238 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
July. 
must be dashed on broadcast, as far as the circle of roots 
extends. 
An acquaintance has procured a wheelbarrow, furnish¬ 
ed with a broad tire, that it may pass without sinking, 
over mellow ground, and a barrel with a hinge-lid, into 
which all slops are thrown, and wheeled on the garden 
as often as necessary. If the odor of the barrel be¬ 
comes too offensive, a quart or two of charcoal-dust 
thrown in at once corrects the evil 
Timely Hint- 
Many cultivators, who devote a fair proportion of at¬ 
tention to their fruit trees in spring, forget and almost 
wholly neglect them at mid-summer. To such we would 
briefly suggest the importance of keeping a constant eye 
to them, in order to preserve them in good cultivation, 
and to prevent disaster from disease or the attacks of 
enemies. A tree will not thrive, unless it is widely and 
deeply spaded about, or otherwise kept with a clean and 
mellow soil. For newly transplanted trees, mulching, or 
covering heavily with straw or other litter, is of great 
importance in the hot season. On dry soils, the fruit 
of the raspberry is greatly benefitted by mulching. 
With gooseberries, a deep littering is indispensible. 
If the black-knot should make its appearance on the 
plum, all the affected parts should be immediately cut 
off and burned. This, if repeated when necessary, will 
keep the trees clear of th,e evil. The labor of watching 
and cutting, will not be a tenth part'as much as every 
gardener willingly devotes to the culture of a crop of 
cabbages. Pear trees affected with the blight are to be 
similarly treated. 
Newly transplanted trees, with tall naked stems, are 
often injured by the hot sun striking upon them, espe¬ 
cially at points which happen to incline from its rays. 
They may be protected by two narrow boards nailed to¬ 
gether, so as to enclose the trunk of the tree in the an¬ 
gle. Stiff white paper wrapped loosely around and tied 
with twine, serves a good purpose. 
Hardiness of the Osage Orange. 
Benjamin Hodge, of Buffalo, gives in a late number 
of the Horticulturist, an unfavorable opinion of the 
Osage Orange as a hedge plant for the north, derived 
chiefly from the following facts. The first season the 
growth was nearly two feet, the whole of which was 
killed by the subsequent winter, the roots remaining un¬ 
injured. The second year (1850) shoots were thrown 
up three or four feet high, from one to two feet of which 
were killed last winter, although not a severe one. 
After experiments continued for more than ten yearn, 
in a climate where the thermometer is not unfrequently 
6 or 7° below zero, the writer of these remarks has been 
induced to adopt a different opinion. Solitary trees, it 
is true, are often one-third or one-half killed, and young 
seedlings very often down to the ground ; but there are 
three substantial reasons why this liability is not a for¬ 
midable objection to a hedge. In the first place, the 
killing does not extend further down than the young 
hedge should be cropped or sheared; secondly, when 
growing thickly together, the shoots protect each other 
in a remarkable degree from the effects of the weather; 
and thirdly, when kept sheared, the growth ceases to be 
succulent and tender, and the shoots are not killed to 
any extent whatever. In a hedge which has stood two 
years, partly untrimmed and which was made of three- 
year plants, the long and succulent shoots which had 
sliot up alone to some height, were observed this spring 
to be killed at top; but the smaller and thicker shoots 
below, were in leaf to their utmost extremities. The 
fact that a growth of three or four feet was made the 
second year as above stated, indicates^ fertile soil and 
a consequent succulence not favorable to endurance of 
intense frost; the result is very different on a soil of 
moderate fertility and with cropped shoots. 
The wall of impenetrable armor which the Osage 
Orange presents by its profusion of sharp thorns, renders 
it particularly valuable as a boundary for fruit gardens, 
and it is believed that its less rapid growth at the north 
will remove the objection sometimes made to it in the 
middle and western states, of drawing too strongly on 
the fertility of the adjacent soil. 
It is not expected that in frosty valleys and in such 
localities as are usually too cold for the peach crop, this 
hedge will answer; but in other places there is so strong 
reason to believe its fitness, that further experiments 
to say the least are fully warranted. 
The Fame of a Name. 
The celebrity of the Virgalieu pears of western New- 
York in some of the eastern markets is well known. 
The value of this good name is quite amusingly shown 
by a story related by L. F. Allen in the Horticulturist. 
Two gentlemen of the Genesee country sent each several 
barrels of Virgalieu pears to be soldinNew-York. One 
of them called his pears the “ Virgalieu,” the only name 
he knew; the other, to be precise, marked his “ White 
Doyenne.” In a few weeks the consignee returned an 
an account of sales. The Virgalieus brought $12 per 
barrel; the White Doyenne’s, $6. The seller gravely 
remarked that they were both fine specimens of pear; 
but if the owner of the Doyenne’s had only sent his Vir- 
galieus as his neighbor did, he could have sold them for 
as much! 
Experiments with the best Strawberries. 
M. G. Warner, well known as the leading strawber- 
ry culturist at Rochester, reports the following results 
in Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. The soil was only good 
plowed land. 
The Hovey’s produced the largest berries, Burr’s 
New-rine next, Columbus next, &c. The Rival Hud¬ 
son yielded the greatest quantity, the New Pine the next, 
Columbus next, Hovey’s next. According to the di- 
mensions of the bed, and the amount of the crop given, 
the Rival Hudson must have yielded at the rate of 260 
bushels per acre. 
The William’s Favorite Apple. —The handsome 
appearance and good quality of this early variety, have 
made it a great favorite in some parts of New-England, 
but the high culture it requires will lessen its value for 
general cultivation, until orchardists learn to give more 
attention to their trees. S. W. Cole, of Boston, says, 
11 When perfect it is very handsome and saleable. One 
