midsujVimer papers. 81 



everlasting gratiudc of his compeers by the discovery of some means of prop- 

 agating and Xatteuing tlie red spider and scale insect short of a resort to hie 

 pet plants for the purpose. The orchardist and nurseryman also might hope 

 to discover some other pasture so satisfactory to the aphis and his reputed 

 dairyman, the ant, tiiat it would be accepted in place of his trees, to his no 

 slight relief and gratification. And if, furthermore, he could succeed in per- 

 suading the curculio, and even tlic codling moth and borer, back into the 

 ruts occupied by them prior to their discovery of the plum and the apple, he 

 might be almost, if not altogether, })repared to hail the events of the millen- 

 ium of horticulture; though ho will hardly be able to felicitate himself upon 

 the actual arrival of this much-to-be-desired era till (after investigating the 

 ruts of commerce) he shall discover a way to measure out a full quart from a 

 one and a half pint box, and an honest peck from a six-quart basket, as well 

 as to turn out an honest package from the faced ones which nobody puts up. 



In the investigation of these "ruts commercial" he may, perchance, be 

 brought face to face with tlie question so long an ogre to the grangers, what 

 share of his income the middlemen may reasonably appropriate, and 

 whether there may not be a better way than to pass his produce through two 

 or more intermediate hands on its way to the consumer ; and he may even 

 find occasion to consider whether he or the commission man is the better 

 judge as to what is the most profitable strawberry for him to grow for market 

 purposes. 



Nor can ho even yet drop quietly down upon the millennial couch of rose 

 leaves, till, after inuring his olfactories to the noisome odors of ruts political 

 or governmental, he shall be able to devise a system of levers with which to 

 lift the onerous burden of purchasing and testing novelties from the too wil- 

 ling shoulders of the pioneer or amateur in horticulture, and deposit it where 

 it properly belongs, upon the shoulders of the many. Nor yet, till he shall 

 succeed in imbuing the mind of the average legislator with the conviction that 

 the great leading ideas or principles which underlie the best practice in horti- 

 culture are but a sublimation or intensification of the highest, most productive, 

 and profitable agricultural practice, and that it is, therefore, both profitable 

 and expedient that governmental encouragement, and even direct aid, be ex- 

 tended to horticulture, as the most effective means of elevating the present 

 low standard or agricultural practice and '' causing two spires of grass to 

 grow where but one had formerly grown." 



CULTIVATING THE BLACK WALNUT. 



BY WxM. H. RAGAN", SECRETAllY OF THE INDIANA HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



On page 450, Eeport of the Department of Agriculture for 1810, occurs the 

 following statement: "In January, 186G, there was brought to New York 

 from the west a walnut tree, 70 feet long, containing 4, GOO feet, board meas- 



11 



