(S. T. T.) Figs require a poor soil; gravel, lime-rubbish, etc. is better than manure; to have a fall crop, shallow, dry subsoils are the best, and the growth requires to be checked if fruit is wanted. Pinch off the new growth as you serve your pears.

* Our correspondent probably alludes to the plan of running a wire into the holes of any that may hare already entered, to destroy them.

James W. Gray, of Ball's Pond, Fairfield County, Connecticut, has issued a catalogue of fruit and ornamental trees, vines, shrubs, etc, at very moderate prices, which we recommend his neighbors and friends to consult.

No. 4 of Dr. Ward's remarks on Fear Culture, will appear in July.

Figs #1

This fruit has undergone but little change for ages. The Brown lochia, Lee's Perpetual, and White Marseilles, still rank among the best.

"Of new Pears, their name is ' Legion;' the difficulty is to select those which are improvements. Climate, season, soil, and mode of training, affect the size and quality of pears very much. Matthews' Eliza is a new seedling. The following have proved good this last season: Poire Peche is an excellent kind, ripening in September; Brudnell's Seedling is an early pear, ripening about the same time as the preceding; it is of rich, sugary quality, but soon decays when ripe; the Bergamot Seckel is a hardy variety, possessing the qualities of the Seckel with the advantage of larger size; Sabine d'Hiver promises to be one of the best new late pears; Seaton Seedling is a small November Pear, of excellent quality; Conseiller de la Cour and Triomphe de Jodoigne, are two large, handsome continental sorts, of recent introduction, and are of first-rate quality; Beurre Clair-geau and Hitton's Seedling are large and showy pears".

Figs #2

The fig is not a general favorite; but to those who like them, as I confess I do, their cultivation in the orchard house is interesting and most simple.

Figs may be planted in the compost already recommended, and in pots of the same size, top-dressed in spring, syringed in summer, and put to rest in autumn, and treated exactly as other fruits. Although fig-trees against walls require protection from the frost, - which would otherwise destroy the young fruit that is the first to ripen in early summer, - yet under glass, with the mould perfectly dry, and the shoots thoroughly ripened, they will be uninjured by the most severe cold. If a well-formed bush cannot be procured, the tree must be cut down the first season to within nine inches of its base; the shoots, when they make their appearance, thinnred out to five: when these are about a foot in length, pinch off the end from four, leaving the central shoot for a fortnight or so to grow longer; then pinch off its end in the same manner. Your bush will be formed, but you must not expect any fruit the first season. In succeeding seasons it must be pruned in the same manner that you would a bearing tree purchased and placed at once in the house: i. e., in May or the beginning of June, as soon as the young shoots have made five leaves, pinch out the terminal bud of each: they will then give fruit for a second crop, the first crop having been produced by the. shoots of the preceding year.

And to keep your trees as compact bushes, never allow any shoot to make more than five leaves without pinching out the terminal bud with the nails of the finger and thumb. The tree will, in a year or two, become too much crowded with young shoots; thin them with a sharp knife, leaving no spurs, but cut close to the main branch or stem. Figs like more heat than any other fruit yet mentioned; they may have the warmest corner of the house, not requiring much ventilation. A house with fire-heat is indeed necessary for them, if two crops in the season are wished for. In 1857 figs in common orchard houses ripened two crops of fruit in several instances. They must have abundance of water, or the fruit will all drop, when nearly full-grown, without ripening. The varieties best adapted for pot culture are, the Early Violet, the White Marseilles, and the Brown Turkey, or Lee's Perpetual: if more varieties are required, the Angelique and Black Ischia may be added.

To those who have not much orchard-house room, the following method of growing figs may be useful. In the summer of 1857 I happened to visit Altenburg, a small town, the capital of the Duchy, about twenty miles from Leipsic. In the kitchen garden of the castle I observed some fine half-standard fig-trees with very stout dear stems and round heads full of fruit, then (August) nearly fall grown. Aware of the coldness of the climate, the thermometer often descending many degrees below zero in winter, so as to kill fig-trees in the open air, I inquired of the gardener how they were managed. He stated that every season, in October, they were taken up with their balls of earth and placed in a cellar, where they remained till the first week in May: they were then brought into the kitchen garden and planted in a row as I then saw them. He said they always ripened one abundant crop of fruit in September. I have reason to believe that standard figs treated in this way would also ripen one crop in the neighborhood of London, and in the Southern Counties.