AMERICAN CRANBERRY. 
541 
Hot-beds for forcing Asparagus may be 
made, to succeed those wearing out; or, if none 
Lave been made, prepare them according to 
previous directions. 
Mushroom beds must be kept dry; and if 
the coverings of straw have become wet, put 
fresh to them. 
Dress, and dig, or trench, all vacant spaces, 
and leave them in ridges, or rough dug, to get 
the benefit of the frosts; and look well to pre- 
vious months for directions not yet followed. 
Potatoes. — Too many Potatoes are affected 
by the rot. They require to be dried as soon 
as possible, and stored under cover. Those 
which are affected should be laid by separately, 
and so much of them as are sound should be 
used. If the rotten part be cut away, or 
brushed out with a hard scrubbing-brush be- 
fore boiling, the flavour of the sound part will 
be found in every respect equal to the soundest 
Potato in the crop. The rot goes no further 
if the Potato be put in the di-y, but will dry 
away, leaving the sound part as fit for use as 
if it had not been affected; but, like all rotting 
vegetation, if allowed to heat, or kept in heaps, 
the entire mass will decay, and so also would 
any sound vegetable in close contact with it ; 
therefore, dig up your crops, and by all means 
spread them on a dry floor, if practicable, and 
store them dry, instead of pitting them as 
usual ; but those which are not affected may be 
treated as usual. 
FRUIT GARDEN. 
The operations in the orchard and fruit 
garden are merely a continuation of those 
already given, until the work is all completed. 
We can hardly enforce too strongly the neces- 
sity of looking well to the ordinary standard 
trees in the orchard ; not one in twenty is as it 
should be, from the continual neglect of the 
orchard every part of the year but the gather- 
ing time, and even that is neglected. The 
great fault is, that of allowing them to ramble 
without control, as if neither knife nor saw 
existed ; the wild trees of the wood and forest 
can hardly be worse ; and then we are told that 
such and such trees have w r orn out. The 
fruit comes small and deformed, and simply 
because their heads have been neglected. 
Most Pear-trees would be improved by cutting 
half the top off, and thinning the remaining 
branches to let in light and air. In a season 
or two, and perhaps the very first season, the 
fruit all over it will be as fine as the few that 
grew on the top ; for the finest fruit is always 
at the top when the tree has been long neg- 
lected. This very fact, of the best fruit grow- 
ing at the top, is with many made the ground 
of objection to cutting the top away; they 
forget that by lowering the tree they make 
that which was the middle the top, and that 
the tree will bear twice as many fine fruit in 
consequence. While pruning the trees, care 
should be taken to make them shapely and 
sightly. Cut out all the weak spindly brush- 
wood, and leave the best branches that are dis- 
posed properly to form a head, which will be 
rather flat than otherwise, but well calculated 
to bear, and bring the fruit to perfection. 
Vines and Wall-fruit should be pruned and 
nailed, if not done before ; but this work may 
be done all through the winter, up to the end 
of February, without the trees being much the 
worse for it, except looking untidy, and being 
mere liable to be damaged by the wind ; while 
the branches are unnailed and hanging about 
they are apt to fray and damage. 
Continue planting until you have done 
all that is wanting. Gooseberry and Currant 
bushes, Raspberry canes, Strawberry runners, 
Wall-fruit trees, and Standards, will all do 
well now, if removed and planted in open 
weather ; and, if the place is much exposed, the 
Standards must be staked in their places, so as 
to prevent the wind disturbing them. Look 
well to former directions about planting. 
Propagating. — The cuttings of Gooseberry 
and Currant trees may be put in now in any 
spare place ; they should be cut about eight 
inches long, and of the young wood grown the 
last season. Let them be inserted four inches in 
the ground, and the earth pressed well to them. 
Fruit Borders. — If there be any old trees 
in a state of decay, or of which part has de- 
cayed, so as to leave the Avail blank, plant 
maiden trees between or near them to fill up 
the vacancies. As the young trees advance 
the old can be cut away, and if there be any 
border in which the trees appear to be doing 
ill, cut a deep drain along the front, eight or 
ten feet from the trees, the whole length of 
the border, and of a proper slope to get rid of 
the water. Whether you lay down drain 
pipes, or stones, or bushes, or whatever else, 
to form the drain, so that it be effectual, it 
will in all probability be the means of recover- 
ing all the trees. Nine-tenths of the mischief 
among fruit-trees may be attributed to bad 
drainage, and the other tenth to the roots 
coming in contact with a subsoil which they 
do not like. The former evil can be remedied, 
or at any rate lessened ; the latter is more 
difficult ; but, in planting new trees, regard 
should always be had to the subsoil, and if 
bad, such as hungry clay, or sand, or gravel, 
enough of it should be thrown out to make 
room for the probable roots of a few years, 
and the space filled up with more congenial soil. 
AMERICAN CRANBERRY. 
This plant, the Oxycoccus macrocarpa, may 
be grown to great perfection, and will bear a 
