370 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Dec. 
usual confidence of ignorance and inexperience has pre¬ 
vailed, and asdn anticipated results “things to be known 
are inferred from things unknown.” The human mind is 
prone to credulity—so in our purchases of plants and 
shrubs, whether for ornament or use, our people have been 
ever up to a full confidence in the representations of vend¬ 
ers, whether those venders were the slick-tongued sons of 
France, or our own equally shrewd but rough country¬ 
men of yankee land. S. B. North. Mobile , Oct. ’48. 
Productiveness of Strawberries. 
In all the great strawberry controversy, about sta- 
minate and pistillate, monoecious and dioecious plants, 
the very important item of determining the productive¬ 
ness of each variety, by actual experiment, and under 
the proper culture, seems to have been nearly forgotten. 
A correspondent of the Horticulturist at Poughkeepsie, 
furnishes nearly the only statement we have lately seen 
on this subject, although even this is somewhat indefi¬ 
nite. The soil was a heavy loam, without limestone; 
it was a heavy sod, broken up in 1845, not highly ma¬ 
nured, and planted in the spring of 1846, with Large 
Early Scarlet, Hudson Bay, Bishop’s and Hovey’s 
Seedling. The result shows the Large Early Scarlet 
to be the best bearer, the Hudson next, Bishop's next, 
and Hovey’s far behind the others. After trying the 
latter in various ways; he has never seen them bear 
one-fourth as much as the Large Early Scarlet. 
Experiments elsewhere, and especially further south, 
have shown great productiveness in Hovey’s Seedling. 
But in the State of New-York we have never seen any 
variety equal to the Large early Scarlet. M. G. War¬ 
ner, of Rochester, famed for his success with straw¬ 
berries, has found this more productive than any old 
sort, but is not sure that it may not be excelled by 
Burr's New Pine. 
There is no doubt that the same treatment, which is 
best for one variety, may not be just the thing for ano¬ 
ther, and soil and climate may also exert controlling 
influences. In the midst of all the surfeit of discussion, 
we are starving for experiments, intelligently conduct¬ 
ed, to exhibit the precise relative productiveness, by 
accurate measurement, of the different varieties, under 
the various influences of climate, soil, and culture. 
Horticultural Facts, 
Condensed from the Horticulturist and other sources. 
Large Horse-chestnut Trees. —One tree in Lin- 
coin, is 59 feet high, aud the diameter of the head 100 
feet. Another in Warwick, a hundred years after 
planting, was 70 feet high, diameter of foliage, 103 
feet, diameter of the trunk at the ground, 7 feet. Two 
others, near Preebles, in Tweeddale, within 12 feet of 
each other, support one rounded mass of foliage 96 feet 
in diameter—their ages nearly 200 years. One near 
London, is about 100 feet high. One at Twizell, 18 
years planted, was 38 feet high, and 15 inches in diame¬ 
ter. The supposed largest in America, is at Yonkers, 
N. Y., nearly 200 years old, 65 feet high. 
Manuring Old Pear Trees. —A cultivator in 
Bucks county, Pa., mentions the case of an old and 
exhausted tree of the Seckel, (which needs and ’will 
bear more manure than most pears,) the fruit from 
which was so small as not to be worth gathering. 
A trench three feet wide and sixteen inches deep was 
dug round the tree, at a distance of four feet from the 
tree to the nearest part of the trench, thus leaving an 
undug mass of roots eight feet in diameter. The earth 
from the trench was carted away, and was replaced 
wifth a peck of bone-dust, four cart-loads of stable ma¬ 
nure, and enough fresh soil to fill the trench. 
The roots soon shot into the new soil, the tree grew 
rapidly, was clothed in dense foliage, and the next year 
it bore a large crop of full-sized and delicious fruit; and 
the next or present year, they were still larger. 
The Pratt Pear. —This new American variety is 
rated by A. J. Downing as among the twenty best yet 
known. 
Experiments .—The London Horticultural Society 
has adopted the practice of trying “ every experiment, 
however ludicrous, that has been so brought forward as 
to excite public attention; that an official report may 
be published of its fallacy, instead of denouncing it 
without trial, which often strengthens sinister schemes, 
—or reporting its success if it turns out well, on autho¬ 
rity which cannot be questioned.” 
A Great Nursery. —Perhaps the largest nursery in 
the world, is Booth's in Holstein, one of the Danish 
provinces. It consists of 180 acres, and requires on an 
average, 130 men and 20 women, to cultivate it. 
Eighty packers are employed during the packing sea¬ 
son. The average profit, for the last thirty years, has 
been $15,000 annually, though at one time for twelve 
years, the sale of dahlias alone netted $50,000 per an¬ 
num, and to which eleven acres are still devoted. Some 
rare Orchideous plants sell for $300 each. Of this fami¬ 
ly of plants, they have 2000 varieties, and 2000 of the 
Dahlia. The collection of ornamental trees is enor¬ 
mous. 
Peaches in the South. —M. W. Phillipps, of Ed¬ 
wards, Miss., states the following periods of the ripen¬ 
ing of early peaches:— 
“Early White Nutmeg,.June 1st. 
Early Tillotson,. “ 20th. 
Early York, (“ true,”). “ 21st. 
Cole's Early Red,. “ 24th. 
Early Red Rareripe,. “ 26th. 
President,. “ 30th. 
Snow... July 1st.” 
Thus it appears, only 10 days elapsed from the ripen¬ 
ing of the the Tillotson to that of the President; in 
Western New-York that period is lengthened to more 
than a month. At Vicksburgh, the early peaches ripen 
two weeks earlier than at Edwards. 
The London Horticultural Society, is the rich¬ 
est corporation of the kind in the world. Its assets, 
over £48,000; debt, £9 ,000; annual income, .£6,091, 
($30,000;) expenses, £5,294. It publishes quarterly 
transactions, and maintains one or two botanical tra¬ 
vellers ; and at last summer's exhibition, nearly 14,000 
visitors were admitted by tickets of about a dollar each. 
Raspberries. —S. A. Barrett, of Milton, N. Y., as¬ 
serts that “ a strong, deep loam, with but little sand, 
is the only soil from which a full crop is to be expected 
every season, from the Red Antwerp.” He also states 
that N. Hallock, of that place, produced a crop the past 
season, from three quarters of an acre, which sold for 
$330, in the New-York market. 
Perpetual Roses. —A correspondent of the Horti¬ 
culturist says, “The way I pursue, is to pinch out, as 
soon as visible, every blossom bud that appears at the 
first crop, say from the middle of May till the middle of 
June. This reserves the strength of the plant for the 
after bloom; and" accordingly I have such clusters of 
roses in July, August, September and October, as those 
who have not tried thi3stopping system can have no idea 
of. La Heine, Madame Laffay, Compte de Paris, and 
Dutchess of Sutherland, are particularly superb under 
this treatment. 
Fire Blight and Iron.— The apparently capricious 
nature of fire blight, renders single cases of very little 
weight for or against a theory; but single cases are in¬ 
teresting, and form parts of a whole. M. B. Bateham, 
of the Ohio Cultivator, states that a number of large 
pear trees, 25 or 30 years old, in Mahoning county, 
were, about five years ago, struck with fire blight, and 
in two years were apparently ruined. Several b&rrow- 
