SllapNd . -^nMM, 
$1 NOTES CULTURAL, CRITICAL, AND SUGGESTIVE. 191 (tj 
two eyes. If there be a regular head, cut away every shoot down to the lowest eye that points out- 
wards or downwards, and cut all weak or thin shoots, all that come in the way of a better, clean back 
to the base ; leave only such branches as will tend to throw out shoots in a proper direction to form a 
good head; and remember that a branch of one season's growth is, if the Rose tree be in health, from 
one to three feet long. "When the buds begin to push, rub off all that grow inwards, all that would 
cross other branches, all that are weakly, and all that would tend to crowd the head. Many persons 
let them grow as they will, and at the next pruning time follow the common instructions for pruning, 
" to cut out all useless and all weakly branches," &c. ; but it is far better to rub off all useless and 
weakly buds, because the strength is then thrown into the growth you want. 
We are confining ourselves now to new plantations, for it is in these that the grower's difficulty is 
.to be found. Once establish a Rose garden, and let the Roses attain maturity, and all his difficulties 
cease. As the growth proceeds, examine every bud, every curled leaf, every shoot ; for the maggot, if 
not detected at once, destroys the vitality of the flower bud. Continue looking over them from day to 
day ; syringe them with a very fine rose forcibly applied — it destroys the green fly, thrip, and many 
other enemies, and it cannot be too often applied until the blooming time. We say that constant 
syringing prevents the green fly, and with perseverance they may be got rid of; but if they get the 
upper hand, so that the syringe will not disturb them, fumigation with tobacco smoke, or syringing 
and washing with tobacco water, must be resorted to. 
NOTES CULTURAL, CRITICAL, AND SUGGESTIVE. 
Thermic Scale of Cultivation. — If we form a thermic scale of different lands of cultivation, be- 
ginning with the hottest climate, and proceeding from Vanilla, Cacao, Spices, and Cocoa Nuts, to 
Pine Apples, Sugar Cane, Coffee, fruit-bearing Dates, Cotton, Citrons, Olives, Sweet C'hcsnuts, and 
Vines producing drinkable ■wines, an exact consideration of their various limits, both on plains and on 
the declivities of mountains, will teach us that in this respect other climatic relations than those of 
mean annual temperature must be sought. Taking only one example — the cultivation of the Vine — 
the production of drinkable wine requires not only a mean annual temperature of 9j° Cent, (or 49° 2' 
Fair.) ; but also a winter temperature of above 0° 5' Cent. (32° 8' Fahr.), followed by a mean summer 
temperature of at least 18° Cent. (64° 4' Fahr.). At Bordeaux, in the valley of the Garonne, in lat. 44° 
50', the mean temperature of the year, the winter, the summer, and the autumn, arc respectively 
13° 8', 6° 2', 21° 7', and 14° 4' Cent. (5G° 8', 43° 2', 71°, and 58° Fahr.). On plains in the vicinity 
of the Baltic, in lat. 52 \°, where a wine is produced which, though it is used, can scarcely be 
called drinkable, these numbers are respectively 8° 6', 0° 7', 17° 6' and 8° 6' Cent. (47° 5', 30° 8', do' 7', 
and 47° 5' Fahr.). If it should appear strange that these great differences hi the influences of climate 
on the production of wine do not show themselves more markedly in the indications of thermometers, 
it should be remembered that an instrument suspended in the shade, and carefully protected from the 
direct rajs of the sun, and from nocturnal radiation, cannot show at all seasons of the year, and during 
nil the periodical changes of temperature the true heat of the surface of the ground, which receives the 
whole effect of the sun's rays. — (Hitmboldfs Cosmos.) 
Degeneration of Fruits. — In North America there are neither apple, pear, nor peach-trees, of the same 
sorts as our own, that have not been introduced there. The Europeans some three hundred years ago 
took over the seeds of these trees ; but so far from yielding what they yield us, they produced, at least in 
\ irginia, as a first generation, trees with wild and austere fruit, and it was not eatable by those accus- 
tomed to better things at home. The second generation, sprung from the first American seeds, was not 
so bad as the first. Each generation was better than its predecessor, but their fruit is still inferior to 
our own j and what is very curious, the best of theirs differ from ours in taste and essence. These facts, 
collected by M. Poiteau in Virginia forty-live years ago, show what modifications can be produced by a 
succession of generations in plants derived from the same seed. If it be objected thai the seeds of the 
fruit-trees originally sent to Virginia did not in this country produce such good fruit as they do at 
present, still the great fart remains, that the seeds when sown in Virginia 3 ielded something different 
from v, hat they then vieUled in Europe. We see. then. how the new conditions iii which fruit-trees 
.. re placed in North America gave rise to two principal results: 1. By depriving this fruit of the 
quality it had acquired by European cultivation ; 2. By making it undergo, in the course of successive 
generations, modifications different from those of the fruil cultivated by as. — (Chevreul in Journ. Sort. ^ 
j' '<«•., -\i. 69). 
■i- 73 
