MISCELLANEOUS.

Otago Witness, Issue 181, 6 August 1886, Page 8

MISCELLANEOUS.

To have a fine crop of large, rich currants, enrich the ground, make it clean and mellow, and thin out the brush. Cut away the old stunted wood, and leave the vigorous young shoots. Let them occupy equal distances from each other, and give the bushes in some degree a regular form. No fruit is more neglected thau the currant, the bushes being allowed to become enveloped in weeds and grass and tho enfeebled bushes allowed to grow into a mass of brush. The difference in the size of the berries raised by the two modes is about as one to four. * An onion bed can do with a good strong manure ; indeed, we do not put it too strongly if we say thab it cannot do without it. Nor must we in this important and very practical kitchen garden forget altogether other departments.

The horse chestnut is a very beautiful tree when set on land that is moist. Mr Hersey is reported to say by the Massachusetts Ploughman :—": — " The horse chestnut on very dry land is rather apt to have its leaves scorched, so that in the latter part of the summer it is rather likely to be an unsightly tree. But in land where the moisture is sufficient, it makes one of our most beautiful trees. But it should not be put in the door-yard. The horse chestnut is what might be called a rather dirty tree. In tho spring of the year, when the blooms appear, it makes dro2ipingi on tho yard, and then iv the autumn when tho fruit drops off it also makes a bad appearance. Ife is similar to the common chestnut in that respect. Therefore in setting out the horse chestnut tree, I should want to set it not in the door-yard, but at some little distance. If you have a line of them on your land they make very beautiful trees. * Nearly every day somebody unearths an "old rhyme" of a meteorological character, such as, "If February gives much snow, a fine summer it doth foreshow ; " If March is full of wind and rain, the farmer will have a good crop of grain." These " old rhymes " are now manufactured in every enterprising newspaper office, and they are verified quite as often as the " old rhymes " made a ceutury ago. Here's one, for instance, that may be depended upon : "If in June, July, and August no rain there be, a very dry summer you'll surely s,ee." — STorristown Herald.

Reduce the area as much as possible ; economise labour ; concentrate the manure, and increase the crops. From our own experience we know that in concentrating the manure and work upon garden crops the yield is not only in some cases fourfold, but even tenfold. One root of rhubarb, by rich manuring and good culture, will produce ten very large stocks, against five very small ones in a plant that is poorly fed and otherwise neglected. A currant bush given nine square feet and formed to six bearing stems and well treated will bear as much fruit as four ordinary bushes consisting of a tangled mass of limbs half dead and grown up with weeds. And so it is with all sorts of garden vegetables and fruit. This is truo especially of strawberries, the choicest of all fruits, of which one hill, consisting of four plants placed in a square of twelve inches each way and three feet from the next hill, and kept free from runners, and well manured and hoed and mulched, has produced seven quarts of berries in the season, which is equal to over 1000 bushels pet acre. A few such hills as this would supply more fruit .than a quarter of an acre of plants running together and wasting their strength upon useless growth. — Peter Stewart.

For the first time (says an American paper) we learn why the people of Siberia bless the snow. They do so on account of the result, which is a fertilised soil ; but the Canadians, more scientific if not less grateful, have searched for the same, and have, we learn, found ifc t They say that snow in descending, especially in falling slowly, contracts from the atmosphere carbon di-oxide gas, and other impurities dangerous to human life. From its porosity a free entry of these gases is admitted to the seeds lying in the unfrozen earth beneath, which require their influence in their germination, and as the snow melts are washed into the soil to be taken up in active matter as plant food. It keeps the soil warm, thus adding another requisite necessary in the growth of youngplants. It prevents the escape of any gases arising fr,om the earth by

absorbing and returning them together with those obtained from the atmosphere from the soil. In spreading manures on the fields, and exposing them to the influence of the frost, there is a great liability to loss. Being a nonconductor of heat, a small covering of snow counteracts this influence, and retains for the soil the full spirit of the manure, which would otherwise be lost. As the blanket of vegetation' a fertilizer of the soil, a purifier of the air we breathe, the garb of Winter and Father Christmas, and the farmer's friend in a variety of ways, snow performs many important duties. Who would have thought all this ! But it shows that Canada is a more wonderful country than ever speculative laud agents would make us believe it is.

Several years since I communicated my experience with salt as an invigorator to the growth of wheat, and an absolute cure of pear blight. Notwithstanding what chemists say about its deficiency of manurial value, I apprehend those who have given it a thorough trial will not be likely to discontinue it. My experience with it in pear blight was accidental ; I had two -pear trees, forty years old, standing within twelve feet of each other, almost destroyed by blighb. I set a barrel of salt, with the head out, close to one ; it leachad there all summer. That tree commenced taking on new life, and last season bore twenty bushels of fruit ; the other died. I have since had similar experience with other trees. 1 once salted part of a wheatfield ; the fall season was warm and dry. That unsalted was almost entirely destroyed by the fly. The salted portion maintained a vigorous growth, and yielded a fair crop. Salt is a cheap experiment to make for pear blight, and can do no harm. — Country Gentleman.