arbor vitæ. Here is no furze or heath, no.arbutus, no sweet bay, or laurel, or laurustinus, but snowdrops and crocuses bear the winter, hepaticas grow wild, also fine azaleas, some anotherias, and at this time abundance of golden rod and Michaelmas daisy or aster. The apples excel, though many most wretched ones are grown, pears are not plentiful, but around Albany plums are most abundant, and some excellent gooseberries, but they do not answer, except in particular spots, currants do well, except the black, which are bad, no apricots or nectarines are sten, but peaches are sent hither from Jersey and Long Island Potatoes round us are good, but no where equal to the best English kinds in flavour or produce per acre. Green ears of Indian corn are a favorite dish here which you cannot have in England. Some things are very cheap; many pine apples were brought for sale from the West Indies; and one day in June, I bought in Albany, ten for a dollar, or five pence each; common apples now are only worth six-pence a bushel, common plums, now going out of season, four shillings a bushel, fine gages, &c. have sold at sixteen shillings. I had some English apples and pears this spring which all lived, some sent me last November all died. Amongst others I lost of Hacon's pear, three trees. Some day I shall beg of you to send me one in the spring."

WHITE CLOVER HARROWED INTO GRASS LAND.-It is my intention, says Mr. Calvert, in a letter to Sir R. Sutton, in 1794, in March or April next, to sow upon an acre of land, in the centre of a grass field, about fourteen lbs. of white clover seed. The close was well manured from the fold yard in November last, and has never yet been harrowed, After sowing and harrowing with a common harrow to scratch the soil a little, I mean to make it fine by means of a thorn harrow, and wait the result of my experiment, which is intended to show how far grass land may be improved without ploughing. Should I succeed, I shall have pleasure in communicating it to you.-Nottingham, Surrey, 1794.

Note.-I beg to ask, if you can give any information respecting the result of this or any similar experiment? I would also invite your opinion as to its practicability and probable success. It seems feasible.

BIRCH PLANTATIONS.-Birch is felling from November to March, though the sooner the better, as the sap rises early, and it bleeds excessively, if not cut before March. I let the twigging to the Beesom makers, at so much a bundle of four feet girth. They lie till March, when they are stacked like corn, and thatched. They must be dry before being stacked, or they will become mouldy.

I cut out the

thafts or staves, and sell them by the thousand or hundred. The tree is sold to the brush makers, for brush heads, painters' brushes, brush handles, bannisters, spindles, distaffs, &c. or short pieces to clog-makers, for shoe-heel cutters, &c. The poles are sold by the score, or gross, according to the articles into which they are converted. The refuse goes to the bakers, or for family use. The nogging ends unconverted are brought home and burnt for coal, being the quickest and best burning fuel possible; never flying or sparkling at all. I used to raise a good deal from seed. I pared and burnt a piece of the worst land, sowed it with turnips, fed it off, and harrowed it well. I harrow the seed well in, any time before winter; which I prefer, as the plants will grow sooner and make greater progress by coming out of the grouud earlier, than if this business were delayed till spring. They will grow in great abundance, broad-cast like corn, and be a nursery for years; leaving sufficient at last for a plantation. The seed may be easily taken from bearing trees, by cutting the branches before it is quite ripe, in August, and may be thrashed out with a flail as corn; as soon as the branches dry a little, two strikes or bushels go to an acre.--Nevelle's Letter to Sir G. Sutton.

PRESERVING BEES IN WINTER.-Mr. Ethridge of Montrose, Pew, who keeps a considerable quantity of Bees, buried several of his hives in the ground, during the falls of last year. They were placed a sufficient depth to be out of the reach of frost, and in such a manner that the air could by no means penetrate, being first covered with straw, to about the thickness of ten inches, before being covered with mould as fig, I., They were taken up in April, and the bes were found to be in

good health. They had made use of no honey, as there appeared to be as much honey in the spring as when the hives were buried in the autumn. M. SAUL.

LING DESTROYED BY LIME.-Lime is an utter enemy to ling or bent, so much so, to the former especially, that wherever even limestone unburnt is thrown down upon ling, in no great length of time the chippings of the stone, and the substance wasted off from them by rain, entirely destroy the ling and produce sweet herbage. In the Western Moorlands, where land over run with ling or bent is intended to be improved, it is the practice to lay on three or four chaldrons of lime per acre, which in one year entirely changes the natural produce to that of a fine turf full of white clover.

In

CULTURE OF THE VINE IN AMERICA.-There are two varieties of the scuppernong grape, the black and the white, both possessing very similar qualities. The young wood is very slender, the leaves A wine of shining above and beneath, the fruit juicy and sweet. an excellent and peculiar flavour is made from these grapes. North Carolina, many barrels are made in one season from a single vine. They are usually trained on arbours, over the large courts which separate the main portion of the houses from the kitchens, the latter being commonly placed behind in the rear. A single vine will soon cover a space of one hundred feet by forty, and bear as much as forty bushels of good grapes. The climate of New England is not well suited to the sort of grape; but in Carolina they are said to flourish, and their roots will find nourishment in dry sandy land, good for nothing else.

The numerous flourishing vineyards of America, which have of late years been established, in the middle, southern, and western States, for the manufacture of wines, consist chiefly of the native varieties, which are the Catawba, Isabella, Alexanders, Longhborough, Scuppernong, and Worthington. The wine of this last grape mixed with that of Schuylkill, gives it a degree of roughness between port and claret. The American sorts are found to do by far the best in American vineyards. It was found to be a capital error, in planting The American sorts the European kinds in preference to their own. require no protection during winter. The long canes produced in a single year, if left to themselves, would break and produce fruit only at their extremities, but this is remedied by art, which the cultivators abot Boston perfectly understand, and where amazing crops are produced. Before vegetation commences, the rods of the former years' growth are tied in a coil. By this treatment the buds break and grow equally from the extremity to the base. When the buds have grown an inch or a little more, the rods are uncoiled and

secured in their destiued situations on the trellis. The practice of training vines in a serpentine or spiral manner is not new, but is too little known and too much neglected. M. SAUL.

READING SOCIETY AT LANCASTER.- A society is now being formed in this town, for taking in all the periodicals published in Britain and America; on gardening and botany, which I have no doubt will be of immense benefit. The expense will be trifling. It is fully expected, that the plans and arrangements will be completed so as to commence on the 2nd of Jannary, 1834.

M. SAUL.

PART II.

REVIEWS AND EXTRACTS.

REVIEW.

ALPHABET OF GARDENING,

By JAMES RENNIE, ESQ. M. A. Professor of Zoology, King's College, London, And Author of the Alphabet of Botany.

Small 12mo, 128 pages, Price 2s. 6d.

In reviewing the Alphabets of Insects and Botany, in volume 1, pages 275, and 368, we expressed an opinion that they were both calculated to be very useful to persons unacquainted with the rudiments of either of those branches of science. On a careful examination of the present one, we have unavoidably arrived at the same conclusion. The author, within the small compass of 120 pages, treats on the Food of Garden Plants, including Garden Chemistry, Garden Physics, and Garden Physiology. Philosophy of Garden Processes and operations, including the Scientific Principles of manuring, digging, and raking, seed sowing, transplanting, striking, grafting, and budding, pruning, training, blooming, fruiting, multiplying and preserving, and lastly forcing. Under these several heads the most essential knowledge is supplied to the young gardener, not couched in abstruse language, but written in the most plain, and simple style. The scientific terms, however, are appended in notes, at the bottom of each page, where the explanation of them occurs. We furnish a few extracts, which will give our readers a tolerably correct idea of the style and character of the work. Under the head "Garden Physics," when speaking on the texture of soils, the author says,

"One of the best methods of ascertaining the capability of any soil to take up and retain moisture, is that described by Mr. C. Johnson, for which purpose he employs the following apparatus, fig. 2. a is a lamp; b a stool with a hole in the seat for receiving c, a shallow vessel, closely covered, but having a pipe, d, for the escape of steam; h is a pair of accurate scales. In order to employ this apparatus, put a small quantity of the soil to be tried on the top of the tin ves se, in which water is kept briskly boiling for half an hour, so as to roughly dry the soil by expelling its moisture. Take 10 grains accurately weighed of

D

this dried soil, and add to it, by means of a quill, a drop or two of pure water, if distilled water can be had, so much the better. Weigh the whole a second time, which will now be a few grains above ten. Take out the weight of the water from the scale, leaving in the weights of the dried soil, and suspend the beam, so that the scale c, may rest on the lid of the tin vessel, in which the water is still kept boiliug: then with a stop watch note the exact time, which the added water takes to evaporate, as will be shown by the beam of the balance becoming level. Mr. Johnson found that soils requiring less than 25, or more than 50 minutes, to evaporate the added water, and bring the balance to a level, were always proportionably unproductive; the first from having too much flinty sand, and consequently no texture fitted for retaining water; and the second from

2

having too much clay, and consequently too few interstices to allow the water to escape. Rich soil, treated in this way, required thirty-two minutes to bring the beam to a level; chalk twenty-nine minutes: poor flinty soil twenty-three minutes, and gypsum only eighteen minutes.

A very fertile soil from Ormiston, Haddingtonshire, containing in 1000 parts, more than half of finely divided materials, among which were eleven parts of limestone soil, and nine parts of vegetable principles, when dried in a similar way, gained 18 grains in an hour, by exposure to moist air, at the heat of 62 degrees Fahr. while 1000 parts of a barren soil, from Bagshot Heath, gained only three grains in the same time.

Mr. Johnson farther found, that 100 parts of burnt clay, when exposed in a dry state for three hours to air saturated with moisture, at 68 degrees, took up 29 parts of water, that gypsum, in similar circumstances, took up only 9 parts, and chalk only 4 parts."

"Another method of testing the texture of soils is, by taking what is termed their specific gravity: that is, comparing what they weigh in air, with what they weigh in water. Sufficient accuracy for practical purposes may be obtained by drying two different soils at an equal distance from a fire, or in an oven, at the same time, and then weighing in the air a pound of each, in a thin bladder with a few holes near its top or neck. When the weight has thus been obtained in the air, the bladder may be put into water, letting it sink low enough to permit the water to enter through the holes into the neck, in order to mix with the dried specimen of the soil. The weight in water divided by the difference of the two