ART. IV. Observations on the Conversion of pasture Land into Tillage, and on using Potatoes in manufacturing Starch and feeding Sheep. By NEHEMIAH BARTLEY, Secretary to the Bath Agricultural Society. 8vo. pp. 42. THIS pamphlet contains three essays or letters on the three subjects specified in the title; the first of which obtained a medal from the board of agriculture. Mr. Bartley is a great advocate for the use of the spade instead of the plough, thinks drilling much superior to the common practice of broadcast sowing, and esteems potatoes the most valuable crop that can be grown, either for the manufacture of starch, the keep of cattle, sheep, and pigs, or for human sustenance. Having learnt this, we have obtained nearly all the information that can be procured from this desultory tract. In gravelly loam, which is the only species of soil that Mr. B. takes notice of, he would convert pasture land to tillage, by digging the piece once over, taking care to throw the sod to the bottom, and would sow, plant, or dibble wheat immediately after this operation is finished. He would relay the land to pasture the succeeding spring by sowing grass seeds, either with or without a corn crop. The second part is a letter of four pages, addressed to Mr. Addington; in which the author recommends the substitution of potatoes to wheat in the starch manufactories, because an acre of the latter yields only 12cwt. 3qrs. 161b. of starch, whereas the former produces two tons. The third part, entitled " of feeding sheep on potatoes," informs us, that Mr. Bright, of Hampne Green, near Bristol, has invented a method of preserving potatoes, for any length of time, by steam-boiling them, pressing them into cakes, and afterwards drying them in a stove, at a temperature not exceeding 86° of Fahrenheit; that cattle and sheep will thrive upon, and even prefer, raw potatoes to any thing else, and that pigs will do equally well on the same root when boiled. ART. V. Rural Recreations; or, the Modern Farmers' Calendar, and Monthly Instructor, &c. By a Farmer. pp. 128, with Plates. THE numerous publications which have within these few years appeared on agricultural subjects, are a sufficient evidence of the importance of the pursuit: but it has been frequently lamented, that the expence attending the purchase of every valuable work, would much impede the diffusion of this kind of knowledge. In some degree to cbviate the inconvenience, works have at different times been published, containing an epitome of practical, as well as theore tical improvements and suggestions: amongst the works of this nature, monthly calendars have been conspicuous, as well as very useful. Perhaps the evil of vague and difficult theories is in no science more apparent than in that of agriculture. Practical experiments alone can remove that mass of prejudice, that almost invincible attachment to old cus toms, which is so characteristic of the farmers of this kingdom. Next to the actual observation of new experiments and improvements, a plain detail of them seems to be absolutely necessary. It is always therefore a matter of regret, when we see what ought to be brought on a level with the understanding of the plainest farmer, delivered with all the pomp of a most recondite science. In the work before us we are concerned to find much which is incomprehensible to the generality of farmers. Under the month of January for example; after devoting a very small portion to the business of a farm, and in this omitting many usual employments for that season, the author surprises and confounds a plain reader, by a long dissertation on manures, in all the terms of art. For instance, "In the application of long and short kinds of dung, preference should in general be given to such as has most completely undergone the putrefactive process. Dung and urine newly voided are not in a putres cent state; they are only advancing towards putridity, or in a very small degree putrid. The further putrescency of these substances is promoted by a due degree of heat and moisture, particularly when aided by certain saline matters. The most powerful of these are the neutral salts, containing the sul phuric or vitriolic acid, such as vitriolated tartar, Glauber's salt, Epsom salt, and sum. These neutral salts, on being mixed with putrescent substances, are changed into the state of hepars: hence, the very offensive smell arising from dung and other matters containing such salts." gyp Agriculture and chemistry are, or ought to be, nearly allied; but until the study of the latter be made a part of the professional education of a farmer, we apprehend it is of no service to make chemical agricul ture, if we may be allowed the term, a prominent part of a work, whose object is professedly present use; and, at all events, when this is the case, great care should be taken that the facts produced, should be facts. "Coal ashes, as well as those of peat and white turf ashes, have been frequently found useful as manures; red turf ashes, however, are said to be not only useless, but generally hurtful." To our certain knowledge red turf ashes are very much used for, and are found to be exceedingly beneficial as a top dressing for clover, sainfoine, &c. more especially in parts of Herts and Bedfordshire. This work is evidently not written by a practical farmer, which will account for the many errors it contains; and for many particulars of practice being recommended as almost new, which are familiar to the commonest labourer. We cannot but remark too, that the writer has made much use of a work entitled "The New Farmer's Calendar." He has hardly, in many instances, been at the pains of at all altering the style of his plagiarisms; and where he has, it has generally happened that the most valuable practical observations have been neglected for idle and fanciful dreams. On the whole, it is far from a valuable selection. ART. VI. A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees; in which a new Method of Pruning and Training is fully described. To which is added, a new and im proved Edition of "Observations on the Discases, Defects, and Injuries, in all Kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees:" with an Account of a particular Method of Cure, published by Order of Government. By WILLIAM FORSYTH, F.A. S. and F. S. A. Gardener to his Majesty at Kensington and St. James's, Member of the Economical Society at St. Petersburg, &c. &c. 4to. pp. 371. THIS valuable work will be read with deep interest, both by the practical gardener, and the vegetable physiologist; and few, we believe, will hesitate in placing it at the head of all the former publications on this important subject. The object of the author is two-fold: first, to point out a new and effectual method of renewing old, and curing cankered trees; and, secondly, to recommend a plan of training and pruning them, much superior to that which has hitherto been sanctioned by the practice of the most skilful gardeners. It has been long known that trees which have received extensive wounds by the pruning knife, or by accident, were very liable to crack and become cankered at the part thus exposed, and that these ill-consequences were more or less prevented by covering the wound with a plaster, to defend it from the action of the air. The only object in the various plasters that have been used for this purpose, appears to have been to make them sufficiently adhesive, yet even this object has been but very imperfectly secured. The greater part are either gradually washed off by the rains, or crack and peel off when dry, or else become of a stony hardness, and thus prevent the bark from growing beneath so as to cover the wound. The composition invented by Mr. Forsyth, for which he received a parliamentary reward, is the following: Take one bushel of fresh cow dung, half a bushel of lime rubbish of old buildings, (that from the ceilings of rooms is preferable,) half a bushel of woodashes, and a sixteenth part of a bushel of pit or river sand; the three last articles are to be sifted fine before they are mixed, then work the whole together, adding a sufficient quantity of urine and soap-suds to make the mass of the consistence of thick paint. This mixture is to be applied with a painter's brush, after which a quantity of dry powder of wood-ashes, mixed with a sixth part of powdered bone-ash, is to be shaken from a dredging box over the plaster till the whole is covered with it; in half an hour a fresh quantity of powder is to be applied, and the whole surface is to be rubbed gently with the hand till it becomes dry and smooth. The advantages of this composition are, that it adheres firmly to the naked part of the wound, and yet easily gives way as the new wood and bark advance: it also acts not merely as a covering, but as a gentle stimulant, on account of the alkali that it contains, by which the wound is prevented from cankering, the nestling of insects within is effectually hindered, and the growth of the new wood and bark is greatly accelerated. In cankery trees, where the disease has not made very great progress, the whole of the cankered part, both bark and wood, is to be cut out, by instruments which are figured and described at the end of the volume, taking care not to leave a single brown speck, and to make the surface quite smooth and even; the composition is then to be applied in the manner directed, and in the course of a year the wound will be found to have healed over, to be filled with new wood, and covered with healthy bark; at the same time the composition will drop off of itself. Where the tree is so deeply injured as to render it unsafe to cut out all the cayed part at once, lest it should be lown down, only part of the cavity be at first cleared of the and overspread with the n. As the edges grow, care en not to let the new wood ict with that which is dead, dead w compos must be come in t always keeping a hollow between them.. When the new wood advancing from both sides of the cavity has almost met, the bark is to be cut off from both edges, and the composition is to be applied; by which management the lips of the wound will completely close, leaving only a slight seam in the bark. In cases of very great decay it is necessary to open the earth between the roots, and treat such of them as are diseased in the same manner. The wounds will thus become healed up, and the general vigour of the tree will be, at the same time, greatly improved. "The first trials of its efficacy were made of which were in a most decayed state, havon some very large and ancient elms, many ing all their upper parts broken, by high winds, from their trunks, which were withal so hollow and decayed, that a small portion alone of the bark remained alive and sound. Of these trees I cut away at first a part only of the rotten stuff from the hollow of the tree, and then applied the plaster to the place where the operation had been performed, by way of an internal coat of the composition. In a short time, however, the efforts of nature, with a renovated flow of the juices, were clearly discernible in their formation of new wood, uniting with, and swelling, as it were, from the old, till it became a strong support to that part of the tree where the composition had been applied. I then cut away more of the rotten wood from the inside, applying the plaster in the same manner, with the same good effects, and continued to use the knife in proportion to the acquisition of new wood; so that, from the tops of these decayed and naked trunks, stems have actually grown of above thirtyfeet in height, in the course of six or seven years from the first application of the composition; an incontrovertible proof of its good effects in restoring decayed vegetation. 66 Many other elm trees, which had received hurts from bruises and other causes, and where disease and decay were already evident, after cutting away all the infected part, and duly applying the plaster, were so completely healed, that the outline of the wound is scarcely discernible on the bark, and the new wood is as perfectly united to the old, as if it had been originally formed with the tree." Mr. F. has since applied the same remedy to the canker, gum, and other diseases of the wood and bark of fruit trees, and forest trees in general, with complete success. The second point which Mr. Forsyth labours to establish, and in which he appears to be supported by the strongest possible evidence of facts and testimony is, that a tree which, by a long course of bad pruning, or neglect, in addition to extreme old age, seems to be on the point of death, may, by proper manage ment, be perfectly restored, and, in a very few years, become far superior, in size and fertility, to the most vigorous and healthy very young tree. The operation recommended is heading down, and is performed in fruit trees by cutting off all the cankered boughs, so as in some cases to leave only one or two buds above the place where the tree was grafted. After this is done, all the decayed roots are to be cut out, as well as any canker in any part of the trunk, all the wounds being well covered with the composition. In the course of the year, the buds that were left will have become long and vigorous shoots, and the whole tree will be in a state of rapid recovery. Out of a multitude of examples of the success of this practice, we shall select the following. "Finding the pear-trees in Kensington gardens in a very cankery and unfruitful state, in the years 1784 and 5, I took out the old mould from the borders against the walls, and put in fresh loam in its stead; at the same time I pruned and nailed the trees in the common way, and left them in that state upwards of eighteen months, to see what effect the fresh mould would have on them; but, to my great surprise, I found that it had no good effect. "After I had tried the fresh mould as above, I began to consider what was best to be done with so many old pear trees that were worn out. The fruit that they produced I could not send to his majesty's table with any credit to myself, it being small, hard, and kernelly. I thought it would be a great reflexion on me as a professional man, that after I had put his majesty to so great an expence, no advantage was likely to be derived from it. some method must be tried to restore these I saw that old trees, or that next year they must be grubbed up, and was loth to give them entirely up before I had tried some experiments. I considered that it must be between twelve and fourteen years before I could have any fruit from young trees; and therefore determined to try an experiment, with a view to recovering the old ones. "I began with cutting down four old and decayed pear trees of different kinds, near to the place where they had been grafted: this operation was performed on the 15th of May 1786. Finding that they put forth fine shoots, I headed down four more on the 20th of June, in the same year (for by ANN. REV. VOL. I. 769 One of this time the former had shoots of a foot its former state when it was four times the treated according to the common method of "I left seven trees upon an east wall, pruning, which bore the following number of pears upon each tree: Epine d'hiver produced eighty-six pears, and the tree spread ten yards. and fifty pears, and the tree spread nine A colmar produced one hundred and fifty pears, and the tree spread nine yards. Another colmar produced seventy-nine pears, and the tree spread ten yards. 66 A l'eschasserie produced sixty pears. "Seven trees headed down and pruned right shoots in summer, bore as follows, in according to my method, leaving the forethe fourth year after heading. sixty-three pears, and the tree spread nine "A louisbonne bore four hundred and yards. and ninety-one pears, and spread eight yards. Another louisbonne bore three hundred A colmar bore two hundred and thirteen pears, and spread six yards. "A brown beurré bore five hundred and three pears. "Another brown beurré bore five hundred and fifty pears. "A crasane bore five hundred and twenty pears. "A virgouleuse bore five hundred and eighty pears. 66 spread nearly in the same proportion as the The branches of the four last trees first three. "A young beurré, the second aspect and the same wall, and the fruit was the trees headed down bore "On the 20th of June I ded several oyed by the > loaded with fruit the following year, that I was obliged to prop the branches, to prevent their being broken down by the weight of it. In the fourth year after these standards were headed down, one of them bore two thousand eight hundred and forty pears. There were three standards on the same border with the above, two of which were St. Germains; the old tree was of the same kind. One of these trees, twenty years old, had five hundred pears on it, which was a great crop for its size: so that there were on the old tree, which had been headed down not quite four years, two thousand three hundred and forty pears more than on the tree of twenty years growth." When timber trees are cut down, very strong and rapidly growing coppice wood may be raised from their roots, by proper care and the application of the composition. The practice of heading down has been applied to young oak trees, by Mr. F. with singular efficacy. "The best Way of raising Oaks. "It is a generally received opinion, that when an oak loses its tap-root in transplanting, it never produces another; but this I have proved to be a mistake, by an experiment which I made on a bed of oak plants, in the year 1789. I transplanted them into a fresh bed in the forementioned year, cutting the tap-roots near to some of the small sideroots or fibres shooting from them. In the second year after, I headed one half of the plants down, as directed for chesnuts, and left the other half to nature. In the first season, those headed down made shoots six feet long and upwards, and completely covered the tops of the old stems, leaving only a faint cicatrix, and had produced new tap-roots upwards of two feet and a half long. One of these trees I left at the Land Revenue Office, for the inspection of the commissioners, and to show the advantage of transplanting and heading down young oaks, when done in a proper manner. By this mode of treatment they grow more in one year than in six when raised in the common way. The other half of the plants, that were not headed down, are not one fourth the size of the others. One of the former is now eighteen feet high, and, at six inches from the ground, measures fifteen inches in circumference; at three feet from the ground, ten inches; and at six feet, nine inches and a half; while one of the largest of the latter ineasures only five feet and a half high, and three inches and three quarters in circumference, at six inches from the ground. This is a convincing proof, that transplanting and heading down oaks is the most successful and advantageous way of treating them; and by it they are sooner out of danger from cattle, as well as from vermin, which are frequently very injurious to young trees." Besides these extremely curious, as well as important discoveries, the volume before us contains an ample and circumstantial account of a new method of pruning and training, with variations in the practice, accommodated to the different kinds of fruit-trees. Much of the merit of this part of the work depends on the minuteness of the direc tions, and the excellent illustrative plates by which they are accompanied; hence we are unable to give a satisfactory abstract of it, and can only inform our readers in general, that Mr. F. instead of training his trees fan-wise, spreads them as nearly horizontally on the wall as possible; and the branches of vines, besides being trained horizontally, are made to take a serpentine course. A chapter is devoted to the subject of grafting, in which are many excellent practical observations: and three others on the situation and stocking of a gar den and orchard, and on the best me thod of gathering, preserving, and pack. ing fruit, evince Mr. F's minute and masterly acquaintance with his profession. The latter chapters treat of the diseases and enemies to which t:ces are exposed, together with the methods of curThe diseases are canker, gum, mildew, ing one, and destroying the other. honeydew, and blights. the The enemies are aphides, acari or red spiders, cocci, caterpillars, earwigs, slugs, snails, ants, wasps and flies, birds, rats and mice, &c. As the effects of Mr. Forsyth's method of training, are more conspicuons in vines than any other fruit tree, we shall select, as an interesting specimen, the following "Observations and Experiments on the training and pruning of Vines. "The following is the method that I pur sued with some vines which were planted against the piers of a south wall, and among old peaches, nectarines, plums, &c. "When I took them in hand, the fruit was so smail and hard as to render it unfit to be sent to the table. The vines were trained upright, which caused them to grow se luxuriantly, that the sap flowed into the branches instead of the fruit. "In the year 1789 I let two strong This tree was about six years old when I planted it, fourteen years ago. |