340 
TO RENOVATE PEAR TREES. 
the cultivation of the grape, in not trying it in 
different kinds of soil, and in different expo¬ 
sures. It is well known that wine, produced from 
grapes grown on one’ side of a hill is worth 
five or ten times the price of that grown on the 
opposite side, although the grapes are of the 
same variety and are subject to the same culti¬ 
vation. But rocky hills, such as produce the 
finest kinds of European wines, we pass over as 
too sterile entirely to grow grapes, and al¬ 
most invariably plant them on our richest 
soils. This may be very proper for table 
grapes, but it is certainly the reverse of what 
is desirable for wine grapes. 
Are there none now among the many wealthy 
and intelligent persons settled on the banks of 
the Hudson, who will undertake the cultivation 
of wine grapes? We know very well that it 
will require years of experiments, in the first 
place to produce the right kind of seedlings; 
and after that, many years more to give the wine 
made from their fruit an opportunity to per¬ 
fect itself. But reflect for one moment upon 
the great benefit that we should derive, as a na¬ 
tion, if we succeeded in the enterprise. It is 
well worthy the attention of the horticultural 
societies, but it would be still more desirable if 
an association of gentlemen on the Hudson 
could be formed, with sufficient capital and per¬ 
severance to devote at least twenty years’ effort 
tO'accomplish so valuable a purpose. 
TO RENOVATE PEAR TREES. 
Where pears are stunted in their growth, the 
bark thick and partially dead, I would recom¬ 
mend the following method:—Scrape the outer 
bark well; take off all the moss and dead bark 
into the green or living bark, and wash the 
trunk with potash, dissolved in water, united 
with soft soap in equal quantities. 
Then dig the earth away from the roots, say 
three or four inches, and scatter around the 
space thus dug one or two shovelfuls of ma¬ 
nure from the hen house, according to the size 
of the tree. Throw back the earth, mixing it 
at the same time with the manure; repeat the 
operation every spring, and if anything will 
cause them to grow, this will. I have found it 
far superior to any other manure that I have 
tried. A few barrowfuls of fresh stable ma¬ 
nure, thrown into the hen roost, according to 
the quantity of fowls, will make an excellent 
manure, when rotted, for this or any other pur¬ 
pose. I. 
Weslbury, L. I., Sept. 1850. 
CERTAIN CURE FOR FOOT AIL IN SHEEP. 
The following receipt was handed to me by 
Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, of England. I tried it 
successfully myself, and feel confident in recom¬ 
mending it to others as an effectual cure for this 
troublesome disease. 
Take of quicksilver, one ounce , aquafortis, 
(nitric acid,) two ounces, and put them together 
in a glass bottle; place it in the sun, or in a 
warm place, with the cork out, till dissolved, 
when it is ready for use ; cut the hoof away, as 
far as the foot is diseased; dip a feather in the 
mixture, and be careful to annoint the diseased 
part all over. After this, keep the sheep in a 
dry place for eight or ten hours. They seldom 
require more than one dressing, if properly 
done. It will be necessary, also, to wet the feet 
of the sheep not diseased, with turpentine, to 
prevent it spreading further amongst the flock. 
Hugh Eaton. 
Union Farm , Hunterdon , Co., N. J., Sept., 1850. 
VILLAG-E LECTURES.—No. 1. 
We insert from the London Agricultural Ga¬ 
zette, the following and succeeding lectures on 
Scientific and Practical Agriculture, which, 
from the simplicity of the language in which 
they are expressed, and their general utility to 
the farmer, we trust will be acceptable to 
a large proportion of our readers :— 
The Soil and the Air .—The soil and the air, 
in connexion with agriculture, have no im¬ 
mediate bearing upon their daily pursuits; 
and whether the influences which thus af¬ 
fect the practice of the farmers be capa¬ 
ble of satisfactory explanation or not, the prac¬ 
tice and profit of their own individual occupa¬ 
tions will remain precisely as they hitherto have 
been—undisturbed by those particular truths 
which our subject includes. This subject, how¬ 
ever, I am persuaded, is not the less appropriate 
on that account for general consideration. It is 
one of general interest, not only because the 
air we all breathe and the soil we all tread can¬ 
not, but in some measure, affect us all alike, but 
because the usefulness of knowledge of this, as 
on every other subject, is not measurable by 
the pounds-shillings-and-pence scale, which 
would confine it to those cases exclusively 
where a money result depends upon the pos¬ 
session of it. There is a usefulness besides 
that which immediate profit measures; and 
though the agriculturist should not, and others 
could not, earn the more because they know the 
more of the air and the soil in connection with 
the art of cultivation, yet such knowledge is 
beneficial to all as an addition to mental if not 
to material wealth—as food for the mind, which, 
like the body, can live only by appropriate nour¬ 
ishment—as matter for pleasureable thought, 
from which, as from all other topics, we may 
usefully draw the unfailing inference regarding 
the wisdom, skill and power, and goodness 
which creation everywhere exhibits. 
But if the soil and the air, in connection with 
agriculture, may reasonably claim the attention 
of all, it seems to force itself upon that of the 
farmer, and it is in that aspect of the subject, 
almost exclusively, in which it appears to him, 
that I have now to ask your attention. It cer¬ 
tainly must have sometimes occurred to those 
who cultivate the ground and superintend the 
growth of crops, to ask where these crops all 
come from. Ho you think that they come 
out of the land—from the soil on which they 
grow ? Let us just consider this question in de¬ 
tail. Take the case of a forest of trees. Did 
all that wood come out of the soil ? Suppose a 
j man to plant an acorn in a piece of clay land 
1 and watch its growth. He sees the shoot and 
