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Fruit-Trees (Take fresh made lime)

Take fresh made lime from the kiln, slake it well with water and well dress the tree with a brush, and the insects and moss will be completely destroyed, the outer rind will fall off and a new, smooth, clear, healthy one will be formed, and the tree will assume a most healthy appearance and produce the finest fruit.

Treatment of Apple-Trees.

The limbs of apple-trees are recommended by some to be brushed all over in the midst of summer, but it is difficult to brush the branches of trees when the fruit is upon them. Instead of brushing the trees in summer, as soon as the leaves have fallen every tree should be carefully and freely pruned; this will open a passage to the sun and air, and will contribute to health in the future season. In addition to this, says a correspondent of the Monthly Magazine, I should recommend brushing off the moss and cutting out the cankered parts at any season this is convenient, and I further recommend the tree to be anointed some feet from the ground with a composition of sulphur and goose oil, and unless the orchard is ploughed, the soil should be opened at the roots.

To render New Pippins Productive.

To render it more hardy, the farina of the pippin should be introduced to the flower of the Sibe rian crab, whereby a mule is produced, which ripens in cold and exposed situations, yet retains the rich flavor of the other parent. But these hybrid or mule productions in a few generations return to the character of the one or the other variety. A most excellent variety of this apple, called the Downton Pippin, has been obtained by introducing the farina of the golden to the female flower of the Orange Pippin, and the progeny is more hardened than either parent.

To obtain Early Fruit by Exhibiting the Trees.

Mr. Knight having trained the branches of an apple-tree against a southern wall in winter, loosened them to their utmost, and in spring, when the flower-buds began to appear, the branches were again trained to the wall. The blossoms soon expanded and produced fruit, which early attained perfect maturity, and, what is more, the seeds from their fruits afforded plants which, partaking of the quality of the parent, ripened their fruit very considerably earlier than other trees raised at the same time from seeds of the same fruit, which had grown in the orchard.

To hasten the Ripening of Wall Fruit.

Painting the wall with black paint or laying a composition of the same color, produces not only more in quantity, in the proportion of five to three, but the quality is also superior in size and flavor to that which grows against the wall of the natural color. But the trees must be clear of insects, or they will thrive, from the same cause, more than the fruit.

To preserve Plants from Frost.

Before the plant has been exposed to the sun or thawed, after a night's frost, sprinkle it well with spring-water in which sal-ammoniac or common salt has been infused.

To engraft the Coffee-Tree.

Plant in small hampers during the rainy season young plants raised by seed, when they are from twelve to eighteen inches high. Place them in the shade until they are quite recovered, then remove them in the hampers, respectively, to the foot of the coffee trees chosen for the mother plants, which ought to be of the most healthy and productive kind.

These latter ought to be cut down to within three or four inches of the ground, to make them throw out new wood near their roots. It is those shoots which are grafted when they are about a foot or fifteen inches long upon the seedling plants in the hampers placed round the mother plants.

The hampers should be in part buried in the ground to preserve the earth within them moist.

There are several ways of performing the operation of grafting, but we shall give only the two following, which seem most likely to answer the purpose, without calling upon the cultivator to pursue too complex a process: 1st Draw together the stem of the plant in the hamper and one of the branches of the mother plant. Then make a longitudinal incision on each of them of the same length; bring the two incisions together, so that one wound covers the other; bind them closely together and finally cover them with a mixture of clayey earth and cow dung. It would be useful to cut off the top of the plant in the hamper, in order to force the sap into the branch of the mother plant. 2d. Draw together the tree in the hamper and the branch of the mother plant as before, and take off from three to eight inches of the head of the former. Then make a triangular incision upon this cut, and a similar one on the branch of the mother plant, to unite the two wounds; make them fast together and cover them with the same composition as before; then place the branch upright by means of a prop. When the parts are firmly knit together, cut the branch away from the mother plant, and the engrafting is completed.

Young trees thus engrafted, after remaining one or two years in the nursery, ery, should be removed to the plantation they are designed for. This method is highly useful to the fruit trees which do not propagate with all their best qualities by means of seed. In the same manner excellent varieties of spice trees may be raised from plants propagated by seed. To preserve Fruit Trees in Blossom from Frost.

Surround the trunk of the tree in blossom with a wisp of straw or hemp. The end of this sink by means of a stone tied to it in a vessel of spring water at a little distance from the tree. One vessel will conveniently serve two trees, or the cord may be lengthened so as to surround several before its end is plunged into the water. It is necessary that the vessel should be placed in an open situation out of the reach of any shade, so that the frost may produce all its effects on the water by means of the cord communicating with it.

Chinese Mode of Propagating Fruit Trees.

Strip a ring of bark about an inch in width from a bearing branch; surround the place with a ball of fat earth or loam, bound fast to the branch with a piece of matting, over this they suspend a pot or horn with water, having a small hole in the bottom just sufficient to let the water drop, in order to keep the earth constantly moist. The branch throws new roots into the earth just above the place where the ring of bark was stripped off. The operation is performed in the spring, and the branch is sawn off and put into the ground at the fall of the leaf. The following year it will bear fruit.

This mode of propagating, not only fruit trees but plants of every description, received particular attention from the editor while in China, and has since been practised by him in this country with never-failing success. The mode he has adopted is this: -A common tin cup has a round hole punched in the bottom, a little larger than will admit the stem of the branch it is intended to receive. A slit is then to be made from the edge down one side and along the bottom to the central aperture. The two sides can thus be separated so as to let in the branch without injury; it is then closed up, the cup filled with loom mixed with chopped moss, and another cup or gourd pierced with a small hole suspended from a branch above. This is to be kept filled with water. The time to do this is in the spring just before the sap rises. In the fall the limb, as before stated, is to be taken off below the cup and planted, with all the earth that adheres to the roots.

To heal Wounds in Trees.

Make a varnish of common linseed oil, rendered very drying by boiling it for the space of an hour, with an ounce of litharge to each pound of oil, mixed with calcined bones, pulverized and sifted to the consistence of an almost liquid paste. With this paste the wounds are to be covered by means of a brush, after the bark and other substance have been pared, so as to render the whole as smooth and even as possible. The varnish must be applied in dry weather, in order that it may attach itself properly.

Composition for Healing Wounds in Trees.

Take of dry pounded chalk three measures, and of common vegetable tar one measure; mix them thoroughly, and boil them with a low heat till the composition becomes of the consistency of beeswax; it may be preserved for use in this state for any length of time. If chalk cannot conveniently be got, dry brick-dust may be substituted. After the broken or decayed limb has been sawed off, the whole of the saw-cut must be very carefully pared away, and the rough edges of the bark, in particular, must be made quite smooth: the doing of this properly is of great consequence; then lay on the above composition hot, about the thickness of half a dollar, over the wounded place, and over the edges of the surrounding bark; it should be spread with a hot trowel.

To propagate Herbs by Slips and Cuttings.

Many kinds of pot-herbs may, in July, he propagated by cuttings or slips, which may be planted out to nurse on a shady border for a few weeks, or till they have struck root, and may then be planted out where they are to remain. If made about the middle or end of the month, they will be ready for transplanting before the end of August, and in that case will be well established before the winter. The kinds are marjoram, mint, sage, sorrel, tansy, tarragons and thyme.

To prevent the growth of Weeds round Young Fruit- Trees.

To diminish the growth of weeds round fruit trees, spread on the ground round the fresh transplanted trees, as far as the roots extend, the refuse stalks of flax after the fibrous parts have been separated. This gives them very surprising vigor, as no weeds will grow under flax refuse, and the earth remains fresh and loose. Old trees treated in the same manner, when drooping in an orchard, will recover and push out vegerian shoots. In place of flax stalks the leaves which fall from trees in autumn may be substituted, but they must be covered with waste twigs or anything else that can prevent the wind from blowing them away.

To avoid the bad effects of Iron Nails, etc., on Fruit-Trees.

It often happens that some of the limbs of fruittrees, trained against a wall, are blighted and die, while others remain in a healthy and flourishing state. This has hitherto been erroneously attributed to the effects of lightning; but from closer observation, and from several experiments, it has been found to arise from the corroding effects of the nails and cramps with which trees in this situation are fastened. To avoid this inconvenience, therefore, it requires only to be careful in preventing the iron from coming in contact with the bark of the trees.

To destroy Moss on Trees.

Remove it with a hard scrubbing brush in February and March, and wash the trees with cowdung, urine and soap-suds. To protect Trees and Shrubs from the attack of Hares.

Take three pints of melted tallow to one of tar, and mix them well together over a gentle fire.

In November take a small brush and go over the rind or bark of the trees with the mixture, in a milkwarm state, as thin as it can be laid on with the brush. This coating will not hinder the juices or sap expanding in the smallest degree. Its efficacy has been proved by applying the liquid to one tree and missing another, when the latter has been attacked and the former left. During five years' experience, of those besmeared the first two years not one was injured afterwards. If all the bark were properly gone over with the mixture, they probably would not need any more for some years.

To prevent the Propagation of Insects on Apple- Trees.

Let a hard shoe-brush be applied to every infected limb, as if it were to coach harness, to get off the dirt, after which, with the tin box and brush, give the limbs a dressing, leaving them exposed to the sun to increase the efficacy of the application. This should be repeated occasionally during the summer, choosing always a dry time, and warm, clear sunshine.

To prevent the Ravages of the Gooseberry Caterpillar. The only remedy is placing something about the stem or among the branches of the bush, the smell of which is obnoxious to flies, and which they will not approach. The smell of coal-tar or petroleum is said to keep off the caterpillars; the fact is, that it keeps off the fly. The practice is to wrap a beam or twist of seed, strongly impregnated with this strong-scented bitumen, round the stem of the bush, and no caterpillar will touch a leaf.

Other remedies are used, such as soap-suds thrown over the bushes, lime, chimney-soot, and a strong decoction of elder-leaves; but who can eat gooseberries and currants after they have been besmeared with such filthy materials? Keeping off the fly by the smell of something which is disagreeable to it goes to the root of the evil at once, and there is nothing in the smell of coal-tar which can excite a prejudice in the most delicate stomach.

Another Method.

A few small pits or holes, from twelve to fifteen inches deep, being dug among the bushes, at convenient distances, all the surface mould immediately under and near to the bushes, wherein the greatest quantity of shells is likely to be deposited, is taken off with a common garden hoe and buried in these holes or pits; after which the whole surface is carefully dug over to a considerable depth. Wherever these operations are properly performed, no apprehension of loss from this kind of caterpillar need be entertained.