1114. Proper Soil for the culture of Turnips.—Sandy loams, in good heart, are most favorable to their growth, though they will thrive well on strong loams, if they are not wet; but on clayey, thin, or wet soils, they are not worth cultivating; for though a good crop may be raised on such ground, when well prepared and dunged, more damage is done by taking off the turnips in winter, in poaching the soil, than the value of the crop will repay.
1115. Preservation of Succulent Plants.—Green succulent plants are better preserved after a momentary immersion in boiling water, than otherwise. This practice has been successfully used in the preservation of cabbage and other plants, dried for keeping; it destroys the vegetable life at once, and, in a great degree, prevents that decay which otherwise attends them.
1116. Various useful properties of Tobacco to Gardeners.—Tobacco is employed for so many different uses, that there is no person possessed of a garden but will find both pleasure and profit in the cultivation of it, especially as it is now at such a high price. The seed is very cheap, and may be procured of most nurserymen, and will answer the same end as the foreign for most purposes, and considerably cheaper.
Uses to which it may be applied.—1. To florists, for two elegant annual plants to decorate the borders of the flower-garden; or, on account of their height, to fill up vacant places in the shrubberies; or, when put into pots, they will be very ornamental in the green-house during the winter.
2. Kitchen-gardeners would in a few days lose their crops of melons, if not immediately fumigated with tobacco-smoke, when attacked by the red spider; and it is useful to destroy the black flies on cucumbers in frames.
3. Fruit-gardeners. When peach and nectarine-trees have their leaves curled up, and the shoots covered with smother-flies; or, the cherry-trees have the ends of the shoots infested with the black dolphin-fly; canvas, pack-sheets, or doubled mats, nailed before them, and frequently fumigated under them, will destroy those insects.
4. Forcing-gardeners, who raise roses and kidney-beans in stoves, can soon destroy the green flies which cover the stalks and buds of roses, and the insects which appear like a mildew on kidney-beans, by the assistance of the fumigating bellows.
5. Nurserymen. When the young shoots of standard cherry-trees, or any other trees, are covered with the black dolphin-flies, an infusion is made with the leaves and stalks of tobacco; a quantity is put into an earthen pan, or small, oblong wooden trough; one person holds this up, whilst another gently bends the top of each tree, and lets the branches remain about a minute in the liquor, which destroys them.