338 



77/ A' (.Ah'DENEirS MoSTUIA' 



[November J 



jvs those you havo published require. I first be- 

 iran tonotiee tlu-se fiiets more closely, June I'.tth. 

 lieiiiij; ill town, I was solicited by some who had 

 purchased trees of my own sei'dlinu;, the Alex- 

 ander, to see the Hums Peach. so-<alled, which 

 had caused some stir by a few ripe specimens, 

 their own showinu; no .signs of ripening soon. 

 Had they L'ot spurious trees, or were they so far 

 distanced l)y a new competitor? It had every 

 appearance of an Alexander except its perfect 

 adhesion to the pit, which led me to think it 

 must be different. On coming home, I began to 

 investigate, and this is the result. I found larger 

 specimens by more than one inch in circum- 

 ference, some of them ripe, but all with the same 

 tenacious hold upon the stone. This was charac- 

 teristic of all the early Peaches I had from lirst 

 to last, not excepting the Beatrice, and includ- 

 ing some other early seedlings of mine, which 

 were completely free when they fruited before. 

 In one row, were about two dozen Alexander 

 trees, some of them in the condition stated, and 

 some with fruit yet in the green stage, and which, 

 according to my best recollection, did not ripen 

 for some two weeks subsequently. These trees 

 were more or less mixed together, so that soil 

 and situation cannot possibly account for the 

 difference. I have two Amsden trees, twenty- 

 four feet apart, one of which ripened its fruit at 

 least a week, I believe, before the other. 



To present and enforce a point right here, 

 which I think worthy of a good deal of thought, 

 I will select of my Alexander trees, from each 

 extreme, the earliest and latest. If one of the 

 two stocks used had carried a bud of the Ams- 

 den, Honeyw'ell, or Early Canada, which Mr. 

 Downing thinks about alike in earliness, and 

 had behaved in all other respects as at present, 

 and I had had no other tree of either kind in 

 bearing by which to correct the error, it is plain 

 that one or the other would have commended 

 itself to me over its rival, not only by the dif- 

 ference in period, t\vo weeks or more, but by 

 the superior size of its fruit. 



Another important fact should here be stated. 

 The most vigorous trees, those making the most 

 wood growth, bore the latest and smallest fruit, 

 and, so far as I am able to say, in proportion to 

 that vigor. Can borers alone be responsible for 

 all this ditfereiice, or does the character of the 

 stock contribute its share ; or should some other, 

 or additional element be sought for ? 



I have spoken of ripe Peaches ; I ought to cor- 

 rect this by saying, that no such phenomenon as 



legitimate ripening, particularly of the early 

 I Peaches, occured here tliis year to my knowledge. 

 I As early ivs Fel)uary the Ituds began to swell 

 I freel}', growing and stopping in accordance wilii 

 the alternations of heat and cold, till they finally 

 softened, preparatory to rotting an entire month 

 in advance of the usual period. The result was 

 one side hard, the center tougli and tenacious, 

 and the whole unpalatable and unwholesome. 

 Another reJiult was unsually large fruit. A Hale 

 seedling, a genuine cling, had duriiii; three pre- 

 vious years produced small fruit invariably, less 

 than six inches, I judge. This year its entire 

 crop of five Peaches measured from nine and 

 one-quarter to nine and three-quarter inches. 

 These, ripening later, were quite good, though 

 not so sweet as formerly. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Influence of the Summer on hardiness 

 IN Winter. — The reader will peruse with much 

 interest, Mr. Woodwaixl's notes on "Summer 

 shade for the Apple." It confirms a point fre- 

 quently made by the Gardener's Monthly, 

 that when a tree's vital powers are strained by 

 Summer heats or Summer drouths, such a tree 

 is unfitted to endure a severe Winter. And the 

 reader will also reaiiember that it is because a 

 clean surface in an orchard, often implies an ex- 

 cessive and deleterious increase in the tempera- 

 ture of the earth, among other reasons, that we 

 recommend the culture of grass in orchards in 

 many cases. 



About Moles. — We were always taught that 

 it was not polite in company to make fun of stupid 

 peoples' blunders. There is no objection to this 

 amusement when we are by oui'selves, and there- 

 fore, the reader can take this paragraph which we 

 cut from an agricultural contemporary, into some 

 quiet corner, and all alone by himself, enjoy a 

 good laugh over it : 



"A French naturalist, of the name of Henri 

 Lecourt, devoted a great part of his life to the 

 study of the habits and structure of moles, and he 

 tells us that they will run as fast as a horse will 

 gallop. By his observations he rendered essen- 

 tial service to a large district in France, for he 

 discovered that numbers of moles had under- 

 mined the banks of a canal, and that, unless 

 means were taken to prevent the catastrophe,, 

 these banks would give way, and inundation 

 would ensue. By his ingenious contrixances and 



