EXTRACTS— N AT 1’ R A L H ISTOllY. 
423 
to become prejudicial to the roots. The most profitable kind of orchard is that 
which contains all kinds of hardy fruit trees and bushes, and where the land is 
solely appropriated to that purpose. This kind resembles gardening more than 
farming, and is therefore unsuitable to large farms, but quite applicable to small 
ones, to which an acre of orchard, requiring no horse-labour, would be of essential 
benefit. In such orchards, half-standard apple trees are planted in rows eighteen 
feet from each other, the trees being twelve feet apart. In the same line with 
the apple trees are planted either gooseberry or currant bushes, or what some¬ 
times pay equally well, filberts. The latter are not allowed to rise higher than 
about four feet, and are kept spurred in, exactly like the white currant. Goose¬ 
berries gathered green for tarts pay the farmer better than when ripe, and are 
not nearly so troublesome in the carriage to market. As such an orchard is not 
to be grazed, two feet of the soil on each side of the rows of trees is kept bare, 
and always free from weeds. On this a mulcting of rotten dung may be laid 
every winter, and raked oft’ in the spring, upon the intermediate strips of ground 
to be planted with potatoes, or sown with onions, turnips, scarlet runners, or any 
other crop which the cultivator can most advantageously dispose of in his neigh¬ 
bourhood. The earliest and surest bearing apples should be preferred. The 
greatest majority should consist of the hawthornder, the rest of the French crab 
and scarlet Nonpareil. A few of the earliest pears may be mixed, as the Petit 
Muscat. The most hardy and profitable kind of plum for a farm orchard is the 
common Damson, it being always in request for baking, preserving, or for wine 
making.— Mr. Main. — Jour. Agricul. 
Bone Dust as Manure for Turnips. —Although the quantity of bone dust 
usually applied to an acre is two quarters, yet one quarter will suffice if mixed 
with one or two quarters of riddled coal ashes. The bones should be carefully 
and equally mixed throughout the mass, which will be best effected by frequent 
turnings with the shovel. To expedite the drying of the ashes, strew a little hot 
lime, while turning the mass. The compost is sown with the usual machine. 
Turnips raised with this compost of bone dust and ashes, in the quantity alluded 
to, have been sold for £7 per acre, to be eaten off with sheep. They possess the 
same characters of a close crop, firm root, and hardiness to resist the rigour of 
winter, as turnips raised with bone dust alone evince. Perhaps peat, or vegeta¬ 
ble ashes of any kind, would be equally as beneficial to mix with bone dust as 
those of coal.—- Jour . of Agricu l. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
Excretory Powers of Plants. —It has been lately discovered by a vegeta¬ 
ble physiologist on the continent, that plants actually exude excrementitious 
matter from their roots. Plants put to grow in water impregnated wifh a certain 
chemical quality, absorbed a certaiu portion of it, and on being removed into 
another vessel of pure rain water, discharged into the latter liquid the quality 
absorbed from the first. Iti order that no portion of the impregnated water 
might be carried upon its exterior, the plant was carefully washed in distilled 
water, previous to its immersion in the rain water. This experiment showed to 
a certainty, that the plant had taken into its vessels a chemical body in solution, 
