The apple is our standard fruit, and may always be relied on with reasonable care. The first care is good food. Some talk about too rich soil. We never saw the soil too rich for the apple. Where any trouble arises in apple culture, it will be safe to attribute it to other causes than rich soil. Kitchen ashes, in which table refuse is thrown, is an excellent top-dressing for apples. We like top-dressing better than any other system of manuring apple trees. Even nice ditch scrapings are good to top-dress with where nothing else offers. Apple trees are often starved in other ways than by neglect to manure. The apple borer leads to starvation oftener than poor soil. The supply of food is cut off by every move the borer makes. They work at the surface of the ground. Look for them now. If you have no time, set the boys and girls to work. Say they shall have no apples for Christmas or birthday presents if they do not. However, get the borers out somehow, if even by wire and jack-knife. If not soon done they will soon get out themselves, and give you more trouble in the future. After they have left, whether by your invitation or otherwise, keep them out; even though you have to lock the door after the horse is stolen.

Paper put on in May, and then gas-tarred, will keep them out; some say it will not, but it will. There is no doubt about it. One papering will last three years. The weakening of the tree by the borer is why the fruit drops off in so many cases, and is small and scrubby in others. With these cases attended to there will be little left to worry one but the codling moth. It should however be remembered that the larvae of the borer live several years in the tree. At the end of the season take the paper off and look for exuding "saw" dust. After getting out the borer cover again. It is because a few missed at first do their work afterwards undisturbed, that the far paper plan has been thought of little use.

It is very hard, as occasionally noted, to give "seasonable" hints in a magazine going over the world as the Gardeners' Monthly does; as its summer is "seasonable" in some quarters on the same date that it is winter in others; but it may serve the interest of large numbers to note that grafting can be continued till the buds of the trees are nearly pushed into leaf. Sometimes, from a pressure of other work, some valuable scions have been left on hand too late to work. It may be interesting to know, that if such scions are put into the ground, much the same as if they were cuttings, they will keep good for six weeks or two months, by which time the bark will run freely, when the scions may be treated as buds, and will succeed just as well as buds taken from young summer shoots.

In planting dwarf pears, it is very important to have them on a spot that has a moist subsoil, either naturally or made so by subsoiling or mixing some material with the soil that will give out moisture in dry weather. Trees already planted on a dry gravelly subsoil, should have a circle dug out two feet deep, and two or three feet from the tree. This should be filled up with well en- riched soil. If the dwarf pear does not grow freely, it is a sign that something is wrong. It should at once be severely pruned, so as to aid in producing a vigorous growth.

Strawberry beds are very frequently made at this season, and though they will not bear fruit the same year, are much more certain to grow, and will produce a much better crop next year than when left till next August. Though it is a very common recommendation, we do not value a highly manured soil. It should be well trenched or subsoiled : this we consider of great value. In rich soils there is too much danger of having more leaves than fruit. Since, however, the plan introduced by the Gardeners' Monthly some years ago of layering strawberry plants into small pots for transplanting, August and September setting out of new beds has become very popular with amateurs.

A good hint for growing cucumbers, squashes, or similar plants, is to put old sawdust or rotten wood about them. We have not seen it with melons, but it would possibly suit them also, and those who have never tried cucumbers on strong bushy stakes like pea sticks will be surprised to note how they enjoy it, and tomatoes do better trained to stout stakes than any other way.

Speaking of rotten wood reminds us that the raspberry, gooseberry and currant also enjoy it, the currant especially.

For leaf-producing vegetables, such as cabbage, celery, lettuce, nothing suits like soap-suds, or the draining of a barn yard. These hints are of course for amateurs who love superior products. They are scarcely applicable on a large scale.