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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
How to set out Young Plants. 
This is a little matter, yet of great importance. 
We once saw a bungling gardener set out a lot 
of tomatoes in the following way : He pulled up 
the young plants with his fingers, from the seed¬ 
bed, without loosening the ground, and thereby 
broke off a great number of tender fibrous roots. 
Then making a round hole in the vegetable quar¬ 
ters with a stick, he thrust in the plant, pressed 
the dirt around it with his foot, poured on some 
water, and left the plant to shift for itself. 
After seeing him operate for a while, we beg¬ 
ged the privilege of showing him our way. First, 
we mellowed up the soil where each plant was 
intended to stand, and scooped out a hole for its 
reception. Then we took a shingle (a garden- 
trowel is the very best thing for this purpose) and 
pressed it carefully underneath the roots of the 
plant so as to save all the fibers and to carry along 
with the root a quantity of the soil in which it 
nad grown. The roots were then set down in 
the hole provided and spread out in their natural 
position, and a little fresh dirt drawn around the 
stem of the plant to keep it firm. A pint or so of 
water was added, and a couple of shingles set 
over the plant on the south side to keep off the 
sun. 
The careless gardener got impatient before we 
had set out many plants, and declared he “ could 
not afford to fuss so with a few plants.” We told 
him he couldn’t afford to set them out in any 
other mode ; and on visiting his garden late in the 
Summer, we had the satisfaction of seeing that 
our method produced much finer vegetables than 
his. 
To Repel Bugs from Vines. 
Gardeners will find this “leafy June,” this 
“month of roses,” a busy season, and not an 
unimportant part of their work will be keeping 
bugs off from the cucumber, melon, squash and 
similar plants. We therefore detail several modes 
of fighting this enemy. 
A decoction of tobacco and red pepper, sprin¬ 
kled on the leaves of the young plants, will repel 
the bugs. Even the pepper-tea alone will be too 
strong for all that have weak stomachs. A mix¬ 
ture of two parts flour and one of black pepper, 
dusted on the vines while wet with the dew, an¬ 
swers as a partial protection at least. 
Open boxes, six inches high and a foot and a- 
half square, set over the young plants, will an¬ 
swer a good purpose ; or a cheap and convenient 
protector may be made of birch-bark, pasteboard, 
or what is still better, old floor oil-cloth, pegged 
, as seen in the an- 
i engraving. They 
re six or eight inches 
and of any desired size. 
Where the two ends meet, it is well to tack them 
to one of the pegs. Place them around the hills 
as soon as the plants begin to break ground, bank¬ 
ing up so that no bugs will work under them. 
Very few of the insect tribe will go over them. 
Bugs do not appear to be skilled in fence climb¬ 
ing. Simply standing bricks on edge around the 
plants usually keeps them out. 
Liquid manure, made from hen-dung, and left 
to ferment, will drive off bugs by its offensive 
6mell. Two shovelfulls of hen droppings to four 
gallons of water will make it of the desired 
strength. A half-pint of this liquid scattered 
over each hill, on every alternate day, will re¬ 
pel the bugs, and give the plants a vigorous 
growth. 
A neighbor of ours says he has treated his 
bug-visitors, for twenty years past, to a pinch or 
two of good Scotch snuff; they think this is 
something to be sneezed at, and therefore leave 
in disgust. 
We once knew a man who planted his seeds by 
the hundred, all over his melon patch, and gave 
the bugs the largest liberty of his garden. He 
declared that he delighted to witness the enjoy¬ 
ments of animal life, and therefore would not kill 
bugs, but would rather feed them. He said that 
more than enough plants were left, after the bugs 
had taken their share, and he thought they were 
stronger and healthier vines, than if they were 
boxed up and dusted over with such acrid sub¬ 
stances as snuff, pepper, ashes, guano, &c. And 
besides, did not this method save him a great deal 
of trouble 1 
-i ■u Q itm - » mm 
Training Raspberries. 
We present above a plan, differing a little from 
any one we have yet seen proposed, for staking 
or training raspberries. The sketch is from a 
plot in the garden of one of the Editors of the 
Agriculturist. This method of training has been 
practised for several years with satisfaction. It 
is, perhaps, better adapted to garden culture, 
where land is too valuable to admit the usual plan 
adopted in field culture of planting in large hills, 
four feet apart each way, to allow plowing both 
ways between the rows. 
As will be seen by the engraving, the raspber¬ 
ry vines are set in hills, H to 2 feet apart, in 
rows from 3 to 3£ feet; the more valuable the 
land and the more carefully it is attended to, the 
nearer may be the rows. Two, or even four 
canes are set in each hill at first, and at the pro¬ 
per time these are bent over and tied loosely to 
stakes set midway between the hills, one or more, 
as the case may be, on each side. The new plants 
springing up are allowed to grow erect. They 
can be kept in a line, if desired, by running a 
cord along from stake to stake on either side. 
Each hill thus takes a fan-like look. This ar¬ 
rangement prevents crowding, secures the admis¬ 
sion of sunlight, and promotes a strong growth of 
young vines, which are to be the bearers the next 
season. It is of course understood that the root 
of the raspberry is perennial (lasting through 
many years), while the canes are biennial (living 
but two years), and producing fruit only during 
the second year. 
As soon as the hearing season is over the old 
canes should be cut down, in Autumn the stakes 
taken up, and the young plants, if of tender va¬ 
rieties, bent down and covered with earth. In 
the Spring, the last year’s growth is in turn tied 
over to the stakes to make room for a new 
growth. 
Frequently the young plants are so numerous 
that it is advisable to bend and tie three or more 
to a single side stake. They should be tied at dif¬ 
ferent hights. 
-<t ii^ Q IW' - •--»> - 
Wake Money—A good looking Irishman stop- 
ing at a hotel to warm himself, inquired of the 
landlord “ what was the news.” The landlord 
disposed to run upon him, replied, “ they say the 
devil is dead.” “An sure,” says Pat “that’i 
news indade.” Shortly after, he went to the bar, 
laid down some coppers and resumed his seat. 
The landlord always ready for a customer, asked 
him what he would take. “ Nothing at all at all,” 
said Pat. “Why then did you put this money 
here 1 “ An sure, sir, its the custom in me own 
counthry, when a chap loses his daddy, to give 
him a few coppers to help him pay for the wake.” 
■- - -— — - >-«. - 
Frost in Valleys- 
Many persons suppose that, because valleys are 
sheltered from the wind, they are therefore warm¬ 
er than the hills. Undoubtedly, they are warmer 
at certain times, especially in the Summer, and 
they are more comfortable in stormy weather. 
But whenever the air is still, they are colder than 
the hills. And why so 1 Plainly, because cold 
air is heaviest and sinks into the lowest places, 
and is not displaced by warm currents there, as it 
would be on the breezy hills. When one passes, 
on a Summer evening, from a hillside into a val¬ 
ley, the change in the temperature is very appa¬ 
rent : the air of the valley is damp and chilly. 
The same thing appears in Winter ; the air of the 
valley may be still, but it is sensibly colder. 
Hence, early Spring crops and late Fall crops 
often suffer more from frosts in the valleys than 
on the hill-sides. The same applies to fruit which 
is sometimes cut off in the valleys, when it es 
capes harm on the hills. 
It is surprising to notice how different the ef 
fects of frosts are, within a short distance, and 
with a depression of only a foot. We have 
lately met with the report of some observations 
on this subject, made in Montpelier, France. In 
a botanic garden, containing olive trees, sweet 
bays and fig trees, some perished from frost, 
while others escaped: and the different results 
were owing not to difference in the vitality of the 
several plants, but to the effect of shelter and 
situation. Thermometers were hung about in va¬ 
rious parts of the garden, but the effect of frost 
on the trees showed the difference of tempera¬ 
ture as plainly as the thermometer. For instance: 
in a low T part of the garden, the bay trees almost 
all died, but in another part, on a swell of ground 
raised only six yards, they suffered but a little. 
So with the olive trees. In low places, the foli¬ 
age was killed back to the old limbs. And so “in 
all the districts between Montpelier and Nismes, 
the olive trees of the plain suffered more or less, 
while those on the hills sustained no injury.” 
The same thing was found true with the fig trees 
and pomegranates. This report concludes with 
inferring the general law, that “ cold is most in¬ 
jurious in low places where radiation is most in¬ 
tense in consequence of the tranquility of the air; 
and least injurious in exposed places where the 
agitation of the air opposes the effect of radia¬ 
tion.” 
A cotemporary journal mentions the case of a 
thrifty young hickory, about forty feet high, which 
stood in a depression about 20 feet deep. 
The young shoots had grown a few inches, 
and being quite succulent, were easily touched by 
frost. After a certain cold night, the leaves 
on about one half the tree, the lower half, 
were found to be black and dead, while 
those on the upper half were as green as ever. 
We lately read of an experiment where a thermo¬ 
meter suspended in a low valley, sunk on a frosty 
night to 27°, while on a rise of ground near by, 
only sixty feet higher, there was no frost, the mer¬ 
cury falling only to 33°. 
Facts like these might be multiplied, but these 
