stance equal to the famed peat of European gardens. These turves are valuable just in proportion to the amount of fibrous matter they contain, and for all purposes of plant growing are superior to any combination of soils and manures that can be formed. Its open and porous character renders it capable of producing as well as absorbing a great amount of plant food. When water is given, it passes freely through the pores, retaining much moisture in suspension, lessens the repetitions of the watering pot, and the nutritious elements are not leached out by constant watering. It is now well known, that in a turfy-soil, such as the above, all kinds of greenhouse plants can be grown to great perfection. Plants grown in it are characterized by the deep green, healthy hue of their foliage, the early and well-ripened wood, and a profusion of large and highly-colored flowers. This proceeds from the circumstance that there is no excessive stimulus, at any period of the plant's growth; hence, its development is regular-one of the most important points in all kinds of culture; the plant is not excited into a luxuriant growth of branches and foliage when young, as frequently occurs when the soil is rendered rich with nitrogenous mixtures, which retards maturation of the wood, induces disease, and is unfavorable to the production of flowers and fruit. In preparing this soil for potting it should not be broken up too finely, and by using such correctives as sand, charcoal, &c., it can be regulated to suit any description of plant. Plants that are to remain for years without removal, should be potted in a soil well supplied with these correctives, so that adhesion in the soil after the vegetable matter has become decayed may, to some extent, be prevented.Weak growing plants will also require more than those that are robust. The preparation of the pots as regards drainage is of much moment, and there is some diversity of opinion as to the amount of drainage materials necessary. Some witers assert that it is worse than useless to place an inch or two of drainage in the bottom of pots, as it allows the water to pass off too rapidly, and entails unnecessary labor in keeping a sufficiency of moisture in the soil. At first view this reasoning appears plausible; it is, nevertheless, a fact that well-drained pots and a porous soil will contain a more uniform and lasting supply of moisture, than when these conditions are reversed, because air is thus enabled to penetrate and hold water in suspension. It is an erroneous supposition, perhaps too prevalent, that draining in reality renders a soil dry, so far as a complete abstraction of moisture is understood. Drains only carry away the water that is not retained by absorption, which otherwise would prove injurious. When pots are imperfectly drained, the soil shrinks in drying, and leaves the side of the pot, and when water is afterwards applied it runs down between the soil and the pot, without penetrating to the roots of the plant. On the other hand, when water is applied on the surface of properly drained soil, it immediately percolates freely throughout the mass, and when it has absorbed all that it will retain, the surplus passes away by the drainage. Both science and practice confirm the fact, that good drainage is the foundation for good cultivation. The materials most generally used for pot drainage are technically termed crocks, being pieces of broken pots that are otherwise useless. Those who are so fortunate to have no broken or cracked pots, will find a good substitute in oyster shells and broken charcoal, bones, stones, bricks, &c. The oyster shell is laid over the bottom, and all the broken material laid over it as desired; a small piece of perforated zinc laid over the bottom hole, is a good preventive times troublesome when the plants are set out against the ingress of worms; which are someof doors. The amount of drainage necessary, will, of course, vary with the size of the pot, and it will also be influenced by the kind of the plant. An average depth of one and a half inches to a six inch pot, will be sufficient for permanent plants. Previous to removing a plant from one pot to another, the soil should be allowed to become rather dry, which facilitates the arranging of roots and handling of the plant. When the plant is turned out of the pot, and the roots appear thickly matted and interwoven, the old drainage should be carefully removed, and the roots gently disintegrated, so that they may be spread into the fresh soil; this treatment is more particularly applicable to Azaleas, Camellias, Epacrises, and similar plants that may not have been very recently disturbed. Young plants of soft, free growth, as Fuchsias, Geraniums, Lantanas, &c., should be re-potted as soon as the roots reach the sides of the pots, or at least before they become numerous and spreading, so that the plant may receive no sudden check in its growth. Many plants are kept comparatively dormant in winter, and the old wood cut down in spring to encourage a new growth; of such are Roses, Fuchsias, Geraniums, Clerodendrons, &c. to be re-potted as soon as growth commences, and in doing so the old ball of soil around the roots, should be completely broken up, and a few of the strongest roots pruned back, to admit of being placed in the same or in a smaller pot, by this means a plant may receive fresh soil periodically, without using pots disproportionately large, as compared with the size of the plant. These require Another point worthy of attention is to use the soil for potting rather dry, and press it firmly in the pot, more particularly if placing fresh soil around an old ball of earth, which, unless very tightly packed, will allow a passage for water, leaving the roots dry. If nothing harder than the fingers are used, there will be little danger of pressing the soil too firmly, if me say one of the first demands of the tree at all has been in proper condition. After a plant has been re-potted it should receive a good watering at once, and be placed in a moist atmosphere for a few days afterwards, until growth is again established.— Farmer and Gardener. "Progressive Horticulture." EDITOR WIS. FARMER,-Dear Sir:-If your space for hasty communications will allow the room, I wish to say, to close the thing up with J. C. P., that I have no doubt our friend A. G. H., your able contributor, is laid under lasting obligations for the volunteer criticism on an article sent you from my friend in the March No. of your FARMER. I forgive the order of literary fame that is so ready and will-ing to help out of fancied disparaging of the correctness of our friend's "Low headed trees the best winter protection." My time will not allow me now to say but a few words in this connection, and as you advertise, you desire the ideas compressed as much as possible, you will pardon my inexperience in so doing. I challenge J. C. P. to quote one full paragraph of my article in the March No., and prove the incorrectness of the main principles therein contained. J. C. P. says, "Earthing up in autumn, entirely covers the trunk, and hence the winter's sun, wind and frost are harmless." Is that proving that "low headed trees are the best winter protection?" Doubtless his great experience leads him to think so, having lived in Wisconsin seventeen years! 66 planting is to be taken up with its roots unimpaired. But as in all cases of careless and hurried digging of trees, the roots have been largely mutilated and diminished, the top must be diminished in proportion; not to an unlimited extent-rather discard the tree altogether. Progressive Horticulture"-the idea of planting grape vines on "crown of the highest hills" in Wisconsin, is to me, really a novel idea. My limited experience here in Wisconsin, (having only been here nineteen years the 22d day of this month, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two), has led me to believe sheltered situations really the "surest" place for setting the table varieties of grapes. The idea of training grape vines on the south side of stone and brick buildings, and on the west side, and on the top of the bleak hills of Wisconsin, all these being "sure and excellent,❞— really demonstrates great experience; "so it seems to me." Your valuable paper, doubtless, is too full to give all the explanations in regard to the "free circulation of air essential to success" in all these situations. "The grape is most particular in its choice of location." Well, it rather seems to me that you designed to make a grand hit, Mr. Editor, in requesting the "pith" in communications. Will J. C. P. point out the paragraph in my note in the March No. recommending high top trees? If he cannot do that, if he will come and see me at my nursery, I will point out to him some as good low headed fruit trees, treated as I have recommended, as he can find west of Buffalo, and if he does not say so, then I will show him my nursery gen currant wine; go with him to the cars and in- H. A. CONGar. No intelligent reader of your paper but would understand that my article in the March No. referred to trees for transplanting, consequent-erally; treat him to some of my pieplant and ly the low headed tree has had the cutting back either by winter or the knife, in the majority of cases. I deny that the cutting back of to of the last season's growth at planting is severe pruning in spring at transplanting. That is the usual practice among well informed planters. That subject being new and foreign to matters in consideration. I deny that at the time of planting, the "shortening in is one of the first demands of the tree," rather let How I RAISE PUMPKINS.-Take the poorest land in the corn field; plow deep; mark 12 feet each way; dig holes 14 feet deep; fill with well-rotted manure; cover with earth 12 inches; then plant. When they begin to run, thin farmers. PALMYRA, April 6, 1862. The "Lawton Blackberry"-its Value. out, so that but 2 or 3 remain in a hill. The our opinion of its non-success as a plant for 25th of May is early enough to plant. One general planting. We had hopes of that acre cultivated in this way, will produce more portion of the State adjoining the lake, but it than ten acres with corn. Last season I had seems that even here the plants are "given or 31 pumpkins from one sprout-averaging 20 thrown away," and their culture abandoned as Ibs. each, or 620 lbs. from the vine! Try it "not paying," and that too with "five dollars T. S. COLTON. per bushel" staring them in the face, less than one hundred miles south of them, where their corn crop, with less than half the given number of bushels to the acre, is worth at this writing, but 24 cts. per bushel. It is almost fallacy to talk about the plants being "hardy." With the utmost care we know of but few men who have been successful in wintering them without the loss of the tops, even with straw or earth protection. That the roots are "hardy," and we may add, a great nuisance to any amateur, is true, as any one will bear witness who has ever been so unfortunate as to allow any planted on his grounds. Indeed, they are worse than Canada thistles" to exterminate. So that we know that Col. C. has not yet seen the last of his Lawtons, but contrary, will have a triple stock to "give away" the coming fall, perhaps be able to supply some of the Eastern or "Ohio establishments" cheaper even than they can grow them for the Wisconsin market. The Lawton Blackberry, "cemented in sugar," has so sweetened the hopes, if not the pockets of some fruit growers, that it's almost too bitter a pill to swallow, the idea of giving its culture up. We wrote our little "say" for the March No. of the FARMER in much haste, and did not add quite all we wished to, intending to let the subject drop; but to our surprise, and unsolicited, a "bit" of testimony has fallen in our way which is too valuable for the Northwest to lose-and though it's a hard "mite" to mete out to my fellow men, with hundreds of the plants to sell,-yet it's my bounden duty, as of every other horticulturist in the State, to try to direct aright or not at all. We regret that the letter referred to above from Col. Crocker, was marked "private," else we would give it to the readers of the FARMER entire; but having the fear of a reprimand, There is a little stricture upon the press we we venture one or two extracts. In a note ad- wish here to throw in: beware of "grinding ded to the same he says, "You may use my your own axes." Says a brother nurseryman name as concurring with you in your estimate in the writer's hearing, to a gentleman from St. of the Lawton Blackberry." After eight years Paul, "is n't that a queer communication upon experience with the Lawton, Col. C. says, the Lawton, for a man to write who expects to "Some years I have thought well of the fruit, sell dollars worth of plants this spring?" and recommended its cultivation, other years To which of course (in this case) the St. Paul I have thought otherwise, and upon the whole, man nodded assent, and we thought whose have come to the conclusion that its culture grindstone would wear the longest; but the will not pay: (his own italicism,) again, * point is here precisely, condensely expressed: "the flavor is inferior to the wild blackberry, to "grind not that ye be not ground." Can't which is abundant and cheap every year," a nurseryman condemn what he has for sale or * * * "my bed did well last year in every extol it either and be honest? But "what's respect but flavor," "I dug it up last fall and in it?" Oh ye little "fruit gods," how you gave or threw away all the plants;" thinks in flutter, go buzzing, buzzing away, as though a more favored climate it might be an acqui- my goose quill had scratched up a hornet's nest. sition, but upon the "lake shore it has proven But tell me ye wise ones, whose "cow did my a failure." Presto! what testimony from plain- ox goad?" and under which rib? Certainly tiff's own witness. We have already expressed the "Lawton is getting a prominence" beyond * And so anything we had anticipated, and we would they will not do well on black soil." now that the "rappings" of some of those de- we might add testimony of careful cultivators, parted "good children," (Lawtons,) might chant amateurs who pride themselves upon having a a requiem to their loved friends, who are still little at least, if not much, of those "home lingering about their burial. Not that we wish comforts," " gathered fresh for every meal" any one might see ghosts in so rampant, prick-* when they can, and not "if they will;" ly and incontrollable a form as the Lawton is, but it's unnecessary, the "blackberry belt" is but that our friend might get his eyes scratch- already retreating plenty fast enough, and will ed open, and then be able to see an instance or soon be within the Southern dominions, unless two in which, under good treatment, like unto perchance, it's deemed a rebel and fired upon that which Col. C. has given his plants, it has ere it starts; but hold! it's already been "voproven unsatisfactory, "not paying," and thus ted" unconstitutional and out of place by a discarded, even as Col. C.'s have been, for reasons majority of a Missouri Fruit Grower's Associain extracts above. tion. "Where, oh where, shall I rest my thorny, unprofitable bed." Help a " divinely good child" from the regions of "humbugs." Our friend seems surprised, or struck with a new idea at a 66 blackberry belt." Wonder if he ever heard of a Peach belt way down South, or an Apple belt anywhere, even around MADISON, Wis. O. S. WILLEY. Something about Silk. We find a leading article in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, for April, upon the subject of silk. the crown of "Woodside" hill, where the Spitz- MECHANICAL & COMMERCIAL. enburgs and Greenings do so well that he is "almost persuaded," now that they are on the anxious seat, to recommend them,-(we don't say he has)-we looked for the " 'Blackberry belt" around and in the neighborhood of this hill, but failed to find it; nor has testimony yet been produced, showing to the contrary. Query: Is "Woodside" within the aforesaid "belt?" Ye "fruit gods!" why don't you bring on your evidence, outside of the imaginary belt, which is already in the "marching" order of the "retreating" sort; is now confined to a close proximity to the lake at Waukegan (will jump in shortly.) At Racine, Dr. Ozanne has had "marvellous" luck; after eight years trial and enthusiasm, he has grown one crop of the "largest kind of berries." Press forward, ye immortals, you have a calling. L. P. Chandler, after several years trial and protection, has never fruited it. J. T. Stevens discards it as tender with protection, and "decidedly unfit for an amateur, its proclivities to spread and sucker are very objectionable" Dr. Hobbins is of the same opinion. Mr. Clark "is of the opinion that in a leaf mold, where the wild berry grows, the Lawton may succeed, but not on a prairie soil." Robert Douglass, of Waukegan, last Dec. in Chicago said, "I think We have extracted somewhat copiously from its pages, believing the subject to be one of interest, to the readers of the FARMER: The first people to discover the capabilities of the silk worm and its cocoon, were the Chinese. Whatever we may think of the intellects of the Celestials, it is certain that where tiresome, toilsome patience over detailed minutiae is required, they show themselves equal to the occasion. They have enormous indefatigability over there, beyond the Great Wall. When Mr. Taurus (Johannes) sent them, a few years ago, a little present of the finest cambric needles England could make, with the popular Hornerism attached, "See, what a good boy am I!" -our transmural brethren returned them with the compliments of the season, and with eyes bored through the points. And this is no more than a fair specimen of their skill in all microscopic arts; they like them, and excel in them. They like to put their eyes out over grotesque embroideries; they like to put a thousand strokes upon a half inch of carving, where ten would do as well; they like to prepare hundreds of thousands of pounds of tea, where every leaf is picked separately, rolled by itself, and packed one at a time. The extreme laboriousness of the whole silk process in those remote days, when there were no machines but fingers, would have dismayed any nation but one where the men were almost as numerous as the worms, and could live on new ones. But the poor insects were destined to a vio and the king of Sicily, Roger II., was the ruthless invader. He sacked the cities and bagged the worms, and deposited them, with numbers of their masters and mistresses, in his own capital, Palermo. Here the Greek exiles carried on the culture, by the king's command, and Sicily became a new centre of progress, from which the manufacture slowly extended into other European countries, although the cultivation was, as yet, nowhere attempted but in Spain. nearly as little. For ever so many centuries, The climate of Greece was found to be exeight or nine, China monopolized the entire tremely favorable to the raising of silkworms, silk culture and trade, selling her products at and Athens, Corinth and Thebes, were soon an immense price, and preserving great secrecy renowned for their success in this pursuit. with regard to the whole process. The silk Where Homer had sung, and Phidias had chiswas sent, with other articles of oriental manu- eled, and Leonidas had fought, and Paul had facture, in great caravans of loaded camels, preached, where Mrs. Xantippe had been alacross the vast waste of country which stretch-ways "on a rampage," and the benign Socrates ed between China and Persia; from there to had shrugged his shoulders resignedly, there Constantinople, and thence to Rome. The ex- these new heroes were installed. pense of transporting it across this weary length of land by these slow-travelling crea-lent transfer from their philosophic abodes, tures, and the original cost of it in China, combined to make it of enormous value by the time it arrived at Rome, and for a long time it was considered to be of the same worth as gold, and was sold weight for weight. The Romans knew nothing of its origin, supposing it to be grown from some rare shrub, as cotton or flax grow, but they delighted in it as a new extravagance, and as a novel and costly insignia of rank. The passion for it grew so rapidly, that the emperor Tiberius, passed a law forbidding any man to wear so essentially Soon after this, when Henry of Navarre was feminine a fabric. This checked the demand monarch of France, a Frenchman by the name for it for a time; but when, in the third cen- of De Serres, wrote an enthusiastic treatise tury after Christ, Heliogabalus, weakest and upon silk culture, which excited much attenwickedest of noodles, was made Emperor of tion. Many people in the vicinity of Paris Rome, he revived every foolish and criminal planted mulberry trees and attempted silkcustom of past times, besides inventing many growing. If the silk fanciers had been so Among the most absurd of the prudent as to secure the services of a professor latter, was the Senate of Fashion, to which the of entomology, all things might have gone patrician ladies of Rome were elected, for the discussion of dress, deportment, ancient eti-smoothly; as it was, they were ignorant of the management of both trees and worms. quette and other solemn topics. The article mulberry is subject to many diseases, from the which Tiberius had prohibited, was pronounc- unnatural way in which it is stripped of its ed, by this grave tribunal, to be highly deco- foliage. Rust, mildew and honey-dew assail it rous and becoming, and Heliogabalus himself in turn; the leaves which are attacked by the was the first to sustain the judgment of the two former must be thrown away; those covcourt by appearing in an entire suit of silk. ered by honey-dew may be used after being The court followed suit, literally, and the cuscarefully washed and dried. With a sublime tom soon became universal. The increased demand stimulated a greater supply, and the leaves indiscriminately, which gave the Bomunconsciousness of all this, they gathered the prices of it gradually lessened. byxes very bad stomach-aches indeed, and often ended in the early death of the most promising specimens; besides this, they forgot to parboil the cocoon till a few minutes too late; the moth ate its way out, the thread was cut and the silk ruined. In short, all their zeal, and all their efforts, resulted in a huge amount of grubs, moths, eggs, empty cocoons and no silk. They tore up the mulberry trees in a rage, and the worms perished by starvation. This was an especial triumph for Sully, Henry's minister, for he loathed luxury and all its appurtenances, and had used his whole influence among the people to excite their discontent, and to crush the enterprise. Not so with the king; he was clever enough to see that if the scheme were a practical one, France would secure a certain and always increasing source of income. After a long consultation with De Serres, he resolved to test the matter again, and went so far as to uproot the royal orangery and stock it with mulberry trees, for After a while, somewhere in the sixth century, two Persian monks, who had resided a long time in China, and had made themselves thoroughly conversant with the whole art of silk culture, offered, in consideration of certain gifts and promises from the Emperor Justinian, to bring the eggs of the silkworm to Constantinople, and to personally superintend their domestic affairs. The attempt was successful, and so this new and very important branch of industry was established in Europe, although within very narrow limits. Western Europe was then groping its way through the murkiest part of the dark ages. Charlemagne, whom Hallam compares to a light-house upon a rock in the midst of a dark and seething sea, was not yet erected, much less trimmed and lit. England had no existence, and the Saxon heptarchs ate and sqabbled, conquered each other, and were conquered in turn, all in barbaric confusion. The |