branches grow to their full length without topping them in the summer. In 1790, I trained them in a serpentine form, leaving about thirty eyes on each shoot, which produced one hundred and twenty fine bunches of grapes, weighing from one pound to a pound and a quarter each. Every one that saw them said, that the large ones were as fine as forced grapes; while the small ones produced from branches of the same vine, trained and pruned in the old way, were bad natural grapes, and not above twice the size of large currants. "More fully to prove the success attending this experiment, I next year trained five plants in the same way, allowing the shoots intended for bearing wood to run to their full length in summer, training them whereever there was a vacancy between the old trees; where there was none, I ran them along the top of the wall, without topping them. In winter I trained them in a serpentine manner, so as to fill the wall as regularly as possible: they were as productive as those in the former year. "After a three years' trial, I thought I was warranted to follow the same practice with the whole; and in the year 1793 I sent, for the use of his majesty and the royal family, 378 baskets of grapes, each weighing about three pounds, without planting a single vine more than there were the preceding year, in which I was able to send only fiftysix baskets of the same weight; and those so bad and ill-ripened that I was ashamed of them, as they were not fit to be sent to the table. In this year there was more than a quarter of the crop destroyed by birds and insects, and rotted by the wet. "Although the above statement is within the bounds of truth, it may appear to the reader like an exaggeration, but it is in the power of every one who will follow the directions here given to prove the advantage that will accrue from this method of training. "The above experiments were all made on the natural walls, and I hope will be suffe cient to convince every unprejudiced person o the great advantage that the serpentine method of training vines possesses above the common way. "It may be proper to observe, that the shoots should be brought as near as possible from the bottom of the vine, that the wall may be well covered. When the walls are high, and the shoots from the serpentine branches strong, we sometimes let them remain; but if the walls are low, and the serpentine branches produce weak shoots, we cut them out in the autumnal pruning, and train up the strongest of the young wood in their room." By all who duly appreciate the im portance of the subject of Mr. Forsyth's work, the curious, the novel, and the interesting matter that it contains, and the weight and high respectability of the evidence brought forward in support of the facts alleged, it will be considered, and in our opinion most deservedly, as the most valuable present that the art of horticulture ever received. In a of fruit, and in a state of debility and decay ART. VII. Some Doubts relative to the Efficacy of Mr. Forsyth's Plaister in filling t the Holes in Trees, &c. ascribed to it by Dr. Anderson and Mr. Forsyth. Leiler to Dr. Anderson from THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, Esq. 4to. pp. 16. MR. KNIGHT has long been known as a scientific experimentalist on fruittrees, and published some time ago a treatise on the culture of the apple and the pear, in which he supported, by various examples and experiments, a very ingenious hypothesis, that varie ties of fruit when propagated by grafting, or by cutting, or by layers, partake of the gradual and progressive decay of the original parent tree. "I as sert from my own experience and observation, within the last twenty years," says Mr. Knight, "speaking of the affection of the canker, that this disease becomes progressively more fatal to each variety, as the age of that variety, beyond a certain period increases; that all the va rieties of the apple, which I have found in the catalogues of the middle of the seventeenth century, are unproductive Mr. Forsyth, on the other hand, as we have seen in the preceding article, consi ders the canker as a perfectly curable, though hitherto very fatal, disease, and therefore Mr. Knight's hypothesis becomes untenable. Mr. K. visited Kensington garden incognito, affecting total ignorance on the subject of Mr. Forsyth's discoveries; he published an account of what he saw there, which account Doctor Anderson, in the 37th number of his "Recreations in Agriculture," accuses as a misrepresentation of Mr. Forsyth's experiments. Mr. Knight, who seems easily irritated, has replied in a style of personal recrimina tion, equally disgraceful to him as a phi losopher and gentleman. "Your accusation has been so weakly supported," says Mr. K. "that I certainly should not think it worth the attention I now give it, did I not believe, that you are actuated by some motive of private interest, with which the public are not acquainted. Is Dr. Anderson quite sure that he is not the concealed writer, either wholly or in part, of his friend Mr. Forsyth's book, and the intended sharer of his profits? And has not Dr. Anderson taken out a patent for a new kind of forcinghouse, whose excellence his disinterested friend, Mr. Forsyth, stands forward to attest?" How gross and dishonourable are such insinuations as these! Mr. Knight, whatever may be his suspicions, ought not to have brought forward against these gentlemen a charge so heavy as that of combining together for the purpose of imposing upon the public, without, at the same time, bringing forward ample evidence for the substantiation of that charge: a charge, the truth of which, is peremptorily denied in the second edition of Mr. F.'s work, just published. edition of his book, has made the following reply. "I consider myself much indebted to Mr. Knight for the very handsome compliment that he has here (unintentionally, it is true) paid to my practice. Could I be vain of any such thing, I should certainly be so of this; particularly as it comes from one who will not easily be suspected of any intention to flatter. It also places my composition in a much more conspicuous light than that in which I should otherwise, perhaps, have regarded it. I shall therefore answer him with pleasure. From the manner in which the question is put, it should seem, Mr. Knight thinks that the operation of cutting over a decayed peach-tree is of so dangerous a nature, as to render it impossible to prevent a large proportion of such trees as have been cut over from dying. A great majority of those gardeners who have tried it, by the common mode of practice, will, perhaps, coincide with him in this opinion. But I can with satisfaction assure him, that from the time when I first applied my plaster to such wounded trees, which is now many years since, it escapes my recollection, and that of many others who have been constantly employed in the royal gardens at Kensington, that a single tree, either apricot, peach, or nectarine, has died from being cut over, while under my mode of management; though that operation has on some occasions been performed under circumstances extremely unfavourable to its success: in particular, four trees, namely, three peach and one nectarine; which had been dug out of the ground and laid on a mould-heap, exposed to the rigour of severe frosts, &c. Those trees are now open to the view of Mr. Knight, or any other gentleman who may choose to inspect them. I find, however, that it is not a few only of such trees that have been headed-in by me; for, upon an investigation with a view to answer this question, I numbered no fewer than sixty peach, apricot, and nectarine trees, that have been so cut over and restored to a high state of health and fruitfulness, and which are now in as flourishing a state as I could wish trees of that sort to be. Neither were these operations performed in secret, or with any view to concealment; but openly, under the eye, and with the assistance, of the gardeners employed in the gardens, who have all had opportunities to observe the progress of the experiments. As to the idea of Mr. Knight, that if such decayed trees have actually put forth new shoots at all, it must have been from the roots only, and from no other part; the short answer to this is, that he is under a great error; for every gardener knows, that if this had been the case, the trees must al have been budded anew, before they had To this Mr. Forsyth, in the second come into bearing: now the fact is, that "You assert," says Mr. K. "that I could not fail to observe both plum and cherry trees in that garden (Kensington), which had been in such a state of decay as to have been all rotted away except about an inch of bark, restored to the greatest degree of health and vigour. I really did not see these; and you must allow me to say you did not see them; and that Mr. Forsyth never could succeed in such an experiment, for the following obvious reasons:-Every bud, as I, amongst others, have proved by very numerous experiments, draws its whole nutriment from the wood; ard therefore, before the wood could have ro ed away, as you assert it to have done, all the suds must have been many years dead. In inventing discoveries of every kind, it is prudent to keep within the limits of possibility. That Mr. Forsyth may have trained up a young shoot from the bottom of an old tree, that was partially hollow, and that such a shoot may have made a good tree, is nothing wonderful; for the roots of almost all our grafted trees shew no disposition to perish with the graft or bud, which they nourish; and a shoot thus trained, would certainly make, as I have often observed, as good a tree as any other of the same variety. But some trees do not readily emit young shoots of this kind; and I should like much to know how many peach or nectarine trees died under Mr. Forsyth's process of rendering them immortal." none of those trees have ever been budded again." We wish not to enter into the particulars of a personal dispute, but scruple not to affirm, that in our opinion Mr. Knight has the strong evidence of facts decidedly against him. ART. VIII. Rural Recreations; or the Gardener's Instructor, &c. By A SOCIETY OF PRACTICAL GARDENERS. 8vo. pp. 416. 13 Plates. THIS work is in substance the same with that well known practical volume, published some years ago, with the names of Mawe and Abercrombie in the title-page. It differs from this last in being more cumbersome and expensive, and in containing a few additions, principally relative to the management of bees. CHAPTER XVI. DOMESTIC ECONOMY. ART. I. The Domestic Encyclopedia, or a Dictionary of Facts and useful Knowledge: comprehending a concise View of the latest Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements, chiefly applicable to rural and domestic Economy. Together with Descriptions of the most interesting Objects of Nature and Art, the History of Men and Animals, in a State of Health or Disease, and practical Hints respecting the Arts and Manufactures, both familiar and commercial. By A. F. M. WILLICH, M. D. 8vo. 4 vols. about Pp. 2000. IT cannot be supposed, that within so small a compass as four volumes, the various and important objects to which this work is devoted, can be treated of entirely in the manner in which they deserve. Nor is it any disrespect to the industrious author, that induces us to declare, that we have remarked several important errors; for where is the individual possessed of an extent of knowledge, and opportunities of information, at all adequate to so vast an undertaking? Of all the kinds of human knowledge, there is none of such difficult acquisition as that which relates to trades, manufactures, and domestic economy: besides being perpetually changing, it can only be procured by personal conversation and inspection, and is opposed by the invincible obstacles of suspicion, jealousy, and selfinterest, in the persons to whom application must be made. The Domestic Encyclopedia is prineipally a compilation from other works, such as the Repertory, the Handmaid to the Arts, the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, &c. It contains, doubtless, much valuable matter, and the plan is still better than the execution. Some German authorities have been freely resorted to, and furnish the most interesting part of the work to an English reader. The articles relating to rural economy, are the fullest and best, because our numerous works on agriculture and gardening, are easily accessible. We also find much information on the science of substitutes, a fa vourite topic with the German writers, by which a cheap substance, and really valuable, when applied to the purpose which Nature intended, is deteriorated and tortured into a miserable resem blance of a more expensive commodity. Thus we have a particular account of acorn-coffee, carrot-brandy, potatoe-bread, turnip-bread, honey-sugar, beet-sugar, sloeleaf-tea, treacle-beer. The chief errors and deficiencies that we have observed, are on subjects of chemistry, mineralogy, and mechanics. The natural history also contains many gross mistakes. In the article annealing, the liability of unannealed glass to fly in pieces, is thus accounted for. Glass increases in bulk in passing from a fluid to a solid state, when, therefore, the surface is cooled suddenly, the interior is prevented from expanding properly, so that it loses its fibrous structure. The fact, however, is precisely the reverse. Glass, like all other bodies, expands by heat, and the fragility of unannealed glass is owing to the mass not being allowed to contract to its proper dimensions, for, by subsequent heating, the glass becomes firm, and, at the same time, of greater specific gravity. Ponderous spar, or barytes, is confounded with Derbyshire spar, or fluor spar. The Lancashire asphodel, narthecium ossifragum, is erroneously stated to be a species of asphodelus. The old error of ants laying up corn is repeated, and the beaver is said to live chiefly on lobsters and other fish. The articles pile-driver, oilmill, pin-making, are wholly left out: and steam-engine, stocking-frame, mill, lock, pump, are done in so extremely slovenly a manner, that they might as well have been omitted also. The two following articles of brickmaking and hay-making, we shall quote as a favourable specimen of the work. "BRICKS.-It is an erroneous notion, that bricks may be made of any earth that is not stony, or even of sea ouze; for those only will burn red, which contain iron particles. In England they are chiefly made of a motley vellowish, or somewhat reddish, fat earth, vulgarly called loam. Those of Stourbridge clay, and Windsor loam, are esteemed the most proper and durable bricks; such as will stand the greatest degree of heat without melting. In general, the earth for this manufacture ought to be sufficiently fine, free from pebbles, and not too sandy; which would render the bricks heavy and brittle; nor too fat, which would make them crack in drying. Nor should it contain too many calcareous and ferruginous ingredients; as the former prevent the mass from becoming firm in burning, and occasion the bricks to erumble, when exposed to the air; while the latter, or iron particles, retard the preparation of bricks, insomuch that it is sometimes impossible to give them due consistence; this inconvenience, however, may be remedied, by allowing the clay to lie for a considerable time under the influence of the atmosphere, then soaking it in pits, and afterwards working it well, in the usual manner. The common potters' clay, which is also employed for the manufacture of bricks, is opaque, imparts a slight colour, sometimes yellowish, blucish, greenish, but more frequently of different shades of light grey, excepting that of blue, which is always dark by kneading and spreading such clay, it becomes smooth and glossy; it is soft, fat, and cold, though agreeable to the touch, slightly adheres to the tongue, and, when of the best quality, it should neither be too light nor too heavy. Its constituents chemically examined, are found to consist of thirty-seven parts of pure argillaceous or clayey earth, and sixty-three parts of siliceous or Hinty earth. "Whoever is desirous of producing the best and most durable kind of bricks, ought to attend to the following rules: 1st. Clay of every description, whether fat or lean, whether more or less mixed with particles of lime, iron, &c. must be dug after Midsum mer, that is, between the beginning of July and the latter end of October, before the first frost appears it should be repeatedly worked with the spade, during the winter, and not formed into bricks till the following spring. 2d. The clay, before it is put into pits for soaking, must be broken as small as possible, and allowed to lie at least ten days: every stratum of twelve inches should be covered with water, as in this manner it will be more uniformly softened. 3d. Two such pits, at least, will be necessary for every brick manufactory, so that after having been suffered to remain for five days, the second may be prc pared, and thus the manufacture carried on without interruption. 4th. The next step is that of treading and tempering the clay, which requires double the labour to what is usually bestowed on it; as the quality of the bricks chiefly depends upon the first preparation. If, in tempering them, too much water be used, they become dry and brittle; but, if duly tempered, they will be stooth, solid, and durable. Such a brick requires nearly as much carth as one and a half inade in the common way, when too great a proportion of water is added; in which case the bricks become spongy, light, and full of flaws, partly through neglect in working them properly, and partly by a mixture of ashes and light sandy earth (as is generally practised in the vicinity of London), with a view to dispatch and facilitate the work, as well as to save culm or coals in the burning. 5th. Bricks made of proper earth, being more solid and ponderous, require a much longer time for drying than those made in the coumon way; they ought not to be removed to the kiln, till they have become lighter by one half, and give a hollow sound ou collision; because the proper drying of bricks will prevent them from cracking and crumbling in the kiln. 6th. Of whatever materials the kiln be constructed, each burning of from 6 to 10,000 bricks, requires that the fire be kept for twenty-four hours, and double that time for a number of from 12 to 50,000. The uniform increase of heat deserves great attention; the duration of it should be regulated according to the season; and, during the last twenty-four hours, the fire should be uninterruptedly supported by means of flues; but afterwards die kön must be suddenly closed, as there is always some danger of bursting the flues, or melting the bricks. "It would be useless here to enter into particulars relative to the manner of burning |