EDITORS' LETTER-BOX.

THE Editors of "The American Journal of Horticulture" cordially invite all interested in horticulture and pomology, in its various branches, to send questions upon any subject upon which information may be desired. Our corps of correspondents is very large, and among them may be found those fully competent to reply to any ordinary subject in the practice of horticulture. Any questions which may be more difficult to answer will be duly noticed, and the respective subjects fully investigated. Our aim is to give the most trustworthy information on all subjects which can be of interest to horticulturists.

We would especially invite our friends to communicate any little items of experience for our "Notes and Gleanings," and also the results of experiments. Such items are always readable, and of general interest.

We must, however, request that no one will write to the contributors to our columns upon subjects communicated to the Magazine.

Any queries of this nature will be promptly answered in our columns. Anonymous communications cannot be noticed: we require the name and address of our correspondents as pledges of good faith.

Rejected communications will be returned when accompanied by the requisite number of stamps.

MARKET-GARDENER. — How shall I raise celery? - Get the best seed of some good variety of solid celery; start the plants in a hot-bed, or, for late celery, in the open air; then prepare your land by ploughing it deeply. Strike deep furrows every six or seven feet apart, or dig trenches; then manure liberally in the trenches, digging or ploughing it in well; after which it is ready to receive the plants. Some prefer to spread the manure before ploughing. Set the plants in the trench six to eight inches apart; keep the land well cultivated through the summer; and, three or four weeks before you wish to gather the crop, earth it up so as to blanch it. The old way of earthing it up gradually through the season is not so good; for the celery becomes rusty, which injures the appearance and sale of it. Have raised the very best of celery, blanched up twenty inches or more, by the method above described.

HYBRIDIST, Springfield. — I have a seedling pear that has fruited two years; but the fruit, though good, is not quite up to my expectations in quality. Will it improve? It is not always safe to condemn a new fruit after only two years' fruiting; for pears are always better on middle-aged than on young trees, less woody, and possess more flavor. Sometimes a pear or grape, and even other fruits, will improve very much in quality when the tree gets age. If your fruit is good, hold on to it for a few years, and it may become very good.

Does the Sheldon pear crack? - Yes: on

SHELDON, Berkshire County. some soils, in some seasons, quite badly.

A NEW SUBSCRIBER. Will it be profitable for me to keep my strawberrybed, that has fruited this year for the first time? - Probably not. As a general thing, the better way is to plant a bed every year, and plough up the old one. If in hills, and they are well cared for, they will give good results for several years.

HYBRIDIST, Springfield. - How much fruit should grape-vines be allowed to bear that have been set four years? It depends much on what variety it is. A Concord of that age can safely be allowed to ripen ten or fifteen pounds to a stake; or, if trained on a trellis, the vine might be strong enough to give even twenty or twenty-five pounds. One great fault with most grape-growers is, they allow their young vines to over-bear.

REUBEN, Orange, N. J. — Are cauliflowers difficult to raise? and is there a demand for them in the market?- They are not much more difficult than the cabbage. It is somewhat difficult to get good seed; but, having obtained that, you can raise cauliflowers well. They should be treated in all respects like the cabbage, making your ground quite rich. You can sell all the good cauliflowers you can raise, at fair and remunerative prices. It is very strange that this most excellent vegetable is not grown more extensively.

INQUIRER, Portland. — Is there such a pear as the Goodale ?—Yes : it is a new variety, recently introduced by S. L. Goodale, Esq., of Saco, Me., and said to be a seedling of the M'Laughlin. We find, in the Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for the year 1866, the following description of this pear: "It resembles in shape the Andrews, though more blunt at the stem-end. It becomes yellow at maturity, with a bright-red cheek on the sunny side. Quality good, nearly equal to Beurré d'Anjou; and we think, on the whole, one of the most promising new pears that has been brought to our notice." The fruit is rather large; the tree a good grower, and hardy. It has not yet been disseminated; but the whole stock has been placed in the hands of a nurseryman for propagation.

S. H. W., Boston. — Please inform me as to the best time to trim a buck-thorn hedge; also evergreen hedges. It should be done in autumn, after the plant has made its growth; or, what is better, in spring, before they make new growth. Should prefer spring for evergreens.

E., Brookline. Will the white-pine and hemlock bear clipping severely? Yes in hedge, or singly.

PORGY. Is ground-fish from which the oil has been expressed a profitable manure to use, at twenty dollars a ton ?- Possibly for a top-dressing on grass land. There is nothing better or cheaper than good horse-manure; and, where it can be obtained at reasonable rates, it is better to use it than to trust to any of the special manures known.

MALUS. - Would it not be better to scrape the apple-trees when they have been tarred to keep off the canker-worm ? — Certainly; but it would have been better still not to have put the tar on the tree at all, but in a strip of canvas or tarred paper, which could be taken off at your convenience.

FLORIST, Elyria. — What shall I do with my tuberoses that I wish to have bloom in the autumn in the house? - Put them in pots with suitable soil, and plunge them. If it should be very dry, they may need watering occasionally.

FARMER. What do you regard as the best time to cut herdsgrass and redtop? - When it is in bloom; but, as haying cannot all be done in a single week, it is better to begin early to secure the crop. There is more loss sustained by allowing the grass to stand too long than by cutting it too early.

SUBSCRIBER. Can good wine be made from grapes grown at the North ? — We very much doubt it. What are or have been called native wines are fixedup stuff, grape-juice and water sweetened, not wine. The Iona is doubtless the best wine-grape grown in this country; but it is very doubtful if it will ripen sufficiently at the North to render it profitable for that purpose.

R., Worcester. Can salt be used to advantage on an asparagus-bed? — It is the popular belief that salt is beneficial to this crop; but we very much doubt it. We have seen a bed where so much salt had been applied, that not a single weed grew in the entire field, and the soil was red, as though burned; but the asparagus was only of ordinary size. Salt will not kill this plant as it will many others; but, unless some positive good comes from its use besides the killing of weeds, it is hardly profitable or best to apply it.

WARSAW HORticultural Society.

- Through the kindness of the secretary, Mr. N. W. Bliss, we are in receipt of the printed report of the April meeting of this society.

Essays on tree-planting and on native wines were read, and valuable discussions upon grafting and orchard-culture followed. This society meets at the members' houses.

We clip the following note from the report:

"The secretary read also a letter from the publishers of The American Journal of Horticulture' (J. E. Tilton and Co., Boston), announcing a fact of special importance to its Western readers; to wit, 'that they have secured Dr. John A. Warder of Cincinnati for its Western Editor.' This should at once double its Western subscription-list; for all Western fruit-growers know that Dr. Warder is second to no man in the whole country in matters pertaining to horticulture."

We congratulate the society on the wide field of usefulness before it. With officers and members who are all working-men, having the true interests of the society at heart, the future is bright with promise. The more such societies we have, the better.

VITIS. I have fruited the Concord grape for several years, and think well of it. Is there any better variety to plant for profit ? - We think not, all things considered. It never fails to ripen its large bunches of pretty fair fruit.

I. L., Auburn. Please inform me how I can preserve my fine hardy picotees and other pinks? I buy good plants, and they do well, and bloom the first year; but most of them die during the following winter. - These pinks are propagated by layers, and, if left to themselves, become old, and are easily winter-killed. Layer the grass or new shoots just after the plants are out of bloom, and in this way you can keep your stock fresh and vigorous. The operation of layering is very simple. Bend down a shoot, and cut it partly off by a long slit, or cut, leaving a tongue; cover it up with earth, and in a few weeks it will have become sufficiently rooted to transplant.

L. D. T., Worcester, Mass. — We have, as requested, asked Mr. Rand the reason of your bridal-rose not blooming. He replies, —

"The bridal-rose (Rubus rosæfolius coronarius) is rather a capricious plant. I have often bloomed it freely, and again failed to obtain a blossom. I have been led to think that there are two varieties in cultivation, one of which blooms freely; the other seldom, if at all. The plant is more often killed by kindness than by neglect. It only needs a rather poor soil, moderate waterings, and not much heat. Your plant is probably in too large a pot, and kept too warm. If, however, you have the flowering variety, you will, by reducing the heat and giving a free circulation of air, have plenty of flowers in time. The easiest treatment would be to plunge the pot at once in the border where there would be plenty of sun, and, while not letting it suffer from drought, not watering very freely. This would ripen the shoots thoroughly. On the approach of frost, take up the pot, slightly top-dress the soil of the pot with fresh loam, and place the plant in the coolest part of the conservatory, where it can have plenty of light and air. When it begins to grow, which will be early in January, give more light and heat, and the plant will flower all along the shoots.

"The plant is a native of Prince-of-Wales Island. It is not a rose, but a bramble; and its name is double rose-leafed bramble. Whence it obtained the popular name of bridal-rose, I cannot say. It is often erroneously called Rubus sinensis."

E. P. C., Rockland, Me. I noticed in the "Editor's Letter-box" of the May number the statement, that Daphne Cneorum is hardy as far north as Boston. Perhaps it will interest some of your readers to know that it is hardy farther north. I have had one of the plants in my garden three years, and all the protection I have given it is two or three spruce-branches laid on in the fall. I consider it a very beautiful plant, and it is now covered with buds and flowers. The Editors were aware this plant was hardy, with protection, north of Boston, but preferred to be within the limits; but hardly expected to find it stand as far north as Rockland. We thank our correspondent for his communication, and are always glad to learn facts of such general interest.

We are in receipt of a copy of the address of D. Rodney King, Esq., President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, at the dedication of the new hall of the society just erected in Philadelphia. Mr. King reviews the progress of botanical investigation in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and gives a sketch of the progress of the society. We extract the following mention of distinguished botanists:

"Philadelphia and vicinity claim the honor of having given the earliest and strongest impulses to the study and practice of the sciences of botany and horticulture in this country.

"Long before the Revolution, and as early as 1728, John Bartram established a botanic garden and arboretum on the banks of the Schuylkill, which is still in existence. He and his son William, and his cousin Humphrey Marshall, collected, and introduced into England, more than a thousand new species of plants and trees, besides a great number of varieties belonging to species already known. More than a hundred and forty years ago, John Bartram established on the banks of the Schuylkill a botanic garden and arboretum, in which he and his son William cultivated many of the plants and trees collected by them during their travels through the Carolinas and Florida, then a howling wilderness. “In 1768, Dr. Adam Kuhn of this city was appointed the first professor of botany in the college here.

"In 1777, John Jackson of Loudon Grove, Chester County, Penn., commenced another botanic garden, which is still in existence; and, in 1779, two brothers, Joshua and Samuel Pierce, of East Marlborough, Chester County, Penn., planted an arboretum, principally of evergreens or conifers, which is probably at the present time one of the most complete in the United States.

“In 1803, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton of this city published the first elementary work on the study of botany in this country.

"In the year 1800, André Michaux, and in 1810 his son F. André Michaux, two distinguished French botanists, visited this country; and both found in this city congenial minds among the members of the American Philosophical Society; and, in gratitude for the many kind attentions received by the younger Michaux from the members of that society, he bequeathed a large share of his fortune to it on the death of his widow, who is now quite aged, in trust, for the formation of a botanic garden and aboretum. I hope most sincerely that this may form the nucleus of an institution of that kind, and that our city authorities may second the excellent institution of this learned foreigner by appropriating one of the public parks - Hunting Park for instance for the purpose. In 1818, a former president of the society, Zaccheus Collins, together with John Vaughan, William Maclure, and Joseph Corea de Serra, contributed to a fund to enable that remarkable and self-taught genius, Thomas Nuttall, to make a botanical tour of the western part of the then United States and Territories, and afterwards of California, and the British possessions on the Pacific, by the way of Cape Horn. Besides those already mentioned were many other botanists scarcely less distinguished; and among them I may name James Logan, Dr. Henry Muhlenberg, Reuben Haines, Frederic Pursh (formerly gardener to William Hamilton, at the Woodlands), and the lamented Dr. W. Darlington; and, among the many distinguished