560 



CULTURE or THE APRICOT. 



— the north sides of buildings, walls or fen- 

 ces, or the northern sides or slopes of your 

 garden or orchard. Here they will be later 

 in advancing in spring, and the blossoms 

 will escape destruction by frost five times 

 out of six. If a single cold night, notwith- 

 standing, should threaten to rob you of a 

 good crop, make a fire on the ground and 

 cover it with damp tan-bark, placing it in 

 such a position that a slight smoke will 

 rise and protect the tree or trees endan- 

 gered. 



With respect to the curculio, that is a 

 matter worth some serious attention ; for, 

 indeed, it is this little mischief maker which 

 destroys ninety-nine hundreths of all the 

 apricots in the country. Here, in our heavy 

 loam soils, he finds but a poor place for his 

 winter quarters, and his numbers are few. 

 But in light sandy soils, he often punctures 

 and destroys whole crops, year after year. 



There are two modes of combatting this 

 insect. If you have only a single tree or 

 two in your garden, the easiest and most 

 complete mode that we have tried, is to lay 

 a cart load or more of fresh stable litter un- 

 der the tree, as soon as the blossoms fall, — 

 doubling the dose at the end of a week, if 

 the insect is very abundant. This usually 

 protects the tree in question ; the fumes of 

 the manure driving away the curculio. 



But in a real curculio district, the most 

 thorough, indeed, perhaps the only thorough 

 mode of operation, is to adopt the plan 

 pointed out in our last number (page 505,) 

 by a "Pennsylvania Subscriber," — that of 

 planting all plums, apricots, nectarines, and 

 other smooth stone fruits in a quarter by 

 themselves, adjoining the hog-pen, and al- 

 lowing the swine to have " free run" of the 

 orchard for a certain part of the year. We 

 have seen this tried with complete success 

 in two instances, and have, therefore, en- 

 tire confidence in recommending it. 



Hundreds of our readers, in particular 

 sections of the countrj^, who scarcely ever 

 get a fine apricot or plum^ because they are 

 all punctured by the curculio, may, by this 

 easy arrangement of their trees, get large 

 and regular crops. 



With respect to the varieties of apricots 

 in cultivation, there is nothing yet known 

 in this country superior in size and flavor 

 to the Moorpark and Peach apricots. They 

 are beautiful and fine fruits, growing with 

 us as large, or larger, than the Early York 

 Peach. Among the new sorts that we have 

 proved lately, the Large Early, and the 

 Large Red, are both very delicious varieties, 

 only inferior in size to the Moorpark. The 

 flesh of the Large Red is in colour a fine 

 dark orange, sweet and juicy. Both these 

 sorts have borne with us for three years 

 past. 



The hardiest apricots known, are the 

 Rorna7i,i\\e, Early Golden, (Dubois',) and the 

 Breda. These will endure frost, and bear 

 good crops, in many situations where the 

 other varieties fail entirely. Hence, they 

 will be prized in many districts of the coun- 

 try where the larger varieties cannot be 

 cultivated as open standards. 



The Early Golden is perhaps the most 

 prolific of apricots. It is of medium quali- 

 ty. The old Roman is well known, and is 

 chiefly valued for its earliness and hardi- 

 ness. The Breda is much the finest flavor- 

 ed of the three, and deserves to be much 

 more widely known than it is at present in 

 the middle states. 



A severe storm, followed by frost, oc- 

 curred here about the middle of April, this 

 season. The apricot trees were in full 

 bloom ; and though it very rarely happens 

 in this locality, (owing to the ameliorating 

 influence of the river, which is a mile and 

 a quarter wide,) that fruit is destroyed by 

 spring frosts, yet that all the apricots would 



