1866.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST- 
287 
esting question, and one which, we hope, our 
grape-growers will settle, using very dry and 
sifted clay or road-dust, in comparison with sul¬ 
phur, and report the results. 
Notes on Strawberries. 
A hard winter, and a cold spring with late 
frosts and cold cutting winds, have made the 
strawberry crop as a whole, a failure. Here and 
there a field hasyielded well, but these areexcep- 
tions. We attended the recent Pittsburg meet¬ 
ing of the Penn. Fruit Growers’ Society, w’here, 
besides Pennsylvanians, there were gentlemen 
present from New Jersey, New’-York, Ohio, In¬ 
diana, Illinois, and Missouri, all of wiiom told 
the same stoiy, and variously estimated the 
present year’s crop, at i to the usual amount. 
In the extensive grounds of Mr. Knox, the crop 
will not exceed i of that of former years. 
With regard to varieties, we are no nearer 
any definite result than before; and it is not 
possible to say, what one, or wiiat dozen vari¬ 
eties are best for all soils and localities. The 
difficulty in making up select lists of fruits 
wiiich shall answer for a wide range of country, 
becomes manifest when we bring together the 
experiences of cultivators in w idely separated 
localities, not only in our own country, but 
abroad. An instance of this is found in the list 
of 25 strawberries, recommended last year by 
the Imperial Horticultural Society of France. 
Ever since the appearance of the list, the jour¬ 
nals of that country have been full of criticisms, 
so severe that one is almost induced to believe 
that the Society had proposed the twenty-fiv'e 
worst instead of the twenty-five best varieties. 
Wilson’s Albany is the variety more generally 
cultivated than any, perhaps than all others; 
yet, in some place's, it is perfectly worthless and 
quite given up. The “Agriculturist,” in Southern 
New' Jersey, is likely to be the leading variety. 
Indeed, the only really good crop of strawber¬ 
ries we have seen in quite extended tours, was j 
of this variety, in the grounds of Mr. William j 
Parry, of Cinnaminson. Its yield there is j 
something so remarkable, that he and his neigh¬ 
bors speak?)! it in terms of the greatest enthusi¬ 
asm, and will plant very largel}' of it; and we 
have similar reports from some other localities. 
Yet this same variety', in the grounds of Mr. 
Knox, near Pittsburgh, has a very poor show of 
fruit. These facts demonstrate the value of local 
experience. The strawberry is so easily multi¬ 
plied, comes in fruit so soon, and the varieties 
are so numerous, that it is an easy' matter for 
each large grower, or for each local society, to j 
soon find out, by actual test, what kinds are 
best suited to their conditions of soil, etc. 
In the methods of cultivation, w'e also find 
diversities of opinion. In some parts of Illi¬ 
nois, the plants are set and allowed to cover the 
ground; they get very little attention, and when 
they cease to yield, they are plowed under. In 
Southern New Jersey the plants are allowed to 
cover beds three and a half or four feet wide, 
with two feet alleys betw'een—the bed receiving 
in early winter a dressing of fine stable manure, 
but no mulching of straw. These beds bear 
one and two years. In hill, or stool culture, 
as extensively' practised by Mr. Knox, the 
plants are set 18 inches apart, in row's 18 inches 
from each other. In autumn the ground is 
well mulched with straw, and the plants lightly 
covered. In spring the straw is opened directly 
over the plant, but is not removed. As the run¬ 
ners appear, they are pinched off; or, if allow¬ 
ed to get too strong for pinching, they are cut 
with a knife. The w'eeds that appear near the 
plants are pulled by hand, and those that come 
up through the straw' betw'een the row's, are re¬ 
moved by the hoe. But few weeds make their 
way up through a heavy mulch, and these are 
destroyed very easily. The hills keep in bear¬ 
ing three or four years, and the mulch is kept 
on all the time, replacing each year the annual 
waste from decay', w'hich amounts to a fourth or 
a third of the original quantity. That this care¬ 
ful culture with many varieties, especially those 
of European origin, will give better results than 
allowing the plants to run, there is no doubt; 
but, that it is the best for all kinds, we are by 
no means certain. Wc have now'here seen the 
Agriculturist producing as w'ell when kept in 
stools, as where it is allowed to cover the ground 
with its vines, and, we may say', with its fruit. 
Unusual Ways of Fruit. 
We are so accustomed to see flowers depart 
from their natural form, that the deviation does 
not strike us as anything remarkable. Indeed 
our most beautiful double 
flowers are as far from the 
natural condition of things 
as possible. A monstrous 
fruit is more rare than a 
monstrous flower, and w'e 
sometimes meet with cases 
in which the departures 
from the usual w'ay are 
curious and interesting. A 
straw'berry was sent us 
by a correspondent, which 
bears upon its upper end, 
or the one farthest from 
the calyx, a tuft of leaves. We do not recollect to 
have ever before seen a similar instance, yet it is 
just what w'c might expect would occasionally 
occur. Though we call a strawberry a fruit in 
common language, it is 
not so in the strict sense 
of the word. The fruit 
proper is those little 
grains that W'e usually 
call seeds. These are 
minute one-seeded nuts 
distributed all over or 
sunken into the surface 
of the enlarged and 
fleshy end of the flower- 
stalk or stem. As the 
strawberry then is a bit 
of stem, very much 
changed from the way 
in which we usually see stems, and made to 
serve a certain office, it is not so very strange 
that it should sometimes sport, and that its 
real nature should manifest itself by bearing 
leaves as in the case before us. Another sport, 
perhaps not so striking, but to us still more cu¬ 
rious, is the double cherry, fig. 2, one of some 
dozens brought us by Mr. Thompson, of West 
Farms. It is the usual way of the cherry to 
have a single pistil which ripens into a single 
fruit. It is not unusual for cherry flowers to 
become double, by an increase in the number 
of petals, but when they do this the pistil be¬ 
comes abortive. In the present instance, as near 
as can be judged from examining the fruit, and 
without seeing the blossoms, it would appear 
that two pistils were produced in the place usu¬ 
ally occupied by one. Sports like these are not 
only curious, but they are of great interest to 
the botanist, as they often give him an insight 
into the real nature of parts. 
Fig. i. 
Urine as a Liquid Manure. 
A writer, in the Gardener’s Chronicle, (Eng.,) 
finds urine a most valuable fertilizer, when used 
in the following manner: — Human urine, free 
from Other slops, is allowed to get quite stale, 
which in a moderate temperature it will do in 
about a week. In this condition it is strongly 
alkaline, and will turn red litmus paper blue. 
To the urine in this condition, sulphuric acid 
(oil of vitriol) is gradually added until it is 
slightly acid, which is known by its turning the 
blued litmus paper red again. The amount of 
acid required, is about two ounces to each gal¬ 
lon of urine. To neutralize any excess of acid, 
add about 2 ounces of ground chalk to the gallon. 
Of the liquid thus prepared, one pint, after stir¬ 
ring it thoroughly to diffuse the settlings, is di¬ 
luted with one or two gallons of water, the latter 
proportion being strong enough for most plants, 
and applied at once. This manure has been 
found very serviceable on grass plots in Eng¬ 
land, and may be applied wherever guano or 
other ammoniacal manure would be .admissable. 
The litmus paper is paper colored with an in¬ 
fusion of litmus. It is blue or red, according 
as it has been subjected to the action of an acid 
or an alkali. The paper, or the litmus itself, 
may be had of any good druggist. 
Stopping the Bleeding of Vines. 
Though too late for use this year, we give two 
methods recently proposed. A correspondent, 
“C.,” writes, that having to move an old vine, he 
cut it back and covered the wounds with copal 
varnish with success, and that he has since used 
the varnish when obliged to prune in spring, 
and finds it stops the bleeding, A writer in the 
London Journal of Horticulture, wipes the end 
of the vine dry, and covers it with a stiff paste 
of cement (hydraulic lime). The application is 
repeated two or three hours after the first one. 
and the bleeding effectually stopped. 
--^-4 < * -- 
The Introduction of the Verbena. 
The following notes in relation to the intro¬ 
duction of the Verbena into this country, are 
from Mr. Amory Edwards, of Elizabeth, N. J. 
It will interest the admirers of this now very 
common and popular plant to know some¬ 
thing of its early history. 
“ The Verbenas are natives of Buenos Ayres^ 
and were first noticed by John Tweedy, who 
was collecting plants for the Conservatories of 
the Earl of Derby, and a firm in London. 
In 1834 and 1835,1 frequently accompanied 
Mr. Tweedy, a Scotchman, and a hearty lover 
of flowers, who was then about sixty years of 
age, in excursions around Buenos Ayres, and as 
I was about sailing for New York, he gave me 
a plant of the Yerhena Tioeediana, [now called 
phlogiflom .— Ed.] (red) and a fragrant white one, 
together with some seed of the Scarlet Petunia. 
These plants I gave in Sept. 1835, to the late 
Thos. Hogg, who then had a garden near the 
House of Refuge, now Madison Scpiare, and he 
told me that they were the first Verbenas ever 
in this country, and the first Scarlet Petunia. 
A white Petunia had been received before. 
Grant Thorburn, in 1837, received a plant of 
Verbena Tweediana from London, where he told 
me that it cost him two guineas. 
Most of the stock now in the gardens in the 
United States is from these plants,originally there 
were but two colors of each—red and white.” 
