EXTRACTS — HORTICULTURE. 
709 
black spots. The fruit weighs from ten to fifty pounds, and a criterion of its 
ripeness is, when on being struck, it gives a hollow sound; or when it cracks on 
being squeezed. Cucumbers are cultivated, but not much esteemed. Pumpkins 
are principal articles, in Venetian horticulture; and several, particularly Cucur- 
bita Melopepo and moschata Duchesne, are grown to great perfection. The last 
of these sometimes attains from three to four feet long, and lOOlbs in weight. 
Solanum Melongena and Lycopersicum, artichokes, carrots, radishes, spinach, 
and purple brocoli, are very fine; cauliflower, and several species of asparagus 
which are there used are plentiful; but Kohl rabi, and common winter cabbage 
are not known. Celery grows wild near the sea. Fennel forms an eatable bulb 
above the root, for which it is much cultivated, as well as for its aromatic seeds. 
Lettuces are used only when young plants, they never form a head, in conse¬ 
quence of the heat of the climate.— Pruss. Gard. Soc. 
Successful Experiment, tried by Mr. Knight, (Florist and Nursery-man, 
in the King’s Road, Chelsea,) on a mulberry tree, which, except one very large 
branch, was either dead or decaying. When the sap had ascended, he barked 
the branch completely round near its junction with the trunk of the tree, and 
having filled three sacks with mould, he tied them round that part of the branch 
which had been barked, and by means of one or two old watering pots, which 
were kept filled with water, and placed over the sacks, from which the water gra¬ 
dually distilled, the mould in the sacks was sufficiently moistened for his pur¬ 
pose. Towards the end of the year, he examined the sacks, and found them fil¬ 
led with numerous small fibrous roots, which the sap having no longer the bark 
for its conductor into the main roots of the tree, had thus expended itself in 
throwing out. A hole having been prepared near the spot, the branch was sawn 
off below the sacks, and planted with them, the branch being propped securely. 
The next summer it flourished and bore fruit, and is still in a thriving state. 
Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History, page 145, extracted by 
A Constant Reader. 
Apples of very curious kinds are sold at Zurich, some as white as snow 7 . The 
inhabitants are particularly famed for the cultivation of flowers, and excel in 
China asters. At Lausanna, the red currants are of an extraordinary size. In 
Russia, a variety of rice is used, which grows in Siberia, and is more succulent 
than that of America- Enquiries should be made about this, because, possibly, 
in it our bog soils might gain the acquisition of a new production.— Gard. Mag. 
On the Culture of the Melon. —Seeds ten years old are preferred; they 
should be sown in February, and the plants be several times transplanted in a 
moderately warm frame, before they are put into a hot frame for fruiting. This 
is done when the shoots are about a foot long, and they are then shortened to 
three eyes. The succeeding shoots produced by those so shortened will flower 
abundantly; and, during their flowering, air must be freely given, otherwise 
they will not set well, Water-melons must not have their shoots shortened; and 
when swelling their fruit, they require more water than the others.—M. Ebers, 
Berlin.— Pruss. Gtml. Soc. 
To Preserve Grapes Ripened in the Open Air, for Table through 
Winter. —In the spring before the buds have begun to swell, take a healthy 
well-ripened shoot of the preceding year, and draw it up through the bottom 
hole of a flower pot of about fifteen inches in diameter; then fill the pot with 
rich soil, and cover both the soil and the outside of the pot with moss to keep in 
