Italian Farmhouse.
Plan of Italian Farm House.
The plan is intelligible without explanation. Built in a plain way, the four large rooms not larger than fifteen by seventeen, and ten feet high, plain in its finish, it would cost about sixteen hundred dollars complete. It may go up from that, according to size and height of rooms, and style of finish, to three thousand dollars. It then makes as good a house as any person ever need to occupy, out of great cities.
HYBRIDS.
Although this subject has received far too little attention, yet our limits will only allow us to mention a few facts, of the most practical moment.
Plants hybridize only through their blossoms. This can only occur in plants of similarity, in nature and habits. Squashes and pumpkins planted near each other mix badly, and the poorer will prevail. Varieties of corn mix at considerable distances, by the falling of pollen from the tassel upon the silk of another variety. Watermelons are always ruined by being planted near citrons. The seeds from melons so grown will not produce one good melon. How far watermelons and muskmelons, or squashes with melons, will hybridize, is uncertain. By planting nutmeg muskmelons with the common roughskinned variety, we have produced a kind about half way between them, that was of great excellence. Two kinds of cabbage or turnip seed should never be raised in the same garden. Cabbage and turnip seed raised near together is valueless. In strawberries, different plants are essential to each other, the quality of the fruit being determined by the plant fertilized, and not by the fertilizer. This subject is further treated under articles on different plants.
INARCHING.
This is a method of effecting a union of trees or branches, while both retain their hold in the ground. Shave off a little wood from each, and put them together, fitting closely, so that the barks will meet, as in grafting; tie firmly, and cover with wax. When they have got well to growing, cut off the top of the old one, and after a while cut the new one from the ground. When you have a tree that it is difficult to propagate in the usual way, you may transplant it to a thrifty stock. Vigorous branches may by this means be transferred to old, poor-bearing, or slow-growing trees. So also may a tree be prolonged beyond its ordinary age, as the pear on the quince, by inarching young shoots. We can only recommend this to the curious experimenter, who has little else to do.