Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

From the Doylestown Correspondent.
AGRICULTURE.
July 3d, 1809.
MR. MINER,
The season, I believe, is not so far advanced, but that the publication of the following extracts may be of benefit. They are taken from the Domestic Encyclopaedia a work originally compiled and published in England, by Dr. Willich, and republished in Philadelphia, with many considerable and valuable additions, by Dr. Mease. As the size of this work, (five large octavo volumes) and its consequent high price, will probably prevent its making its way into many private families, I should think that a judicious selection of extracts from it, relative to domestic and rural economy, occasionally appearing in your paper, (which I observe, is principally devoted to miscellaneous matter) would be neither unwelcome nor uninteresting to your numerous subscribers.
Pardon this hint, sir, and believe me to be, with much good will,
Yours, &c.
VINEGAR-ANTS.
"The fly which is very often destructive to cucumbers, melons, and pumpkins, may be killed by sprinkling a mixture of tobacco-water and red pepper, over the vines."
"A friend, E. B. Esq. informed the editor that some years since, nearly all the cucumber and melon vines in New Jersey, were destroyed by a fly or bug. One day he had occasion to ride by a miserable hut in the woods, and perceiving a very flourishing patch of cucumbers, he was induced to dismount and to examine it. Upon approaching the spot he found it had formerly been a charcoal heap. He took the hint, and by strewing powdered charcoal round about the vines when they first come up, preserves his cucumbers effectually."
"Mr. J. W. of Philadelphia, informed the editor, that he enriched the ground near the trunk of a peach tree, and sowed some cucumber seed, which came up very abundantly. He pulled up all the plants but one, and permitted the vine to run up the tree. It bore 150 cucumbers. The numerous creepers with which the cucumber abounds, and the result of this experiment, would seem to point out the climbing nature of this plant, and the great advantage arising from permitting it to attach itself to a frame or tree, instead of confining it to the ground."
"The seeds of melons and cucumbers are apt to run too vigorously to vine, before they emit a single fruit. To prevent this, Dr. Darwin advises to wash the seeds clean from their pulp, before they are put away for preservation, and to keep them three or four years before they are sown. The experienced Abercronbie (Mease's Gardener) confirms the advice to plant seeds two, three or four years old."