1880. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



15 



as they do on fresh corpses. No odor of decay. 

 Worms and insects remain flexible without 

 having their intestines taken out. Small ani- 

 mals and plants, whenever the natural color is 

 ilesirable to be preserved, must not be dried but 

 kept in the liquid." 



Good Peaches. — The number of peaches 

 which the raisers believe to be worthy of dis- 

 semination, is now so great that we want some 

 standard of comparison, below which it is hardly 

 worth while to go, say for instance in the case 

 of early peaches of large size, if one who has 

 something he thinks worthy of dissemination, 

 before sending it to the editor for his opinion, 

 let him first compare it with a well-ripened 

 Crawford's early. If it is larger and earlier, or as 

 large and sweeter, or has some one feature that 

 may be superior to that, then let it come on. 



Raspberries in Canada. — Canada is the 

 paradise of raspberry culture. They talk there 

 about Antwerps and other choice varieties as 

 amongst the most profitable to cultivate. The 

 thickets and wild places abound with delicious 

 fruit, and " going a raspberrying " is the favorite 

 summer pastime with Canadian lads and lasses. 

 The writer of this has delicious recollections of 

 "hand fulls" that have served for dinner in 

 botanical excursions through Canadian Tama- 

 rac swamps; and altogether he is sure that if 

 there is one thing more than another for which 

 a fruit lover might be pardoned, it would be 

 the wish to be around in Canada during rasp- 

 berry time. 



White-washing Trees. — The Country Gen- 

 tleman takes exception to our advice to white- 

 wash trees, because "white" looks bad. Our 

 ■contemporary does not seem to know that 

 " white " is merely the technical term for " lime " 

 wash, and it will be surprised to learn that 

 in Pennsylvania they have j'ellow whitewash, 

 blue whitewash, and brown whitewash, and in 

 the legislatures they have whitewash for cover- 

 ing up bad character. As to the color of the 

 white-wash we recommended we have no objec- 

 tion, so that lime be one of the ingredients of 

 the wash. 



How TO Stimulate the Improvement of 

 Fruits. — A correspondent of the Canadian Hor- 

 ticulturist recommends that fruit patents be 

 granted for a term of years at a trifling cost to 

 the patentee. That a patent fruit nursery be 

 established, and all patented fruit to be sold 



through this nursery, that no patented fruits be 

 allowed to be sold except they first pass through 

 this patent nursery. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Kieffer's Hybrid Pear. — X says: — "I see 

 the Gardener's Monthly quoted as authority 

 that this is an excellent fruit, and others also 

 quoted that the fruit is worthless. How is 

 this ; and what is the public to think V " 



[This is a very simple question. If the public 

 is to think at all, it must do as other judges do. 

 All judges do not look at things in the same 

 light. The story of the Dutch judge may give 

 our correspondent some clue as to how to think 

 on the matter. Half a dozen witnesses were 

 produced, who positively swore they saw the 

 man steal, but the defence produced a dozen who 

 did not see the man steal, and the judge con- 

 sidered the majority favored the defendant, who 

 was accordingly aquitted. All we can say is that 

 we have eaten fruit of the Kieff'er Pear which 

 was equal in luscious richness to any pear we 

 ever ate. The whole of the Judges at the Cen- 

 tennial who had some fruit before them, also 

 seem b}' their report to have had a favorable ex- 

 perience. Xow if thore are some gentlemen 

 who have had fruit of it that was not commen- 

 dable, it is no more than general experience with 

 other fruit ; for everybody has had Vicars, and 

 Flemish Beauties, and other fruits that were not 

 worth eating. If these poor samples happen to 

 be sent for opinions, of course no editor can do 

 anything else but speak of it accordingly. We ex- 

 pect some time to have a poor specimen of the 

 Kiefter as well as of any other kind — but that 

 will not alter our opinion about the excellent 

 fruit we have tasted. — Ed. G. M.] 



AVhite Grapes — "Critic," Boston, Mass., 

 writes: "I see you talk of 'white' grapes, now 

 I have never seen a white grape, but I have 

 seen green ones. Would it not be as well to call 

 things by their proper names?" 



[Of course our critic is right when he proposes 

 to call things by their proper names. But "white" 

 is the absence of color, and a grape which con- 

 tinues always of its normal green color, and in 

 which there is therefore in a certain sense an ab- 

 sence of color, such as we usually look for in a 

 fruit, is white in a metaphorical and therefore cor- 

 rect sense. A child is told it should not eat 



