AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
25 
spurs, and consequently vve have inferior fruit. 
Third. —The weight of the fruit being placed at 
the extremity of the branches, there is a greater 
leverage to break or bend the limbs. 
Fourth. —The action of the wind upon high 
trees, or upon the tall, top-heavy small ones, 
causes those crooked, bent, leaning attitudes, 
which our trees assume in spite of our tying, 
staking and propping. Indeed, so universal is 
this evil, that it is thought by some to be a harm¬ 
less as well as unavoidable thing. And when 
these long swaying branches are filled with fruit, 
their graceful motion as they bend and clash in 
the wind, may delight the Artist or the Poet, but 
the Farmer will fail to share t! e sentiment when 
his fruit, half ripened or just ready for the careful 
hand of the picker, lies bruised and almost value¬ 
less before him. 
Fifth. —In fruit trees which have been subject¬ 
ed to man’s cultivation for several generations 
there is a tendency at some period of their growth 
to an excessive production of fruit. Nature, care¬ 
ful that her children fail not from the face of the 
earth, provides for waste, accident and loss. This 
over productiveness must be obviated by man by 
removing the superfluous fruit before the tree has 
exhausted itself, or divided the nourishment 
among so many recipients as to reduce the size 
and quality of all. But by what known contriv¬ 
ance can the cultivator get access to the top of 
of his umbrella-like tree, so as to remove with 
the requisite quickness and care the superabund¬ 
ant fruit"! 
■sixth. —All the operations of Summer and 
Winter pruning are with greater difficulty per¬ 
formed ; indeed, with trees of this form the prop¬ 
er attention in this respect cannot he given. 
Seventh. —If the fruit or foliage is attacked by 
insects, as one or both are almost every year, the 
enemy is generally not discovered until too late 
to prevent injury, and then the labor of removing 
them is much increased by this shape. Millions 
of bushels of apples and pears are destroyed by 
the host of “ codling moths ” which frequent our 
orchards to deposit their unfriendly eggs upon the 
young fruit. The “ Tent Caterpillar,” the “ Cank¬ 
er Worm,” and a legion of other insects, prey 
upon the foliage and cover the branches with un¬ 
sightly webs, and the books urge remedies 
which demand a ready access to every part of 
the tree, to destroy the eggs or drive away the 
pregnant moth, by lime dustings or “ savory burnt 
offerings,” or adroit applications ofthumb andfin- 
gei. Alas ! the farmer stands with upturned eyes 
-»nder his “green umbrella,” pockets his hands 
and shakes his head, meekly resolving to be con¬ 
tent with what the worms will leave rather than 
undertake that job. 
Eighth.—In gathering the fruit which the winds 
and worms have left, the difficulties are greatly 
increased. The tree has grown beyond the reach 
of step-ladders of any portable dimensions ; the 
investment in patent fruit pickers, with long han¬ 
dles spliced to a greater length with defunct rake 
handles, has proved not very satisfactory, (and no 
fault of the patentee either,) and the long, naked 
stems do not offer a very secure foothold. The 
result is a resort to shaking and thrashing the 
branches with poles or clubs to obtain any consid¬ 
erable portion of the crop. 
Ninth. —The sap, having a great distance to 
^averse between the roots and the leaves, acts 
wRh less vigor in the nourishment of the tree ; 
and not finding easy and proper channels for its 
flow, there is a great tendency to throw out 
sprouts and suckers from the lower parts of the 
tree 
Some engravings of Household Implements, 
designed for this number, were unexpectedly de¬ 
layed. 
That Sewing Machine. 
“ How do you like your Sewing Machine after 
three month’s trial!” asks an Iowa lady. Ans. 
Better than ever. "We could not, or would not 
part with it on any account. It has bothered us 
somewhat, yet not half so much—no not a tenth 
part as much as the first horse-power and thresh¬ 
er we set up as a fixture on the old farm. What¬ 
ever the manufacturers may say, we say there is 
not a machine made which can be taken in hand 
by any and everybody, and worked perfectly in a 
day or two. It is useless to talk about getting up 
a very “ simple machine ” which will execute 
sewing perfectly. You want it to do well, what 
the fingers accomplish when guided by intelligence, 
and to do this, complication of parts is absolutely 
necessary. When one of the venders of low 
priced machines tells us that their implements 
consist of only a foot pedal, a wheel and a needle, 
we tell them “ there is a screw loose,” or rather 
a dozen of them wanting. And it is nonsense to 
say that one wholly unacquainted with wheel 
work of any kind can take ap the “simplest” 
machine even, and work it perfectly, without some 
patient effort in learning. 
Our own machine is just as simple as we ever 
expect to find one which will work well, and yet 
some trouble was experienced with it at first, such 
as getting used to the treadle movement, chang¬ 
ing and putting in the needles just right, giving 
the thread the exact tension, tightening the 
wheel strap, gauging the length of stitches, &c , 
but all those difficulties are pretty much over with, 
now that the women folks have “ got the hang of 
the thing.” 
The Sewing Machine has usually been very 
obedient, since finding its mistress would conquer. 
And what a faithful and efficient seamstress it is— 
always at home when you want work done ; nev¬ 
er troubled with beaux, nor with aching shoulders, 
nor with the mumps, or mopes. 
Do you want a couple of new shirts to start on 
an unexpected journey to-morrow! Just step 
down to the village store and buy the muslin, the 
linen, the buttons and thread, and wife—if she 
have a good machine and have learned to use it— 
will make one of them complete, finely stitched 
bosom, wristbands and all, during the forenoon, 
before looking after the dinner table, and the oth¬ 
er in the afternoon before tea, in ample time for 
Biddy to starch and “ do them up ” before going 
to bed. This is no fiction. We never expect to 
again see in our house the industrious needle 
plied all day long and late at night to partly finish 
a nicely made shirt. The sewing machine, stitch¬ 
ing with the greatest regularity and perfection a 
full yard in two to four minutes, has changed 
matters entirely. The little ones need no longer 
be turned over to the tender mercies of Bridget 
in the kitchen, while the mother works all day to 
bring up the back sewing. She can spend the 
day in amusing and instructing them, and after 
they are asleep, do more and better work in an 
hour or two with the machine, than the best seam¬ 
stress could accomplish in ten hours of the most 
industrious toil with the hand needle. Why, in a 
single afternoon between dinner and early “ tea,” 
our machine has made six pairs of pillow cases, 
sewing each one across the bottom, up the side 
and stitching it neatly all around the top. 
But we must stop this writing or our readers wi5, 
think we are in league with the manufacturers. 
We are not though ; they charged us a large sum 
for our machine, we thought, and we are under no 
obligations to them; we make them pay a largo 
price in turn, for every line they advertise. They 
tell us, however, that they have never got back 
the money they expended in experimenting at first, 
and that until they do this and can get up the 
machine more cheaply than now, they can not 
sell them any lower. We suppose this is so, but 
we hope the day is not far distant when good ma¬ 
chines will be sold so low that the poorest woman 
will be able to raise money enough to buy one, and 
lay aside the hand needle forever. Still, we think 
the machines will continue to be improved, and 
added to, rather than simplified, and the expense of 
making will, if anything, be increased. The 
horse power and thresher, above alluded to, cost 
us only about one-hundred dollars, but we would 
not to-day buy one costing less than twice that 
sum. And, so far as we can see, the low priced 
machines are not the cheapest. Some of them 
would not be cheap if furnished for nothing and the 
thread thrown in. 
Enough on the topic for this time. ^Ve intend 
to have another talk on the matter, when we can 
get some engravings made to show how the ma¬ 
chines sew, for that is a mystery to many, even 
of those who have already learned how to put in 
the cloth, turn the wheel, and execute fine stitch¬ 
ing. 
■-«o-~« ■ » q» -. 
Gas making and Candle Wicks. 
Did you ever visit a gas house, reader! No ! 
Then let us go over to the outside of the city or 
village, and take a look at the one located there. 
We are there, inside the building, and what do we 
see ! Here is a row of cast-iron tubes, each as 
large as a cannon. They are placed in solid brick¬ 
work, side by side, with the open ends just in 
front. These open ends are each supplied with a 
tightly fitting cap to close them up, when desired. 
Under these iron tubes, called retorts, are fir? 
arches, so that thby can be heated to redness 
In the upper sides of the large retorts are smak 
tubes extending upward, and off to another room, 
where they go down into water vats. 
Now they are just charging some of theta 
tubes, to make gas for lighting the town to-night. 
The workmen take off the caps from the ends of 
the retorts. Into one we will suppose they put 
a quantity of coal; into another, tallow ; into 
another, refuse fish oil; into another, rosin ; into 
another, some pieces of wood. They now close 
the openings, using a little soft clay to make them 
air-tight, and then build the fires underneath. 
The enclosed materials—bituminous coal, 
grease, rosin, tallow or wood, are soon heated to 
redness, but as no air can get to them they do not 
burn, but gradually change to colorless transparent 
air-like vapors, which pass up into the small 
tubes, off into another room, down into the water, 
and bubble up through it into a large round vessel 
turned bottom side up in the water. 
If we wait a few hours, until the workmen 
let the fires go down and open the large retorts, we 
shall find very little of the materials put into them 
left, although nothing has escaped hut an invisible 
vapor or gas. Where coal is used, however, there 
is quite a quantity of a substance remaining, called 
coke. If we now go to the inverted vessel which 
has caught the escaping gas, we shall find in it, 
apparently, only air, and if a hole be punctured 
in the top. a jet of this apparent air will be felt to 
escape, though it cannot be seen. But apply a 
match to it, and it will burn with a clear white 
