AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
208 
THE FUCHSIA. 
Now, that we have got in our best varieties 
oi this flower all the properties it may be ex¬ 
pected to be made to possess, it behoves us to 
exert ourselves to grow specimens in the short¬ 
est possible time, worthy of the fine blooms 
which many of the kinds produce. If pyramidal 
plants are wanted, (and if they are not grown 
in this way their beauties are not seen to ad¬ 
vantage,) cuttings should be taken from the 
short-jointed wood of the present year’s growth, 
but not in too tender a state; for when the 
wood is too soft they are apt to shrivel and 
damp off. Use 4-inch pots well drained; then 
fill up with a compost of leaf-soil and sand, 
pressing firmly and surfacing with silver sand ; 
then plant the cuttings all round the sides or 
the pot. Water gently with a fine watering- 
pot, and finish by plunging the pots in a mild 
moist bottom-heat in the prop gating pit or 
frame, where they will soon emit fine young 
rootlets. Shade on warm sunny days to pre¬ 
vent their drooping and getting scorched. 
When they can stand handling with safety, pot 
s > n gly in 3-inch pots into a lightish compost of 
loam, leaf-soil, and a little sand to keep it open. 
PluDge again for a few days where they were 
before, which will assist them in taking hold of 
the new soil. Then remove them to a warm pit 
or Vinery, where the temperature will range 
between 60° at night and 70° by day; the at¬ 
mosphere should be kept moist, so as to induce 
them to make short-jointed wood. When the. 
pots are full of roots, give a shift into a 6-inch 
pot, using a rather rich compost of nearly two- 
thirds strong fibry loam, and one-third of old 
cow droppings, leaf-soil, and sand, mixing all 
the parts well, so as to thoroughly incorporate 
them. Care must be taken to secure good open 
drains by placing a large potshred over the hole 
in the pot, with smaller pieces over that and 
around it, and a little moss over ail to keep it 
from getting choked up. The plants will now 
be pushing vigorously, and laterals will be 
breaking forth freely. The main stem must 
now be tied to a neat stick, to keep it upright. 
When the laterals have grown a little past their 
first joint pinch them back to it; they will now 
push a couple of fresh shoots. Let this pinch¬ 
ing be confined to the four lower tiers of later¬ 
als, the rest may be allowed to grow. The 
plants may now get a slight mulching of sheep 
dung, and be permitted to come into bloom, 
when they should be removed to the front table 
in the plant house, where they will flower 
freely for some time. It will now be December, 
therefore they should be allowed a season of 
rest, say in a cold pit, after they have been per¬ 
mitted to ripen their wood. They should be 
protected from frost, and should receive little 
water until the middle or end of February, when 
they may get a more liberal supply. They may 
be taken to a warm pit or Vinery in March, 
where they will soon show indications of rapid 
growth. After they have made a start they 
should be turned out of their pots and their 
roots examined, re-potting into 10-inch pots, in 
which they should be flowered. For soil, use 
strong, rich, fibry loam, with about a third of 
well-decomposed cow droppings, and a little 
leaf-soil and sand to keep the soil porous. They 
should be pruned back to the last joint, from 
which they will push two strong shoots, and if 
kept pinched, as directed for last season, they 
will soon form handsome plants. Secure a good 
leader now, as they will be growing rapidly. 
By the middle of April a mulching of sheep 
dung will be found beneficial; but this should 
be used so as not to look unseemly. The bot¬ 
tom branches should be permitted to attain the 
length of a couple of joints before pinching, so 
as to get a good broad basis. After the laterals 
have broken out again, they should then be 
pinched back, stopping regularly as the plant 
gruws, so as to secure a well-formed specimen. 
They should not by stopped after the second 
week in June, and by the latter end of that 
month they should be set in a conspicuous place 
in the green-house or conservatory, where, by 
the middle of July, they will be coming into 
fine bloom, and will continue in that condition 
until October, provided a shade be applied on 
hot sunny days, which also preserves the color. 
Bees are often very destructive to the flowers, 
and should therefore be excluded. When their 
beauty is nearly exhausted they should be re¬ 
moved to a cold pit, to afford room for the win¬ 
ter inmates of the house. The same treatment 
during this winter as was recommended for last, 
will be all they will require till spring, when 
they may be pruned and started according to 
the time they are required to be in bloom. 
They should be re-potted, as last season, in 10 
inch pots, for which the roots should be cut 
back, so as to admit plenty of fresh soil. The 
middle of March will be found a very good sea¬ 
son for propagating Fuchsias. A few oldish 
plants should be started early in the season for 
this purpose. Cuttings struck at this period 
will enable you to get nice little plants the saim- 
season for specimens the following year.— W.F., 
■in Gardeners' Chronicle. 
■ - » »•- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
PLUM CURCULIO. 
Messrs. Editors :—Having just returned from 
a visit to one of the best and handsomest gar¬ 
dens we have in our part of the country, cared 
for and brought to its present state of perfec¬ 
tion by one of the most successful gardeners 1 
ever met with, I sit down to communicate a por¬ 
tion of intelligence I received from the gardener. 
It is a private garden, and I have no permission 
to communicate his name. No where have I 
ever seen strawberries brought to such splendid 
perfection as here. The immense quantities they 
gather on a small space of ground bearing am¬ 
ple testimony to this fact, and I understand this 
is accomplished by keeping the unproductive 
plants well thinned out, so that every plant is a 
prolific bearer. 
But my great object in writing just now is to 
name the fact of his successfully combating the 
curculio. He assures me he raised for two sea¬ 
sons past, full crops of plums, loaded so that the 
limbs had to be supported, and does not injure 
the fruit at all, but the trees will not make the 
growth they otherwise would. I saw the cele¬ 
brated Salem Plum , the most delicious and pro¬ 
fitable for market or desert. No plum that can be 
named in any catalogue that I have ever seen, 
can, in all respects , be compared with this plum. 
The Yellow Gage and Jefferson fall but little 
short of it, however. But to the remedy of the 
curculio. He syringes the trees when the fruit 
is setting, with sulphur and lime water. 
Morristown, N. J. W. Day. 
-O » t>-~ 
SnORTENING-IN LlJIA BEANS AND SQUASHES.- 
The Family Visitor states that clipping the 
shoots of Lima beans, when about six feet high, 
produces an abundant crop, the beans repening 
in August. Squashes, the vines of which are 
nipped after two or three squashes had formed, 
were larger and ripened better. By cutting out 
the early bearing branches, a succession of 
squashes was obtained through the summer. 
Tomatoes which grew on an excessively rich 
piece of ground, were benefitted by shortening, 
new and more vigerous shoots successively 
pushing out in place of those which were clip¬ 
ped. 
-« © ©.- 
Cure for Melon Bugs. —Dr. Hull, of New 
burgh, raised a large crop of melons by a pro¬ 
cess thus stated in the Horticulturist : 
Bugs were completely expelled by watering 
the plants daily with a strong decoction of 
quassia, made by pouring four gallons of boil¬ 
ing water on four pounds of quassia, in a bar¬ 
rel, and after twelve hours, filling the barrel 
with water. The intolerable squash or pumpkin 
bug was thoroughly driven off by a decoction 
of double strength, containing a pound of glue 
to ten gallons to make it adhere. The result 
was, a product of sixteen hundred superb 
melons, on less than one-sixth of an aero of 
ground. 
-- 
GARDENING FOR THE YOUNG. 
We commend the following beautiful remarks 
from a valued correspondent, to the attention of 
parents and guardians. 
The absorbing pleasures of a garden offer a 
natural and readily appreciated attraction to the 
young, and I am convinced from much experi¬ 
ence, that no other pursuit will operate so fa¬ 
vorably on the youthful mind, as the culture of 
flowers. Nature has implanted in every infant 
an innate love of flowers, and it is the bounden 
duty of all who are entrusted with the respon¬ 
sible duty of educating and developing the in¬ 
fant faculties, taste and propensities, to guide 
and direct them to such pursuits as are most 
likely to refine and improve them. What other 
pursuit, I would ask, is soentirelv guileless and 
unalloyed, and what is therein the whole range 
of creation so perfectly in harmony with the 
untainted and pure mind of the child fresh from 
the hand of its Creator, as the enjoyment of his 
most charming as it is his purest handiwork, as 
displayed in a flower garden. Teach then, the 
child to till and cultivate flowers—they will as¬ 
suredly win their own way to its affections, and 
you lay the foundation of a love for the sweet¬ 
est and purest of all earthly pursuits, which in 
after life, when the allurements of the wicked 
world are gathered around him, will win him 
from and shelter him against their dangerous 
blandishments. I can say with perfect truth, 
that the happiest hours I have ever spent in a 
long and chequered life have been in the society 
of my flower garden, and it has this additional 
advantage, that while many of the gaieties and 
pleasures which fascinate us in early life, cease 
tp please in the decline of life, the flower gar¬ 
den loses not one jot of its fascination to our 
latest hour. 
Hoeing Wheat. —Yesterday afternoon we 
took an hour’s stroll in the country—a luxury 
we seldom enjoy. We noticed a novel feature 
introduced in farming, which we doubt not will 
be new to many of our farmers. 
Charles Hinman, one of the most thorough 
and skilful agriculturists in Western New-York, 
was actually hoeing a field of wheat, containing 
twenty acres. The wheat was sown in drills, 
and five or six men each taking four or five 
rows, hoeing between each row with a garden 
hoe, stirring up the soil, and destroying most of 
the weeds. The expense is about five dollars 
an acre. This probably, is the first experiment 
of the kind in the country .—Loclcport Journal. 
Heavy Business in Potatoes. —The Norfolk 
Argus states that the farmers and others in 
that city and vicinity are now doing a large 
business in potatoes. More than two thousand 
barrels are regularly sent by each steamer to 
New-York. The average quantity sent per day 
to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New-Yoik, is 
about one thousand six hundred barrels. The 
Baltimore boats cannot take on board near as 
many barrels as are daily sent to the depot. 
They sell readily at Norfolk, at $4 per barrel, 
and command a handsome profit in the North¬ 
ern markets. The Norfolk Beacon says that 
Mr. Munden raised from 25 bushels of Irish 
potatoes, for which he gave $1.50 a bushel, a 
crop which sold for $806. After paying all ex¬ 
penses, the net profit amounted to $698. The 
same paper states that on Thursday one farmer 
sent $1140 worth of cucumbers^ to Philadel¬ 
phia and Baltimore. 
There is a town in Maine called Random. A 
resident of the place being asked where he 
lived, said he lived at Random.. He was taken 
up as a vagrant. 
