30G 
AM E RIGAN A GRIG ULTURIS T. 
[October, 
my oaks and elms will flourish in perennial vigor 
and beauty. 
Let us all plant trees. Plant the fruit-bearers. 
They will soon begin to reward our labor, and 
will be a useful legacy to our children. There is 
little danger that the market will be overstocked 
with fruit, and what crop is more easily raised, 
or more remunerative 1 Plant pears, apples, 
plums, cherries, apricots, peaches, and by no 
means forgot the luscious grapes. Plant orna¬ 
mental trees. Set them by the roadside, to re¬ 
fresh the weary traveler. Set them on the lawn, 
singly or in groups. Set the dense-headed ma¬ 
ple and horse-chestnut, the swaying elm, the 
solemn pine, the sturdy oak, the trailing willow, 
ttie symmetrical fir, the feathery hemlock. Set 
trees around the bald and naked church. Oh I 
how the sun glares upon it, and into it, blinding 
the eyes of the worshippers. Plant them around 
the schoox-house. Children’s minds will develop 
finer if they are continually surrounded by ob¬ 
jects of grace and beauty. 
More might we say, for it is a. favorite theme, 
hut here is a sentence or two from a religious 
journal which so chimes with our own thoughts 
that we prefer to pause and listen: “There is 
a softening, humanizing influence in gardening 
that we could wish were more general. There is 
too much danger of the gross and sensual and 
selfish in our national character; and while cur 
reliance must be on religious and educational in¬ 
fluence to correct this tendency, we believe that 
good, and only good, would come of the love of 
trees and flowers, and the cultivation of both. 
It may be blessed in leading the heart up to the 
love of the rlose of Sharon and the garden of 
God.” 
A Trvble among Hedge-Growers. 
Many persons desire to construct hedges along 
the i/pa of their fields and gardens, where large 
trees are already growing ; yet they find it diffi¬ 
cult to do so. The shade of the overhanging 
trees is injurious to them, (though some hedge- 
plants endure it better than others,) and the large 
and voracious roots of the trees are still more 
harmful. 
The other day a friend came to us with a woful 
face, saying that he had tried for two years to get 
up a continuous line of buckthorn hedge in front 
of his lawn. Before setting out his plants, he 
had trenched the ground for them four feet wide, 
and had enriched it with old manure ; he had 
bought the best plants which the nurseries af¬ 
forded, and had set them out with much care, and 
yet at several points for six or eight feet in a 
line, his plants had dwindled, turned brown and 
died. He had renewed his soil and his plants a 
second year, but with a like result. What was 
the matter? 
Our first inquiry revealed it. What trees are 
growing in the neighborhood of your hedge? 
Only two large black walnuts, a rod from the 
hedge, and a rod apart. That was enough. The 
roots of these trees are gross feeders ; they ex¬ 
tend into the soil cultivated and manured for the 
buckthorn, and abstract the moisture and food 
from the young plants, so that they can not flour¬ 
ish. We therefore advised our friend to open a 
trench two feet deep between the trees and the 
hedge, and to cut off the roots of the trees, and 
to repeat this at the same place annually. If he 
did this, we thought the drip and shade would do 
the buckthorn no material injury. 
We have seen the same thing under the white 
ash and the tulip tree. Indeed, all trees like these, 
which have a dense mat of small, fibrous roots 
suck up the moisture in a remarkable manner, 
from all the soil where they penetrate. It is a 
waste of time and money and patience, to try 
hedge-growing under such difficulties. Indeed, 
the only way to get up a perfect hedge, is to set it 
where it will never be shaded by trees of any 
kind, nor be interfered with by their roots. 
Fruit Trees injured by Sea weed. 
We were recently in an amateur’s fruit yard, 
and had occasion to notice the sickly appearance 
of the pear trees. They had been out some 
eight years, and in all previous visits, we re¬ 
marked their rapid growth and healthful appear¬ 
ance. We hardly know of a finer yard. This 
year the leaves are blighted on the edges, and 
some of the trees have made very little wood. 
On inquiry, we found that rock weed in a fresh 
state had been freely applied to the trees last 
Fall. This accounted at once for the change in 
the appearance of the trees. 
A little salt is undoubtedly a good thing for 
pear trees, and indeed for almost all garden 
fruits and vegetables, but in excess it is danger¬ 
ous. The sea weeds, especially rock and ribbon 
weed, or kelp, are powerful fertilizers, and if di¬ 
rectly from the water, contain a good deal of salt. 
They should be composted with muck, before they 
are put around fruit trees. If the weeds are 
mixed with, say three parts of muck to one of 
weeds, and after lying two or three months are 
forked over, they may be applied with benefit. * 
Neglect of Pruning. 
We noticed recently in a pear orchard one of 
the consequences of imperfect shortening in. A 
few of the Bartletts were loaded with fruit, and 
the branches were bent to the ground. The wSod 
was quite too slender to hold up the fruit. We 
could see that some of the annual growths had 
been left two feet or more in length, and no pains 
had been taken to bring the limbs out at an ob¬ 
tuse angle to the trunk of the tree. Had only a 
foot of wood been left at each annual pruning, in 
the earlier stages of growth, the limbs would 
have been sufficiently large and strong to hold 
the present burden of fruit. Fruit growers, es¬ 
pecially the inexperienced, are so much in a 
hurry to get large quantities of fruit, that they 
spare too much umod upon the young tree. When 
bearing begins, too much fruit is left upon the 
limbs, and they become permanently drooping. 
This superinduces excessive fruitfulness and 
premature decay. The first eight years of the 
life of a fruit tree are the most important, and re¬ 
quire judicious management. If a good compact 
head is formed in this period, it will need com¬ 
paratively little pruning after that. The wood is 
of the first consequence in these years, and the 
fruit should be steadily sacrificed for the future 
good of the tree. Apply the knife above, and the 
compost below, and keep the heads as much in 
a pyramidal shape as possible. In due time, you 
will have abundant fruit, and limbs stout enough 
to hold it .—American Agriculturist. 
Aversions of Trees. 
In our grounds, a Scotch Pine, sixteen feet high, 
stood for many years near a Linden, yet seemed 
to dislike its company. The two trees were 
placed side by side in childhood, they wintered 
and summered together ten years, and it would 
seem that their long acquaintance should have 
ripened into an attachment for each other. But 
not so. The Linden did surely seem inclined to 
do his part. He flaunted his amorous leaves to 
wards the Pine, and regaled him each Summer 
with an abundance of sweet-smelling flowers, 
but the Scotchman leaned away from the bold 
Yankee, as if in disdain at his forwardness. Yet 
he needn’t have been so very squeamish, for there 
continued to be several feet of distance between 
the foliage of one and the other. 
After witnessing this aversion for several 
years, we took away the troublesome bass-wood, 
and left the pine to the society of its own thoughts. 
The strength of its dislike is now more manifest 
than before. The branches on the side of the 
pine toward the bass-wood, are small and invert¬ 
ed and crooked, and the central trunk is drawn 
quite away from its natural perpendicularity. 
We have tried to straighten up the tree, but it 
can be held there only by strong ropes, and even 
then, the tree is much deformed. 
The grounds of a neighbor show a similar in¬ 
stance, though there, the quarrel is between a 
linden and an apple-tree. The apple-tree grows 
vigorously, yet it shoots its limbs right off at a 
large angle, leaving a space of five or six feet be¬ 
tween it and the bass-wood. And not far away 
is a like case between an oak and a cherry. The 
cherry is much the larger, and the oak, instead 
of throwing out its branches symmetrically on 
every side, sends those from the side toward the 
cherry around to the other, where they grow 
quite vigorously. But the tree is one-sided, and 
bends over in one direction like a willow. There 
is a distance of several feet between the two trees. 
Now, why this apparent aversion ? Some trees 
grow up together in quite a loving way, twining 
their branches one with the other, and making 
one symmetrical globe of foliage, as if they grew 
from the same root. And when we see the op¬ 
posite of this, it seems as though there were 
some sort of antipathy between them. Do the 
leaves of some trees emit a gas or gaees offen¬ 
sive to others? Or do some suffer from want of 
abundant light, if they are at all overshadowed by 
neighbors ? Doubtless the latter is the best ex¬ 
planation. And let us learn this lesson, that if 
we wish to make sure of large, symmetrical, 
well-developed tops to our trees, we must plant 
them far enough apart to allow abundant and 
free growth on every side. 
- -a>-*-» O- 
Another Talk at the Gate. 
BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE-PRUNING-PATENT 
FERTILIZERS, ETC. 
Gardener .—Good morning, neighbor John. 
Glad to see you, so bright and early; sit down 
here on my new rustic seat. 
John. — Good morning to you, Sir. This plan 
of making a covered seat at one’s gateway, is a 
good one ; it looks hospitable; it’s a grand place 
for loiterers like me to stop and gossip. You 
must have got it from the American Agriculturist 
which has given so many things of this kind. 
Pray, how did you make it? 
Gardener .—Easy enough. I first set these 
rough cedar posts at the corners, then sprang an 
arch of cedar poles overhead, and wove in dia¬ 
mond-work of smaller branches between the 
posts and poles. For brackets and other orna¬ 
mental work, I used wild grape vines. Then, I 
made these open-work seats beneath. This 
American Ivy on one side, and that Isabella Grape 
on the other, having been growing here two 
years before, I had nothing to do hut to twine 
them over my arbor, and the work was done. 
John . — And well done. I must have one like 
it in my own grounds, some day. But Sir, I 
