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THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[April, 



Fruit and Vegetable Gardening. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Fruit trees that have proved undesirable from 

 any cause, may be re-grafted with more favored 

 kinds. This is an advantage with some varie- 

 ties. It takes an age, for instance, to get the 

 Seckel Pear into bearing condition from a nur- 

 sery raised tree : but by grafting it on one that 

 has already " arrived at years of discretion," the 

 advantage of placing a young head on old shoul- 

 ders, in this way is soon made manifest. 



Grafting can be continued till the buds of the 

 trees are nearly pushed into leaf. Sometimes, 

 from a pressure of other work, some valuable 

 scions have been left on hand too late to work. 

 It may be interesting to know, that if such scions 

 are put into the ground much the same as if 

 they were cuttings, they will keep good for six 

 weeks or two months, by which time the bark 

 will run freely, when the scions may be treated 

 as buds, and will succeed just as well as buds 

 taken from young summer shoots. 



The Apple is our standard fruit, and may al- 

 ways be relied on with reasonable care. The 

 first care is good food. Some talk about too 

 rich soil. We never saw the soil too rich for the 

 apple. Where any trouble arises in apple cul- 

 ture, it will be safe to attribute it to other causes 

 than rich soil. Kitchen ashes, in which table 

 refuse is thrown, is an excellent top-dressing for 

 apples. We like top-dressing better than any 

 other system of manuring apple trees. Even 

 nice ditch scrapings are good to top-dress with, 

 where nothing else offers. Apple trees are often 

 starved in other ways than by neglect to ma- 

 nure. The apple borer leads to starvation of- 

 tener than poor soil. The supply of food is cut 

 oflfby every move the borer makes. They work 

 at the surface of the ground. Look for them 

 now. If you have no time, set the boys and 

 girls to work. Say they shall have no apples for 

 Christmas or birthday presents if they do not. 

 However, get the borers out somehow, even if by 

 wire and jack-knife. If not soon done they will 

 soon get out themselves, and give you more 

 trouble in the future. After they have left, 

 whether by your invitation or otherwise, keep 

 them out; even though you have to lock the 



door after the horse is stolen. There is nothing 

 like tarred paper to keep them out. The paper 

 must be put an inch or more below the ground, 

 and two or three above. We have used gas-tar 

 for years ; but find that if the tar contains creo- 

 sote, as it sometimes does, and the newspaper be 

 very thin, it will once in awhile injure the bark. 

 Pine tar will therefore be better. 



In grape raising people seem to go to extremes 

 in management. A few years ago the poor plant 

 was in leading strings. It dared not make one 

 free growth, but it was pinched and twisted into 

 all sorts of ways. Now the " prune not at all " 

 maxims are getting headway, and this is as bad, 

 if not worse. First, grape growing was such a 

 mystery it took a life time to study it, and the 

 " old vigneron " was an awfully sublime sort of a 

 personage. He is now among the unfrocked and 

 unreverenced. But there is great art in good 

 grape treatment ; and yet this art is founded on 

 a very few simple principles. For instance, 

 leaves are necessary to healthy growth ; but two 

 leaves three inches wide are not of equal value 

 to one leaf of six inches. To get these strong 

 leaves, see that the number of sprouts be limited. 

 If two buds push from one eye, pinch out the 

 weakest whenever it appears. The other will be 

 strengthened by this protective policy, and the 

 laws of trade result in favor of larger and better 

 leaves on the leaf that follows. Allow no one 

 shoot to grow stronger than another. If there 

 are indications of this, pinch off its top. While 

 it stops to wonder what you mean by this sum- 

 mary conduct, the weaker fellows will profit to 

 take what properly belongs to them. There is 

 little more science in summer pruning than this ; 

 but it takes some experience, joined with com- 

 mon sense, to apply it. This, indeed, is where 

 true art comes in. 



South of Philadelphia, the more tender kinds 

 of garden vegetables may now be sown — beans, 

 corn, cucumbers, squashes, etc. — that it is not 

 prudent to plant in this latitude before the first 

 of May; and tomato, egg-plants, etc., may also 

 be set out in those favored places. Cucumbers, 

 squashes, and such vegetables, can be got for- 

 ward as well as tomatoes, egg-plants, etc., by 

 being sown in a frame or hotbed, and potted off 



