1879.1 



.1 KD HORTIC UL T URIS T. 



19 



hundreds, lliousauds.and tens of thousands, as our 

 Apple trees are. 



Sleeper's Dwarf Peach.— This was said to 

 be onh' twenty-six inches high when four years 

 old, and to have fruit of much better quality than 

 the Van Buren dwarf. 



Japan Persimmons. — The California nursery 

 catalogues are full of the Japan Persimmon. They 

 issue colored illustrations, one of which exhibits 

 the fruit as large as a full sized Baldwin apple, 

 and as rich in color as a Trophy Tomato. They 

 seem destined to play an important part in the 

 fruit growing of the Pacific States. Henry 

 Loomis has a paper in the California Horti- 

 culturist in which thirteen named varieties are 

 described. In California it is said that the 

 fruit of the Japan Persimmon " is not inferior 

 in size or attractiveness to the Orange." 



The Sexes of Strawberries.— The discus- 

 sion on pistillate and staminate Strawberries, 

 which so raged in this country a quarter of a cen- 

 tury ago, and out of wlaich the raising of that ex- 

 cellent hermaphrodite, Albany Seedling, took all 

 the practical value, seems to have found a res- 

 surection in England. The Gardener'^s Magazine 

 says : 



" "We exposed the absurdities of Mr. Leonard 

 TVra}^ who had the audacity to inform the Amer- 

 ican public that in England the Strawberry 'has 

 a forced and unnatural existence, more suited to 

 the requirements of a tender exotic than to the 

 hard}' Strawberry,' and then he asked ' why is it 

 so pampered, so swathed, so swaddled, and its 

 hardy habit so ignored ?' We will not trouble 

 our readers with any further citation from Mr. 

 Wray's revelations, but we feel bound to pro- 

 nounce against the adoption of American notions 

 by trade cultivators in this country, who appear 

 to be steadily drifting into an injurious rut. In 

 the issue of the magazine for November 18, 1861, 

 we reproduced the trade list of Strawberries pub- 

 lished My Messrs. Prince and Co., of XeAV York, 

 for the purpose of showing how needless was the 

 classification of Strawberries as 'staminate,' 

 'pistillate,' and 'hermaphrodite;' but now we 

 find a few of our own nursery firms adopting the 

 classification, and thereby creating a bewilder- 

 ment, to the injury of an important branch of 

 horticulture. Suppose, for a moment, we grant 

 that certain varieties produce flowers which are 

 deficient of stamens ; what can it matter if, when 

 the time of Strawberries arrives, we find on those 



varieties an abundance of fruit ? Mr. Scott, of 

 Merriott, meets the case with a good practical 

 suggestion. He says, ' I would advise planting 

 several sorts in proximity,' in order that those 

 that have pollen to spare may fertilize flowers 

 deficient of stamens. The prudent cultivator 

 will not trust to one sort of Strawberry any more 

 than to one sort of Potato, but the less the pru- 

 dent cultivator troubles himself about ' stami- 

 nates ' and ' pistillates,' the better for his peace 

 of mind and his Strawberry plantation." 



NEW OR RARE ERUITS 



Moore's Early GtRape. — A new, hardy 

 Grape, combining the following desirable quali- 

 ties, viz. : hardiness, size, beauty, quality, pro- 

 ductiveness and earliness, maturing ten days 

 earlier than the Hartford Prolific, and twenty 

 days before the Concord. This is one out of a 

 lot of twenty-five hundred seedlings, and pro- 

 duced its first fi'uit in the year 1872; it was then 

 exhibited, and has been shown at the exhibitions 

 of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and 

 tested by the fruit committee every year since. 

 September 7th, 1872, 1st prize ; 1873, Annual 

 Exhibition, 1st prize for any variety not named 

 in the schedule; Sept. 5th, 1874, 1st prize for 

 early Gi'apes ; 1874, Annual Exhibition, 1st prize 

 for any variety not named in the schedule ; 1875, 

 Sept. 4th, 1st prize for early Grapes ; Sept. 

 11th, 1st prize for early Grapes ; Annual Exhi- 

 bition, 1st prize for any variety not named in 

 the schedule ; 1876, Sept. 2d, 1st prize for early 

 Grapes; Sept. 9th, 1st prize for early Grapes*,. 

 Annual Exhibition, 1st prize for an}' variety 

 not named in the schedule; 1877, August 25th,. 

 first-class certificate of merit ; Sept. 1st, 1st 

 prize for early Grapes ; Sept. 8th, 1st prize for 

 early Grapes; Annual Exhibition, Sept. 18th, 

 1st prize for any variety not named in the sched- 

 ule. It has also received first premiums from 

 various other societies, and has always taken 

 the first prizes over all other varieties shown in 

 competition. A prize of ii^GO for the best 

 new seedling, after a satisfactory trial, was 

 awarded in Dec, 1877, to John B. Moore, for 

 the new seedling Moore's Early ^ by the Massa^ 

 chusetts Horticultural Society. Description of 

 the fruit: bunch large, berry round, large (as 

 large as the Wilder or Rogers No. 4), color 

 black, with a heavy blue bloom ; quality, better 

 than the Concord; vine exceedingly hardy; has 



