258 



SOUTHERN HORTICULTURE. 



Foreign Grapes. — Cultivators of the grape, 

 I believe, have nearly given up trying to raise 

 foreign grapes in the open air. I have been 

 trying twelve or fifteen kinds for one or two 

 seasons, but have not succeeded, as I expect- 

 ed. I have found out, however, that it is the 

 exposure of the foliage and young grapes, to 

 the rain and dews, that induces the rust among 

 the foliage and mildew among the grapes. I 

 have two or three vines of the Black Ham- 

 burgh, trained beside my piazza, where the 

 rain is kept from falling on the fruit or foli- 

 age, and in this situation they ripened their 

 fruit this season as perfectly as any grapes I 

 ever saw. From this I infer that they can be 

 grown successfully on a trellis, with a cover- 

 ing on the top, extending over eight or ten 

 inches on each side of the trellis. 



Lifluence of the Su7r. on Fruit Trees. — I 

 have lost a number of fruit trees in the last 

 few years, from the severe heat of the sun's 

 rays during the months of July, August and 

 September. The part of the tree that receives 

 the injury, is that part of the trunk that faces 

 the sun at from 1 to 2 o'clock. The leaves 

 of the tree thus injured soon begin to turn 

 yellow, and some will fall off; and on exa- 

 mining the tree, the roots will have the ap- 

 pearance of having been scalded. A recovery 

 from this state rarely ever takes place. I 

 find that my apple trees have suffered more 

 in this way than all my other kinds of trees 

 together. A sure remedy, in my opinion, is 

 to leave the trunks of all fruit trees very low 

 or short ; from one to two feet is long enough 

 for the trunk of any fruit tree. "When they 

 are trained in this way, the trunk and the 

 surrounding ground are shaded and protected 

 by the branches ; the earth and roots of the 

 tree are kept cool and moist, and its vigor 

 very much increased. 



The Curmlio. — This little insect is more 

 to be dreaded by fruit growers than all other 

 enemies combined. He is a little wholesale 



destroyer that we cannot guard against ; in 

 fact, it takes close watching to get a sight of 

 one, and I will venture to say that there are 

 quite a number of persons, raised in the midst 

 of fruit in abundance every year, and who 

 have lived to be 50 years old, and never saw 

 a curculio, although the fruits in their or- 

 chards have been more or less destroyed by 

 them every year. They have seen wormy 

 peaches in abundance, but the master of cere- 

 monies has kept out of sight. 



The curculio is some larger than the black 

 wheat weavil, and has somewhat its appear- 

 ance. It makes an incision with its bill on 

 the surface of the fruit, in the shape of a half 

 moon ; it then deposits one or more eggs, and 

 turns again with its bill and neatly closes the 

 wound, and leaves the egg to hatch and the 

 young worm to commence his work of destruc- 

 tion. The manner in which the incision is 

 made in the fruit, is calculated to inspire us 

 with great respect for the good sense and fore- 

 sight of the curculio. If the cut in the fruit 

 was made straight and an egg deposited in it 

 and closed ever so neatly, the daily increasing 

 size of the fruit would open the incision, and 

 the larvae would be lost. 



If the young worm, the product of the egg 

 laid in the fruit, should eat into the stone of 

 the fruit before the stone becomes hard, the 

 fruit falls to the ground, the worm continues 

 in it until it is grown, and then goes out of the 

 fallen fruit into the ground to be transformed 

 in due season into a curculio. If the stone 

 of the fruit should be hard when the worm 

 reaches it, the fruit will not fall prematurely, 

 but the worm will remain in it until grown 

 and then cut its way out and fall to the 

 ground, to undergo its change from a worm to 

 a curculio. I have seen one or two worms in 

 the act of coming out of the peach while on 

 the tree. 



I will now close for the present, but may, 

 by your leave, continue these scattering notes 



