that will prevent it from absorb- 
ing the paint. We have known this to be done 
Fig. 3. — souvenir d'esperen. 
since we were a boy, to prevent wood from ab- 
sorbing varnish. Cau one make us pay for the 
