294 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
Ifflrfi&Itral Jeprfmeitt. 
The Horticulturist.— This favorite peri¬ 
odical has recently changed hands, and will 
hereafter be published ,at Philadelphia, by 
Robert P. Smith. It will be under the Edi¬ 
torial care of J. Jay Smith, who is not un¬ 
known to the readers of the Horticulturist. 
Mr. Smith will be assisted by a number of 
able contributors, including its late Editor, 
Mr. Barry, of Rochester. We have every 
reason to believe that it will continue to 
maintain its high character, and we trust 
that it will advance to a still higher standard 
of excellence. In its new location it will 
possess some facilities not enjoyed hereto¬ 
fore, and while loth to, in a measure, part 
company with its former conductors, we 
tender the new Editor and Publisher our 
best wishes for their unbounded success. 
WATERING TRANSPLANTED TREES. 
BY THOMAS MEEHAN. 
It is very customary with many horticul¬ 
tural magazines, to sum up at the end of the 
season all the improvements which may 
have been made in gardening during the pre¬ 
ceding year. This enables us to see at a 
glance how much we have progressed, and 
how far we have left our forefathers behind. 
Still it must have occurred to many readers 
of these summaries, that our progress must 
have been exceedingly slow if all we have 
been learned to avoid or improve has been 
noticed in these retrospective sketches. 
But the fact is, we have advanced faster than 
our own journals have given us credit for. 
Ideas that are really sound and valuable 
creep about among gardeners like ivy over 
old ruins, till, once well established, no one 
knows when or by whom it was planted, or 
how they originated. 
I was strongly reminded of this by reading 
in an old “ Gardener’s Calendar ” the follow¬ 
ing advice : “ Should dry weather prevail, 
apply frequent waterings to all newly trans¬ 
planted trees and shrubs.” I venture to 
say, that there are very few of our many in¬ 
telligent gardeners of the present day, who 
would give such advice ; and yet it seems so 
reasonable that when a plant is likely to 
wilt, it must require water, that we can not 
wonder that the practice still extensively 
prevails. 
It is, therefore, a perfectly natural and 
legitimate inquiry, that, “ If we must not 
water plants under such circumstances, what 
must we do to save them 1” The answer 
will be best understood by being given in 
detail. 
That a plant must have a certain amount 
of moisture to enable it to live, is well known 
to every one; and that this moisture must 
be absorbed through the instrumentality of 
the fibers, or small rootlets, is a no less 
widely disseminated fact. When a tree is 
“well established ,” that is,lias been growing 
for some time in a given situation, the root¬ 
lets pierce the soil, so that they are in a 
manner encased by it. In this position how 
easy it is for them to draw in their required 
supplies of water. The communication be¬ 
tween them and the soil is unbroken, and 
moisture passes from one to the other by a 
process nearly akin to capillary attraction. 
How important then that soil thrown in 
around the roots at transplanting should be 
finely pulverized, and that every means 
should be taken to induce it to enter every 
“ hole and corner.” But with the greatest 
possible care, this can never be done to a 
perfect degree. The soil will still have an 
opportunity to sink ; that is, will be filled 
with large air spaces ; and Avhatever roots 
may be in these cavities, or air spaces, will 
either get dried up or injured. 
It is a first-rate plan, and one which, in 
critical cases, I have often employed to ad¬ 
vantage, to fill the hole intended for the tree 
with water, throwing in soil enough to make 
it of the consistency of thin mortar, into 
which the tree is put, and the remaining soil 
drawn in without tramping or pressure of any 
kind. A tree so planted will never require 
watering afterwards; but it will require 
other treatment, which will be yet noticed 
before the end of this chapter. 
Surface water should never be applied to 
a transplanted tree in the manner usually 
given, for the following reasons : Every 
one knows that there are certain substances 
which do not absorb heat readily, and which 
are termed good non-conductors; and others 
which are soon heated, or conductors. Wood 
is a tolerably good non-conductor, because 
it will not become as readily heated as iron; 
while a brick is a better conductor of heat 
than clay or other soils, because it sooner 
becomes warmed through. A large clod of 
earth, also, becomes heated through in much 
quicker time, than the same bulk of soil 
would have done in a well pulverized state. 
This absorption of heat would not, perhaps, 
be of so much consequence to the plant, 
were it not for the increased impetus it 
gives to evaporation. A large clod of soil 
not only heats through, but soon dries 
through— it is a better conductor than pulver¬ 
ized soil. 
It is obvious, then, that a soil is in good 
condition to retain moisture about the roots 
of newly transplanted trees, when it is as far 
removed from a clotty condition as possible. 
But water, when frequently and forcibly ap¬ 
plied to the surface, tends to harden it, and 
renders it liable to “ bake ” by a very little 
sun, therefore, surface watering should, if 
possible, be avoided ; as, indeed, should every 
thing liable to produce this effect on soils. 
The question now occurs, that if a tree has 
not been watered at transplanting in the 
manner above described ; and ifitis evident¬ 
ly suffering, or likely to suffer, for want of 
moisture, how is it to be applied, except 
through the surface 1 The mode is this: 
Draw away the soil from around the stem of 
the tree with a spade or hoe, until the roots 
are nearly reached, and in such manner as to 
form a basin around it; fill in water to the 
brim. An hour or so afterwards, when the 
water has soaked thoroughly away, draw 
back the dry soil forming the brim of the 
basin to its former position as lightly, and 
without pressure, as possible. It is all the 
water it will require that season, if properly 
performed. 
And now that we have seen our trees well 
planted, and those that need it afterwards 
well watered, how shall we proceed to aid the 
soil in retaining the moisture supplied to it ? 
Simply by keeping the surface well pulver¬ 
ized, and in the best condition of a non-con¬ 
ductor that we can bring it into ; but it is ne¬ 
cessary not to mistake what pulverization 
means. Stirring, or “ loosening up ” a soil, 
is not pulverizing it, though often supposed 
to be. It is, however, the first step towards 
it. In farming, the ploiv stirs up the soil; 
the roller, or harrow, pulverizes. The hoe 
and the spade are the gardener’s plow; his 
feet form his roller, or clod crusher. The 
.operations of plowing and rolling, and of 
loosening and pressing, in gardening should 
always go together ; and, in x-elation to tree 
planting, whenever a soil is getting hard, or 
in a“ caky” condition, it should not only be 
hoed or stirred up, but as soon as the loosen¬ 
ed soil has become a little dry, it should be 
pressed with the feet, and crushed to atoms. 
This is the whole secret of the business. 
Get the soil once, well encased around the 
roots, once well watered, and all that is neces¬ 
sary afterwards is to keep the surface soil 
well pulverized, that is, its little atoms well 
divided, in perfect dust if you will; and there 
will seldom be a failure, if the tree be healthy 
otherwise. 
I do not imagine I am offering any thing 
new in this article. The facts are well known 
to practical gardeners ; but I presume that 
among the thousands of readers of the Hor¬ 
ticulturist, there are many novices and ama¬ 
teurs to whom the hints may be acceptable. 
Horticulturist. 
THE CATTAWISSA RASPBERRY. 
BY JOSHUA PEIRCE, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
The Cattawissa raspberry is a native va¬ 
riety entirely new and distinct in its charac¬ 
teristics, in respect to its manner of bearing 
and the period of maturing its fruit, which 
promise to make it an object of general cul¬ 
tivation. From its appearance and mode of 
growth, I have no doubt but it is a seedling 
produced from the common wild blackberry 
of the country, which grows in great abund¬ 
ance about the region where it originated; 
although I cannot learn that any other varie¬ 
ties, native or foreign, wild or cultivated, 
ever grew near the original plant, except, 
perhaps, the thimbleberry (Rubus purpurea v. 
odorata) which, from the dissimilarity of the 
two, could have had nothing to do with its 
production. 
This bountiful gift of nature originated in 
the grave-yard of the little Quaker Meeting 
House in the village of Cattawissa, Colum¬ 
bia Co., Penn., situated near the confluence 
of a stream of the same name with that 
noble river, the Susquehanna. The history 
of the discovery is simply as follows. The 
person who had charge of the meetinghouse, 
from whose own lips I received the account, 
was in the habit of mowing the grass in the 
yard several times in the course of the year, 
and on one occasion, some eight or ten 
years since, observed that a briar, which he 
had so often clipped with his scythe, showed 
symptoms of bearing fruit out of the ordi¬ 
nary season. For this time he spared the 
plant, bestowing upon it his watchful care, 
and afterwards removed it to his own humble 
cottage, to be fostered and cherished, no 
more to “ waste its sweetness on the desert 
ah.” From a plant that found its way to 
this district I was struck with its peculiari¬ 
ties, and resolved to devote myself to its cul¬ 
tivation and increase, and am now prepared 
to describe its properties as far as my oppor¬ 
tunities have allowed, after experimenting 
with it for two years. 
The fruit is of medium size, inferior to 
many of the new popular varieties, but is 
sufficiently large for all economical purposes. 
Its color is a dark reddish purple when ripe, 
and of a very high flavor; it bears most 
abundantly throughout the season, after the 
young wood, on which it produces its best 
fruit, attains the height of four to five feet; 
usually beginning to ripen in August and 
sometimes a little sooner. The fruit is pro¬ 
duced on branches continually pushing out 
from all parts, successively appearing in the 
various stages of growth, from blossom to 
perfect maturity, and often there may be 
counted more than fifty fruits on a single 
branch. ."As the ripening progresses the 
later fruits of each branch gradually become 
less in size, but there is no suspension of 
blooming and fruiting until checked by frost. 
If protected in-doors it would undoubtedly 
produce fruit during the winter months. 
The great advantage of this fruit over all 
other varieties of the raspberry is, that, if 
the stocks should be accidentally broken or 
