{COLTURSifiE 
^URAL 
EXCELSIOR 
NEW YORK CITY AND ROCHESTER, N. Y, 
SStS.IX) PER YEAR. 
Single No.. Eight Cents. 
II Pnrlt Row, New Yorlt, 
82 UulTnlo St.,vUochestor. 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, JUNE 12,1809 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18G9, by I). D. T. Moore, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.] 
just before they bloom, then I go again over 
them when the grapes are about as large as 
buck shot. 
I know this practice is not down in the 
vine growing books, or spoken of by writers 
on vine growing; but it is a good practice, 
and if any one doubts, let him try it, the cost 
is not great.— v. a. 
fruit farmers was intense. The trees were 
in full bloom, their masses of blossoms sadly 
attesting to the extent of the loss indicted. 
The most generous sympathy at once took 
active shape, While the local authorities 
and citizens at once entered upon measures 
to offer rewards for the arrest of the villains, 
creating a fund of $ 1.300 for that purpose, a 
large force of the most experienced orcliard- 
ists, with their assistants, went into a sani¬ 
tary commission effort to succor and save as 
far as could be. Some of the trees, it was 
seen instantly, were beyond help, but an 
investigation was made, and measures taken 
to rescue, if possible, from one thousand to 
twelve hundred of the trees by processes 
which, at this season of the brisk' flow of 
sap, needed to be speedy to be effectual. 
The whole region was laid under contribu¬ 
tion for rags and grafting wax. The graft¬ 
ing wax was heated in large kettles; women 
and children stripped and dipped the nigs, 
the tree surgeons tenderly dosed the gaps in 
the ragged and tom bark, ami bound the 
orifices closely with the bondages, after paint¬ 
ing the whole liberally with the hot wax to 
exclude the air and protect the repairs that 
must be left to nature, whether on the trunks 
of trees or tile limbs of men. It will be 
among the most interesting and important 
of all the problems of fruit, culture ever 
reached, the solution of this matter of Mar¬ 
tin Green's ravaged orchards, and fruit 
culturists in all sections of the country will 
await with eagerness the result of the field 
hospital operations among these Renton 
Harbor victims of one of the most remark¬ 
able and atrocious outrages it has ever been 
our province to record. The value of the 
trees thus visited could not be estimated 
at less Ilian $20,000. Up to the time of our 
advices, no direct clue has been gained to 
the perpetrators. 
rbcrnculture 
HONEY LOCUST. 
The Three TliorneU Acacia — Glcditscliia 
Triacnnthos. 
I notice several inquiries respecting the 
Three Thorned Acacia, or Honey Locust, 
as adapted to hedge purposes; and while 
you, Air. Editor, have stated your knowledge 
of its value, etc., let me add a record of 
many years’ practice and use of it. In 1845 
I first planted it as a road-side hedge; my 
plants were set eighteen inches apart in the 
row — a single row — and at the time cut 
down to about four inches above ground. 
The first season it was not pruned, but 
the spring following the planting the hedge 
was thinned back with a pair of hedge 
shears to about eight inches high and sixteen 
or twenty inches wide. In June of the same 
year it was again clipped, taking off about 
one half of what had then grown, and not 
again touched that year. The following 
four years the same general course was pur¬ 
sued, at the end of which 1 had a hedge 
nearly or quite four feet high and two feet 
broad at the base, through which neither 
pig nor boy could get. 
Two years after, the hedge passed out of 
my control, was neglected two or three years, 
threw up strong leaders, was then taken in 
hand by a man who favored plashing, and 
by him was duly half cut down, bent and 
plashed. It has since had rough care, but is 
to-day a perfect bander against any animal, 
and lias never tlu’own up a sucker or sprout 
of any kind. 
I have since planted hedges of the Honey 
Locust in various places, and, so far, all have 
proved equally as satisfactory as the one 
here recorded. The whole secret of having 
a good Houcy Locust hedge is, as you justly 
remark, “ to take care of it” from year to 
year. When the Honey Locust can be pur¬ 
chased as cheap as Osage Orange, I think I 
should prefer it; but both are good, and if 
we can by their means get clear of the un¬ 
sightliness and great expense of fences, it 
will be a great item In the appearance and 
value of our farms. Alger. 
OSAGE HEDGES 
In Rural of Alay 29, “ E. R. C.” states 
that the Osage Orange hedge is successfully 
cultivated in Delaware. Will he have the 
kindness to give (at as early a time as may 
be,) the mode of planting and cultivation in 
that country. 
Against the earnest protests of my neigh¬ 
bors and others, who have signally failed in 
raising hedge, I have embarked in the enter¬ 
prise, fully satisfied that I shall lie successful. 
My plan is as follows (If there is a better I 
will adopt it.) I sowed my seed in drills, 
two feet apart, in May, which are now 
coming up, scalding the seed, and letting 
them soak over night before drilling. I 11 
October I shall make a ditch two and a half 
feet deep, fill with manure and cover with 
the dirt excavated, which will make an ele¬ 
vation or ridge; at each side of this will be 
a surfuco ditch to carry off the surface 
water. 
Leaving this till the opening of spring, I 
transplant from my drills to the ridge pre¬ 
pared in the fall, for my future fence, setting 
plants four inches apart and cutting off one 
inch above ground. R. Boswobth. 
Winchester, Ind., 1809. 
SOLANUM MACRANTHUM. 
This is a magnificent Brazilian tree much 
sought after aud planted in Paris, where it 
is used for the adornment of isolated grass 
plats. It shoots up, in a single year, a 
growth of six to nine feet. The trunk is 
green, smooth and shiuiug. It has magnifi¬ 
cent pendant leaves, which a French publi¬ 
cation asserts grow to' a length of twenty- 
five to thirty inches in Paris. There are 
locations in this country where it would 
doubtless prove hardy and desirable. 
THE SOLANUM MACUANTUUM 
UPRIGHT vs. STAKED TREES 
— this statement being at once indicative of 
the extent of the noble orchard, and the 
bulk of the enormous knavery that sought 
this method of revenge. Evidently no single 
hand could have done the work, for it was 
thoroughly done, the bark of tree after tree 
having been carefully cut and hacked and 
drawn back, with the evident determination 
that the malice should not fail of its object. 
“ The excitement among the neighboring 
In a recent number of the Rural, L. D. 
S. advises to stake and tie trees in order to 
keep them upright. In a practice of twenty- 
five years, setting yearly hundreds of them, 
and of heights from three lo thirty feet, I 
have never yet staked a tree. Nor would I 
permit it to he done to a tree of my plant¬ 
ing. I never have a tree lean or blow over, 
when the work is rightly done; and my work¬ 
men know if a tree leans after planting 
by reason of wind, that it. is because they 
have been careless, and no man under mo 
ever commits the blunder twice. 
I count a staked tree an evidence of care¬ 
less, hasty planting, for 1 knmo if the tree is 
carefully and correctly set. it needs no such 
support. My advice to every tree planter is 
to learn how, and then set your tree in such 
manner that the additional labor and ox- 
pense of staking may be avoided. Believe 
me, it costs less to do the work right at first, 
the tree is more certain lo live, and you will 
always take more pleasure in looking at trees 
without than with stakes. A. Thorn. 
LARIX EUROPCEA PENDULA, 
GYPSUM FOR FOLIAGE. 
Tins beautiful Larch is most highly es¬ 
teemed in France, where it is extensively 
planted as an ornamental tree. In the au¬ 
tumn, before defoliating, its foliage changes 
from the beautiful sea-green of summer to a 
golden tint, which, wit h the autumnal colors 
of other trees and plants, combines to glorify 
October. No matter what the season, it has 
its distinct, peculiar and striking beauty. In 
spring, this Larch covers itself with violet 
drapery, scarcely less beautiful than the em¬ 
erald and gold it puts on later in the season. 
There i3 so much now on hand that I 
hardly know what to do first. However, to¬ 
day, as my pears were just out of bloom, 
the leaf well grown, and so my strawber¬ 
ries, my lawn once clipped, I have been 
strewing gypsum over the foliage, taking a 
time when it was a little cloudy, and just a 
little wet. In a practice of over thirty 
years, I have always found my sowing of 
gypsum alone to produce the best results 
when applied upon the young growing 
foliage. I use it with salt in the early 
spring and winter months, and also with a 
further combination of bone meal or dust, 
but after that is done I find it pays to sprin¬ 
kle it over the young and tender foliage. 
Its effects are plainly seen when alternate 
trees or rows are dressed with it. Accord¬ 
ing to the size of my trees I use varying 
quantities'—say for a tree two years planted, 
three feet high and as many in breadth of 
limbs, I use a good fair handful, or say nearly 
half a pint; for bearing dwarf trees of six to 
eight feet high, and as many broad, I use a 
piut, or even more, according to the condi¬ 
tion of the tree. If It is overloaded with 
blossom buds, I use more than for a tree 
Vigorous in growth and having few blossom 
buds. I shall give my trees another little 
sprinkling of about half the qantity in about 
two weeks, or just when my grapes get into 
full leaf and are just ready to open their 
blossoms. I don’t wait until the blossoms 
are open; or if I neglect my work, so as not 
to dress them before they bloom, then I wait 
until they are out of bloom. If I do as I 
should, make my sowing on my grape foliage 
OUTRAGEOUS VANDALISM 
A Micliienn Fruit Orchard Destroyed Fif- 
tceu Hundred Trees Girdled in u Night. 
The Chicago Tribune of Alay 29 gives 
the following account of a most unprece¬ 
dented outrage:—“ Our fellow-citizen, Mar¬ 
tin Green Esq., long and widely known in 
this community as an enterprising contrac¬ 
tor on the canal and harbor work, is among 
those of Chicago residents who early saw 
the noble promise of the St. Joseph (Mich.,) 
region for fruit culture. For some years, 
with the most liberal and generous skill, he 
has been beautifying and creating an orchard 
paradise at Benton Harbor, adjoining St. 
Joseph, and his extensive grounds had 
reached the condition of being full of trees 
of the choicest description of peaches, 
plums, apricots, cherries, pears and apples. 
It is estimated that the value of his premises 
could not have been less than $80,000. In a 
single night this promise has been blasted, 
and on the morning following It was dis¬ 
covered that, by actual count, 1,500 of his 
choicest trees had been hacked and girdled 
WHITE PINE FOR WIND-BREAKS 
The New England Farmer says that the 
white pines are easily transplanted, grow 
rapidly, are hardy, and will subserve an ex¬ 
cellent purpose as a shelter. Two rows are 
better than one, the back row to face the 
openings iu the front row. You will find 
capital examples on the line of the railroad 
between Boston and Providence, where they 
are placed to prevent drifts from blocking 
the road. Transplanting the last «!' May, 
just us the young growth of the brandies ap¬ 
pears, dig up the sod with the roots, and 
not allow the latter to come to sun or wind. 
The trees must be kept thick at the bottom, 
and In order to secure this they must bo 
headed down. If this is neglected, the lead¬ 
ing stem will shoot into the air, throw out 
lateral branches, and the lower limbs die 
and drop off. 
THE LARIX EUROPCEA PENDUL 
