bushels of ashes, were well mixed with about one half of the good soil, and about one foot of depth of this compost was spread over the bottom of the hole, which was then ready to receive the roots of the tree.

2. The tree selected was an elm, standing in a damp wood, but so that the head was well branched. At the distance of five feet from the body, (which measured forty-two inches in circumference at one foot from the ground,) a trench was opened two feet wide; the long roots were not cut, but the trench was sunk so that the tree could be gradually undermined, and with a pick the soil was dug away from among the roots so that the diameter of the ball of earth was about eight feet; while the digging was continued under the roots as far as it was possible, the fibrous roots being tied up so as to be but little broken. This done, the long surface roots were followed out, say ten or twelve feet from the tree, cut off, turned up, and tied to the stem. A block and tackle, fastened in the top of this tree, and to the root of one at some distance, was used to pull the tree over to an angle of 45°, and a stone sled was placed so that one half of the ball would rest on it -the tree was then turned into it, and another sled placed under the ball. The side of the trench was then cut away so that the sleds would run out of the hole; ten yoke of oxen were chained to the sleds, and a chain was carried from around the stein to the draft chain, so that the tree might not slip from the sleds. The tree was then quietly slid from its old place and into its new one-the side of the new hole being cut down so that the oxen could travel through the hole and leave the tree, sleds and all, in it. The tree was then turned down first on one side, then on another; and both sleds being removed, it was ready to have its roots placed and covered. This was carefully done by turning the tree from the perpendicular, and filling in with the hand and a wooden rammer, every cavity in the roots, with the compost earth-the bruised and mangled roots being first cut away with a knife or axe. The tree was planted one foot deeper than it stood in the woods. The long roots were stretched and pegged down to act as anchors, and the hole being then filled with the common earth-so far the roots were disposed of.

Three strong props were then securely placed so that they could not chafe the bark, or allow the tree to be disturbed by winter or summer winds-and then the autumn work was done.

3. In the spring, about first May, the top was lopped, thinned from one-third to onehalf, just as the buds were breaking vigorously. The ground over the surface of the hole was mulched, (covered with manure four inches deep;) the props were examined, the tree righted, and then it took its chance. Once during the dry weather of the summer, some twenty-five buckets of water were poured over the roots.

The cost of the tree in its place was thirty dollars, it having been moved a quarter of a mile-and it is worth the cost. It, with others, now stands on Mr. SAML. E. FOSTER'S place, at New-Haven, where it promises well.

5. Better roots can be had by this process than by cutting a ball and freezing it-because the roots need not be cut so short.

6. The tree should be planted deeper than in the wood, for many reasons.

7. The props are very important for two years at least, as the swaying of the tree in the wind would otherwise break the young new roots,

8. One-half the top may be cut away safely. Mr. JAS. FELLOWS, who has planted large trees with success, in this neighborhood, thinks that none should be cut away; he and I don't agree.

9. Mulching is one of the very best practices-and so is watering the leaves in dry weather, with a barrel of water and a hand engine.

春

The above tree was the largest of some twenty-five which were removed in this way, three years since. They have grown as well as such large trees could be expected to grow, and but two have died; one large Elm, which was raised with roots much broken, and one swamp White Oak. The trees were mostly Elm, Oak, and Dog-wood, and were from twelve to forty-two inches in circumference. Since then, Mr. FELLOWS, in this neighborhood, has planted a great number of large trees, with good success. It is quite clear that trees of great size can be safely removed and planted, so as to grow. Two large Hickorys were planted out this year by this method; they have both gone through this season well, and may yet thrive in their new position-though they are not a safe tree to CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT.

touch.

New-Haven, Aug. 15, 1852.

SUBURBAN GARDENING.

BY P. B. M. BROOKLYN, N. Y.

The above phrase is intended to indicate gardening adapted to grounds in the vicinity of our large cities, and, according to my ideas, is a different thing from landscape gardening, of which latter there is little in this country that deserves the name, and perhaps will not be very soon. For some years past, strenuous efforts have been made by a few individuals, to fix in the public mind, a taste for landscape gardening, and foremost among those who have labored to accomplish this most desirable object, stood the late lamented Editor of the Horticulturist. While nobody would rejoice more than mysef, at the universal diffusion of a taste for this most beautiful art, it has always seemed to me that the subject was not properly initiated to accomplish any great results. The difficulties are many, and not easily surmounted. Our habits, our laws of succession, our utilitarian spirit, our artificial and superficial tastes, among other things, are all against landscape gardening, properly so called. It will be perceived that I use the word gardening as a general term, of which landscape gardening, suburban gardening, &c., are species. While landscape gardening knows no narrow bounds, suburban gardening may be circumscribed within comparatively narrow limits; the one retires far from the city, the other lingers on its skirts; of the one, much has been said, and well said; of the other, little or nothing usefully. If the talent which has been so zealously devoted to the cause of landscape gardening, had been, in the first instance bestowed upon what I have termed suburban gardening, there can be little doubt that more gratifying results would have been produced, and the true interests of landscape gardening have been better subserved. By attempting too much, it generally happens that we accomplish almost nothing.

There are some, doubtless, who will feel the least degree of contempt for all efforts which have for their object nothing higher than the improvement and beautifying of a few suburbun lots; but let them "not despise the day of small things." Those who know me will bear witness that I am not one to follow by paths and devious ways, when a broad road leads straight to the goal; and yet I am thoroughly convinced, that in the matter of gardening we must begin in this small way; we must plant the acorn before we can get the oak.

In the suburbs of New-York, Brooklyn, and other large cities, reside many persons of wealth, occupying dwellings with plots of ground embracing from two to thirty lots, or more. I instance New-York and Brooklyn, because I am most familiar with them and their wants; and then, too, my love, like most other people's charity, begins at home. Some

of these persons, I know, keep professional gardeners, and can show fine plants; but, notwithstanding this, there is generally such an absence of taste in all that pertains to design and effect, and such want of judgment in selection and grouping, that I must withhold the praise of good gardening. This may be said of some of the best gardens about Brooklyn and New-York: of the remainder, the less said the better.

This state of things is owing to various causes; among others to the fact that nearly all our gardeners are foreigners, (I say it with respect,) who inconsiderately follow here, precisely the same system which they practiced at home. There is reason to hope for a change in this particular; for some of the most intelligent of these gardeners have acknowledged to me their mistake, and others are beginning to perceive it. We must have then, notwithstanding all that has been said on this subject, an American system of gardening. I mean by this, not alone a system of cultivation adapted to our own peculiar soil and climate, but also a style of design in keeping with simple good taste, and the habits of a republican people; and in addition to this, some decided changes in the class of plants which frequently occupy our gardens, or at least in the grouping and arrangement.

Let it not be supposed, because I have instanced the rich, that I would confine gardening to them; by no means. The rich and the poor, and the man in moderate circumstances, the merchant and the mechanic, should alike have their gardens; but if there were a necessity for confining gardens to one class alone, then I would say, let that class be the poor. Let them have at least one little spot where they can pass the evening of their days in quiet repose under their own vine and peach tree. How much brighter and better this world would be, if each man had a spot that he could call his own! But to proceed. I have heard the remark made by not a few, that they would take pleasure in beautifying their grounds if they only had the right kind of knowledge to do it themselves, or to enable them to know that the work was properly done if executed by others. Now, Mr. Editor, if it be your wish, it is this very knowledge that I propose to communicate, with proper illustrations. And here, for the present, I will conclude these general remarks. P. B. M

Brooklyn, Aug. 19, 1852.

THE PEAR TREE IN FRANCE.

BY A NEW-YORK AMATEUR.

BUSINESS called me in the fall of last year to France; and I was so much pleased and surprised by what I saw there, in reference to the universal culture of the pear, that I am induced to send you some remarks upon it, which I think may interest your readers. I landed at Havre, and was, much against my inclination, detained there by business longer than was agreeable to me. My time was, however, by no means fully occupied; and I whiled away many an hour which would otherwise have hung heavily on my hands, by exploring the surrounding country, which, by-the-bye, is full of interest to a visitor; and the charm of novelty being added to the beauties of nature, in my case, at any rate, a protracted stay in that part of the country, gradually became not only endurable but interesting. To make my explanation of the particular use of the pear tree, to which I wish to call attention in these remarks, intelligible, I must shortly describe the locality of Havre; or those of your readers who have not been on the Continent of Europe, will not understand me. The town itself is placed at the entrance of the river Seine; embosomed in a splendid bay, said to be, with our own New-York, and those of Naples and

Constantinople, the finest in the world. But there is one point in which our New-York bay is incomparably more valuable in a mercantile point of view, which is this, that the bay at Havre forms the segment of a semicircle, perfectly open to the sea and exposed to a heavy swell, which, during six or eight months of the year, renders it unsafe for merchantmen to ride at anchor outside the harbor. Havre is a fortified town surrounded by a moat into which the tide flows: it is commanded by high land in the rear, which forms almost an ampitheatre, rising by rather a steep ascent from the back of the town. This constitutes a very considerable suburb to the place, being covered with streets of houses, intersected by villa residences dispersed over the hill side, and forming a convenient outlet to the mass of mercantile inhabitants congregated in this, the French market for our cotton. There is, moreover, a considerable space extending over a flat strip of ground, varying in breadth from fifty yards in some places, to a quarter of a mile in others, between the town itself and the "cote," as the hill side to which I have alluded, is called-and this flat is covered by a mass of small dwellings, principally inhabited by store keepers, artisans and working people, to which small peices of garden, or more properly speaking, yards, are attached. They are of very limited extent; but to these it is that I wish to direct attention. The size of them varies considerably, but a large portion of them are not more than from fifteen to twenty feet square. Yet in these little places, subject though they be, to all the uses of a poor and needy class of a people, such as are scarcely to be found in this country, there is to be seen some five or six, or more pear trees, varying in number according to the size of the ground, covered with fruit-always of fair growth, and frequently as fine as can be found anywhere. Often have I stopped to admire the appearance of the trees and the abundance of the crop, and sometimes to gossip with the old ladies, who are generally to be found outside the door, pursuing some of their manifold domestic operations the great majority of which they delight to perform in the open air! They are all, apparently, pear "fanciers," and are much pleased by the approving smile of the traveller, particularly if happens to be a foreigner. And they are very communicative upon the subject, answering readily any inquiry that may be addressed to them, and enlarging with great volubility upon the character of the fruit, the wonderful crops that particular years have produced, and last, not least, upon the "politesse" of "Monsieur" who has had the "complaisance" to make the inquiry! These trees are almost invariably grown as standards, from six feet to ten in height, and pyramidal in shape-well furnished with branches from the ground to the top, and forming, as they do, a constant feature in all gardens, from these cottage plots, to the extensive grounds of the rich, where they are seen to convert the straight walks into perfect avenues of pomona, it is hardly possible to walk five minutes, without being reminded of your presence in the land of

pears.

Another thing connected with this subject, which I particularly remarked, was that you never see an inferior variety grown there. Many, indeed most of the sorts, were old favorites, but most of them deservedly so. One of the Doyenne varieties was of very general culture, and becomes to those whose circumstances oblige them to sell their fruit, a source of considerable profit. Very large quantities of these pears are bought up every year, for exportation to St. Petersburgh, where they fetch a high price, and the demand for this market is so regular, that they are always expensive, as compared with most other kinds in the Havre market.

I had several conversations, both with nurserymen and others, upon the modes of culture adopted, and found it was of the simplest character. During the first three years from the grafting of the stock, they annually lift the plants, which they consider essential

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to the formation of a good large ball of roots; and certainly, in that respect, their trees leave nothing to be desired. Nothing can exceed the healthy appearance of the roots of some, which late in the year I saw a man lifting in a nursery there-and in quantity they did ample justice to the cultivator. After that age they do but little except the pruning, which they well understand, and which I took some pains to make myself master of. I brought a few trees home with me, which are now bearing a small crop only, as from an accident they suffered injury on the voyage, and I have had difficulty to recover them.

In the small villages around Havre, of which there are several, every working man's cottage has its half dozen pear trees, and they appear to be regarded as an essential appendage to the domicile of a French artisan.

In the village gardens I observed, also, that the pear trees in no way encroached upon what some may regard as the more appropriate occupants of the cottagers plot-I mean cabbages and potatoes. In the suburbs I saw few vegetables, but in the villages, the gardens were well stocked with them, the pears being planted at the corners and down the sides of the divisions of the ground, where, (as was the case oftentimes in the villages,) the gardens attached to the cottages were of fair extent. The effect produced by the whole was pleasing to a degree I shall not easily forget, and conveyed to the mind an idea of enjoyment which, alas, was too often confined to the exterior of these humble abodes! For the laboring classes in that fine but unhappy country, are poor and destitute of the necessaries of household comforts, to an extent which it is painful to witness. Volatile and unreflecting, however, the French husbandman appears to realise the aphorism of the poet, "Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long."

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and singing his "Marseillaise" as he drives his plough, where no babbling echo" can waft his "treasonable!" lay to the ears of a "prince president," or his miserable minions, he cheerfully toils through his daily task, and returns to his naked home light hearted, and contented with his lot.

What I wish to impress upon your readers, is the beautiful effect produced, and the air of rural taste given to a neighborhood, by this universal growth of the pear tree. Until seen, it is difficult to be estimated. But I will engage that if the lovers of horticulture in any one city, will exert themselves, and distribute a few pear trees amongst their neighbors, (and they are cheap enough here now,) so as to get a goodly show of them, that before three years are over, if they are grown in the conical shape I have described, and which is well known, there will not be an inhabitant in the vicinity that would fail to regard them as a magnificent addition to the elegances of the place. Then, without entering into more expensive or time occupying floricultural pursuits," "pear societies" may be started, and every fall would bring along its pear exhibition, and with it a day of joy and gaiety for all the lads and lasses around!

To all, I say then, plant pears. If you don't eat them yourself, give them away, or sell them if you like; and moreover, if you manage them so badly that you get no fruit, (you will be rather clever to prevent having more or less three years out of four,) you will still have, if well trained, as fine an object as an ornamental tree—as almost any deciduous trees of the size that you can find. Therefore, I say again, plant pear trees. AN AMATEUR.

New-York, September, 1852.