186 
[Jtote, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
should visit New-York without seeing the 
natural and architectural beauties of the Park. 
--—ii ra Q-p g' " * ^ — 
Pruning and Shaping Evergreens. 
Once it was thought that evergreens must not 
be pruned at all; they would become diseased, 
or bleed to death. But at length it was noticed 
that when accident pruned tligm, they general¬ 
ly endured the operation, and were often im¬ 
proved by it. And so, in one way and another, 
we have learned that conifers may be cut and 
shaped as well as any other trees. 
Ill transplanting an evergreen, if the roots 
have been mutilated .in taking them up, we do 
not hesitate to prune the branches, just like 
those of deciduous trees. If large branches 
need taking off, apply shellac varnish to the 
wounds. Sometimes a conifer loses a side 
branch. It is harder to fill up such'«e, gap than 
it would be in a deciduous tree. But by draw¬ 
ing the adjacent limbs around and h’ing them 
together over the gap, they will sooii conceal it. 
Sometimes a tree, like the Norway Spruce and 
Silver Fir, loses its leader. If let alone, per¬ 
haps two or three new leaders will start out, 
but by cutting back all save one, this will soon 
shoot up straight, and in a few years the whole 
tree will be denser and more symmetrical than 
before the injury. Indeed, some of our most 
skillful nurserymen now practice taking out the 
leaders of their Norways several times during 
their growth, in order to make them bushy and 
richly feathered to the ground. If any ever¬ 
green inclines to grow spindling and meagre, it 
should be cut back again and again until it 
comes to its senses, and grows as it ought. 
It is surprising to how small a space an ever¬ 
green can be confined by pruning. We have 
seen the lordly pine, which naturally aspires to 
the hight of a hundred feet, kept down for half 
a life time below six feet. The training was be¬ 
gun when it was only a foot high, and by two 
annual prunings it was wrought into a globe of 
wavy foliage, shaped like a small hay-cock, and 
looked bright and silvery, and as contented as a 
Lilac bush near by. The Norway, the native 
Black Spruce, and the Balsam Fir may be 
trained in the same way, or cut into pyramids, 
or other shapes. Much more tractable still are 
the various Arbor Vita3S, and the Hemlock. The 
Junipers require less pruning than any other 
evergreen, but even they are improved by a lit¬ 
tle shearing when growing in clay soils. 
Evergreen hedges should be pruned like other 
hedges when growing. But when they have 
attained their destined hight, the main pruning 
should be given in early summer, just after the 
first growth has been made. This treatment 
allows a slight after-growth in the summer, and 
the plants are kept in good condition. When a 
hedge loses much of its inner foliage, it is well, 
for a few years, to cut directly into the plants, 
taking out every alternate branch, making in¬ 
deed the surface more ragged for a while, but 
giving the hedge finally new vigor and beauty. 
Zinc Thee Lahels. —We have already pub¬ 
lished one formula for ink for writing upon zinc 
labels, and now give the method communicated 
by “ilorlicola” to the Gardener’s Monthly. 
It is very simple, and worthy of trial. Sheet 
zinc is cut into strips of convenient size, and 
the pieces wcoured with fine sand and water, or 
a mixture of one part of muriatic acid and three 
of water. When made bright, the pieces are 
put into rain water, and left there until wanted. 
The writing is done with a solution of one part 
of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) in ten parts 
of water, the liquid being applied with a quill 
pen. When the writing is diy, the label may 
be fastened to the tree. For this purpose, the 
writer prefers strings of leather to any others. 
After a few days, the writing will be found to 
be covered by a white powder, which is to be 
removed by the moistened finger, and the 
letters will appear indelibly fixed. 
Shading and Mulching. 
In our climate, the gardener has not only to 
contend with the severity of winter, but with 
the intense heat of summer, and is obliged to 
protect his plants against the injurious effects of 
both extremes. Recently set plants often re¬ 
quire shading, as do some established ones, and 
many seedlings. Not only does the foliage 
suffer from the effects of the heat, but the roots 
are also deprived of their proper moisture by 
the drying out of the surface soil to an extent 
that renders it necessary to protect them by 
some sort of covering placed upon the earth 
over the roots—an operation which is called 
rmdcldng. These things are so obvious, and 
the methods of shading and mulching so simple, 
that those who have had only little experience 
in cultivating do not need to be told of their 
necessity, nor how to do them. It is not for 
such that this article is written, but for the 
hundreds who will try their hand at gardening 
for the first time in their lives. Indeed, we have 
seen in the gardens of those who make some 
pretentions to skill, plants languishing after re¬ 
moval, which a newspaper shade would have 
made happy, and trees and shrubs struggling to 
survive the month of August, which a few fork¬ 
fuls of otherwise useless rubbish would have 
wonderfully helped. Some plants stand re¬ 
moval without injury, while others have to be 
handled with great care, and to be nursed for 
some time after the operation to enable them to 
survive it. One of the commonest ways of 
shading small plants in the garden, is to turn 
empty flower-pots over them. A large leaf, or 
a handful of recently cut grass, are frequently 
used, but these soon wilt and fall down upon 
the plant, and are not as efficient nor much 
more readily obtainable than paper. Old news¬ 
papers, torn into pieces of convenient size, 
arched over the plant, and the edges held in 
place by covering them with earth, make very 
efficient shades. Shingles are very handy for 
the purpose, and plants in rows may be shelter¬ 
ed by means of boards. If the plant is quite 
large, it may be protected by a sort of extem¬ 
pore umbrella of paper. Take a stick of con¬ 
venient length, and a sufficiently large piece of 
newspaper; place the center of the paper over 
one end of the. stick, and tie it down, an inch or 
two over the end of the stick, the paper cap¬ 
ping the end of the stick in the same manner 
that a paper or leather cap is put over the cork 
of a bottle by an apothecary. This secures the 
paper to the stick, and leaves a broad, free 
margin, which may be spread out all around 
like an umbrella, or sun-shade, and the folds, or 
gathers, made by tying in this way, will give it 
stiffness to retain its position. The operation is 
a very simple one, though not so easy to describe 
without an illustration. The sun-shade thus 
prepared, is fixed where it is needed, by thrust¬ 
ing the lower end of the handle into the ground. 
Potted plants from the house, or green-house, 
especially the broad-leaved evergreens, like 
Camellias, must be placed where they will be 
shaded during the heat of the day. If no pro¬ 
per place is available, a lath work must be built 
to cover them. This is made of strips of slats, 
one or two inches wide, with spaces between 
them as wide as the slats. Plants placed under 
this are not exposed to the full heat of the 
sun, yet have plenty of light and air. Similar 
screens are useful to protect plants which grow 
naturally in shady woods, or other cool lo¬ 
calities, and to cover seed beds of evergreen 
and other trees. Many of the trees which are 
hardiest when old, cannot be raised from the 
seed unless the young plants are sheltered, and 
much of the failure in raising tree seedlings 
comes from a neglect of this. Twigs of ever¬ 
greens, or even of deciduous trees, with the 
leaves on, if stuck quite thickly over the seed 
bed, will give the 3 ’’oung trees the needed shad¬ 
ing. The other method of protection, mulch¬ 
ing, is still more simple. It consists merely in 
covering the soil over the roots, and may be 
done with litter of any kind. Damaged hay, 
straw, bog or salt hay, chips, sawdust, tan, 
freshly cut grass, or any similar thing, will 
answer. In mulching strawberry plants, straw 
is generally employed, but corn stalks, laid 
lengthwise of the rows, will serve a very good 
purpose. Those who have never tried it have 
no idea of the great benefit of some such simple 
protection not only to newly set trees and 
other plants, but to those which suffer from 
drouth. One of the best pear-growers near this 
city, attributes much of his success to the thor¬ 
ough mulching of his trees. The mulch will 
do but little good if put in a little heap around 
the trunk of the tree—as people often do, and 
then say that the mulching is of no use. It 
should be spread with a liberal hand over, and 
even beyond, the space occupied by the roots. 
Notes on Cabbage Culture. 
The transplanting of cabbages for the main 
crop will begin towards the latter part of the pres¬ 
ent mouth, and continue into the next. For suc¬ 
cessful culture, it is best to select ground which 
has not before been used for this crop, or which 
has not had cabbages grown upon it for three 
or four years. Liberal manuring and deep 
plowing are required. In an article in April, it 
was stated that hog manure answered well 
for this crop. This is against the generally ac¬ 
cepted practice, and was given as a bit of our 
own experience. We should have added that 
the manure was much diluted, by allowing the 
hogs to compost it with an abundance of muck, 
which was thrown into their pens for the pur¬ 
pose. We have never made use of concentrated 
hog manure, and there may be a reason for 
attributing the “club foot” to its use in this 
form. We have before us two communications 
upon cabbage culture, the writers of which re¬ 
late precisely opposite results from the use of 
hog manure. Mr. J. W. Wilson, of Kankakee 
Co., Ill., informs us of complete success in rais¬ 
ing fine cabbages, in a yard which had been 
used as a hog yard for several years; while a 
lady, in Belleville, N. J., writes that she has 
tried hog manure for two years, and has not 
been able to raise a single head, while the same 
lot of plants, on the same soil, dressed with 
stable manure, gave a good crop.—The distances 
at which the plants are to be set will depend 
upon the variety of cabbage. For the ordinary 
sorts, rows two feet apart, with the plants at 
18 or 20 inches, in the row, will answer, while 
for the very large kinds, such as Stone-mason, 
and Marblehead Drumhead, from to 4 feet 
is recommended. If a large number of plants 
