226 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
always procured their grain from the Baunat, a 
district fertile in grain crops, with which the 
inhabitants raise cattle, as their cultivation re¬ 
quires no manure. 
The Servians might gain much from the good 
example of German agriculturists who would 
settle in the Bannat, but they have not allowed 
any of them to remain among them. A colony 
of German laborers having left the suburbs of 
Odessa, which they did not find quite to their 
taste, attempted to make a settlement in Servia, 
bringing with them their carts and cattle; but 
the Servians displayed so much malevolence 
towards them, that they were obliged soon to 
proceed farther. Other attempts of a similar 
kind have been equally unsuccessful. “In the 
country where I live,” said the traveller, “ you 
must be able to speak five tongues.” In the 
outskirts the mass of the population are Illyri¬ 
ans. 
The city of Pesth is grand, and well built. 
Its most magnificent structure is the suspension 
bridge, which connects it with Buda. 
I made an excursion to Waitzen, a small 
town on the Danube, about thirty miles below 
Pesth. The railroad which should reach from 
Pesth to Vienna, terminates now at Waitzen. 
It also extends from Vienna to Presburg, and 
was to be completed this year. The plains be¬ 
tween Pesth and Waitzen are covered with a 
number of hillocks of sand, like the heaps on 
the sea shore. Numerous herds of long-horned 
Hungarian cows roam over them, and find but 
a scanty subsistance, so much does the natural 
sterility of the soil and the dryness of the sea¬ 
son retard the vegetation of grass. Near the 
first station, called Palotta, Count Caroly has 
erected a chateau. The promenades and woods 
of Palotta are the resort of the pleasure parties 
of Pesth. At a short distance may be seen 
heights, planted with poplar and other white- 
wooded trees, which seem to grow with much 
difficulty. The crops at first scanty, become 
better, the quality of the soil improving, as wc 
approach Waitzen. 
I saw some very good American plows at the 
residence of a Marshal, who informed me that 
he had been working for some time in Paris. 
He forges his mould-boards in thick plates, ap¬ 
plying them to a model while hot; but in my 
opinion the Ilohenheim plow is a much better 
implement. 
From Pesth I proceeded to Szolnock, a town, 
or rather a large village, for the houses, without 
exception, are but one story high, and are plas¬ 
tered on the outside. The wide and spacious 
streets are as yet neither paved nor AfcAclam- 
ized. The dust is intolerable, and during rainy 
weather it is difficult to move a step. Fortu¬ 
nately a foot-walk, formed of two planks, is laid 
along the principal streets. 
The railroad which starts from Pesth, has 
only been completed to Szolnock. .The part fin¬ 
ished is ninety-four kilometres. (A Kilometre 
is five-eighths of a mile.) 
There i9 in the immediate vicinity of Pesth, 
along this railroad, very good land, the surface 
soil of which is two feet deep, and rests on a 
calcareous subsoil. Fertile sandy soil is also 
met with when it is not thrown up in hillocks, 
■which are sterile on account of their dryness. 
The villages which occur on these sandy tracts 
are far apart, and contain from twelve to four¬ 
teen thousand persons. The inhabitants of 
these villages, cultivate lands situated in some 
cases nine or twelve miles from their dwelling. 
When this occurs, they put up a little house 
with miserable stables, around which they raise 
hay and straw mows. 
Half way from Szolnock to Pesth, flat as the 
country is, there are vineyards, among which 
fruit trees also grow. Women at each station 
offer fruit for sale to the travellers, chiefly ex¬ 
cellent raisins, of which three fine bunches may 
be obtained for a penny. When we approach 
Szolnock the soil improves. 
Near Szolnock, the left bank of the "Theiss 
being very high, is not, like the right, flooded 
every time the river rises. The soil is a very 
thick bed of clayey black earth, which contains 
some calcareous matter, the hardest clods of 
which fall into dust after coming in contact with 
rain. These fields yield, without manure, splen¬ 
did crops of maize, cereals, and tobacco. They 
use mud here to construct fence walls. Having 
remarked that when I addressed Hungarians in 
the German language, they replied drily by yes, 
or no, I took the opportunity, when in company 
with educated individuals, to speak French to 
them ; in such cases I found them invariably 
ready to oblige me or be agreeable. 
Arriving at Szolnock Sunday afternoon, I saw 
the inhabitants dressed up and walking out, or 
sitting at their doors. I was not a little sur¬ 
prised to see the young girls and women wear¬ 
ing hussar boots of red morocco, and sheepskin 
habits, decorated or embroidered round the 
edges with strips of morocco of various colors. 
The men, under a high temperature, were cov¬ 
ered with sheep-skin cloaks, with the wool in¬ 
side, and descending to the feet. The fashions 
here have not changed ; I found them now as 
they were in Hungary when I lived there in my 
infancy, fifty years ago. 
Returning from Szolnock, I stopped at Alb- 
Irso, where I hired a small carriage, such as are 
used in the country, drawn by two very good 
horses, and driven by a young peasant who did 
not know a word of German. He conducted 
me to an estate of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 
father of the Duchess of Nemours, and father- 
in-law to the Princess Clementine of Orleans. 
This property, one of the twelve large tracts 
which the duke owns in Hungary, has been vis¬ 
ited I am informed, by these persons, and is 
often inspected by the duke himself. I arrived, 
after a drive of an hour and a quarter, at the 
farm-house occupied by the Ilofrichter, as the 
manager of the estate is called. It is about 
22,000 acres in extent, some two-thirds of 
which is a fertile, sandy soil, such as we meet 
with in all the low grounds of this country. 
These sands become barren wherever the 
ground is elevated, or indeed where any irregu¬ 
larity of surface occurs. This sterility is caused 
by the surface-soil being too far from the influ¬ 
ence of the moisture of the subsoil. 
The manager was absent from home with his 
family. The steward, a Hungarian, who has 
been employed for twelve years on this estate, 
appeared to me to be well chosen. I drove 
over the estate with him in an open carriage 
during the entire day. The woods, which com¬ 
prise at least 2500 acres, contain an immense 
number of old majestic oaks. Where these 
trees are found growing on a deep soil, they are 
magnificent indeed. They decline in beauty as 
tho ground becomes elevated. On the upper 
portions of some of the hills they are no better 
than mere brushwood. The Ailanthus is the 
forest tree best calculated to resist b e burning 
nature of the elevated portions of the soil of 
this canton. 
MANAGEMENT OF CIDER APPLE TREES. 
(Continued from page 131.) 
Insects which attach Apple trees. —We will 
not speak here of caterpillars, the way of des¬ 
troying which (collecting and burning their 
eggs, which are glued in rings upon the shoots,) 
is well known. The Apple has two more for¬ 
midable enemies, one of which, the Aphis lan- 
igera, or American blight, affects to live exclu¬ 
sively on it. The fecundity of the Aphis lanigera 
is amazing, and the cottony floes with which it 
is surrounded allow of its being carried to a 
distance by the wind, and so it infests a great 
many trees in a very short time. This insect 
pricks the bark to suck the sap, and as more of 
it is drawn than the insect can suck in, numer¬ 
ous little knobs, sometimes as big as a walnut, 
are formed. It prefers placing itself on the un¬ 
der sides of shoots and branches, on the wounds 
resulting from these being removed, and also in 
cracks in the stem. It may be destroyed by 
the application of alkaline leys, and by fatty 
matters, such as oils of any sort, which suffocate 
the insect immediately; but it is dangerous to 
apply oil to the green leaves and young shoots, 
because it destroys them also. But these modes, 
and some others of a like nature, can only be 
employed in the nursery and garden. They 
would be impracticable in the case of large 
trees in orchards and fields. The following is a 
remedy which, if its virtue were established, 
would be of the greatest importance. We have 
not yet had time to try it, but we give it accord¬ 
ing to a statement made in an elementary trea¬ 
tise on pruning and training fruit trees, pub¬ 
lished at Bordeaux, in 1846, by M. Ramey. M. 
Ramey says, that soot preserves Apple trees 
from the Aphis lanigera, and he recommends its 
application in the following ways : For young 
trees about to be planted, the roots should be 
steeped for three or four days in a decoction of 
soot; or a shovelful of soot is thrown on the 
roots before they are covered with the earth. In 
the case of trees that have been planted some 
time, the extremities of the roots must be un¬ 
covered, and the soot laid within reach of their 
spongioles. M. Ramey states that Apple trees 
thus treated have been ten years free from the 
Aphis. Another insect, a little coleopterous 
one, prefers to attack old varieties; it is unfor¬ 
tunately alike impossible either to prevent or 
repair its ravages. It is to this that we should 
ascribe the loss of the trees of the Reinette 
grise, (an excellent table Apple,) of the Peaux 
de Yache, and of some other kinds, and not to 
the American blight, as has been erroneously 
asserted. This insect deposits its eggs under 
the bark at the base of young shoots. When 
the eggs hatch, a brood of very small worms 
come out, which gnaw under the bark, and, in 
consequence, the whole of the shoot that is 
above their place of operation appears in the 
following spring as dead wood. By taking off 
the bark at the base of these dried up shoots, 
the erosions made by the worms are easily per¬ 
ceived. 
Parasitical Plants. —Only one really para¬ 
sitical plant lives on the Apple tree. This is the 
Misletoe, Yiscum album, a little dioeceous shrub, 
which grows on the Apple, Virginian Poplar, 
Sorbus, Hawthorn, &c.; it is a little, green, round 
bush, the female of which produces white ber¬ 
ries as large as a pea, having a viscid pulp, and 
each containing a seed. The blackbirds and 
thrushes are fond of the berries, the seeds of 
which they sow. The Misletoe lives on the sap 
of the Apple tree, and when present in great 
quantities it renders the trees sickly and bar¬ 
ren ; and it often eventually causes their death. 
It is, therefore, very important to destroy all 
the Mistletoe we can see on the trees by cutting 
or breaking it off as close to the infested branch 
