180 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMUNT. 
CONDUCTED BY J. J. THOMAS. 
HORTICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 
I. Budding. 
Peaches.-— («)Mr. J. J. Thomas’ advice, to cut down 
early in the spring, those trees that were not budded 
the first year, or whose buds fail, -is vastly important. 
You thus get a good stock for budding. 
(&) Budded peach trees in windy positions, should 
always he braced. The best mode is to set the brace, 
(a small stick eighteen inches long for seedlings of the 
first year,) very slanting, so as to push the tree towards 
the prevailing wind. Pass your bass around the tree, 
giving it two or three twists, before you tie to the 
brace. Thus you will have a kink between the trees 
and the brace which, with the slant of the stick, will 
perfectly save your tree from rubbing. 
(c.) Earthing budded peaches in autumn.-—1 do this 
habitually, for the following reasons: It preserves the 
vitality of the bud in an open winter. It saves the im¬ 
portant portion of the tree from mice. It saves the 
tree, in positions where heavy snow banks would be 
likely to settle, from being crushed and destroyed by the 
snow. In my sandy soil they never suffer j possibly they 
might in a heavy one. Remove the earth in the spring 
before the sap starts. 
( d .) It may be useful to those who have failed to se¬ 
cure peach stones for planting, during the preceding 
autumn, to know that the robber sprouts that always 
spring up about the roots of a budded tree after it is head¬ 
ed down , will grow. They are not as thrifty however, as 
seedlings, certainly not for the first year, beyond which 
my experience does not extend. 
(e.) The removal of trees in the bud. — First, in the 
fall. I removed 160 trees in the fall of 1846. They 
were two-year old roots, many of them very large, and 
were much mutilated in the removal. They were re¬ 
moved the first week in November, the roots being 
carefully trimmed. Exactly three-fourths of the buds, 
(and every root,) lived, some of them making six feet 
wood the next season. 
Secondly , in the Spring. —April 23, 1847. Removed 
137 trees, the buds having begun to swell. These 
trees were all poor roots like the preceding, and were 
besides, deprived of about one third of their roots, in¬ 
tentionally, (for reasons not necessary to be mentioned 
here.) Just two-thirds of them lived, and did well. 
Of thosg that died, a, considerable number were dog¬ 
ged to death by the ants. Here it is well worth re¬ 
marking that one-third of the trees which were set the 
sun side of a high fence, nearly every one grew, while 
the two-thirds that were set in the shaded side, exhibit¬ 
ed almost all the deaths, whether outright, or from the 
attack of ants. 
2. Cherries. —My budding on this tree has taken ve¬ 
ry rapidly, but no tree has caused me so much trouble 
in getting off the bass. The buds, after they were ap¬ 
parently fast and looked plump, have been very liable 
to loosen under the influence of wind and sun, and fre¬ 
quently crushed to death by subsequent rapid growth. 
My cherries had been sticked almost invariably to save 
them from breaking by the wind, just above the bud. 
Some that broke thus in 1846, I sought to save by 
putting a slight layer of putty on the wounded top. 
But it did no good. This last year, (1847,) I applied 
Mr. J. J. Thomas’ mixture of tar and brick dust, ap¬ 
parently with entire success. Let it be put on with 
great care, so as not to caver the bud. 
3. Peaches on Plums. —This has caused me more 
vexation and discouragement than all other labors of 
the kind put together. Of more than one hundred buds 
set in 1845, not one now survives. Of the same num¬ 
ber set in 1846, but two are alive. Errors. —1. Late 
setting. 2. Careless unbinding. 3. Stock not thrifty. 
4. Taking off the buds above the peach so clean that 
there was nothing to keep the stock alive above the in¬ 
serted bud. The consequence was that some of my 
peaches died after they were a foot long, by the drying 
down of the stock. In the ease of peaches and quinces, 
it will do to take off every bud, but not so with the 
peach on the plnm. 
4. Spring Budding. —In 1847, June 2d, 3d and 4th, 
peaches on peaches, and peaches on plums j failed en¬ 
tirely. 
b. A pear took on a mountain ash. It grew about 
four inches, and is now, (Feb. 18th,) alive. 
c. Plums on plums. A few (of Bolmar’s Washing¬ 
ton) took. They are now alive. 
Adieu, with all my heart, to spring budding. It will 
do in the south, but it has nothing to recommend it in 
Central New-York. 
II. Mildew in Gooseberries. 
a. I have about forty very old mossy bunches of 
gooseberries. They have been occasionally manured, 
and trimmed severely every year. Of the four years 
they have borne me fruit, two exhibited fine and two 
mildewed fruit. The two seasons of good fruit seemed 
to be in consequence of sifting on strong ashes, once 
when they were in bloom, and once soon after. It was 
done when the dew was on in the morning. 
b. So I had very fine fruit in 1847, on a patch 
of about three hundred young bushes, under the same 
treatment. Whether the alkali acts directly on the 
animalculae that occasions this disease, or remotely by 
giving vigor to the root, I pretend not to determine. 
The fact, how'ever, is valuable. 
III. The White Blackberry. 
A correspondent of yours considers this a new thing 
among the fruits of this fruitful world. I can only say 
that, it grew in my boyhood in Rensselaer county, and 
that I found it in 1842, in Chautauque county. 
White, black and red, are the prevailing colors of the 
berries of most brambles, and of the external covering 
of most stone fruits. Meanwhile chemists tell us that iron 
is the universal pigment of nature, wherewith she beau¬ 
tifies her fruits and flowers. Will not some of our learn¬ 
ed vegetable physiologists, who have leisure, taste and 
ability for suchinvestigations, tell us if they can, whether 
these different colors in the same species of fruit as th© 
blackberry and currant, are in consequence of the differ¬ 
ent conditions of the oxide of iron in the soil, or of its ab¬ 
sence from the soil entirely; or whether it be not the re¬ 
sult of the peculiar powers of the plant itself, by which it 
appropriates it to its own peculiar purposes, or rejects it 
altogether. We may presume, however, that it pos¬ 
sesses the latter power, since the same flower often 
presents various hues, and the same well elaborated gar¬ 
den soil different flowers; while different colors of th© 
same fruit grow side by side in th© same soil. 
IV. Hawthorns—in this hot climate. 
I fully agree with Downing and other writers on th© 
unfitness of the ( Hawthorn for hedges, in this dry and hot 
climate. I wish to notice an interesting fact, howev¬ 
er, in regard to this thorn. I have a plat of ground of 
less than half an acre, surrounded by a hawthorn hedg^ 
