ing its properties, I will remark that any off The advantages of the salt which has the packing houses in New-York will be glad to dispose of it, at about twenty-five cents per barrel, unless a demand may induce them to raise the price. Salt is a wonderful food for plants, and strange to me is it that none of the agricultural clubs have called the attention cf farmers to the importance of its use. Another time, I can give you my experience in its application to meadows, etc. been previously used in packing meat, are, Piermont, N. Y., Sept. 15. FRUITS IN OHIO. BY W. H. SCOTT, TOLEDO, OHIO. pear is not at home in Delaware. Taken as a whole, Ohio presents more facilities for fruit culture, we venture to say, than any state in the Union. A large portion of our fruits, in their native form, grow wild in the greatest abundance and luxuriance, and many of them, in their natural state, as the grape, strawberry and raspberry, are well worthy of removal to the garden. Along the Ohio river, the grape is cultivated to perfection, and the peach, pear, apple, plum, raspberry and strawberry, are grown with ease; still there is much less certainty of their bearing regularly than on the lake shore, as a glance at a statement of the fruit seasons in the two portions of the state would show. No part of the world would appear better adapted to the growing of fruits than that portion of the West, extending from latitude thirty-five to latitude forty-one, having for its eastern and western boundaries the Alleghanies and the Mississippi river. We would narrow down still more, by saying that the tier of counties bordering on the south shore of Lake Erie, are better suited to the successful growing of the fruits of a temperate climate than any portion of the Mississippi or Lake valleys. The advantage which northern Ohio has over other portions of the country, is, that while the soil is warm, rich, and easily cultivated, and the climate suited to all the standard fruits, the influence of frosts in destroying newly formed fruit, is felt less injuriously so near The southern exposures of the hills upon to this great body of water than any where the Ohio, cannot be excelled in natural else, where the advantages of soil and mar- advantages for grape culture by any part of ket are as good. Every portion of the the vine-growing portions of Europe. The country may grow certain fruits successful- wine from some of the numerous vineyards ly; but few portions are alike favorable for along the Ohio, may be placed in compariall our standard fruits. The pear thrives son with the best Rhenish, without dispain the country around Boston. The peach ragement. Protection in winter is not found is largely and profitably cultivated in New-necessary for the best native wine-grapes Jersey and Delaware. But the peach does The strawberry is taken into the market of not succeed well around Boston, and the Cincinnati, in greater perfection and in lar ger quantity, than into any of the larger cities east of the Alleghanies. Mr. LONGWORTH of Cincinnati, who has much merit as a horticulturist, has, probably, the most extensive vineyards in the country. His fourteen vineyards contain about seventy acres, and are mostly under the care of Germans, who have been familiar with vinegrowing and wine-making in their own country. He prefers the northern exposures of the hills, and thorough ploughing to trenching. His attempts to acclimate the foreign grape have proved unsuccessful, and more reliance is placed on our native varieties, many of which answer well both for wine and table use. He plants his rows in the vineyard six feet apart, and his plants from three to four feet in the row, and cultivates with the plough. Mr. LONGWORTH has been also a prime mover in the question of the distinction of sex in the strawberry plant, and has driven, with a steam power, most of his opponents from the field. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the cherry in southern Ohio, and the same may be said of this fruit all over the state; though there are few portions which are not well suited for its culture. The same remarks apply to the pear. Probably more and finer varieties of the cherry are exhibited at the Cleveland Horticultural Society's shows, than can be found elsewhere.* Apple orchards are multiplying rapidly in most of the counties, and a great disposition is exhibited to change the numerous seedlings into palatable fruit. When England becomes an important market for Ohio apples, as it probably will before many years, the superior advantages afforded by the Lake region, over other parts of the state, must render it the great apple-growing portion. One of the advantages we have already re ferred to; the other is the easy water communication afforded for shipment to the Atlantic, through and by Lake Erie, the Welland canal, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, without necessity of transhipment. Toledo, Sept. 27, 1846. W. H. SCOTT. GIANT MEXICAN CACTUS. Cactus family, called Echinocactus, Hedgehog Cactus, (from echinos, a hedgehog,) is naturally almost entirely confined to Mexico, and abounds in gigantic proportions in the neighborhood of San Luis Potosi. THERE IS, perhaps, no country, excepting | these monster Cacti, is in the neighborhood Central Africa, that naturalists have at all of San Luis Potosi. The division of the penetrated, which is richer in rare, novel, and interesting plants, than Mexico. The variety of soil and climate embraced within its limits, is very great. Sandy, arid deserts-rich, deep watered valleys-high, cold mountainous tracts-all abound, each covered with its appropriate vegetation. The Royal Garden at Kew, near London, has lately received from Mr. STAINE, a collector employed in Mexico, some specimens of the Cactus family, which are of enormous proportions. The district where Mr. STAINE found The first large specimen, which Mr. STAINE sent to the Kew gardens, proved to be a new species, and was named by Sir WM. HOOKER, Echinocactus stanesii, in honor of its discoverer. It was the largest of the One-third more varieties were shown at the Dutchess County, N. Y., Horticultural Society's exhibition in June last, all of the finest quality-Black Tartarians three inches in cir cumference.-ED. genus ever seen in Europe, weighing, when | to add, however, that it has since decayed the roots were entirely free from earth, and perished. about two hundred and fifty pounds. Fig. 60, from the Revue Horticole, gives an accurate view of this species. It arrived at Kew in excellent condition, and a short time afterwards produced from its apex about one hundred fine orange-colored blossoms, resembling those of Opuntia. We are sorry This first plant, however, is but a pigmy compared with one which Mr. STAINE has since forwarded to Kew. The "latter monster" specimen, was selected among great numbers which grow in the district referred to. It was necessary to employ twenty men, with the aid of levers, to raise thin great thorny plant upon the car or chariot, | The Cactus tribe, as such of our readers which was to transport it to Vera Cruz, the as are familiar with Mexican products are nearest seaport. The weight of this re-aware, is not a family of plants merely cumarkable specimen was about four hundred pounds. Mr. STAINE describes these Cacti as growing in deep ravines, among masses of rocks situated in the high mountains of Mexico. The finest specimens are in places where it is impossible to reach them with a carriage, and it is done with difficulty even on horseback. Some of them, which he measured, were nine or ten feet in height. When we reflect how slowly this family of succulent plants grow, there is little doubt that these gigantic specimens of Mexican Cacti are some of them several hundred years old. rious to the botanist or plant collector. On one of the species, C. cochinillifera, the Cochineal insect feeds, that insect which produces the splendid scarlet dye, so well known in commerce. Mexico has the entire monopoly of this product, and the fertile district of Oaxaca is that in which it is chiefly cultivated. Some idea of the value of this little red insect, apparently so insignificant, may be obtained, when we mention that the annual export of it now amounts to above one million of dollars, and, according to Humboldt, two millions dollars worth of it have been exported in a single year. HOW TO RENOVATE AN "OUTCAST." It is very rarely that experiments are properly made or accurately reported. The following one, on a subject highly interesting to every cultivator of the Pear tree on the sea-board, appears to us highly satisfactory in both respects. The hints we gave our correspondent below, were based on some chemical notions, which were only vague theory then, but which subsequent observations have given us greater confidence in. The renovating substances that we recommended in this Such of our readers as are familiar with case, were intended to be adapted to the the Appendix to our work on Fruits, are peculiarities of the soil of J. B. W.; but all well aware that we do not believe in the the alteration which we are able, even now, natural "running out" of varieties. In to suggest for other sites, would be to subother words, we are confident that wher- stitute air-slaked lime for charcoal, in heaever a variety, once productive and excellent vier soils, that are naturally deficient in the in a certain soil, fails, it is for the want of certain conditions necessary to its success. Either it has exhausted the soil of those constituents necessary to health and productiveness; or, if the tree is a young one, and immediately shows signs of decay, it is evident that it has been propagated from an unhealthy and diseased stock. former substance. The salts of iron, and especially sulphate of iron, has a specific action upon the disease which attacks, in unfavorable soil or climate, the epidermis of the pear and other plants, both on the leaf and fruit. vations of the occasional results of blacksmith's cinders, applied to this tree, in va rious parts of the country, first drew our attention to this fact. We have lately seen a paper, read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, by M. BOUSSINGALT, bearing directly on the diseases of plants as affected by the salts of iron, which confirm and extend our own crude views on this subject. The substance of this essay we shall, at some convenient moment, lay before our readers. In the mean time, we beg the attention of our readers to the plain and simple mode adopted in the experiment below. If, as we are convinced, a tree, which some have condemned as an "outcast" from pomological society, may be renovated so easily as this, it is quite worth while to "spare" it. The quantities of the substances added to the soil to renovate it, were, it should be remembered, applied to a tree nearly full grown. One half, one-fourth, or less, should, of course, be used to trees of correspondingly less size and age. A hint may be taken from this treatment of old trees, for the better culture of young ones on soil naturally unfavorable.-ED. To the Editor of the Horticulturist: My situation is a sheltered one in Westchester county; and after some inquiries about my soil, which is a light, though excellent, sandy loam, you told me that you believed the trees had exhausted the proper elements from the soil; that in consequence the fruit failed, and recommended me, instead of cutting them down, to renovate them. Struck with the force of your reasoning at the time, which I have not leisure now to repeat to your readers, I determined to make a trial with two trees. I did so, in the fall of 1843. I have now the pleasure of repeating in writing, what I told you ver bally, that I have now had two crops of beautiful fair fruit, as excellent as the finest that grew upon my soil twenty years ago. As many persons about New-York and Long-Island, have trees of the Doyenné or Virgalieu pear in the same degenerate condition in which mine were, I comply with your request to give a simple statement of my proceeding with my trees, premising in the outset, that it is entirely based upon the hints I received from you. In the month of October, 1843, I took in You will remember the conversation we hand two large and thrifty Virgalieu pear had together three years ago, abcut the apparently worn out condition of my Virgalieu trees, about twenty or thirty feet in height. or St. Michael (Doyenné-ED.) pear trees. II first scraped off all the rough outer coat spoke of them then, in the language of of bark, and coated the trunk of the tree Knight and Kenrick, as "degenerate out- over with soft soap, put on with a paint casts." Though they had once borne me excellent crops of fruit, which I have never seen surpassed, yet for several years they had only produced cracked, blighted, miserable fruit—indeed such as was absolutely worthless. I remarked to you, that I considered the variety worn out, and good for nothing in my neighborhood, and that I intended to cut down my trees, which were large and fine, and ought to yield every year several bushels. brush. I next cut out about one-third of all the poorest branches, and shortened the head of the tree one-third, by "heading back" the principal limbs, covering the wounds after paring them, with the "shelllac solution," (the best thing I have ever tried,) recommended on page 32 of the "Fruits and Fruit Trees of America." I then dug a trench, four feet wide around the whole ball of roots, very much as if I were going to transplant it. I left a ball of roots, b, untouched about six feet in dia |