310 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Oct, 
Fruit Culture at the South. 
Cuttings. —Suffer me to give you what we regard 
in this latitude, 37-5°, to be facts, as regards u propa¬ 
gation by cuttings.” 
I have grown, and can show at this writing, the 
pear, peach, and plum, growing from cuttings in the 
open air. I grew last season quite a number of the 
pear, the cuttings being used as temporary stakes to 
hold labels; some of them grew T to a size of half an 
inch, and full 4 to 6 feet high. I have seen the apple 
grow in the same way. I have seen an orchardist at 
Vicksburg grow peach trees—but only a few—from 
cuttings. 
A favorable season is all that is needed. The past 
was quite a moist one, though no great quantity of 
rain. Cuttings do not succeed so well when very deep ; 
they damp off,—taking a kind of dropsy. 
I have tried plums and peaches a few times, but my 
situation was not favorable. Cape Jasmine will not 
grow here from cuttings; but with some persons they 
grow as readily as willows do. 
I do not think any person can feed himself at making 
trees from cuttings of the apple, peach and pear; but 
they will grow sometimes. 
[At the north, all experiments of the kind uniformly 
fail, unless performed with the increased heat and 
moisture obtained under glass. At the south, the at¬ 
mosphere of damp seasons more nearly approaches that 
of a hot-house, and consequently proves more favorable 
to the growth of cuttings, &e. Ed.] 
Grafting the Peach and Nectarine. —In Feb¬ 
ruary, 1848, I grafted some six varieties of the necta¬ 
rine, and lost, probably, one in twenty-five; the grafts 
were sent to me some 75 miles, by steam and its de¬ 
tentions. I have grafted the peach upon plum and 
peach for two years, and upon pieces of roots for one 
year; and have as large and thrifty trees grafted in 
January and February, as those budded the previous 
sjummer, with a growth of two feet the same season. 
Staking Trees. —I never advise a stake. Head 
down newly planted trees to one foot, or two or three 
or four feet, according to size, cut branches well in, 
and no wind will disturb them. Stakes are trouble¬ 
some; and, when neglected, do a wonderful sight of 
harm. In 1845, I put my gardener (a Dutchman,) 
and my servant (a carpenter,) to staking my trees— 
peaches; the next spring they were rubbed, and bruised, 
and injured so greatly, that I had to cut down many 
of them. They are the last that I staked, and I have 
planted out 2,000 since. 
[The very rapid growth of newly transplanted trees 
at the south, renders large size a matter of less im¬ 
portance,—in the view at least of most cultivators,— 
than at the north; and hence staking becomes less 
needful. But even here, trees of moderate size, with 
the shoots well shortened-in at the time of removal, 
which should in no instance be omitted, rarely need 
staking, if the roots have been taken up of good length . 
Such trees may be protected from the motion of the 
winds through winter, if set in autumn, by a conical 
mound of earth, a foot high round the stem. But in 
cases, where trees are so large, or the roots so much 
shortened in digging up, that they cannot withstand 
the force of the winds, staking becomes quite essential, 
and all danger of chafing the bark must be precluded 
by firm straw bands. Ed.] 
Transplanting.—I do not transplant as is usually 
done. I precede the planting by either breaking up 
new land entire, or throw 6 or 8 furrows together, 
with a two-horse plow; and if the land is hard, I fol¬ 
low with another plow. Thus I save much labor in 
digging holes. 
Is it not bad policy to make a hole 2 or 3 feet deep 
in a tough clay? Will it not hold water, and prove 
injurious? 
In January, 1848, I dug out 2 feet deep, a trench 5 
feet by 90, for asparagus: the best manure and rich 
soil from the woods were turned in, all mixed well, and 
planted with the roots; they grew extraordinarily. 
This year there cannot be one fiftieth remaining. 
Why? I think the clay retained all the winter water, 
and rotted the roots. My garden is upon a clay sub¬ 
soil, and holds water like a jug. Next season I shall 
drain it. 
I have now over 40 acres of fruit, embracing about 
160 varieties of peach. 175 pear, 75 apple, 30 plum, 
10 or 12 apricot, 8 or 10 nectarine, 3 quince, 6 figs, 
&e. &c.; my object being to test in the south. I shall 
continue gathering for a few years, and then cut down 
[all but the best] and throw into the fire. M. W. 
Phillips. Edwards, Mississippi. 
Stoddart’s Washington Alpine Strawberry. 
Many of our readers have heard of the great fame of 
this variety in time past, most of whom are aware that 
those who have tried it, regard it as a great imposition 
upon the public. The following remarks from the Hor¬ 
ticulturist, not only place the subject, as we believe, in 
its true light, but also afford some valuable hints for 
the successful culture of the strawberry:— 
“ Two points must be understood, to grow the best 
strawberries: 1st, that the soil must be deep; and 2d, 
that it must be rich. If you look at the leaves of a 
strawberry, and, because they are not very large, pre¬ 
sume that the roots will extend but little depth, you 
are greatly mistaken. I have seen the roots of straw¬ 
berries extend five feet down in a rich deep soil; and 
those plants bore a crop of fruit five times as large, 
and twice as handsome and good, as the common pro¬ 
duct of a soil only one foot deep. 
il And this reminds me of a capital instance of straw¬ 
berry delusion , which most of your readers doubtless 
know something about, but which many even yet do 
not, perhaps, fully understand. I mean the history of 
the ‘ Washington Alpine Strawberry/ which Mr. Stod- 
dart, of western New-York, advertised and sold a great 
many dollars’ worth of, some four or five years ago. 
Mr. Stoddart, I believe, was quite honest in the trans¬ 
action ; and yet the whole public were completely de¬ 
luded by the ‘ Washington Alpine/ which was nothing 
but the old Alpine or monthly strawberry. The long 
and short of the matter was, that Mr. Stoddart had a 
corner of his garden which was made ground ,—a rich 
deep moist soil, (I think it had been an old bog, or bit 
of alluvial, afterwards filled up,) not less than 8 or 10 
feet deep. Mr. Stoddart had raised some seedling Al¬ 
pines, (which, so far as I know, always come the 
same from the seed;) he had by lucky chance planted 
them in this corner of his garden, where the soil was 
so unusually rich and deep. There they grew so finely, 
and bore such enormous crops, that his neighbors could 
scarcely credit their senses. The story of the miracu¬ 
lous crop got into the papers. People came to see 
with their own eyes. In short, they bought and car¬ 
ried away the 1 Washington Alpines/ at extravagant 
prices, with the full conviction that ‘ seeing is believing/ 
and that such strawberries were never before grown, 
gazed on or tasted. Well, great was their surprise to 
find, on planting and cultivating the ‘ Washington Al¬ 
pines/ that there was nothing new or w T onderful about 
them; and that, in fact, they all dwindled down to the 
old fashioned Alpine strawberry. Mr. Stoddart, natu¬ 
rally enough, now has as many hard names bestowed 
on him for the fancied deception as he had before had 
hard dollars for really great crops. And yet, Mr. 
Stoddart sold his plants in good faith, and was pro¬ 
bably as much deluded as the buyers. The whole so- 
