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Fruit-Trees (To cure the Disease)

To cure the Disease in Apple-Trees.

Brush off the white down, clear off the red stain underneath it, and anoint the places infected with a liquid mixture of train oil and Scotch snuff.

Another Method.

Orchards are occasionally much injured by an insect appearing like a white efflorescence; when bruised between the fingers it emits a blood-red fluid. Mix a quantity of cow-dung with human urine, to the consistence of paint, and let the infected trees be anointed with it, about the beginning of March. To cure the Canker in Apple-Trees.

The only means of preventing the canker worm, which destroys the young fruit, and endangers the life of the tree, when discovered, and which, in many instances, has proved to be effectual, is encircling the tree, about knee-high, with a streak of tar, early in the spring, and occasionally adding a fresh coat. In other Trees.

Cut them off to the quick, and apply a piece of sound bark from any other tree, and bind it on with a flannel roller. Cut off the canker, and a new shoot will grow strong, but in a year or two you will find it cankered.

To cure Ulcers in Elm-Trees.

The remedy consists in boring every tree at tacked by the disease, at the ulcer itself; and in applying a tube to the hole occasioned by the borer, penetrating about nine lines in depth. The sound trees, which are also bored, afford no liquor, whereas those that are ulcerated afford it in great abundance, increasing particularly in fine weather, and when the wound is exposed to the south. Stormy weather and great winds stop the effusion. In this manner the ulcers dry and heal in forty-eight hours.

To cleanse Orchard Trees by Lime.

The use of lime has been highly recommended in the dressing of old moss-eaten orchard trees.

Some fresh made lime being slaked with water, and some old worn out apple-trees well dressed with it with a brush, the result was that the insects and moss were destroyed, the outer rind fell off, and a new, smooth, clear, healthy one formed; the trees, although twenty years old, assuming a most healthy appearance.

To cure Blight in Fruit Trees.

A smothering straw-fire should be made early in October, in calm weather, under each tree, and kept up during an hour or more. This done, scrape the moss and other impurities from the trunk, and from every obscure hole and corner; set your ladders to the branches, carefully cleaning them in the same way, taking from the remaining leaves every web or nidus of insects. If need be, wash the trunk, and all the larger wood, with a solution of lime and dung. Last of all, it is necessary to destroy the insects or eggs, which may have dropped upon the ground, and it may be useful to loosen the soil in the circumference. In the spring, or early blighting season, apply your ladders, make a careful survey of every branch, and act accordingly; repeat this monthly, picking off all blights by hand, and using the water-engine, where ablution may be necessary. To those who have fruit, or the market profit thereof, every orchard or garden, little or great, will amply repay such trouble and expense. Another Method.

Trees newly transplanted, in general, escape its attack, when other trees, of the same kind of fruit, grown in the same situation, are nearly destroyed. Peach and nectarine trees should be dug up once in every five or six years, and replanted with fresh mould. By this method, a larger quantity of fruit of a superior kind will be obtained. The covering of trees with mats, by almost totally depriving them of light, has a tendency to create blight, which often attends an excess of heat or cold.

To preserve Apple-Trees from Blight.

Washing the branches with quick-lime will preserve the trees from blight, and insure a crop; those which escape washing suffer from the blight, whilst the others produce a good crop.

To prevent the Blight or Mildew from injuring Orchards. Rub tar well into the bark of the apple-trees, about four or six inches wide round each tree, and at about one foot from the ground. This effectually prevents blight, and abundant crops are the consequence.

To prevent Mildew on Fruit-Trees.

Take one quart of whiskey, two pounds of powdered sulphur, two ounces of copperas, and a small quantity of camphor. Dissolve first the camphor, reduced to powder, gradually in the spirit, then dissolve also the copperas in it; then rub gradually the powdered sulphur into the solution, when the whole will form a mixture of a thickish consistence. The fruit-trees, in the spring of the year, immediately after being cleaned and tied up, are to have their trunks and all their branches completely covered with this mixture, by means of a large paint-brush.

To prevent Mildew on Peach-Trees.

In the months of January and February, if the trees are in a stunted or sickly state, take away all the old mould from the roots as carefully as possible, and put in its place fresh rotten turf from an old pasture, without any dung; and the trees will not only recover their health, but produce a crop of fine fruit.

To prevent Gumming in Fruit-Trees.

To prevent gumming, or the spontaneous exu dation of gum from the trunks of fruit trees, which injures to a considerable extent the growth and strength of the tree, - Take of horse dung any quantity, mix it well up with a quantity of clay and a little sand, so as to make a composition; then add a quantity of pitch-tar (which is put upon cart-wheels), and form a wettish composition of the whole. The fruit trees, in the spring of the year, after they are cleaned and tied up, are to have their trunks and stems completely bedaubed or covered with this mixture.

To cultivate the Cucumber.

To produce cucumbers at an early season, is an object of emulation with every gardener; and there is scarcely any person who has not a cucumber-bed in his garden. Cucumbers are forced in hot-beds, pits, and hot-houses, and the heat of fire, steam, and dung have been applied to their culture; but dung is the only thing yet found out, by the heat of which the cucumber may be advantageously cultivated. Soil.

Cucumbers, like every other plant, will grow in any soil, though not with the same degree of vigor, provided they be supplied with a sufficiency of heat, light, water, and air.

For Early Forcing.

Abercrombie recommends a mould or compost of the following materials One-third of rich top- C spit earth, from an upland pasture, one-half of vegetable mould, and one-sixth of well decomposed horse dung, with a small quantity of sand. McPhail used vegetable mould made from a mixture of the leaves of elm, lime, beech, sycamore, horse and sweet chestnut, spruce and Scotch fir, walnut, laurel, oak, evergreen, oat, ash, etc., and among them withered grass, and weeds of various sorts. This vegetable mould is preferable to any other.

Compost used in Kew Garden.

Of light loam, a few months from the common, one-third part; the best rotten dung, one-third part; leaf mould, and heath earth, equal parts, making together one-third part; the whole well mixed for use.

To form the Seed.

If one light frame will be large enough for ordinary purposes, choose a dry sheltered part of the melon ground, and form a bed. When high winds are suffered to blow against a cucumber bed, they have a very powerful effect on it; therefore, when a cucumber bed is about to be formed, the first object of consideration should be to have it sheltered from the high winds and boisterous stormy weather. Having put on the frame, and waited till the bed is fit for moulding, lay in five or six inches depth of the proper earth or compost.

Sowing.

Abercrombie sows some seeds in the layer of the earth, which he spreads over the bed, putting them in half an inch deep. He also sows some seeds in two, three, or more small pots of the same kind of earth, which may be plunged a little into that of the bed.

To raise Plants from Cuttings.

Instead of raising cucumber plants from seed, they may be raised from cuttings, and thus kept on from year to year, in the following manner:

Take a shoot which is ready for stopping, cut it off below the joint, then cut smooth the lower end of the shoot or cutting, and stick it into fine leaf or other rich mould, about an inch deep, and give it plenty of heat, and shade it from the rays of the sun till it be fairly struck. By this method cucumber plants may readily be propagated.

Treatment till removed to the Fruiting Bed.

After sowing continue the glasses on the frame; giving occasional vent above for the steam to evaporate. The plants will be up in a few days, when it will be proper to admit air daily, but more guardedly at the upper ends of the lights. In frosty weather hang part of a mat over the aperture. When the plants are a little advanced, with the seed leaves about half an inch broad, take them up and prick some in small pots of light earth, previously warmed by the heat of the bed. Put three plants in each pot, and insert them a little slopingly, quite to the seed-leaves. Plunge the pots into the earth; and prick some plants also into the earth of the bed. Give a very little water just to the roots; the water should be previously warmed to the temperature of the bed. Draw on the glasses; but admit air daily, to promote the growth of the plants, as well as to give vent to the steam rising in the bed, by tilting the lights behind from half an inch to an inch or two high, in proportion to the heat of the bed and the temperature of the weather. Cover the glasses every night with garden mats and remove them timely in the morning. Give twice a week, once in two days, or daily, according to the season, a very light watering. Keep up a moderate lively heat in the bed by requisite linings of hot dung to the sides.

To guard the Seeds from Mice.

Lay a pane of glass over the pot or pan till they have come up, and afterwards at night cover with a pot of equal size till the seed-leaves have expanded and the husks have dropped; for, until then, the plants are liable to be destroyed. The cover, however, should always be removed by sunrise, and replaced in the evening. It is at night these vermin generally commit their depredations.

No air need be admitted till the heat begins to rise, and steam begins to appear; but after that the light should be tilted a little every day, in whatever state the weather may be, until the plants break ground. Air must then be admitted with more care; and if frosty, or very chill, the end of a mat should be hung over the opening, that the air may sift through it, and not immediately strike the plants.

To transplant Cucumbers.

As soon as the seed-leaves of the plants are fully expanded, transplant them singly into pots of the 48th size, and give a little water and air night and day. The temperature for seedlings is from 65° to 75°. With this heat and water, as the earth in the pots becomes dry, and a little air night and day so as to keep the internal air in the frame sweet and fluctuating between the degrees of heat above-mentioned, the plants will be fit for finally transplanting out in one month, that is, by the 14th of November, into the fruiting frames.

To form the Fruiting Bed.

Begin to make preparations for the fruiting bed, about three weeks before the plants are ready to be planted out for good. The dung collected, after being well worked, is made up into a bed about four or five feet high, and the frames and lights set upon it. It is afterwards suffered to stand for a few days to settle, and until its violent heat be somewhat abated, and when it is thought to be in a fit state for the plants to grow in, its surface is made level, and a hill of mould laid in just under the middle of each light, and when the mould gets warm the plants are ridged out in it.

After this, if the bed has become perfectly sweet, and there be heat enough in it, and the weather proves fine, the plants will grow finely.

To Plant Out.

When the temperature is ascertained to be right, bring the plants in their pots; turn over the hills of mould, forming them again properly, and then proceed to planting. Turn those in pots clean out one at a time, with the ball of earth whole about the roots; and thus insert one patch of three plants which have grown together, with the ball of earth entire into the middle of each hill, earthing them nearly around the stems. Also any not in pots having been pricked into the earth of the bed, if required for planting, may be taken up with a small ball of earth and planted similarly.

With water warmed to the air of the bed, give a very light watering about the roots, and shut down the glasses till next morning. Shade the plants a little from the mid-day sun a few days, till they have taken root in the hills, and cover the glasses every evening with large mats, which should be taken off in the morning.

Mr. Phail's Method of Covering the Frames.

First, lay clean single mats on the lights in length and breadth, nearly to cover the sashes, taking care not to suffer any part of the mats to hang over the sashes on or above the linings, for that would be the means of drawing the steam into the frames in the night time. On these mats. spread equally a covering of soft hay, and on the hay lay another covering of single mats, upon