ter, afford you pleasure. Habits are soon acquired, and then we associate with them imperceptibly, the idea of amusement; and it is astonishing to find how soon we take an interest in any subject, when once we have resolved upon prosecuting it. The garden frame thus commenced, has to our knowledge in numerous instances, led its owner on, step by step, until the green-house and hot-house have been found the only means of gratifying a taste which slumbered only to be awakened to the enjoyment of those beauties which the Courts of Flora can alone unfold to her delighed votaries.

With the above, however, for the present as a beginning, you may if you please be content; but before telling you how to carry on your operations at the end of the winter, I will describe another auxilliary, which you may in the beginning or middle of March, call into requisition to add to your enjoyments, and that is a hot-bed. And this you may make as follows:

Get three or four loads of fresh stable manure from the stable, and shake it with a fork, and lay it up in a heap; let it remain three or four days, and then turn it all over and shake it up again, and let it remain for the same time in a heap; repeat this again after a like interval, when for so small a bed it will be ready for use. Now proceed to make your hot-bed. You will require a frame with one or two lights; mark the size of your frame on the ground, by driving a stick at the four corners. Dig out the ground for eighteen inches deep. Throw in any old brush-wood or dry litter at the bottom, then fill it with the prepared manure, treading it evenly down as you go on, and taking particular care to make it firm and steady at each corner, otherwise when it subsides, which it is sure to do, it will get crooked. If your manure is moist, well and good; but if it appears dry, take some water and throw on as you make it up, so as to wet it moderately. When you have filled up the place dug out, widen the bed a foot or so all round, and continue it until all your manure is used up, beating or treading it down evenly. Then place the frame on the top, and the light upon it, and let it stand. In a few days, you will find it has become very hot; the frame will fill with rank steam like smoke; the light should be raised a few inches, to allow this to escape. As soon as you find this rank steam begin to subside, put six or eight inches of good garden mold into the frame, which in twenty-fours will be warmed through, and if you find no return of the rank steam in another twentyfour hours, it is fit for use. Take care, if there is windy weather, to protect the side of your bed next to the quarter from which it blows, by rough boards, or a screen of some kind. Unless you do this, the wind will blow through the bed and cool it very quickly. In this bed you may sow in March, tomatoes, egg-plants, okra, pepper, early cabbage and lettuce, all of which will be ready for planting out in the open garden by the time that the ground is ready for them.

Whether you make a hot-bed or not, at all events, as soon as the winter has taken leave of your neighborhood, set about to get your garden in order. With the rake and hoe, level down your ground, lay out your vegetable garden into beds, and sow seeds of such as you wish to grow, and plant out from your frames a part of your stock of cabbage, lettuce, &c. Do not, however, put all out at once, in case of a return of a sharp night's frost; but when you are satisfied there is no return of that likely to occur, the sooner you get out your general stock the better. The flower beds should also be raked over; your frame seedlings turned out of their pots, or taken up carefully and planted into them; and a further stock of annuals sown in the open ground to succeed the bloom of those turned out of the frames. Any green-house plants wintered in the frames may also be turned out into the ground, or re-potted into larger sized pots, if it is desired to keep them for decorating the parlor or verandah; and soon will you be rewarded for your

winter's care, by that loveliness of floral display, which, as in the instance of the "lilies of the field," has been declared by unerring Wisdom, to exceed the array of "Soloman in all his glory."

We had intended to add a few words upon the summer treatment of the flower garden, but our paper is long enough, and we must postpone it for the present. Enough has been said for all, at this time of year, to make a beginning. AMERICUS.

DES NONES PEAR.

LUTHER TUCKER, Esq.-We send you by express to day, specimens of a pear, new to us, which has ripened on our grounds this season for the first time. We received the trees from M. ANDRE LEROY, of Angers,

under the name of Des Nones. We have never seen it advertised, either in his or any other catalogue, nor met with a description of it elsewhere. We think you will join with us in pronouncing it a pear of the very highest excellence-combining in an eminent degree the high flavor of the Seckel, with the delicious melting qualities of the Belle Lucrative. The tree is a luxuriant grower, forming a handsome pyramid, and is an abundant bearer. The fruit is uniformly as fair as the specimens now sent. It commenced ripening about the 10th of September; these specimens, now lapsing into luscious perfection, being among the last. Among a hundred varieties, many of them new, which have ripened on our grounds the present season, we have found no one, if we may not say that equals it, we certainly may, that surpasses it. The accompanying outline and description pro forma, are at your service, if you think its merits entitle it to be placed before your readers.

Des Nones Pear.

Fruit-medium size, regularly turbinate. Skin-smooth, fine clear light yellow, covered with numerous sinall brown dots. Stalk-from one and a half to two inches long, slender, inserted in a very slight depression. Calyx-small, closed, and placed in a small shallow basin. Flesh-whitish, very juicy, sweet, melting, and delicious, with an exquisitely fine rich flavor and perfume. Ripening from the 10th to the last of September. We are very respectfully, &c.,

Syracuse Nurseries, Syrycuse, Oct. 4, 1852.

THORP, SMITH, HANCHETT & Co.

THE YELLOWS IN THE PEACH.

The investigation of the nature of this disase appears to be quite overlooked or neglected. It seems indeed a remarkable circumstance that a malady which annually destroys many thousand trees, and which possesses very distinct and marked characteristics-as many believe should have its very existence doubted by some of our most eminent pomologists, who regard the death of the trees as merely the result of neglected cultivation and want of fertility in the soil.

Our attention has been just called to this subject by a letter from SALMON LYMAN, of Manchester, Conn., who writes,-" The Yellows in peach trees is becoming very common among the trees in Connecticut, and unless something can be done to arrest the disease, people will become discouraged in trying to raise them. It was introduced into this vicinity with trees from New-Jersey. I am informed that the yellows does not exist within many miles of your place. I observe that you cultivate Crawford's Early and Late Melocoton-these varieties, with some others, I have supposed did not exist in a healthy state, and that they were originally propagated in New-Jersey from diseased stock, and that, remove them where you would, the native taint would develop itself in the yellows. I have procured Crawford's Early from New-Jersey, Long-Island, Newburgh, Providence, and Boston, and not one of all lived more than from three to eight years before they were worthless from disease. I have never seen a Crawford peach tree that appeared to be more than eight or nine years old, which did not show decided marks of disease. Have you trees of these New-Jersey sorts which are more than eight or ten years old? If so, what can be the influencee that prevents the developement of the yellows? It cannot be your lime and ashes, for they are treated in New-Jersey with an abundance of lime and marl.

"I am surprised that so little is said about the yellows in the Horticultural papers, and pomological conventions. Would not the history of its rise and introduction into the different sections of our country, be interesting, and lead to the proper means for guarding against its introduction in new sections of the country? I believe there was but little of it in this part of Connecticut, until the Morus Multicaulis speculation, which was taken to New-Jersey in exchange for peach trees, which could be sold here at twice their cost. They were brought here in large quantities, peddled out or sold at auction, and wherever they were planted the yellows now prevails."

In reply to the preceding inquiry, we may state, that we have never observed any symptom of the yellows on a single tree of the Crawford in Western New-York; but as those observed were mostly not over eight or nine years old, we applied for further information to H. E. HOOKER, of Rochester, a very careful and intelligent observer of fruit trees and their maladies, and he has furnished the following statement:

"The oldest trees of Crawford's Early Melocoton, with which I am acquainted, are standing in Mr. Schenck's orchard, a very extensive market cultivator of the peach, near Rochester, N. Y. They have been in full bearing for near seven years, under my own observation, and were large trees when I first knew them; they must be at least twelve or fifteen years from the bud; and neither now or ever have shown any symptoms of the Yellows, as I understand that disease. I have never been able to discover a tree in all Mr. Schenck's orchards, nor among the other smaller orchards around us, which were set with trees from him, and which he procured in New-Jersey, where the peach tree in the orchard is not expected to survive more than four or five crops of fruit. Crawford's

Late, has not been in bearing for so long a time, but I have seen no indications of disease in this any more than in the former, as a variety; in fact, we have considered it a peculiarly hardy sort.

"The Yellows, as I understand it, is a disease whose symptoms are, a very slender, feeble growth of young wood, with small yellow sickly looking foliage, a feeble starved appearance of the tree, and generally a crop of slendry yellow shoots appearing along the large branches; which symptoms increase for two or more years before death ensues. I have seen this, in some orchards brought from New-Jersey, and observed the premature ripening of the fruit, and spread of the disease until the orchard nearly or quite disappeared, and as I thought took with them some heretofore sound trees, which grew in their vicinity. I confidently looked for the spread of the evil, and was prepared to blame the man who had brought us trees from the infected district. But I am not satisfied that it does not spread here, nor that there is no one diseased tree (having the yellows,) within my knowledge in Rochester.

"These facts, have quite staggered my faith in the "diseased stock" theory, and lead me rather to believe, that the poor shallow soil, from which the peach tree rapidly exhausts the elements of growth and fruitfulness, under a system of heavy cropping without much manure, rather than the presence of any poison or virus in the system, has been the cause of so much complaint of premature death of the peach tree in the eastern and southern States. I am not clear that the apple trees of New-Jersey, in the peach districts are not similarly affected, and should judge that a removal of them to Western New-York, would increase their size and prolong their days, in the same proportion that the health and duration of peach trees grown in New-Jersey nurseries is prolonged, by removing them to our deeper and richer soil.

"It would be an interesting experiment, if some one in the east would try peach trees in Western New-York, along side of some from New-Jersey, and let the public know the results. Here trees from both sections usually do equally well, so far as my observation extends; a few exceptions, as I have said, have come under my notice."

Our chief object in furnishing these statements, is to invite investigation. There is no question, but that much of the soil in Western New-York, is one of the best that the peach can grow in-where we have seen those that measured a foot in diameter, and which were probably more than forty years old, bearing fruit. Nevertheless, we have witnessed there the prevalence of the yellows in a virulent form, and decidedly contagious in its character, among the most vigorous trees. All the usual symptoms of premature ripening, and discolored and insipid flesh, followed by sickly leaves, and wiry shoots from the large branches, first made their appearance on trees introduced from New-Jersey; the next year after the first appearance of these symptoms, all the trees standing nearest to them were observed to be similarly affected, but at first on the branches nearest the diseased tree. By a prompt removal of those affected, the malady was checked, and it is now many years since the last vestige has departed from this region. A further proof of its contagious character, is the fact that a knife used in cutting a diseased tree, communicated the poison to another; and a bud from one that had scarcely showed an appearance of decline, proved fatal to the tree in which it was inserted. That this malady may prove more contagious at certain times or under certain circumstances, is by no means improbable. That the soil has a large influence in its prevention, was confirmed by the fact, that in the neighborhood of Burlington, as Thomas Hancock informed us, there are flourishing trees some thirty years old, on a favorable locality, while in other places they never survive but a comparatively short period. But the soil cannot be all, for an intelligent cultivator re

siding on the Hudson, at a place where the peach trees are commonly quite short lived, informs us that trees procured where this disease is unknown, grow and flourish for a much longer period than those from an infected region.

CULTURE OF GRAPES IN VINERIES.

BY WM. CHORLTON, STATEN ISLAND.

Mr. TUCKER-In the Horticulturist of February last, I gave an account of the cold grapery at this place, in which was stated that there was ripened 262 bunches on 74 vines, the season after planting. In the March number, Mr. CLEVELAND, of Burlington, in a very sensibly written article, thought that the vines would be injured by such early cropping, and requested information respecting their progress this season, which I now with pleasure respond to. It was then stated that I expected to ripen 600 to 700 bunches this present season. The number ripened is 618. The vines showed altogether, over 2,400, many of the shoots from a single eye, throwing out four bunches, which were uniformly reduced to one, and at thinning time these further reduced so as to leave from seven to twelve on a vine, according to supposed weight of bunch and strength of plant, so that the energy might be equipoised. The result has answered my expectations. The growth has been quite as vigorous as can be wished for; the side spurs, from bottom to top, are uniformily strong; the wood is now quite brown and hard, with prominent well rounded buds for next year. If proof of quality is required, it is answered by the fact of my having obtained the first premium at the last exhibition of the New-York Horticultural Society, for the best 8 varieties, the weight respectively of which was as follows: Syrian, 2 lb. 14 oz.; Xeres, 2 lb. 3 oz.; Victoria, 2 lb. 1 oz.; Black Hamburgh, 3 lb. 14 oz.; Deacon's Superb, 1 lb. 4 oz.; Black Prince, 1 lb. 13 oz.; Reine de Nice. 2 lb. 9 oz.; Austrian Muscat, I lb. 1 oz. There are now in the house many equally fine and well colored.

For the satisfaction of your correspondent, H. B., I may state, that the first grapes were cut well ripened on the 11th August, viz: Malvasia, a beautiful little grape which ought to be in every collection, and Muscat Blanc Hatif, one of the best flavored grapes in cultivation, but liable to crack when swelling to ripen. No heating apparatus of any kind, has been used, and taking into consideration the late spring and cold summer, this will be equivalent to the 2nd August of last year,

I am obliged to Mr. MESSER, in the September number, for his friendly hints, respecting what he thinks should have been substituted, in composing of the borders, different to what was used, but would say that he fails to convince me that he is right. He says, "it is in vain to expect a similar growth the following season, or this present season, with ordinary rates of manuring," adding, "if one-half the quantity of bone dust and stable manure had been used, and a suitable lot of whole bones or cattle's feet, or slaughter house offal, had been added, the fertility of the border would have been more permanent at less cost." To the first assertion, I answer, that last season the canes were quite as strong as the first year's growth, and this season there is no more difference than is more than made up by the strong side shoots; the top growth would have been equally strong, (and in many cases is quite so,) but for the very reason that the heads were kept down longer on purpose to force the developement laterally, which is a point not often sufficiently attended to with young vines; some of the wood of the present season is three-fourths