85 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
borders on each side, four or five fioet in width, 
and may be planted with dwarf-trees, currant- 
bushes, and the like. Grapes may be grown on 
one or more of these borders, if trained on poles 
m the vineyard-style, and set where they will 
cast their shadows principally on the walks. 
These main walks should be covered with fine 
gravel, to make them dry and pleasant to the foot 
at all seasons. In the lack ol gravel, tan-bark 
may be used. 
The rest of the ground may be laid off in 
patches for early potatoes, peas, cucumbers, 
melons, etc, and into beds for beets, onions, 
strawberries, parsnips, vegetable oysters and so 
forth. Of course, the whole ground should be 
thoroughly trenched and manured, and then kept 
free from weeds ; but of these things we need 
not now speak. 
- .--» -- 
Fumigating Apparatus. 
The figure below is from a sketch sent 
us by John Richardson, of Portland, Me., which 
he thus describes : A, is a lower dish for holding 
the lamp, C. Over this is placed B, an upper dish 
or reservoir, in the bottom of which is the tobac¬ 
co, sulphur, or other fumigating material. F , is 
a closely fitting movable cover. In the top of 
this is a small tube, E, upon which is attached the 
flexible India-rubber tubing D, made of any de¬ 
sired length. The coupling tube, E, may be a 
simple short tin pipe, and the rubber stretched 
over it; or it may be made with a screw coup¬ 
ling. The upper end of the pipe D. may be car¬ 
ried by hand or on a pole to any part of a plant, 
or room, directly to worms’ nests in trees, etc. 
We give this only as suggestive, for as here 
arranged and described, it is defective. Thus, if 
the bottom of B be closed, no air can circulate 
upward to carry up the fum s. A portion of the 
bottom directly over the lamp might he made of 
wire-cloth or wire-gauze, which would answer for 
tobacco, hut not. for sulphur, for that, would melt 
and run through upon the lamp, and also soon de¬ 
stroy the wire. For holding sulphur a tin cup might 
be set upon the wire-gauze. To ignite the sulphur, 
and also to produce a freer upward current, a 
pretty strong flame would be required. The wire 
bottom would also need to be made large enough 
to admit fresh air, for that rising immediately 
from the lamp would be too much de-oxidized to 
ignite the sulphur readily. 
With these modifications, and perhaps others, 
this apparatus may be made both useful and con¬ 
venient, as it can be readily carried about by 
hand. Something of the kind is needed to aid 
the horticulturist in his warfare against the appa¬ 
rently insignificant little creatures, that not only 
continually annoy him, but often, almost before 
they can be perceived, blast the fruits of month’s 
of careful pains-taking. 
The Bread Fruit Tree. ( Artocarpus Inte- 
gnfolia.) 
The engraving here presented is suggestive of 
very paradise for those peculiar people who 
think work is a punishment, or to use plain Eng¬ 
lish, lazy folks. To have the plowing and sow¬ 
ing, cultivating and harvesting, grinding, and 
moreover the mixing and baking, already done to 
hand, and the fine large loaves of bread hanging 
temptingly from trees, whose dense foliage sup¬ 
plies all needed shelter, must be glorious indeed. 
Though the bread fruit tree may not quite equal a 
modern bakery, in the quality of its products, (we 
hope it exceeds some, bake shops), it. does supply 
a wholesome and rather palatable article of food, 
and furnishes the natives of some of the South Sea 
islands with a good part of their support. It is 
said that three trees will furnish fruit enough to 
sustain a man eight months. 
The fruit, which usually grows somewhat larger 
than a man’s head is picked while green. In this 
state it contains a mealy, snow-white pulp, which 
is wrapped in leaves by the natives and baked on 
hot stones and when thus treated, its taste is like 
that of wheat bread, slighly sweetened. When 
ripened it has a rather disagreeable flavor, re¬ 
sembling turpentine, although it is eaten freely | 
by the inhabitants. The engraving above is from 
a photograph taken by Mr. Phillips in the island 
of Madagascar. The size of the fruit may be seen 
by comparison with the head of the native, who 
was purposely stationed by the tree while taking 
the photograph. This specimen is of a new spe¬ 
cies, much larger than the common bread fruit, 
the product being nearly double the size of any 
other kind known. It may be a seedling intro¬ 
duced into Madagascar from some distant island, 
as the natives say the tree was unknown to their 
forefathers. 
- - —>«•—-- •--- 
The Soda-in-Bread Question. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Having noticed in the Oct. No. of the American 
Agriculturist an article headed “ An inquiry about 
Bread,” signed by M. D., to which are appended 
some editorial remarks—also an article in the 
I Dec. No. by Wm. J. Flagg, I w'ish to add a few 
remarks to what has 
already been said. I 
do not take the oppo¬ 
site side of the ques¬ 
tion with the view of 
being classed by M. D 
among Editors, Lectur¬ 
ers, etc., but because I 
believe a very great 
error is committed by 
thus drugging our vic¬ 
tuals in order to force 
them into a condition 
which may, and I think 
ought to be obtained 
only by the natural 
panary fermentation — 
Granting all that has 
been claimed by the 
apologists of Soda 
Bread, “that in the 
union of bi-carbonate ol 
soda with the acid tar¬ 
trate of potash, an in¬ 
noxious (chemically 
innoxious) salt (ro- 
chelle) and the free 
carbonic acid are the 
only results, and, that they exercise no control 
over the functional action of the organs by vir¬ 
tue of their chemical relations to the system- 
granting ail this—does it follow that such sub¬ 
stances as are chemically innoxious may be in¬ 
troduced into the system with impunity 1 They 
can not be assimilated into any tissue ; and does 
not simply the mechanical presence of such sub¬ 
stances unduly load the circulating fluid with an 
amount of useless matter, severely taxing the 
emunctories of the system in their elimination ’ 
The specific gravity of the blood is increased 
beyond its normal healthy standard. It be¬ 
comes more sluggish in its movements in pro¬ 
portion as it is loaded with extraneous matter 
and greater duties are imposed on tie various or¬ 
gans. But, aside from the mechanical effects 
which this double salt produces on the system, it 
is a purgative—mild it is true—and its use can 
not be kept up in the system (even in small doses) 
without inducing a torpid condition of the bowels. 
Every Physician knows that the continued use 
(even in very small quantities) of cathartics as 
well as stimulants and opiates so overcomes the 
natural sensibility of the organs upon which they 
exert their specific influence, that in time, they fail 
to respond to their appropriate stimuli. Now' the 
natural stimuli of the alimentary canal are the 
residual elements of our food, and the secretions 
of the liver and pancreas. When in addi¬ 
tion, we are constantly adding an agent whose 
tendency is to stimulate unnaturally, the sensi¬ 
bility of the organs passes gradually from under 
the influence of its natural and appropriate stimu¬ 
li to that of the unnatural agent. The reason as 
the Editor justly says that the gustatory and olfac¬ 
tory senses are no longer good evidence in the 
present case, is because the natural caste and smell 
has been benumbed or overcome by the use of con¬ 
diments and other accompaniments of civilized 
life. So with the natural peristaltic action of the 
bowels ; when for a long time subjected to the in¬ 
fluence of any unnatural stimulus ; they become 
more or less insensible to the action of the resi¬ 
duum of the food, and the secretions of the liver. 
So far we have treated the subject as if in the 
use of Soda and tartaric acid, there were ahvays 
just those nice proportions of the acid and alkali 
as will exactly neutralize each other. Now this 
might be the ease, provided every housewife was 
