20 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
to M. Quinlan. Best i peck Tomatoes, $1 ; to James 
Weir. Best J peck of Lima Beans, $1 ; to Henry Foddy. 
Best 6 heads Celery, $2; to P. Henderson. Best display 
of Vegetables, $5; to E. Decker. Best and most correct 
labeling of Plants, $3 ; to L. Menand. 2d best and most 
correct labeling of Plants, $2; to J. E. Rauch. 
SPECIAL PREMIUMS. 
For a collection of Peaches, $5 ; to D. Murphy. For a 
fine dish of Peaches, $3 ; M. Collopy. For a Collection of 
Apples, $6; to D. W. Beadle, St. Catharines, C. W. For 
Everbearing Raspberries, $2 ; to W. Grant, gardener to 
W. Vandeventer. For 6 bunches Foreign Grapes, $5 ; to 
G. Hamlyn. For a Collection Indigenous Plants and 
Ferns, $3 ; to L. Menand. For a Collection of Seedling 
Verbenas, $2 ; to James Weir. For a Collection of Seed_ 
ling Verbenas, $1 ; to Daniel Boll. Fora Collection op 
Gloxinias, $3 ; to Wm. Poynter. For a Collection of 
Variegated leaved Plants, $5 ; to J. E. Rauch. For a 
Collection of Seedling Dahlias, $2 ; to W. A. Burgess 1 
For a Collection of Plants used in Commerce, $5; Goff & 
Day. For a model of a Landscape Garden, $3; to II. A. 
Graef & Son. For a Collection of Seedling Antirrhinum, 
$3 ; to D. Boll. For a Seedling Hollyhock, $1 ; to W. A. 
Burgess. For a Collection of Seedling Pinks, $1 ; to M 
Donadi. For a Miscellaneous display of Plants, $3; to 
G. Hamlyn. 
GRAFTING OLD TREES. 
We wish we could have had some of the 
thriftless skeptics with us, whose farms 
teem with old crab-apple trees and 
pears, as we dropped into the fruit yard of 
Mr. Thompson Wells, of Stonington, Ct. He 
came into possession some years ago of an 
old orchard near his house. Some of the 
trees were fifty years old, and bore very un¬ 
satisfactory fruit for trees that had arrived 
at the age of discretion. Mr. Wells deter¬ 
mined to teach these old dogs new tricks, in 
spite of the proverb, and the well meant ad¬ 
vice of his neighbors. He began to supply 
the roots with new food, by digging up the 
turf and putting on compost manure liber¬ 
ally. As the land was sandy and gravelly 
he put on also some clay. When the trees 
were well started with new wood, they ivere 
grafted with choice varieties of apples and 
pears. Most of the grafts are now three 
and four years from the setting, and are 
loaded with fruit. There where a miserable 
scrub orchard set the visitor’s teeth on edge, 
we saw ruddy June Eatings and Sampsons and 
tasted them. Rhode Island and summer 
Greenings and noble Russets loaded the 
branches. There were splendid Bartletts, 
just beginning to look tempting, and Sickles 
blushing for the dainty juices maturing under 
their skins. These hung upon limbs that 
once bore only poor seedling pears. 
The only secret of this success is a little 
intelligent husbandry and patience. The 
trees are pruned, scraped, grafted, and fed, 
and though old they learn the new trick of 
yielding luscious fruits with great readiness. 
Many only expect fruit every other year, 
but these being well fed make no exceptions 
for the odd year, toe the mark with exem¬ 
plary exactness, and hand over their golden 
harvests. As we have had occasion to know 
in years past, Mr. Wells has the very best 
of apples in his barrel, home grown, when 
his neighbors’ barrels are empty of those 
grown abroad. They can not afford them, 
they cost so much. 
Now, let the thriftless learn a lesson as 
they look with watering mouth at these 
loaded boughs. Put that everlasting can r,ot 
out of your mouth, and with a little faith in 
the gratitude and faithfulness of the soil 
you cultivate, put a few loads of good com¬ 
post, stable manure and muck, or ashes and 
muck, or lime and muck, around your stunted 
and worthless trees. When the young shoots 
start, as start they will, graft them or bud 
them, at a suitable age. Follow up your 
treatment with compost, lime, ashes, bones, 
scraping, washing, &c., and you will have 
fruit; good measue, pressed down, and run¬ 
ning over will Nature give back into your 
basket. 
AUTUMN WORK IN THE FRUIT YARD. 
Insects still commit their depredations, 
and need a vigilant watch kept upon their 
movements. We noticed this morning 
(September 7) a whole limb of a young apple 
tree stripped of its foliage. Upon examination, 
we found a whole brood of worms about the 
size of a well grown caterpillar, posted upon 
an adjacent limb, and still devouring the 
leaves. We found several trees afflicted 
with similar visitors, in various stages of 
growth. The stove or fire place is a good 
lodging for them. Hasten them up to their 
quarters immediately. The pear slug also 
reappears this month, and needs a good 
dressing of ashes or some whale oil soap. 
Wash the trunks of all your young trees with 
strong soap suds. Examine the collar, care¬ 
fully removing the earth, and cleaning out 
all borers and worms. Give all your young 
trees a barrowfull of compost. Keep them 
in vigorous health. 
GRAPES NOT RIPENING WELL. 
Formerly our Isabella and Catawba grapes, 
justas they began to color would shrivel and 
drop off before ripening. A good supply of 
proper fertilizers, such as potash, bone-dust, 
guano muck, and rotted barnyard-manure, 
and what we call very close trimming in the 
spring, obviated this to a certain extent, and 
gave us much more and better ripened fruit. 
But latterly we have only let two or three 
branches fruit each season from stems two 
inches or more in diameter, and these 
branches not permitted to run over about 
seven feet in length, and more or less of the 
fruit is picked from them when about half 
formed. The result is well developed, lus¬ 
cious grapes, adhering to the bunches with 
sufficient tenacity till desirable to pick them. 
Lime and Sulphur for the Curculio and 
Black Knot. —My remedy of lime and sul¬ 
phur has not only proved entirely success¬ 
ful for the past five years, in preventing the 
attack and also destroying the egg of the 
curculio when it had been deposited in the 
fruit, and thus securing it from falling off, 
but has also proved a preventive for the 
“ black knot.” The compound is this: 
Mix a barrel of whitewash of unslaked 
lime, such as is used for whitewashing 
walls, and add twelve pounds of flour of 
sulphur. Stir and mix well and let it stand 
two days ; then apply with a spouted syringe 
without rose on nozzle, but a flat of tin so 
placed as to flatten the stream as it passes 
out; this prevents any stoppage, and the 
friction being much less than with a rose, a 
greater hight may be overcome. 
The syringing is continued for four weeks, 
every other day, commencing when the blos¬ 
som has fallen, and is facilitated by pumping 
and forcing directly out of a water barrel 
placed between two wheels. The sediment 
of the first barrel will answer for the second 
and third by filling with water, and adding 
the same quantity of sulphur, without any 
addition of lime. 
The syringe used is a large upright one, 
with a pipe attached; this is set into a pail, 
and throws the water with much force on to 
the tree.—T. W. Ludlow, in Hovey’sMag. 
GRAF TING B EETS. 
At the beginning of September, 1853, Dr. 
Allan Maclean, of Colchester, an ingenious 
experimentalist and good physiologist, graft¬ 
ed a young plant of the white Silesian Beet 
upon a root of Red Beet, and vice versa. At 
the time of the experiment the plants were 
each about as thick as a straw. A com¬ 
plete junction was effected. There was a 
slight contraction at the line of junction, 
much like that formed by “ chocking ” a 
rocket case ; above the line of contraction 
the plant was absolutely white ; below it was 
absolutely red. Not a trace of blending the 
two colors could be discovered. By similar 
experiments on either vegetables and plants, 
Dr. Maclean had so far assured himself of the 
perfect independence of scion and stock as 
to acquire the belief that neither the color¬ 
ing nor any specific characters of one or the 
other would or could be altered by their 
union. The result of the trial wholly con¬ 
firmed that view, and demonstrated that the 
White Beet adhered to the Red Beet by mere 
junction of cellular matter; that of the scion 
and stock holding together in the first in¬ 
stance, and each afterwards produced its 
own coloring matter in its own new cells as 
they formed superficially, the red cells ad¬ 
hering to the white cells while in the nas¬ 
cent state, but retaining each the peculiarity 
belonging to it, without any interchange of 
contents through the sides of the cells in 
contact. 
This is entirely consistent with all that has 
been discovered by the modern physiologists 
who have applied themselves to a study of 
the nature of the individual cells of which 
plants consist. They have clearly shown 
that each cell has its own special inherent of 
secretion; as indeed may be seen by any 
one who examines thin sections of varie¬ 
gated leaves or other parts. It will then be 
seen that some cells are filled with a red 
coloring matter, others with yellow, others 
with green. In other words, one cell has 
the power of secreting red matter, another 
yellow, and so on. The colors do not run 
together, but are contained each within the 
cell that produces it. Why this is so no one 
knows ; all that we are acquainted with is 
the fact that in the cells of the Red Beet re¬ 
sides a power of forming red matter, and in 
those of the White Silesian Beet that of 
forming yellow ; and this peculiarity is not 
effected by the one growing to the either. 
Red-forming cells produce their like and 
yellow-forming theirs. Thus the limit be¬ 
tween the scion and its stock is unmistak* 
