AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
215 
Fruit at the South. — The heavy frosts of 
April, have cut off a good portion of the fruit 
crop. In many sections, apples, pears, peaches, 
plums, and grapes, have been entirely killed. 
It is a great loss to the poor, for fruit is one- 
half our summer living. Even the blackberries, 
the poor man’s bread, are almost entirely cut 
off. Were we without the strawberry, we 
should have a barren time of k it. This crop 
seems better adapted to southern culture than 
any other fruit. Frosts may cut off one, two, 
three, or four crops, and yet we shall have 
fruit. We have a small led, some ten or fifteen 
acres of strawberries, and on the first day of 
April, we never saw a finer promise of fruit; 
the ground was literally covered with fruit, bud 
and blossom. A succession of frosts killed all 
the buds and fruit, and now, May 1st, the beds 
are loaded with fruit in every stage again. We 
are more than ever convinced, that the straw¬ 
berry is the surest fruit crop that can be raised 
at the South. — Soil of the South. 
Busu your Tomatoes. —It is just as sensible 
to grow peas without bushing them, as it is to¬ 
matoes. You may grow both in a slovenly sort 
of way, if you have plenty of room on the 
ground; but you can grow either twice as well 
upon something to support them, and tomatoes 
are decidedly better grown up in the air than 
near the ground, under the shade a mass of 
vines. The best support for a tomato vine is a 
short bush set firmly in the ground. The 
branches have room to spread among the limbs 
and support the fruit. The plan is much 
better than tying to stakes and trimming, ac¬ 
cording to our experience. We have tried both 
ways. We have every season, for the last four 
or five years, offered this very same advice to 
all growers of this valuable vegetable. Bushing 
will increase the product nearly one-half—will 
give larger fruit, and it will keep sound much 
longer on the vines.— Germantown Telegraph. 
-« 8 •- 
THE ORANGE FAMILY. 
The more remarkable varieties of the Orange, 
as given by Mons. Boiteau, to the Ristoire Ra- 
turelle des Orangers, and published in Bon 
Jardenier for 1842, are as follows : 
The China, pear-shaped, Nice ting-fruited, 
fingered, blood-red, ribbed, sweet-skinned, Man¬ 
darin, and St. Michael’s. The last two are by 
far the best worth cultivating for their fruit. 
The Mandarin orange is small, oblate, with a 
thin rind, which separates of itself from the 
pulp, so much so that, when fully ripe, the lat¬ 
ter may be shaken about in the inside like the 
kernel of some nuts. It is originally from 
China, but is now cultivated in Malta. The 
flesh is of a deep orange color, and its juice and 
flavor superior to those of most varieties. The 
St. Michael's orange is also small, but the skin, 
instead of being of an orange color, like that of 
the Mandarin, is of a pale yellow; the fruit is 
generally without seed, the rind thin, and the 
pulp exceedingly sweet. It is the most delici¬ 
ous of all the oranges, and the tree is a great 
bearer. It is generally cultivated in the Azores, 
from which it is shipped in great quantities. 
The Tangerine orange is strongly recommended 
by some. 
The Bigarade, Seville, or litter orange , has 
elliptic leaves, with a winged stalk, very white 
flowers, middle size, globose, deep yellow fruit, 
the pulp bitter and acid. This is the hardiest 
variety of the orange, and that which has the 
largest and most fragrant flowers, which are 
produced in great abundance. The fruit is 
chiefly used in making marmalade. The tree 
is that chiefly grown by the French gardeners 
for its flowers, to gather for nosegays; the vari¬ 
eties are the horned, the female, the curl-leaved, 
the purple, the double-flowered, the Seville, the 
myrtle-leaved, and the Bizarre. The curled¬ 
leaved Bigarade has small curled leaves, thick 
clusters of flowers at the end of the branches; 
the plant is very hardy, and it is that most gen¬ 
erally cultivated in French gardens for its flow¬ 
ers and its fruit. The doulle-floicered Bigarade 
is prized on account of its fragrant double flow¬ 
ers, which last longer than those which are sin¬ 
gle. The plant requires a very rich soil. The 
Seville Bigarade, or Seville orange of the shops, 
has round, dark fruit, with an extremely bitter 
rind. It is imported from Spain, and used for 
marmalades, bitter tinctures, candied orange- 
peel, and for flavoring curacoa. The myrtle¬ 
leaved Bigarade is a lusus natural, with de¬ 
formed leaves, purplish or white flowers, and 
fruit half Bigarades and half lemons. 
The Bergamot orange has small flowers and 
pear-shaped fruit, the whole plant having a pe¬ 
culiar fragrance, much valued by the perfumer, 
who obtains from the flowers and rind of the 
fruit his bergamot essences. The rind, first 
dried and then moistened, is pressed in molds 
into small boxes for holding sweetmeats, to 
which they communicate a bergamot flavor. 
There are several varieties of this species in the 
Genoese nurseries. 
The Lime has obovate leaves on a wingless 
stalk, small white flowers, and roundish, pale- 
yellow fruit, with a nipple-like termination. 
The leaves and general habit of the plant resem¬ 
ble those of the lemon; but the acid of the 
pulp of the fruit, instead of being sharp and 
powerful, is flat and slightly bitter. It is prin¬ 
cipally used in flavoring punch and confection¬ 
ary. Among the varieties are the Pumo 
d’Adamo, in which Adam is supposed to have 
left the marks of his teeth. 
The Shaddock : the leaves arc large and 
winged, and the flowers and fruit very large and 
roundish; the skin of the fruit is yellow, and 
the rind white and spongy; the pulp is juicy 
and sweetish. The plant forms an excellent 
stock for grafting other kinds upon; the fruit 
makes a splendid show at table, and is found 
cooling and refreshing. It has been grown suc¬ 
cessfully in the open air in the city and vicinity 
of Mobile. M. Boiteau considers the “ forbidden 
fruit” of the shops to be a variety of this spe¬ 
cies, but others make it a variety of the lemon. 
The Sweet Lemon : the fruit has the leaves, 
the rind, and the flesh of the lemon, but with a 
sweet pulp. There are many varieties in Italy, 
but very few are cultivated in France or Eng¬ 
land. The flowers differ from those of the lime 
being red externally. 
The True Lemon: leaves ovate-oblong, pale 
green, with a winged stalk, flowers red exter¬ 
nally, fruit pale yellow, with a juicy and acid 
pulp. Unlike the other kinds of citrons, the 
lemon on the continent is generally raised from 
seed, and hence the great difference in the qual¬ 
ity of the fruit obtained in the shops, as also 
the sweet orange daily imported from the Island 
of Cuba. 
The Citron: leaves oblong, flowers purple 
externally, and fruit yellow, large, warted and 
furrowed; rind spongy and thick, very fragrant; 
pulp sub-acid. Supposed to be the Median, 
or Persian apple of the Greeks. As an orna¬ 
mental tree, it is one of the best of the genus 
citrus; a delicate sweetmeat is prepared from 
the rind of the fruit, and the juice, with sugar 
and water, forms lemonade, and is used to fla¬ 
vor punch and negus, like that of the lemon. 
The Madras citron is the largest and best vari¬ 
ety, and has been grown to an enormous size. 
Oranges, like most other fruit-bearing plants, 
are propagated from seeds. The seeds may be 
sown at any period of the year, and slightly 
shaded during the hottest hours of the day. 
When the plants are from sixteen to twenty 
inches high, they are fit for grafting, taking 
care that the leading shoot be not injured, nor 
any superfluous side shoots allowed to remain 
on them. They can be grafted, when about 
the thickness of a quill, in the following man¬ 
ner : Young shoots of a favorite variety are 
selected, being rather smaller than the stock, 
and about four to six inches in length; the 
stocks are prepared for them by taking a thin 
slice off one side (at about half their height) 
just merely to remove a very small portion of 
the wood; the graft is prepared in like manner, 
by merely taking off a thin slice of it ; they are 
fitted together in the usual manner and fastened 
with fresh matting, which is wound round the 
stock from about an inch below the union, and 
carried up about an inch above it; no clay, but 
a little fine moss, is used to envelop the part 
operated on, and kept constantly moist; the 
head or leading shoot is not now shortened, but 
left growing until some weeks after the union is 
ascertained to be complete. It is then headed 
down as close to the part of the union as con¬ 
venient, but not too close, for fear of displacing 
the graft; the remaining piece of stock is re¬ 
moved some months after the graft is estab¬ 
lished, and, if carefully done, the part of the 
union will, in a few months longer, scarcely be 
visible. Orange trees arc also propagated by 
budding, either when the stocks are young, or 
even when they are of considerable size. 
Handsome plants may be formed by this method 
when young stocks are used, but this cannot 
be the case when the stocks have attained a 
large size; and hence arises a great defect in 
many of those that are annually imported into 
this country from France, and particularly from 
Italy, &c., when the stock operated on is often 
from one to three inches in diameter at the top, 
and in consequence seldom forms a union so 
complete as to conceal the amputation of the 
stock. Seedling orange trees in this climate will 
fruit in six years. Observing that young seed¬ 
lings put out thorns at the base of the leaf, and 
as long as they appear on the young wood, no 
fruit can be looked for, as the tree is in too luxu¬ 
riant a state, which should be corrected by cut¬ 
ting in the roots and reducing the soil with loam, 
turf, and fine gravel. The practice of trimming 
and heading down orange trees is radically 
wrong—as by that treatment it is impossible 
for the tree to bear fruit, for in spring they 
bring forth strong thorny wood, and are no 
nearer bearing fruit than when only one year 
old. 
In the management of orange trees in large 
boxes and tubs, great care is requisite to ascer¬ 
tain that the water reaches the roots of the 
plants; for the balls of soil become so firm and 
compact that the water will not penetrate them, 
but passes off between the balls and the sides 
of the box; the compactness of the ball often 
arises from the fineness of the soil used in pot¬ 
ting. The present mode in every case is to use 
comparatively rough, turfy soil, more or less 
mixed with fragments of stone. When orange 
trees in boxes are placed in the open air in the 
summer season, the situation ought always to 
be partially shaded. 
■ - • © « - 
Bayard Taylor on “Nutmegs.” —On “ our 
return to the ship we visited a nutmeg planta¬ 
tion. The trees, which are from twenty to 
thirty feet in height, are planted in rows, at in¬ 
tervals of about twenty feet. The leaf is dark 
green and glossy, resembling that of the laurel, 
and the fruit, at a little distance, might be taken 
for a small russet-colored apple. When ripe , 
the thick husk splits in the center, showing a 
scarlet net-work of mace, enveloping an inner 
nut, black as ebony, the kernel of which is the 
nutmeg of commerce. The clove tree, not now 
in its bearing season, has some resemblance to 
the nutmeg, but the leaf is smaller and the foli¬ 
age more loose and spreading. As we drove 
through the orchard the warm air of noon was 
heavy with spice. The rich odors exhaled 
from the trees penetrated the frame with a sen¬ 
sation of languid and voluptuous repose. Per¬ 
fume became an appetite, and the senses were 
drugged with an overpowering feeling of luxury. 
Had I continued to indulge in it, I should ere 
long have realized the Sybarite’s complaint of 
his crumpled roseleaf.” 
- •-»-• - 
A good book and a good woman are excellent 
things for those who know how justly to appre¬ 
ciate their value. There are men, however, 
who judge of both from the beauty of their 
covering, 
