THE Fastolff Raspberry, we are gratified | years previously. It is evidently a large to be able to say, now that it has borne two years in this country, is worthy of all the praise that has been lavished upon it. It is large, handsome, prolific, and of most excellent flavor. This new English variety was first brought into notice in December, 1842, by the Messrs. Youell, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. It is stated by them to have been known and cultivated in the neighborhood of Yarmouth, near an ancient pile called Fastolff Castle, for several and improved variety of the true Dutch Red Antwerp, and it received its name from the old castle near which it was at first well known. The Fastolff Raspberry has been the prize fruit at all the leading horticultural shows in England since it has been introduced into cultivation there. There is no doubt of its bearing off the palm in the same manner in the soil and climate of the United States. It seems stronger and rather hardier than the large Red Antwerp, which it most nearly resembles, and its fruit is larger and higher | the largest fruit, however, and to secure a flavored than that of the Franconia. Both supply for several weeks, the ground should these varieties will, however, hold their place be trenched and manured two feet deep in our gardens, because they are sorts of great merit; but we are inclined to give the Fastolff the first rank for large size and productiveness. The fruit, as will be seen by the preceding drawing, is much more roundish, or obtusely conical, than that of the true Red Antwerp. The canes are also stouter, more upright, and the leaves rather longer and more pointed. It has the excellent habit of ripening its berries in long continued succession. Its cultivation is of the easiest kind, as it grows in any good garden soil. To raise before planting it. April is probably the best time for transplanting it in this latitude; though October and November are favorable months. The Fastolff Raspberry ripens about the same time as the large Antwerp. With us it was in perfection this season about the fourth of July. Its luxuriant habit, large size and good flavor will soon make it widely known in own gerdens, as it is undoubtedly the greatest acquisition of the last twenty years to this class of midsummer fruits. SUMMER PRUNING THE GRAPE VINE. ALMOST every one having a garden, cultivates a grape vine. If he cannot grow a Black Hamburg or Muscat of Alexandria, under glass, in such a way that a single cluster will weigh five pounds, he can at least raise that hardy and prolific native sort, the Isabella, in such abundance that a single root will give him every year fifty pounds of fruit. This is the month when that which is commonly known as the summer pruning of the grape vine takes place, all over the country. (We confine our remarks now chiefly to hardy grapes.) The native grapes are very luxuriant growers; they make every season of life to themselves a great mass of foliage; and the almost universal practice is to cut off, when the grapes are about the size of peas, every shoot, two or three joints beyond the outermost bunch of grapes. This is done under the impression, first, that to leave so much young wood and foliage is to rob the growing fruit of its fair supply of food; and second, that every bunch should be well exposed to the sun, in order to assist it in coming to full maturity. We ourselves practised this mode of summer pruning for several years, even after we had doubts of its propriety, and were frequently disposed to lay to its charge the diminished size of the grapes, of which we are now confident it was the cause. In 1843, our attention was attracted by an article from the able pen of Dr. LINDLEY, on this subject. It began with the following propositions:— "(1.) If all the leaves which a tree will naturally form, are exposed to favorable influences, and receive the light of a brilliant sun, all the fruit which such a plant may produce will ripen perfectly in a summer that is long enough. "(2.) If all the leaves of a tree are exposed to such influences, all its fruit will advance as far towards ripening as the length of the summer will admit of; it may be sour and colourless, but that condition will be perfect of its kind. "(3.) But if all the fruit which a healthy tree will show is allowed to set, and a large part of the leaves is abstracted, such fruit, be the summer what it may, will never ripen. "(4.) Therefore, if a necessity exists for taking off a part of the leaves of a tree, a part of its fruit should also be destroyed. "(5.) But although a tree may be able to ripen all the fruit which it shows, yet such fruit will neither be so large nor so sweet, under equal circumstances, as if a part of it is removed; because a tree only forms a certain amount of secretions, and if those secretions are divided among twenty fruits instead of ten, each fruit will in the former case have but half the amount of nutrition which it would have received in the latter case. "(6.) The period of ripening in fruit will be accelerated by an abundant foliage, and retarded by a scanty foliage." Dr. LINDLEY stated, that he considered these propositions as the expression of general truths, applicable to all cases, but especially to the vine. If they were founded, as he believed, in well ascertained laws, then the rigorous summer pruning of the vine is totally wrong. He recommended, on the contrary, that not only should the whole crop of leaves be unpruned, but that the lateral shoots, always hitherto removed, should be allowed to remain; because "all those laterals, if allowed to grow, would by the end of the season have contributed somewhat to the matter stored in the stem for the nutrition of the fruit; because the preparation of such matter would have been much more rapid; and because the ripening of the fruit, which depends on the presence of such matter, would have been in proportion to the rapidity of its formation." "It is a mistake," continues he, "to imagine that the sun must shine on the bunches of grapes in order to ripen them. Nature intended no such thing, when heavy clusters were caused to grow on slender stalks, and to hang below the foliage of branches, attached to trees by their strong and numerous tendrils. On the contrary, it is evident that vines naturally bear their fruit in such a way as to screen it from the sun; and man is most unwise when he rashly interferes with this intention. What is wanted is the full exposure of the leaves to the sun; they will prepare the nutriment of the grape-they will feed it, and nurse it, and eventually rear it up into succulence and lusciousness." Struck at that time with the soundness and the force of this reasoning, we immediately put in practice the suggestions it contained. We abandoned, for the most part, summer pruning on our vines, and recommended it verbally to many others. The result of three years' trial has fully convinced us, and we believe all others who have tested it, of the entire superiority of the grapes, both as regards maturity and the weight of the crop, in all cases where the common and severe system of summer pruning is abandoned. All that we find it necessary to do now, with grapes in the open air, is, at the beginning of July, to go over them and tie up to the trellis or frame, all rambling shoots. If, from any neglect at the season of winter pruning, or when the buds were thinned in May, too many young shoots have been suffered to grow, a few of them may be cut out, close down to the point where they start, taking off the whole branchfruit and leaves. The remaining branches and leaves will then be able to provide nutriment for themselves. It should, how- | pruning, and is as much to the point here ever, be remarked, that if the winter as in England: pruning and the spring disbudding have. been properly done, no summer pruning whatever will be necessary. "But," says some person accustomed to cutting off half a cart-load of foliage from his hardy vines every July, "what am I to do with the mass of foliage, running into a wild wilderness, that I find úpon my vines every midsummer. It would smother the grapes." We answer, provide against it by pruning back the side spurs or shoots, close to the leading canes, every winter. And in the spring, when several buds start out from the same place to make the current season's wood, rub off all but two. In this way you will prevent the vine from producing too much wood, or more fruit than it can properly carry; and you will also allow the shoots that form the current year's growth, to produce and retain all the foliage which it is possible for them to do, in order that the grapes which they bear may have the utmost supply of nutriment. We cannot better conclude these remarks than by the following paragraph from Dr. LINDLEY'S article. It relates to autumn "When, however, the branches have grown for many weeks, and are in the autumn beginning to slacken in their power of lengthening, theory says it is then right to stop the shoots by pinching off their ends, because after that season newly formed leaves have little time to do more than organize themselves, which must take place at the expense of matter forming in the other leaves. Autumn-stopping of the vine shoots is therefore not only unobjectionable, but advantageous; for the leaves which remain after that operation will then direct all their energy to the perfection of the grapes." We have elsewhere stated, that we consider the simple upright trellis in every respect preferable to the arbor, for training hardy grapes. Too much sun we have never known, even in our hottest seasons, for the grape; and the leaves are so much more perfectly exposed to the sun on the trellis, where it can reach them on both sides, than upon the arbor where it can only touch upon one side, that the crop of grapes in the former case is always, other circumstances being equal, incomparably larger and finer. ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE LILY TRIBE. BY JOSEPH BRECK OF BOSTON. As the proper time for transplanting the | Lily family is near at hand, it may not be out of season to offer a few remarks in relation to the various species and their cultivation. All the species of this splendid genus with which we are acquainted, may be considered worthy of a place in every good collection of plants. Some of the species are well known, while others are rarely seen in our gardens. The Lily is interesting to the young stu dent in botany as well as to the florist, on account of the simplicity of its structure, and the magnitude and distinct character of its different parts and organs. In the Linnæan system it is found in class Hexandria, order Monogynia. It is the type The bulbs of strong growing Lilies should be planted from four to five inches deep, and weaker sorts from three to four inches. It will be found beneficial to imbed the bulb in sand. In the borders, three bulbs. of the stronger growing varieties, are enough for one group, and five of the weaker sorts. They have a pleasing effect when planted in masses. Most of the species are perfectly hardy, and it is not absolutely necessary to give them any protection in winter; but all will bloom more strongly, provided they receive a covering of litter or rotten manure. of a most interesting order in the natural, case the bulbs are very much weakened, and system of Jussieu, (the Lilacea,) embracing their flowering may be prevented for a many plants with flowers truly magnificent. number of years. Care should be taken The root of the Lily, or what is generally not to break the fibres attached to the bulbs. denominated the root, is a scaly bulb, the scales being laid over each other in an imbricate form, enclosing the germ or bud. The bulb is not a root strictly speaking, but a bud containing the embryo of the future plant. The roots are thrown out from the bottom of these bulbs or buds, and unlike the fibres of the tulip bulb, are perennial, and on their strength depends, in a great measure, the vigor of the future plant. During the process of the growth and inflorescence of the plant, new buds are formed side by side of the old bulb, which are matured sufficiently to push their leaves soon after the flowering of the mother plant is over, and it begins to exhibit signs of decay in its foliage. This is the proper time to divide and transplant the bulbs. The different species of Lilies will all be ready to take up in the month of August; some earlier, and others later, according to their time of flowering. LILIUM CANDIDUM, The Old White Lily. This species has always been considered the emblem of whiteness, and is too well known to require any description. A mass of white lilies is always beheld with admiration, and they perfume the air with their delicious fragrance. The White Garden Lily cannot, therefore, be dispensed with by the lover of flowers. In strong ground, it grows three or four feet high, and is in flower about the first of July. LILIUM CANDIDUM, FLORE PLENO. This is a double variety of the white: but no one will cultivate it for its beauty. The inflorescence appears to be a continuation of the foliage, which as it terminates the stem, gradually assumes the character of sepals or petals, with the whiteness of the simple flower. It is a curious monster, and for that reason may be fancied by some. In the cultivation of border flowers generally, it will be found that they thrive best in well pulverized rich soils, such as are neither too heavy nor too light. The Lily will do well in any well prepared border. By a well prepared border, we mean one that has been trenched, and bountifully supplied with decomposed stable or barnyard manure, composted with peat or swamp-muck. If the soil was of a heavy character, a suitable quantity of sand should be mixed with it, or if too porous and light, soil of an opposite quality ought to be incor- LILIUM CANDIDUM FLORE STRIATO, the Vaporated with it. Ground thus prepared is riegated White Lily, is another variety of in order to receive not only Lilies, but other the common white. The purity of the bulbous roots and plants. On no account white is destroyed by the dull purple should the removal of lilies be deferred un-stripes that mark the petals, and give the til the leaves begin to push, for in that impression that the flower has been soiled. |