366 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Nov. 
hogany saw dust. Pine saw dust does not answer; 
the grapes will taste of it. Has found the Catawba 
grape to keep best when picked just before it is 
dead ripe.’ 7 This method of using kiln-dried saw¬ 
dust, is an old, familiar, and excellent one. Cover¬ 
ing the jars with a cover, sealed with wax or tallow 
is adopted by some to exclude external moisture 
from the saw 7 dust. 
Grafting the Grape. —-An experiment, proving 
very successful, was related in grafting the Isabella 
into the roots of wild varieties. Pieces of root a 
foot and a half long are cleft grafted in the com¬ 
mon w T ay, and the root is then buried in the soil so 
as to have the junction fairly below the surface. 
They grow w y ell and have borne the season they were 
grafted. 
Securing crops of Peaches.' —A peach orchard 
at the foot of Catskill mountains, where the ther¬ 
mometer sometimes sinks to 16° below zero, has 
with a single exception, borne fruit for many years, 
by the following treatment. After the ground is 
firmly frozen in the fall, litter is placed round the 
trees four to six inches thick and trodden down hard. 
This prevents the buds from starting prematurely 
by keeping the ground frozen, and being kept back, 
they escape the frost. 
List of Fruits.— The following varieties are 
added to the former lists by the fruit committee, as 
worthy of general cultivation• 
Apples —Wine apple, Dominie and Peck’s Plea¬ 
sant. 
Pears —Doyenne d’Ete, Andrew’s, Flemish Beauty 
and Urbaniste. 
Plums —Madison. 
Cherries —Knight’s Early Black, Black Eagle, 
Downer’s Late and Graflion. 
Peaches —Oldmixon Freestone, Bergen’s Yellow, 
and Crawford’s Late. 
Gooseberries —Woodward’s Whitesmith, Crown 
Bob, and Green Walnut. 
Currants —Knight’s Sweet Red, White Grape, 
and May’s Victoria. 
Raspberries —FastolfF, Franconia, White Ant¬ 
werp. 
A large portion of these varieties are represented 
by good figures, but one or tw T o of the apples we 
should hardly have recognized. The Dominie (which 
by the W 7 ay but barely deserves the company in which 
it is here placed,) is not more than one quarter the 
size of many specimens often seen •, and Peck’s 
Pleasant is not larger than the very smallest speci¬ 
mens, while it is furnished with an unusually long 
stem. The truth is, this fine early winter variety 
is often one of the largest apples, and has some¬ 
times attained nearly a pound in weight. The dis¬ 
tinction between the deep cavity in Knight’s Early 
Black Cherry, and the very shallow cavity in the 
Black Eagle, is not well shown, although constitu¬ 
ting a striking point of difference in these similar 
varieties. These are however but few and small 
defects, among a great deal that is accurate and ex¬ 
cellent. 
Osage Orange Hedges—Osage Weevil. 
It seems to be established that these hedges will 
succeed w r ell wherever the climate will admit the 
cultivation of the peach. Their strength, vigor and 
density is such, when well made, that no animal will 
try to pass them; and so sharp and numerous are 
their thorns, that they must form a perfect barrier 
against ordinary fruit stealers. 
Prof. Turner, of Illinois college, in a communica¬ 
tion to the Prairie Farmer, says he has now about 
five miles of this hedge on his farm, and it has al¬ 
ready doubled the price of his land, that is he is now 
offered twice as much for it as he asked two years 
ago and could not sell it. 
He thinks the chief cause that so large a portion 
of the seed fail to grow, is the ravages of the 
li Osage Weevil,” a minute and almost microscopic 
insect, which feeds on the tip of the radicle. A 
year ago he lost six bushels of seed from this cause, 
and last spring he lost above thirty bushels, all 
well got out and cured in Texas. Sometimes, he 
states, the seed will push their sprouts nearly an 
inch, after they are incurably injured. Seed has 
been pronounced by different persons as u very fine” 
after he had found “ by microscopic examination 
that it was not worth a cent.” 
Seasonable Hints. 
Fruit in Cellars. —A great deal of winter fruit 
suffers early decay in consequence of a deficiency 
of ventilation, especially during autumn and after 
the fruit is deposited. Another cause of decay is 
the improper location of the shelves or bins, which 
are placed against or around the walls. By this in¬ 
convenient arrangement, the assorting of decayed 
specimens must be done all from one side, and the 
shelves must hence be very narrow, or the operator 
must stretch himself in a most irksome horizontal 
position. The circulation of the air is at the same 
time greatly impeded by the want of space next the 
walls. To avoid these evils, the shelves should be 
in the center with a passage all round. This allows 
circulation of air, and the shelves may be twice 
the width with the same convenience in assorting 
or picking. If suspended from the joists above on 
stiff bars, rats cannot reach them. We have never 
succeeded so well by any other than this arrange¬ 
ment. It is said that the Germans are very suc¬ 
cessful in the ventilation of their cellars, by a com¬ 
munication with the principal chimney, the heated 
air in which necessarily maintains a current, which 
sweeps out the noxious and stagnant gases from the 
vegetable and other contents. 
Keeping Beets and Turnpes for the Table.— 
The epidermis of the beet and turnep root, unlike 
that of the potato, admits the rapid escape of mois¬ 
ture, and hence if exposed to dry air for a few days, 
they begin to wilt and lose their freshness. Buried 
in heaps out of doors, they keep well, but are hard 
to get at in winter. Good substitutes have been 
devised, by lining and covering the boxes which 
contain them in the cellar, with flakes of turf ; or 
by burying them in barrels with slightly moist clean 
sand. A more convenient way, however, is to sub¬ 
stitute slightly moist peat for the sand, which is 
very much lighter than sand, and more easily ap¬ 
plied and removed. 
Unheaded Cabbages.' —There are often many of 
these when the crop is gathered at the approach of 
winter, commonly thrown away as useless. They 
may be rendered fine for spring use by transplanting 
them in a close double row, and then covering them 
with boards or slabs like the steep roof of a house, 
with an additional coating of a few inches of earth. 
They should then be properly ventilated. By next 
spring a large portion of them will be found well 
headed and delicately blanched. 
Repelling mice from fruit trees. —We still 
often hear of the death of trees by mice, girdling. 
Prevention from this disaster is one of the easiest 
and most certain things in the world, consisting 
simply in throwing up a little circular bank or 
mound of earth round the trunk of each tree, nine 
