except on dry, warm, and rich soils. With neglected culture, the fruit is not worth gathering. The tree bears quite young, and ripens with as little care as fall pippins. Insect on the Verbena. Extract from a letter of DAVID THOMAS, dated 12 mo. 9, 1850:-"Last winter we had a few Verbenas of great beauty, in pots; but all perished except two. These in the spring were planted out in a bed of sand and peat, where they had grown the preceding summer most luxuriantly, but after a few weeks both perished. In the mean time I had added to the same bed four splendid ones which Luther Tucker had kindly sent me. In a few weeks, three of these also declined, and I felt quite discouraged. On taking them up, however, to try them in another border, I found the main stems covered with a pale green aphis! This discovery explained at once the bad condition of the plants; and having destroyed all that I could find, the Verbenas came beautifully into bloom towards the close of the The plant that remained in the bed was not in season. fested. "After these plants were potted, we found a few of the aphis on each; and now they will be regularly inspected. I presume there is nothing new in all this to such persons as have the care of green-houses; but to new beginners with house plants, the statement may possibly be of some value." Planting on Green-Sward in Hot-Beds. Suggestions for the more especial benefit of Market Gardeners. In the forwarding of such plants in hotbeds, as need to be subsequently transplanted, there is much advantage in the use of green-swards. They not only afford a very natural nutriment to all plants, but they allow of subsequent removal with more facility and safety than by any other mode. They also admit of a longer retention in the seed-bed than by any other mode. I. Choice and Preparation of Swards.-Choose a smooth plat in any old pasture or meadow where the soil is good, and its texture sandy, or at least loamy; since a clay sod will bake too much, and a coarse gravel will be too loose. Especial care also should be exercised in avoiding quack grass and such perennial weeds as golden-rod, since it is found that the sprouting of such things in the hot-bed is a source of much trouble. With a sharp spade cut a line about six inches deep on the side of your plat of sward ground, and then another line a foot distant. Cut out the intervening space in squares, and so on till you have the requisite number. An Irishman will cut as fast as two or three can wheel away. Sods may be cut larger or smaller than one foot to suit varying circumstances, but long and extensive use has fixed me at these dimensions as usually the best. Where many are needed, and when they are cut a considerable distance from the beds, they should be loaded upon a cart or wagon, gras-sside down. I have been in the habit of using from three hundred to twelve hundred a year for the last eight years. II. Mode of planting upon them.-Having arranged the manure in your beds, and slightly covered it with earth, cover it with small pine boards one foot square, disposed in regular rows. Pine is more durable than hemlock, and the knottiest boards are best as well as cheapest. In a bed thirteen feet by five and one half, I usually put five rows of twelve each. Lay a sod upon each board. Now place a small stick very accurately in the centre of each sod and then fill all the intervals with good garden earth, and make it all level. Then withdraw your sticks, one by one, making a hole in the center of each sod for your seed. Now sow and cover, and your bed is done. I have sometimes sowed my seeds thickly in loose earth in a hot-bed, and then subsequently set my plants, when small, upon my sods; but I do not like it so well. III.-Period of Planting, &c.-This will depend on your after treatment. If you transfer your plants to the open ground, using perhaps only some little protection against severe winds, you may here (at Utica) plant tomatoes about the first of April, melons of all kinds the 15th, and cucumbers and summer squashes the twentieth. Your tomatoes may stand six weeks, i. e., to the middle of May; or, if set a little wider apart, unth the first of June. Melons may safely remain six weeks, but cucumbers and summer squashes should never be left in the beds more than four weeks. If, however, you are willing to make small protected fruiting beds, you may venture to start all the above two Such or three weeks earlier than is there indicated. beds, however, will hardly pay a market man, especially if each of them should require hot manure at the bottom. This, however, for the amateur gardener, is a very certain and beautiful mode of securing early fruits of all the kinds noticed above. After the beds are up and once weeded, they will require a little earth to be thrown from without, to earth up the plants. Thin early and do not force too fast, as this will make your plants succulent and tender, and cause them to grow beyond their proscribed bounds. The success of future removal will depend exceedingly on their being stout, short-jointed plants, such as have had plenty of air, sun, and, of course, room, and have grown with only tolerable rapidity. IV. Transfer to the open ground.-To effect this cheaply and rapidly, where you have many plants, five hands are necessary. Having prepared your places, station one hand at the bed, three at the wheel-barrows, if the distance is considerable, and one at the new plat where they are to be set. Let the man in the bed cut carefully, with a broad carving knife between the hills, and lift them out one by one, board and all. Then wheel, or, if the distance is short, carry them by hand, carefully to their new positions. Let the planter, having made his hill perfectly flat at the bottom and watered it, gently set in his plant, and carefully raising one side, withdraw the board, and draw up the earth. A warm damp day is best for transplanting; on such a day the plants if carefully removed, will scarcely wilt at all. It will be necessary, in most respects, to set boards up on the west, or northwest side of your rows, and also to have canvass covers, one yard square, to lay over each hill. Thus they will be protected from the cold winds that may be always expected to blow from the 20th of May to the 10th of June, as well as protected from an the trees breaking, and what was blown off by the winds, I gathered about two bushels of fine apples. Here, then was the difference in setting-one bushel from fifty trees of eleven years' growth, and two bushels from fifty trees of five years' growth." occasional heavy rain, which always hurts new set plants, and also guard them from the dew on cold nights which is also very harmful. These boards and covers are not indispensible, but they will, in a course of years, much more than cover their expense. I have often removed tomato plants with fruit as large as half dollars in entire safety. But you can not thus remove melons and cu-ing, still greater would be found the difference, by simi cumbers. V. Period of Maturity.-If the foregoing operations have been conducted with tolerable care and success, you will be able to cut cucumbers in eight or nine weeks from the seed, melons, of all sorts, in from sixteen to eighteen, and tomatoes in fifteen or sixteen weeks. Cautions.-Do not ordinarily plant any thing between your hills, as lettuce, radish and cabbages. They will be sure to make your bed too thick and close before they are large enough to draw. They may sometimes be safely sown on the front side of the bed. A large bed of plants sown on the foregoing plan seems to exhibit, for the first week or two, a great waste of ground, but long and varied experience has convinced me that they should, from the beginning, have all the ground. It may be well however to plant a few seeds, of the sort that constitutes your bed, between, to serve as a dependance to supply such hills as are destroyed by corn worms, &c. during the first two weeks. Profitableness of this plan.-A market gardener may usually make vegetables, cultivated on the foregoing plan, fairly profitable, even here (at Utica;) although the increasing facility with which all these productions are brought from New Jersey and Long Island, where they are cultivated by much cheaper modes, will in an indifferent or bad season, render them otherwise. Gardeners in the vicinity of cities, farther removed from the great thoroughfares would find it more profitable. No man however should enter upon this plan on a large scale the first year, since there are too many delicate operations, a failure in any one of which would ruin his whole prospect. This plan on a small scale should be prosecuted in every considerable private garden. Thus cucumbers may always be cut quite cheaply by the 25th of June, tomatoes by the 20th of July, and melons in variety by the 1st of August. C. E. G. Utica, Jan. 22, 1851. Good and Bad Transplanting. LINUS CONE gives the following statement in the Michigan Farmer, for the purpose of showing the difference between abusing a young tree and treating it as its value and nature requires: "Some twenty years since, I purchased and set out about fifty apple trees. They were large thrifty trees, of five or six years' growth, taken up with great care and set out in the ordinary way-that is, by digging a small hole, and if the roots were too long, by twisting them round or cutting them off with a shovel, throwing the earth back and treading it down. About one-quarter of the trees died; the balance gave me about a bushel of fruit the fifth year after setting. Again, two years ago, I set about the same number, of three years' growth; none died, some bore last year, and this year nearly all; after thinning out to prevent Great as were these advantages of careful transplant larly contrasted experiments, between careful, clean and mellow cultivation, and neglect, weeds and grass, for the first five years after transplanting. The two kinds of Landscape Gardening. We have never seen comprised within the space of a dozen full pages, a better contrast of the natural and artificial styles, than in these few words of TUCKERMAN: "At Rome, the clipt, dense evergreens, weather-stained marbles, and humid alleys of the Villa Borghese, do not win the imagination like the vast, uncultivated campagna. A fine English park, with smooth roads intersecting natural forests, is more truly beautiful than a parterre surrounded by fantastic patterns of box, or studded with bowers and temples, like the back scene of a play." -- BORROWING AND CREDIT.-A large portion of the articles which appear in the Horticultural department of the Cultivator, are extensively copied, often without any credit being given, and not unfrequently the credit is accorded to other papers; and some have even gone so far as very coolly to appropriate certain portions under their editorial heads, fully leaded, as original. This, however, is of little consequence to us ; but we must be allowed to object to receiving credit, as is sometimes the case, which we do not deserve. For example, a late number of MOORE'S RURAL NEW YORKER contains a copied article, ascribed to the Cultivator, giving as new and valuable, the old, twenty-times-exploded humbug, of raising fruit trees of different sorts from cuttings, by dipping the lower end in wax or tallow ! THE SPANISH CHESTNUT-ERROR CORRECTED.-In the Jan. number of this paper, by a mistake of the printer, as being "surprised and "botanists" are represented amused at the result" of impregnating a sterile tree from a foreign source. Now as botanists are the last class of men to feel any surprise of the kind, the reader will understand that the important word "not" was omitted before the word "surprised." BEST SORTS OF THE PEA.-R. G. PARDEE, of Palmyra, N. Y., an enterprising and skilful amateur cultivator, gives the following as the best out of ten selected kinds of the pea, obtained from THORBURN of New-York. The Early Emperor he regards as the best very early pea, and Hair's New Mammoth Dwarf Marrow, as the largest, most productive, and richest pea of all. PROTECTING HALF-HARDY SHRUBS.-The following method is recommended by the Horticulturist:-Raise a small hillock of tan or charcoal or sand, round the trunk of the shrub, and turn a barrel over it. In order to admit a little light and air, raise the north side of the barrel a couple of inches, and put a stone under it. It is not the cold, but the sunshine after the cold, which destroys half-hardy plants. A Cold Vinery. The accompanying engraving represents the vinery of PHILIP S. VAN RENSSELAER, Esq., at Clinton Point, near New Hamburgh, N. Y. We are informed by Mr. DOWNING, by whom the account of this vinery was first given in the Horticulturist, that it is one of the best models for structures of this kind, that he has ever seen. It is described as follows: "The engraving shows, a span-roofed house, 80 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 14 feet high. Mr. VAN RENSSELAER has deviated from the usual course, in placing it on a north-and-south, instead of an east-and-west line; and the result shows how wisely, for this climate, as the vines on both sides are equally exposed to the longest influence of the sun,-enjoying it from rising to setting; while at the hottest time of day they are all far less likely to be injured by any excess of heat than vines on the sunny side of a house facing directly south." "The house is built entirely of wood; and while it has an exceedingly light and pleasing effect, is at the same time very strong and durable. The view of the interior, given in the above engraving, (in which we have omitted a large portion of the vines, to exhibit the construction,) shows that the roof is supported by three rows of light posts, to which, in a very simple manner the effect of clustered columns is given. "The house rests on locust posts, which are as durable as a stone wall, while they offer no impediment to the free passage of the roots of the vines through the border on the outside or inside of the house. "In the ventilation of this vinery, Mr. VAN RENSSELAER has especially improved on other structures of the same kind, which we have seen elsewhere. The current of air follows the same course as usual in houses of this kind; that is, it enters at the openings in the low wooden wall below the sashes, (boards hung on hinges,) and escapes at the moveable sashes at the top of the roof; a mode which passes a stream of fresh air, entering at one's command, over the whole growth of the vines, from the floor to the topmost branch. "This is a 'cold vinery;" that is, one in which no fire heat is employed,-a species of structure every dar coming into greater favor in this part of the country To grow the foreign grape in the highest perfection, it i only necessary to have the temperature of the house a that command which the full sunshine, and the admis sion or exclusion of the outer air, gives, without resort. ing to fire heat; and so abundant and powerful is th. sunshine in this latitude that the Muscat of Alexandria which in many seasons requires fire heat to mature per fectly in Boston, ripens regularly and fully on the Hud son in a cold-house. "The house contains a very complete collection of grapes, obtained from Mr. BUIST, of Philadelphia, and we were glad to learn that every vine had proved cor. con's Superb-perhaps the most beautiful of all new rect. Besides the standard varieties, we noticed Deawhite grapes, the clusters very large, berries oval, and closely set. Reine de Nice, (not ripe when we saw it,) was also laden with large clusters of very handsome fruit. Xeres, another white grape, also attracted our attention by the size and beauty of its clusters; while some bunches of the Palestine grape, more than two feet long, made us comprehend the biblical account of the grapes of the land of Canaan." Planting out Elms. A Philadelphia correspondent of the Horticulturist, states, that in setting out a hundred elms from the forest, about 18 feet high, and as large as a man's arm, he fully tested the advantage of heading back. The tops were so handsome that he was reluctant to touch them, he accordingly left a part entire, and shortened back the remainder about one-third, to correspond with the necessary shortening of the roots outside of the large balls. Few trees were lost; most of those with entire heads made little or no growth the first year, and many limbs died and had to be cut out. Of those cut back, all lived; and their leaves the first summer were three times as large as on the unpruned trees. They have outstripped the others so much, as to have entirely regained the symmetry and beauty of their heads. The Farmer's Note-Book. Varieties of Indian Corn. EDS. CULTIVATOR-In the January number of the Cultivator, I find some account of the relative weight of corn and cob of different varieties of corn, by E. M. BRADLEY. I have no doubt the difference in the weight of corn and cob of the several kinds, is as great as there reported, and if there were no other pecuniary questions connected with this subject, it would be a matter of great importance to farmers, to always raise the small Canada or Vermont corn. But I can raise from thirty to fifty per cent more bushels of large twelve rowed corn upon an acre of good and well prepared land, than I can of the smaller eight rowed kinds. Four years ago, I planted as many as eight varieties of corn in the same field. The seed of several kinds was from Vermont and the north part of this State. The land, cultivation, &c., was all alike; the large twelve rowed, a variety that I had cultivated for several years, yielded from thirty to more than fifty per cent more of corn and fodder than the eight rowed kinds. Some of the smaller varieties were fit to harvest three weeks earlier than the twelve rowed. Some, perhaps, may ask if the large kind did not sap, or exhaust the land more than the smaller varieties? I presume it did; but all the fodder, and most of the corn was fed out upon the farm, and supplied manure for other fields. The "large cobs" were ground at a mill and used as litter in my hovels to absorb the liquid part of the manure. The larger kinds of corn are generally later in ripening than the smaller varieties, but I have no knowledge of there having been more than two seasons (1816 and 1836) in the past half century, in which the corn crop has proved a total or nearly a total failure, and then all varieties fared about alike. You remark, that "there is another disadvantage connected with large cobs which should be noticed. They are longer in drying, and consequently the grain is much more likely to mould and spoil, either in the crib, or while in the shock." That may all be correct; but I put my corn at harvest in a latticed corn-house, in which I have a cast iron box stove, in which 1 keep a fire in rainy or damp weather, and the heated air pass of cob in a bushel of ears. LEVI BARTLETT. Warner, N. H., Jan. 10, 1851. Profits of Dairying. EDS. CULTIVATOR-Thirty years ago, there were a few small dairies, cheese dairies, in Washington county, N. Y. At that time, 200 pounds for each cow, was considered a good yield. In 1830, some made 300 lbs. to each cow. About that time a spirit of enterprise seemed to show itself in that branch of business; more care was taken in selecting cows for the dairy, better attention was paid to feeding them, more regularity observed in milking, and more pains taken in manufacturing but. ter and cheese. In 1840, 400 lbs. was not unusual. Since that time, still more attention has been paid to feeding the cows, and at the present time from 500 to 600 lbs. per cow is made, and in some instances more. My own dairy for 1850, consisted of 30 cows and two three-year-old heifers. I have kept on the farm two two-year-old heifers, for family use-two families of 12 persons. Three of my cows did not come in until 6th month, neither did the heifers for family use. Previous to that time, the families used milk from the dairy. In 9th month, a friend of mine, while arranging his lot of used in my dairy, which will make up for one of my cows cows, left six with me one week. The milk of them was coming in so late, leaving the dairy 32 in number-one of them farrow, two heifers, and two coming in late. The cheese has been sent to New-York and sold by LudI have made 21,264 lbs. cheese, and 480 lbs. butter." lum and Leggett, Front st. Most of it brought $7 per hundred; two small lots sold a little less; the whole averaged, after deducting the expense of boxes, trans. portation and commission, 6 dollars per hundredmaking nett proceeds on 21,264 lbs.,...... $1,329 00 Butter, 480 lbs., 15 cts.,. Whole amount,... $72.00 $1,401 00 15 lbs. butter, or $43.78 I have been particular in giving the above statement, for the encouragement of those who are still on the background of improvements. Yet there are a number of dairymen in this vicinity who are making about the same amount of cheese, and are sending it to the same market. I see no reason why the increase may not continue for many years to come. Oris DILLINGHAM. Granville, N. Y., 1st mo. 15th, 1851. Destruction of Wire-Worms. EDS. CULTIVATOR-I notice that a writer in a late English paper recommends the use of rape-cake in preventing the ravages of the wire-worm. The mode described, was to spread and harrow in about five hundred pounds per acre of the cake broken into about half-inch pieces. The result was stated to be, that "the wireworms will congregate on these lumps of cake, devour. ing through the corn and out at every crevice, soon car. ries off the moisture of the corn-a kind of kiln-drying process. By this course my large cobs become as dry and bright as the smaller ones. I can husk ten bushels of my large kind, as quick as I can five of the smaller varieties. It is real fun, to sit down in a pleasant evening in October with half a dozen brother farmers, and husk out an 100 bushels of ears of large corn, and get through by a little after ten o'clock. At such huskings, we don't need the stimulant of alcohol in any form. It is said the small Canada and northern corn contain more oil than the Large varieties, and consequently posses greater fattening them with such avidity as to become glutted, and ing qualities, than the larger kinds. If so, for working cattle and horses, who require muscle-forming food, the Large kind would be preferable, and the smaller kind would be best for fattening hogs. But still, I think there $ more than 84 per cent in favor of the large kind, and shall continue to plant it, if there is some more weight perish either from repletion, or from the peculiar proper. ties of the rape, or from thecombined effects of the two." The Working Farmer says in reference to this recommendation, "Those who cannot procure rape-cake, can get rid of wire-worms by sowing broad-cast six bushels of refuse salt per acre." Now in regard to the utility of the article first mentioned, for the destruction of worms, I know nothing; put in reference to salt, I have made some trials which show that the quantity of "six bushels" per acre will produce no such results as above stated. I have, in one instance, put wire-worms in a vessel with earth, and strowed salt at the rate of forty bushels to the acre. The worms were examined at various times for several weeks, but showed no appearance of having received any injury, or of being in the least incommoded by the salt. Several other worms were in the vessel with the wire-worms, but the salt appeared to have no effect on any of them. J. T. P. Milk-houses and Butter-making. We churn all the milk, except part of the first or fore We keep the milk vessels on the rock floor, and not in the water as most others do. We use a large Kendall churn that holds twenty gallons; it is pretty hard work turning it. Would a fly or balance wheel improve it? [No.] The spring-house is plastered, and well whitewashed, and the yard around is planted with Cedar, Cottonwood, Aspens, Catalpa, Red Bud, Serviceberry, Dogwood, Black-locust, Rock-Maple, &c. &c. I have a Black-locust grafted about ten feet high with the Robinia hispida or Rose acacia, which I think looks very pretty when in flower. EDS. CULTIVATOR-I notice your request for informa tion in regard to spring-houses for milk. Almost every farmer in this section of country has a spring-house, as it is almost impossible to make good butter in the summer without one. And as I have as good a one as I have seen, I will try to describe it. My spring rose in a low cave, on the east side of a hill, close to the creek. This cave, the former owner used for a spring-house, but as it was inconvenient, I quarried and blasted out the rock about twenty feet into the hill, and about fourteen feet wide, down to the level of the spring. On the west side or next to the hill, I found a perpendicular seam in the rock, that answered for the wall, nine feet in height. I built the house 12 feet by 11 in the clear, and two stories high; the lower or milk-room is 74 feet to the joists. The upper story is about six feet high. I put the door in the east end, and a small window of six lights 8 by 10 | at the side of the door. I thought the second story would add much to the coolness of the lower room, but a good ceiling might answer the purpose as well, but I had plenty of stone at hand, and I knew the upper story would be useful, and the roof would cost no more. The rock or bank covers the lower story on three sides. The spring comes in at the west end, and escapes through a crevice in the rock under the floor to the creek. We find it cool enough in the warmest weather for every In the winter when we have little milk, and the weathpurpose. Fresh meat will keep a week in it, but as iter is very cold, we bring the milk to the house. We was too cool to stand to churn in it, I put a shed over the door for that purpose. But my wife said it was too warm under the shed to make good butter, and she made it inside the house, although it was a bad place for persons afflicted with the rheumatism. I then cleared off the shed and built a churning-room 64 feet long, (which was all the room I had to the creek,) and eleven feet wide, two stories high, and to make it more comfortable I floored it with plank on the rock. There is two doors in this room, one on the north, the other on the south side, and a window with 12 lights in the east end. I thought we were fixed, but building the churningroom against the end of the milk room in which the only window was, made it too dark. I then cut a hole 24 feet long and a foot wide in the upper floor under the window, this threw down enough of light and served as a ventilator. I boxed this hole round three feet high to prevent the dust blowing down. I find it very convenient now. We might make a great deal of butter, but we have have never sold more than 953 lbs. in any one season, have a perfectly dry cellar, with the floor partly solid, level rock, and this place answers very well in winter. One of my neighbors who has an excellent spring about 200 feet from his house, but 30 feet below it, has had an Hydraulic ram put up, and intends to erect a milk-house on the north side of his dwelling-house, and to have a shallow trough to run the water into and to set his milk vessels in. This will save labor. Another who has no spring convenient, has a milk-house built close by his well, and has a channel built with brick, and plastered with cement, to run along three sides of the house, close to the wall. The channel is about 14 feet wide and six inches deep. This he pumps full of water two or three times a day or as often as it gets too warm, and he keeps the milk vessels setting in the water. He says it does pretty well. Another whose spring rises within about ten feet of the surface of the ground, sunk a cellar aroud the spring, roofed it over, made stairs down to it, and keeps the milk setting in the water. It is pretty cool, but inconvenient. I find all, except ourselves, keep the milk vessels setting in the water. A man from |