had to glass houses where protection could be afforded and means adopted for the exclusion of this malady; but in many cases, even here, success has not been equal to expectations. The mistaken eagerness of many to keep the plants in an artificial instead of a natural condition, has led to frequent failures. It appears very obvious that a plant which occasionally succeeds in the absence of any particular protection, would be enabled to do so uniformly by a very slight additional care, provided that this additional care was bestowed in the proper direction; and that such is the case has been proved beyond a doubt.

Having on another page of this report treated more particularly on mildew and its origin, it may suffice to remark here, that it is altogether dependent upon the amount of atmospheric moisture, and proper ventilation; and without proper attention to these points, mildew is just as likely to destroy the plants under glass, as it would be those in the open air. Keeping in view that these remarks are intended to refer to the general routine management of what is now more definitely known by the term cold grapery, we will briefly allude to what is considered the main points of treatment.

The principal points, then, are a low night temperature, exclusive top ventilation, and the constant presence of moisture available for evaporation. The baneful effect of a high temperature in plant-houses has been shown in previous reports. It has been proved repeatedly that low or bottom ventilation in a grapery is conducive to mildew, and aridity must be prevented by the presence of moisture.

It would require considerable space to enter fully into the elucidation of all the principles involved; it will, therefore, be considered sufficient for the present to briefly trace the course of practice deduced from many years' extended observation and experience in the growth of the foreign grape.

As soon as spring growth commences, attention is at once directed to the night temperature, so that it will fall at least 20 degrees below the average heat in the house during the day. In dull, cloudy weather, of course, this difference between day and night may not be so great, and if the nights are frosty, it will be necessary to close the house; but in the absence of actual external freezing, the ventilators should not be wholly closed, even during night. When all danger from night frosts is passed-which will vary, according to locality, from the middle of May to the middle of June-the ventilators may be left open day and night. During dull cool weather it may be necessary to partially close the ventilation both day and night; but as a general rule, the same amount is used day and night. We have seen graperies where the ventilators were never disturbed from the period of blossoming until the ripening of the fruit. No constant anxiety is, therefore, felt about sheltering or opening sashes, and the liability to create sudden changes of temperature, that frequent alterations of the ventilators are sure to produce, is prevented. The temperature of the house will, therefore, participate in the general changes of external atmosphere, and though warm during sunlight, will be cool during darkness. During the warmest portion of the summer, the day temperature may vary from 90 to 110 degrees by day, to 65 to 80 degrees during the night. This lowering of temperature during darkness insures a hardihood of growth that enables the plants to endure any unfavorable change that may occur, without sustaining the least injury.

As air is heated, its capacity for abstracting and containing moisture increases, and unless the moisture is supplied from other sources, it will be drawn from the plants. To supply this evaporation, the soil should be kept damp on the surface. Once a day at least, in bright weather, the soil will require to be sprinkled. It is a good rule never to allow the surface soil to be entirely dry until the fruit is coloring to ripen; but it is important to know that, unless in connexion with constant night ventilation, this treatment may prove injurious. So far as the management of the atmosphere is concerned, this is all

the care required, and a crop of grapes is thus as easily grown as a crop of potatoes, only with more certainty, because more under our control.

With regard to soil, pruning, &c., we will at present only remark, that soil capable of growing good cabbages will grow good grapes, and the strongest yearly growths give the best fruit.

MULCHING.

This is an auxiliary operation in cultivation, that would be more generally practiced if its beneficial effects were better understood.

The objects to be attained by mulching are twofold, viz: to preserve a uniform degree of moisture in the soil during summer, and protect the roots of plants from severe frosts during winter. These conditions are obviously important to vegetation, and they can be very efficiently secured by covering the surface with a stratum of porous materials, such as tan bark, charcoal dust, leaves, or strawy manure, which will prevent the surface soil from becoming compact or hard, and, at the same time, assist in maintaining a uniformity in its mechanical texture favorable to the retention of moisture. Air is the best non-conductor, and bodies are represented as good or bad conductors, just as they are solid or porous. Iron is a better conductor than wood, granite stone a better conductor than brick, hard pressed soil is a better conductor than soil that is loose and porous. A hard trodden path is warmer in summer and colder in winter, than the cultivated ground alongside of it. When the soil particles are in pressed contact, the condition is favorable to rapid conduction; summer winds passing over such a surface, carry off the moisture which the heat evaporates; the surface is speedily parched dry, and vegetation languishes.

When the surface is covered with a mulch of such porous materials as those enumerated, it in effect secures a stratum of air in repose between the soil and the causes of radiation and evaporation. In the case of recently planted trees, the preservation of a uniform degree of moisture in the soil surrounding their roots, is a great point towards their successful growth; and, other things being equal, they will languish or flourish in proportion as this condition of uniform moisture is secured.

Although mulching is really a very simple operation, yet serious losses have occurred from its misapplication. We have seen trees destroyed from too heavy mulchings of grass, manure, and tan bark. Before applying the mulch to a recently planted tree, if in spring, shape the soil around it in basin-form, extending the rim beyond the extremities of the roots; by this configuration of surface, rains will be retained and, if required, artificial waterings can be applied to best advantage. With regard to fall planting, the process should be reversed and a slight mound formed towards the stem of the plant, so as to throw off the heavy rains of winter. Of course such mound should be removed before the following summer.

As already remarked, the principal use of winter mulching is to prevent frosts from reaching the roots. The best material for this purpose is charcoal dust. Where manure is used, it should not be thrown close up to the stem of the plant, otherwise it might prove a harbor for ground mice, which in rough ground, or under a coarse covering, are sometimes very destructive, by eating the bark of young trees. When they are troublesome, the precaution should be taken to trample firmly over the roots and around the stem after heavy snows, and keep the surface clear and compact.

In order to be effectual, it is not necessary that summer mulchings should be heavy. When tan or charcoal dust is used, a layer of two inches in depth will be quite sufficient. Grass cut from lawns is very suitable, but a mere sprinkling only should be applied at a time. Thick coatings promote fungoid growths, which frequently destroy trees. Fruit or ornamental trees that have been trans

planted, will rarely be much benefited by mulching after the first year's growth. The advantages of mulching to growing vegetables are equally important. Cabbages, potatoes, peas, onions, and other crops, will thus be enabled to maintain growth during the driest weather. This covering is not intended to supersede stirring the soil, but when plants become so far advanced in growth as to be beyond the hoe and plough, mulching may be applied, and those who give it a fair trial on their crops in a dry season, will not require further promptings to repeat the practice.

HEATING GLASS STRUCTURES.

An efficient system of heating green-houses is always a matter of much interest in their construction and adoption; the expenses attending the fitting up of a heater and the subsequent cost of fuel have always been great obstacles, and have been the means of preventing many persons from building, more particularly since it has been an opinion somewhat prevalent that a boiler and pipes for the purpose of heating and circulating water is indispensable for the proper diffusion of heat. There is no doubt that water is the best conductor of heat, and, where extensive houses are to be warmed the superiority of water in this respect, together with other advantages connected with its application, such as neatness, cleanliness, &c., will always point out that mode as being the most desirable. Looking at it as a matter of mere economy, we can at once decide that the cheapest mode of heating green-houses is by means of well-built and properly constructed flues. At present prices of material and labor it is probable that for a house, say sixty feet long by twenty wide, it would cost ten times more to erect a boiler with sufficient piping than would be required to build a furnace and flue. But the economical advantages of the flue are not all absorbed in its first cost. Even with the best form of boiler there is great waste of heat which may be economized in a good flue. To prove the above assertions would take more space than we purpose, neither is it indispensably necessary at present; the object in view is to show that there is much fallacy extant concerning the great superiority and economy of heating by hot water, and to attempt to describe some points in the construction of an efficient furnace and flue.

The furnace should not be less than two and a half feet in length; one foot wide, and sixteen inches in height; the sides should be lined with good firebrick placed on edge, backed by four inches common brick. Very little mortar should be used, and that quite thin; indeed, they are frequently laid without mortar-that is, the fire-brick casing. The arch or covering is formed by projecting fire-brick a few inches over the sides, so that the opening left can be covered by one length of the same kind of brick, the whole covered and made level on top by two or three courses of common brick. This is quite as strong for the purpose intended as a regularly built arch, and saves material as well as labor in constructing. On each side of the furnace a space of four inches in width is left to cut off the head from communicating with and being absorbed by the surrounding building or earth. This chamber is continued the whole length of the furnace, and also a few feet on the flue opening into the house. As soon as the sides of the furnace become heated the cold air will rush in, collect the heat radiating from the exterior of the furnace and convey it into the house. thus completely preventing disruption by expansion, a frequent occurrence in furnaces of great apparent solidity. In order to assist in the combustion of the gases of the fuel, and also increase the draft and propulsion of the heat through the flue, an opening at least six inches square should commence at the end of the ash-pit, continuing under and entering into the bottom of the flue two feet from the back of the furnace.

The greatest defect of the smoke flue is its unequal distribution of heat. In this important particular hot water pipes have a great superiority. The whole

extent of their surface being heated to a nearly uniform degree, the heat is given off at a comparatively low temperature; whereas, near the furnace the flue is heated to excess, while the greatest portion of it imparts little or no warmth to the atmosphere.

This is the flue as ordinarily constructed with brick set on edge; it has been found, however, that by adopting the principle of diminishing the thickness of the material of which it is constructed, as it recedes from the furnace, a flue can be made so as to radiate heat over its entire surface at nearly the same temperature. As an example, supposing 100 feet of flue were required in a house, then the first ten feet from the furnace would be formed of brick-work four inches in thickness, covered on top with a double thickness of brick; then the following thirty feet would be made of bricks on edge, covered by a single brick; then finish the length with terra cotta piping of eight inches diameter, which is usually about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. A flue so built will absorb heat very regularly over its surface, and so far will approach a hotwater apparatus in efficiency, at a greater economy of fuel and at a cost easily reached.

It is well to have the flue as roomy as possible, especially near the furnace. When common brick are used for covering, the width inside cannot be more than seven inches; if its height is made of three bricks on edge, its dimensions will be about twelve inches by seven inches ins.de. The less mortar used in the joints, the longer will it stand, and all plastering of the flue, either inside or out, is very objectionable. It is also well to keep in view that hard-burned bricks will transmit heat more rapidly than those that are soft and porous. In all cases, where practicable, the flue should rise one foot in twenty from the furnace. If one foot in ten feet can be gained, so much the better.

MECHANICAL PREPARATION OF SOIL.

The physical or mechanical condition of the soil, its relation to air and water, has not received that attention from agricultural chemists which its importance demands. They have devoted their investigations almost solely to its chemical constituents, seeming to lose sight of the fact that the permeability of the soil to atmospheric influences is of more importance than the most approved maIf the money that has been expended upon artificial manures during the last twenty years had been devoted to drainage, sub-soiling and trenching, the products of the country would have been vastly increased.

nures.

The soil performs various offices towards growth of plants. It serves as a basis in which they may fix their roots and sustain themselves in position; it also supplies inorganic food during all periods of their growth, and may be looked upon as a laboratory in which many chemic changes are taking place, preparing the various kinds of food which it is destined to yield to the growing plant. Analyses have shown that in most soils the presence of all the constituents of the ashes of plants may be detected, though in variable proportions. But the mere presence of certain substances in soils does not insure productiveness, for it has been shown that crops have failed even in soils possessing all the mineral ingredients required, because, although present, they were not in a sufficiently soluble state to be available. Thus in wet, clayey soils, although containing enough of plant food, the water prevents free access to the decomposing influence of the atmosphere, and crops perish; not because of a deficiency of raw material, but on account of the processes for its preparation being

arrested.

This leads us to the foundation of all improvements of such soils, viz., draining. It is a remark frequently made by those having no experience, that draining must be worse than useless in a climate where summer droughts among the greatest calamities against which the cultivator has to contend.

are

All who have witnessed the effects of draining need not. be told, that even in soils not particularly retentive, draining, in connexion with deep culture, will secure a more ample and lasting supply of moisture in dry weather, and maintain a growing vegetation during the most severe droughts. Draining increases the capability of the soil for absorbing moisture; all soils have their certain absorbing properties; like a sponge, they absorb until their pores are filled, and only the superfluous water that cannot be taken up passes through the drains.

Draining is only the first step towards improvement. The soil must be deeply loosened and pulverized, either by subsoiling or trenching. Either process will be beneficial, and circumstances will decide as to which is to be adopted. Trenching involves a thorough reversion of the soil, of more or less depth, according to its nature and the purposes for which it is to be used. Subsoiling is merely a loosening or stirring up of the immediate subsoil, without reversing its position. When the ground is intended for a permanent crop, such as fruit trees, grapevines, &c., trenching may be adopted. The top surface of good soil will then be placed where the roots will be immediately benefited by it, and the crude subsoil brought to the surface, where it can be enriched by the aid of manures and the ameliorating processes of cultivation.

On the other hand, if the ground is to be immediately cropped with small seeds, as in some portions of a vegetable garden, a finely pulverized surface is necessary, and few subsoils can be made available, or be reduced to that condition while in their crude state. Subsoiling will, in such cases, be most advisable, and trenching can be executed as crops will admit of the operation.

The first process, then, towards securing a profitable depth of soil is draining; next breaking into the subsoil, taking into consideration, whether, in view of the crops to be cultivated, it will be most immediately profitable (of ultimate profit there is no uncertainty) to trench it at once, or merely break up and loosen the subsoil, admitting water and other fertilizing agencies to penetrate, and by a gradual trenching improve to the required depth. When all this has been satisfactorily accomplished, manures can be applied to the greatest advantage, and failures from droughts almost entirely obviated.

WILLIAM SAUNDERS.

Hon. ISAAC NEWTON.

REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.

SIR: When I was appointed to take charge of this place, in September, I found the southwest square and the southeast square had been manured and planted with a variety of seeds and roots. The other portions of the ground had been ploughed several times, and a large quantity of first class manure from the government stables had been applied as a top dressing, and subsequently ploughed in. The grounds have been divided into six different lots, a drive going round the whole, and cutting across at two places, with one centre drive, so that all the several lots are of easy access. The land generally is of a clayey nature, with a slight admixture of sand, and had not been ploughed and cultivated for a long period before it was granted to the Department of Agriculture. The soil, naturally tenacious, had been trampled by many cattle while used as a government corral, and the action of the hot sun made it very hard to break up; but with constant stirring and the application of large quantities of well fermented manure, combined with the exposure of as large a surface as possible to the elements, it has become very friable and easily managed. The two south