1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



177 



cause of 1113^ political disaster was so unexpected, 

 so couteuiptible that I am ashamed to name it 

 One of my constituents was an enthusiastic gar- 

 dener. He had his hobbies : one of them was 1 

 the Gooseberry. A hobby that may he be com- i 

 pelled to ride after death. He had innumer- 

 able seedlings. To those he had yoked the j 

 names of all the public men in the land. My 

 own name duly written on a zinc tag hung on j 

 one of those bushes. It was sent out to the I 

 world as the great success of the season ; the 1 

 John Smith Gooseberi-y, large, smooth, hardy, ! 

 prolific, sweet. 



Thousands of those gooseberries were dissem_ 

 inated among my constituents. They bought 

 it on credit of the name. It must surely be a 

 fine thing being named after our Congressman. 

 It was thorny, mouldy, small, bitter, barren. It 

 was however hardy. It would not die. That 

 gooseberry made me one thousand enemies at 

 first hand. Those thousand made me five 

 thousand more. It cost me my seat in Congress. 

 The District became full of thorns for me. In- 

 stead of the Hon. John Smith, our representa- 

 tive, I became Gooseberry John. I tried to con- 

 vince the public that I had no hand in the swin- 

 dle. Men would not listen. I ought not to 

 lend my name to such things. Sure enough one's 

 name is not to be easily loaned. It is the last 

 thing to be boxTOwed, even after his cow and his 

 spectacles. 



I was obliged to move from that region. My 

 reputation hung like a last year's scarecrow on a 

 prickh'^ gooseberry bush. It was too late to be- 

 gin political life over again elsewhere. I am 

 now raising sheep in Texas. There is not a 

 gooseberry allowed to grow on my ranche. Will 

 not seedling raisers let alone the names of hon- 

 est philanthropists and patriotic office holders ? 

 They have worked hard to secure a name. It is 

 their sole capital. It should not be borrowed, at 

 least not without the consent of the owner. It 

 is bad enough to be compelled to share with 

 babies, without losing all on a gooseberry. Call 

 your seedlings Ralph Farms, Wonderful Amaze- 

 ment, but not John Smith. 



anywhere. I consider the yellows in the peach as 

 a very small thing and easily managed. If your 

 orchard (it should be on nice light dry soil, for 

 it is no use to put it on wet or heavy ground,) is 

 say in bearing, clean out the worms and apply 

 one to two shovelsfull of wood ashes, according 

 to the size of the tree. If you plow in the Fall do 

 so again in the Spring, and use the cultivator 

 till the peaches get as big as the end of your 

 thumb. Keep this up, and don't neglect it even 

 if your peaches have been killed this Winter. If 

 this is done and you don't succeed, you may say 

 your land is not adapted for peaches, and pull up 

 your trees. 



1 When a young plantation is put out it is cus- 

 tomary to plant in corn for three years and cul- 

 tivate well. In trimming cut all dead wood and 

 just enough of the limbs for the horses to go 

 under. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



PEACH CULTURE. 



BY PLEASANTON HAMM, NEAIl DOVER, DEL. 



The peach growers of Michigan seem to be in 

 a great way about the yellows. I neither see nor 

 hear of it here now, but before peach grow- 

 ing became a science, trees were planted in any 

 kind of soil and not cared for, and you could see it 



Making Gardens Pay. — The English Crys- 

 tal Palace Company is having the experience 

 unfortunate amateurs often have. We, in this 

 country, often see that when a gentleman finds 

 j himself in straightened circumstances he rarely 

 i gets his laundry girl to take in washing ; his 

 I cook to fill in her extra time in making pies for 

 I the pastry cook, his coachman in taking up pas- 

 sengers for a quarter, or hiring out his piano for 

 church fairs or theatricals ; but the gardener is 

 called on to sell plants or vegetables. We 

 never understood the system of this selection, 

 but we have generally seen that the result is 

 from bad to worse. The garden department 

 becomes an annoyance and a loss, and we never 

 knew an instance where bankruptcy was staved oft' 

 by the eff"ort, and the reason is very plain to busi- 

 ness people. A gardener who has been educa- 

 ted to garden for pleasure, seldom has any idea 

 of gardening for profit, and he has no chance 

 whatever to compete with those who have long 

 made a business of their labor, and who by com- 

 petition among themselves have already reduced 

 prices down to the lowest paying profit. More- 

 over it is hard to explain to the gardener sud- 

 denly called on to go to "market" where his 

 " extra" time is to come from, if the garden is 

 to be kept up as formerly. 



However, this is what the Crystal Palace 

 Company is now to do. It is poor. It is short 

 of funds to keep the gardens going. It has not 

 had men enough or plants enough to keep things 



