five inches in diameter, and being more mature, they are with more certainty preserved, in a state of perfect soundness, through the winter, than those raised from seed in a single season. The same effects are, in some measure, produced by sowing the seeds in August, as is often done; but the crops often perish during the winter, and the ground becomes compressed and soddened (to use an antiquated term) by the winter rains; and I have in consequence always found, that any given weight of this plant may be obtained, with less expense to the grower, by the mode of culture I recommend, than by any other which I have seen practised.

AN ESSAY ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE RED BEET. By Mr. Goering, a Saxon Agriculturist.

Next to the potato, the utility of which is well known, the red beet is one of the most beneficial plants, the cultivation of which is particularly to be recommended. Every one knows, that sugar has been obtained from it not inferior to that of India; and the manufacture of which would probably have been established in Germany, had not the consumption of wood necessary for it checked its most zealous partizans; for the resources of Germany in this respect are daily diminishing.

Beside this essential point, which cannot be attained from local difficulties, and which may not exist in many other countries, the principal properties of the beet are those of being nourishing, emollient, cooling, laxative, &c.

Supposing it to be cultivated

only for feeding stock, particularly cows, in winter and in summer, it deserves in every respect to be preferred to most plants both for the root and leaf. Though the white beet is of pretty extensive use, and much cultivated, it cannot in any respect be compared with the red. It is neither so firm nor so sweet; and we find, by experience, that the milk of cows fed some time with it loses its sweetness, and becomes bitter. Besides, it can scarcely be kept through the winter, as it soon grows rotten.

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The red beet, on the contrary, is firm, sweet, aud but in a moderate degree watery. It is at least as nutritious as the turnip cabbage, and imparts to the milk a pleasing sweetness, which continues long as the cow is fed on it. It keeps very well through the winter, either in cellars or in pits, provided it be not put in wet: and is as fresh when taken out in the spring as it was when laid up. They who cultivate both sorts, therefore, should use the white in the fall, and keep the red for the spring.

The leaves of the red beet, which may be gathered in the middle of July, the time of sowing the white beet only, is excellent fodder, particularly for horned cattle and pigs. It is true, however, that the leaves cannot be thus gathered but at the expense of the roots.

It is also indisputable, that the red beet is one of the roots that succeed almost always. It has few enemies, and a good crop may always be depended on, provided the ground has been well tilled and prepared, and the seed properly sown.

There is no season amiss for

sowing the red beet. It may be sown as early as you please in spring, or even in autumn; for the first leaves which in most other plants are very tender, are able to stand the cold winds of spring. No insect can hurt them; and while the turnip, the turnip cabbage, the cabbage, &c. are destroyed by the leaflice, the red beet grows astonishingly; and when in autumn the leaves of those plants are devoured by caterpillars, none are seen on the red beet.

The only enemies it has, that I know of, are fowls; for these are so fond of its leaves, as entirely to lay waste the fields of it, to which they can have access. Their appetite for this plant, when they once have discovered it in a field or garden, is such, that it is almost impossible to keep them out. They should not be sown therefore in gardens or fields too near houses, as in this case the crop may be looked upon as lost.

The following is the method I have adopted of cultivating it.

I first select, if possible, a good black mould, rather rich. If it be mixed with a little sand, and provided it has not too much clay, it is good for the beet, which always requires a little moisture. It may be cultivated indeed on light ground, but not with equal suc

cess.

In autumn I lay on manure, in the proportion of six two-horse cart loads of dung or horned cattle to a hundred and forty square perches. This dung, I afterwards bury at least six inches deep with the plough and then I give the ground another ploughing in narrow furrows.

As soon in the spring as the

land can be worked, I sow the seed where the plants are to remain; for experience has taught me, that transplanting them is injurious. They should not be sown too thick: there should be at least six inches distance between the plants; and it is often neces sary to pull up some in the thickest places, for three or four plants frequently spring from a single seed.

It is usual to cover the seed by raking or harrowing; but as from their lightness they frequently lie on the surface and rot, it is better to use the hoe, or the plough, taking care not to bury them too deep. In this way we may be certain of their germinating quickly, if the soil be good.

As soon as the plants have their sixth leaf, they should be weeded, and thinned out where too close. A few weeks after they should be hoed, but so as rather to draw the earth from them than to heap it round them.

When the leaves begin to bend down to the ground, the largest, at the bottom of the plant, may be gathered for the cattle: but they must not be stripped too much, as this would injure the root. Nor should the leaves be plucked off before they separate as it were of themselves, inclining toward the ground.

If weeds appear again, or the ground get hard and dry, they should be hoed a second time. Lastly, in the month of October the roots should be taken up, and laid in the places intended for keeping them, first cutting off the stalk close to the root, that they may not vegetate during the winter.

SOME

Directions for pruning these, as well as all other fruit-trees, have already been published by various experienced gardeners, nor is it my present intention to offer any instructions on this head; but necessity, which has been so justly called the mother of invention, having impelled me to try a method that I have not seen practised by any other person, and which has proved uncommonly successful, a short detail of it may perhaps be deemed not unworthy the attention of the Horticultural Society.

When first I came to Millfield, I found a number of apple and pear trees, not only planted too closely, but left entirely to their natural manner of growing, and exceedingly shaded by a row of high trees in the hedge, which separates them from the pleasure ground.

Other business to be done, of more importance, prevented me from pruning the whole immediately; but a number were selected the first season, and many of their largest branches taken entirely out from the bottom, cutting the wounds very clean. The remain

ing branches were also properly thinned, so as to leave room for the air and light to play upon the smallest branches.

The following summer, the shoots pushed from those pruned trees, as might have been expected, were uncommonly vigorous, such as the French call gourmands, often from three to five feet long, or inore. About the end of June, or a little sooner and later, according to the growth of the branches, I applied oval balls of grafting clay towards their extremity, sufficiently heavy to incline them downwards in a pendulous direction. The sap being thus diverted from its natural mode of ascending and descending, every bud almost became a blossom bud, and in several trees this disposition to produce blossom buds was carried down to the very lowest spurs on the stem and thicker branches.

I need not add, that this practice has since been closely followed up; for many advantages, exclusive of a more certain crop of fruit attend it. 1st, Other small vegetables may be successfully cultivated under the light shade of trees kept so open, an object of importance in the villages near London, where ground is so difficult to be got: 2dly, No expense of espalier, or of stakes, or of training and tying down the branches is in curred: 3dly, The crop of fruit is not only improved in size and flavour by having so much sun and air, but it is more easily gathered, and suffers much less from the autumnal winds; for branches in this direction are more pliable, and bend more easily to the storm; and as a proof how much may be done by art if necessary, the branches of a Lom

a Lombardy poplar accidentally left in my master's orchard, after being loaded with clay balls, became as pendulous as those of the weeping willow.

I have only to add, that most of the specimens of apples and pears produced at our meeting in November and December last by me, and honoured with the encomiums of some of the best judges present, grew upon trees kept low and open in this method.

HERRINGS CURED IN THE DUTCH MODE ON BOARD BRITISH VESSELS. By Francis Fortune, Esq.

From Transactions of the Society of Arts.

In the deep sea (which is the principal fishery for herrings) the nets are cast from the busses by sunset, and they drive by them alone expecting the shoals, the approach of which is generally indicated by small quantities of fish; and their arrival by immense flights of sea fowl. The best fishing is with the wind off shore, for, when it blows in a contrary direction, the shoals are broken and dispersed, and the fishery is seldom successful while it continues in that point.

Immediately after the nets are hauled in (which is often performed with considerable difficulty, by means of a windlass when they are full) the crew begin to gyp the fish, that is, to cut out the gill, which is followed by the float or swim, and divide the large jugular or spiral vein with a knife at the same time, endeavouring to waste as little of the blood as possible; at this work the men are so ex

pert, that some will gyp fifty in a minute.

Immediately after they are gypped, they are put into barrels, commencing with a layer of salt at the bottom, then a tier of fish, each side by side, back downwards, the tail of one touching the head of the other, next a layer of salt, and so alternately until the barrel is filled:-they are thus left, and the blood which issues from the fish, by dissolving the salt, forms a pickle infinitely superior to any other that can be made. The herrings thus drained of their blood occupy less space, and the whole consequently sinks about one-third down the barrel, but this sinking is at an end in about three or four days.

When these operations are being performed, the sea is often running mountains high; and it is not therefore to be supposed, that the barrels are so well coopered as not sometimes to allow the pickle to leak out; and in order to preserve the fish from being spoiled, which would otherwise happen in such cases, some of the gills and entrails are always put by in barrels with salt, in the same manner as the herrings, and yield a pickle of the same quality; with this pickle those barrels which have leaked are replenished, and the fish sustains no injury. Every operation is performed in the shade, into which the fish are immediately conveyed on their being hauled on board. Each day's fishing is kept separate with the greatest care. The salt used is mixed, and of three different sorts, viz. English, St. Ubes, and Alicant, and each barrel marked with the day of the month on it on which it was filled.

The

The advantages of gypping the herrings are, that the blood, which issues in consequence of the operation from the fish, yields a natural pickle, and improves the flavour; whereas, if left in the fish, it becomes coagulated at the backbone, and forms the first cause of decay. The mixture of blood and salt operated upon by the extreme heat of the weather during the summer fisheries produces a fermentation which nearly parboils the herrings, and removes the coarse and raw flavour so often complained of. The gypping is likewise often performed on shore, observing the same precautions; the only difference is, that they are seldom in that case of so good a colour. Gypped herrings are never of so fine a quality as when kept in their own original pickle; their value consists in their softness and flavour; it is this mode of curing herrings that used to be the pride of the Dutch, and this is the kind which supplied their home consumption, and were so much

esteemed by all classes of people in Holland.

In order, as far as it is possible, to give a proof of_the_correctness of the above assertion, I shall state a fact for the information of the Society. During the last year I employed a number of Dutch fishermen, prisoners, and others, with Englishmen, in gypping and curing herrings; and at one time my agent at Yarmouth was offered 41. per barrel, for all the herrings he had cured there, by a Dutch captain, in order to their being taken to Holland, while ungypped herrings were worth only 36s. per barrel. The herrings now under the consideration of your Society are part of the quantity for which this offer was made.

Should the Society, after due consideration, think proper to adjudge me their gold medal, it will afford me much satisfaction, and convince me, that my exertions have, in some degree, been beneficial to the community.