Eight gallons of pie-plant juice, with four of molasses, diluted with twenty of water, will make a barrel of vinegar, with three or four weeks' fermentation in the hot sun of August. To give a good color to the vinegar, add a quart of the juice of red currants or red beets. After apples are ripe enough for pies, there is little demand for pie-plant; and the remaining stalks can be converted to a profitable use in thus making pie-plant vinegar. Alexander Hyde.

THE FRAMINGHAM GRAPE.

WE have fruited this variety for three years past; and we are forced to the conclusion, that the opinion we expressed when we first saw it is correct,

that it is a reproduction of the Hartford Prolific. It very closely resembles it in foliage, wood, bunch, berry, and general habit; so that we defy any person to pick it out in a vineyard of Hartford Prolifics. We do not say it is identical, or that it was not a new seedling, and that the person who introduced it did not act in good faith; but we do say that it so closely resembles the variety we have referred to, that it was entirely useless to introduce it. It has the same bad habit of dropping its fruit that its supposed parent has, and is no better in quality. This year, it failed to ripen well; but it usually matures. It will be wholly forgotten in a few years when we get varieties as early as this, and equal in quality to Iona and Rebecca.

COVERING GRAPES.

There is a difference of opinion as to the expediency of covering the so-called hardy grapes in winter. Many prefer to lay them down on the ground, and cover with soil, as they do their raspberries or blackberries; while others stoutly contend that it is not only no advantage, but a positive harm, to the vines. This depends somewhat upon the winter: if it should prove a favorable one, it would have been better to let them stand up; but if a severe one, when there would be danger of killing the vines, of course the safest way would be to cover. We have practised both ways, sometimes covering all, again a part, and, once in a few years, covering very few; and we incline to the opinion, from our experience, that the safest way, where the winters are severe, is to cover. It is not necessary that it should be done with soil; but evergreen boughs, old rubbish from the barn, hay, straw, any thing that will protect them from the alternations of heat and cold, will answer the purpose. If they are buried in soil, the work should not be done immediately after they have been trimmed; but they should remain exposed some days, that the cuts made in pruning may dry, to prevent their bleeding when lifted the next spring.

CHICKWEED. This weed is found in great abundance in land that has long been under the plough, and especially in orchards. It grows very quickly, and soon covers the ground. It is a great nuisance, especially in strawberry-beds. The best way, when it has got possession, is to sow the land down to grass for a year or two. If in an orchard, this recommendation may not apply; for it is not a good plan to put it in grass. A good way is to plough late in autumn, and cover it up; then some advartage will be derived from it, as it will decay, and enrich the soil.

VOL. II.

16

361

WISCONSIN HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS. The Annual Exhibition of Wisconsin Fruit-growers has just passed. It was nobly planned, and successfully carried out. The premiums offered were liberal, consisting of silver-ware and books, instead of money, as is customary,- valuable intrinsically, and valuable to keep as happy reminders to those who have successfully competed for the prizes.

The Madison American Horticultural Society opened the week by a show of fruit and flowers in the Assembly Chamber on Tuesday evening.* This is a well-established society, with charter, and funds on hand. In fact, it is upon a firm basis, which enables it to offer valuable premiums. And the society's exhibitions are always of an interesting character. Its officers are W. T. Leitch, president; and Joseph Hobbins, secretary.

Wednesday morning, every thing was removed to the State Fair Grounds, under the auspices of the State Horticultural Society. Here we found a large tent nearly filled, and Floral Hall (a building thirty-two by a hundred feet) full of fruits and flowers. The collections of grapes were conspicuous. S. Marshall showed twenty sorts; G. V. Nott eighteen sorts, including the Iona and Israella, the first ever exhibited in the West. They promise well, and, thus far, are sustaining the claims set forth in their favor. When first sent out, the vines seemed to kill out badly, but for the two past years have sustained their reputation. As yet, however, they are too little known to decide just what their rank will be on the list of grapes we grow.

At the horticultural meeting on Wednesday evening, a warm discussion was held upon the merits and relative rank of some of the fruits. Wisconsin is a "peculiar" State; and while we all like the best of fruit, and would prefer to see such at the head of our list for general cultivation, we are obliged to seek, first hardiness and productiveness, then quality. Though the majority were of this opinion, and so voted to continue the Concord Grape as the first on our list of hardy, productive good grapes, others preferred the Delaware, which is far superior in quality, which received only the second place. The last is a valuable grape for this State, -abundant bearer, reasonably hardy, and gaining favor as a grower. I predict, that, in less than three years, it will stand at the head of American grapes in Wisconsin.

Of strawberries, the Wilson was continued as the best for general cultivation. The Agriculturist crowded hard for the honors, but was thought to be "too little known" to be safely placed at the head this year. The growers all reported in its favor; and it was unanimously placed second on the list for general cultivation, as being sweeter, and a better table-fruit, than the Wilson.

The Doolittle Raspberry was recommended without protection, and Fastolf with. Here, again, quality of fruit has to give way for quality of plant. And so will it continue till public taste is sufficiently educated to desire, yea, demand, first quality; and then the better fruits will be protected in winter. Till then, nursery-men must bide their time, and oftentimes be content to eat "sour grapes."

This society does not compete for the fifty-dollar premium offered by the State Society.

Apples were in great profusion; some exhibiters showing nearly a hundred varieties, large, smooth, and fine.

The floral department was well represented; the German Horticultural Society of this city taking the lead, showing many choice plants, and taking the first premium of fifty dollars for the best show by county or local societies.

Kenosha County receives the second premium; their contribution being made up almost entirely of apples. As a whole, the exhibition was a grand success; and many a heart rejoiced over the silver fruit-dish, cake-basket, cup, and spoons they have won at this autumn exhibition of the Wisconsin Fruitgrowers' Association. O. S. Willey.

MADISON, WIS., Sept. 30, 1867.

To the Editor of "The Journal of Horticulture."

Sir,- Circumstances have, until now, prevented an endeavor to comply with your request; to which, if my assent were partially given, it was also partially withheld, that I would let you hear from me while absent on my present journey. And now, when this attempt at compliance is made, it is done with great misgivings as to my ability to do so to your acceptance or to my own satisfaction. It is not easy to write letters while on a journey. When travelling, there is no time for it; and, when occasionally stationary, not much more leisure.

In your case, this difficulty is enhanced by the fact, that a letter, to be of any interest to you, must be upon a special subject, or class of subjects, must relate to horticulture or agriculture; while to make a letter upon such subjects that would be of any value demands more time in making inquiries and examinations than I have ability or inclination to bestow. Unless a visit to Europe is made with a fixed purpose or definite object, a stranger cannot give much time to any one subject: the attention necessarily becomes divided among the numerous objects of interest that are everywhere and constantly presenting themselves. Go where he may, there are everywhere museums of art, antiquities, and curiosities; galleries of paintings and sculpture; old cities of quaint and curious architecture; old castles and palaces, memorable as having been the abodes of those whose names are as household words in every land, or the scenes of striking and important events; old battle-fields, where contests have been decided and victories won that have exercised an influence upon the course of the world's history for generations, if not for ages: and, with all these to interest or instruct, he can give but little time to gardens or gardening. You cannot, of course, expect from me any thing very new. My future, as has been my past course, is over an oft-trodden path. The most that I can hope for is, perhaps, to give you an account of some things that accident may bring more particularly under my notice; to present them to you under an aspect somewhat different from that to which you may be accustomed.

Having arrived in England in the middle of May, and remained there during the residue of that and the whole of the succeeling month of June, I was enabled to see some portions, at least, of that country under its, perhaps, most favorable aspects. When I reached Liverpool, the season, as indicated by the vegetation, was much in advance of what it was in Massachusetts when I left.

No doubt, the time occupied by the passage from one country to the other will account, in part, for the difference. Setting this, however, aside, I presume there can be no doubt that vegetation, in the early spring, is, under the milder climate of England, much in advance of what it is at the same time in our part of the United States, - an advance, however, that, as the season progresses, is lost by England, even if it is not changed into one in favor of the United States, in consequence of the much more rapid rate at which vegetation progresses in the latter than the former country. This, at least, was my conclusion, arrived at from my observation in Southern Europe on a previous occasion, and applies, I am inclined to think, equally to England. On the 7th of June, I saw strawberries, grown in the open air, for the first time in Covent-garden Market. They had, however, been for sale a few days earlier; and when I left London, on the 6th of July, the market continued to be well supplied with them. In the earlier part of May, the weather in England was very warm, succeeded by dull, cold weather, and, on the 22d, by showers of snow and hail, to which again fol lowed great heat. I am inclined to think that these were exceptional occurrences, or, at least, that so great alternations in the temperature, or perhaps, I should rather say, that such extremes of heat or cold, are, at this season, unusual. Apart from the mountainous parts of the country, and, of course, with some diversity, there is a great similarity in English scenery; that is, the salient or prominent characteristics of the landscape exhibit a great similarity. There is everywhere the same soft, rounded swells in the land, hardly to be called hills; the same smooth levels, divided, by enclosures of hedges in which often flowering shrubs are growing, into rather smail fields, with sometimes a small river or stream winding through them, and groves and coppices of wood scattered about; occasionally a village-church, with its tower covered with ivy; and often some gentleman's seat on high ground in the distance, with a background of oaks, and approached by an avenue of elms or beech, with farmhouses and steadings in the foreground. To one content with a landscape without any approach to sublimity or grandeur, or being even picturesque, but that, on the contrary, may be considered as tame and domestic, England is constantly presenting views that are of great beauty; at least, so it seemed to me, perhaps, in part, from the contrast offered to those with which I am most familiar in our own country.

The cultivation of the soil in England seemed to me of a superior order, and its tilth to be thorough, and carefully performed; while the implements used for the purpose, to an American eye, look heavy, clumsy, and not well suited to the purpose. Yet long experience must have thoroughly tested and proved their adaptation to the end aimed at. Certainly such appears to be the result: for a newly-ploughed field, with its perfectly straight furrows, and the ground evenly and smoothly turned over, looks as if the labor must have been performed by hand with the spade; and, when harrowed, appears like a nicely-raked bed in a gentleman's garden.

To a passing stranger, the soil generally seems naturally fertile, or, when not so naturally, to have been made so by judicious improvement, by under-draining, or by other processes. There is, of course, a diversity of soil, and, in some places, such as is unsuited to agricultural uses. Yet to meet with such where