24 
SOUTHHRN CULTIVATOR. 
YOUNG HORTICUJLTURE. 
My Dear Cultivator! — If young Horticulture hm 
a fault, it is that of overcropping. Indeed there is 
nothing out of a '‘Nursery” that so needs the clippers,” 
except perhaps the catalogue. And unless Nurserymen 
will furnish a beginner's list, or plainly mark all those 
things which are “just (and generally) out,” I do not 
know what will come to him. 
Here, for instance, is a case— a bed — an equilateral 
triangle of 16 feet, whose solid contents are : — Tst. 1 large 
China tree. 2nd. 1 immense Pittosporum. 3d. 1 large 
Gardenia; 1 small do.; 4 Rose bushes; 1 Arbor Vitae; 
1 Spanish Jassamine; 1 grand “Cloth of Gold;” 1 large 
Geranium ; I Border of mixed Jonquils and Box ! 
Fortunately, Nature came, in this instance, to the aid of 
Art; the Cloth of Gold took to the tree, and the Pittos- 
porum rolled out of bed. At this juncture being called 
upon to prescribe. I suggested : — Ist. A thorough pur- 
gation. 2nd. A border of hqarhound. 3rd. A Mullen- 
stalk in the centre — no foreigners to be admitted — and the 
spontaneous erruption of natives to be encouraged by 
warm guano water. ' 
This will, of course, soon bring about the resuit aimed 
at by young Horticulture, viz : — “ covering the whole 
ground,” and is highly recommended by its simplicity 
and cheapness. 
Far be it from me to tighten the curb so long as he 
merely kicks up his heels among the Evergreens; though 
it may be well to mention that even require an eye 
to the future, v/ith room above and room below and room 
all round ; and that any tree which was properly planted 
a year ago is not so dreadfully “easy to thin !” 
It is when he gets among the “flowering shrubs” that 
he does the damage, and I would hobble him by the fol- 
lowing remarks ; 
1st. That many of them are entirely unreliable. 
2nd. That the majority are beautiful at their “crisis,” 
and a blemish, subsequently. 
3rd. That a fev/ are transcendant ; but only under a 
nicety of treatment, compared with which Horncepathy is 
a humbug; and, lastly, that what he wants is something 
as handsome as it is game, and as game as it is handsome 
— something that he will never dig up without a pang, nor 
be v.;'ithout at any price. 
Having pricked my fingers a good deal among the 
Roses, I will conclude with a list which I think approxi- 
mates the above standard. For beauty of bloom and 
(what I deem equally important) persistent beauty in all 
their ways, they might have grown in Eden^ but will 
grow anywhere. 
1st. Souvenir de Malmaison. 2d, Triomphe de Lux- 
embourg. 3d. Cloth of Gold, with ample room. 4th, 
Devoniensis. Then with a little more care, Geant des 
Battailes, Leon de Combat, Sylphide, Baron Prevost and 
one without a name, which I beg leave to christen 
“Evelyn,” with a pyramidal habit and sub-evergreen 
foliage — such as all our Roses should have. And these, I 
think, will do for a beginning, if not for an ending. 
F. 0. T. 
Torch Hill^ Ga., Nov., 1858. 
liARGE GRAPE STORY. 
The following, from the Philadelphia Bulletin, looks 
;d most too large to be true; still the sort mentioned — 
PuiC.^tine — often comes very large, and possibly the bunch 
in question partook of the nature of two bunches in one. 
Pennsylvania is celebrated for large exotic grapes. We 
saw the largest we have ever seen in the country there — 
Black Hamburgs — some seven pounds weight : 
“ We saw yesterday an extraordinary production of 
grapes, consisting of a single bunch, or rather a series of 
bunches or sub-divisions on the same stem, weighing 
seven and a quarter pounds, and measuring two feet 
across in each diameter, and two feet deep, and occupy- 
ing a box of eight cubic feet. It was raised near Borden- 
town, New Jersey, at the country residence of George W. 
Childs, Esq., of the well-known house of Childs & Peter- 
son, and presented by him to A, J. Drexel, Esq., the 
banker. The growth was of the variety known as the 
Palestine Grape, and this, we understand, was the first 
bearing of the vine. If this is a specimen of the produe- 
tion in the land to which it is indigenous, it fully accounts 
for the representations which we sometimes see in scrip- 
tural illustrations of men with poles upon their shoulders, 
bearing enormous bunches of grapes between them. A 
variety like this is worth the cultivation. We suppose 
there were from fifteen hundred to two thousand berries 
upon the bunch.” Edgar Sanders, 
[in Emery's Journal. 
O— • 
The Vintage in Missouri. — From the Voxblatt, pub- 
lished at the German settlement of Hermann, in Missouri, 
we learn that this year’s vintage in the vicinity of Her- 
mann, in spite of the poor prospects in the early part of 
the season, has been an average one. The quantity of 
wine produced will reach 25,000 gallons, which is highly 
satisfactory in view of the fact that last year’s yield was 
enormous, and that the vines seldom yield two consecu- 
tive heavy crops. The yield per acre of the different vine- 
yards is variable ; three and four hundred gallons per acre 
being secured in some, while others afforded only fifty 
gallons per acre. In general, however, the vintners are 
well pleased with the result, and have no cause to com- 
plain of hard times. 
THE PRESERVATION OF WINE. 
Wine is sometimes sulphurized as a preservative, and 
often so excessively as quite to taint it. The sulphur is 
burnt in the casks and bottles, and then the wine is 
poured in. If, by chance, the sulphur is arsenical, then 
a slight dose of arsenic is administered to the public, far 
too innocent to understand whence comes the side-wind 
which blows them illness and disease. Cloves, cinna- 
mon, lavender, thyme, and other aromatic substances, are ^ 
used to weaken the influence of the sulphur, and the com- 
bination gives a peculiar taste and odour. 
They are burnt in the casks together with the strips of 
linen dipped in sulphur, and the whole horrible medley 
of taste and smell passes for “bouquet” by the multitude, 
who believe what their wine merchants tell them, and 
praise according to price. In France, one-thousandth 
part of pulverized mustard seed is put in to prevent any 
after fermentation ; but the greatest secret seems to be, to 
preserve the wine from any contact with the outside air. 
Some Malaga wine, which had been buried during the 
great fire of London — that is to say, in sixteen hundred 
and sixty-six — was dug up twenty years ago, and though 
nearly two hundred years old, was found perfectly good, 
well-flavoured, and full-bodied. Exclusion of air alone 
would not have preserved it; sweet and alcoholic, it bore 
in itself the elements of longevity; had it not been poor 
in sugar and rich in acids, it would have been dug up a 
vinous skeleton, Wine kept in wood loses much of its 
water by evaporation; the same may be said of that kept 
in leather and skins. By this diminution of water, the 
alcohol remaining is concentrated and strengthened ; but 
only originally strong wines can be so treated. With 
weak and acid wines, the very concentration increases 
the formation of tartaric acid, and that, without the prop- 
er counterbalance of alcohol, spoils all. This evapora- 
tion does not go on in glass bottles, and Saint Vincent 
therefore recommended that all bottles should be secured 
by bladders, not corks, so that evaporation might not be 
carried on in them. His advice has not been followed. 
— Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. 
