1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



179 



its side. On Broadway it takes the lead. With 

 me it is very productive, and I think it will am- 

 ply repay good culture on all heavy soils. It 

 •continues bearing till very late, and the berries 

 hold out large till the last. It should have a 

 place in ever}' collection. This variety has been 

 more badly mixed than any in the country, but 

 I have now a large pure stock of plants. The 

 young plants are always small, feeble looking." 



Fruit Troubles.— When any of our fruit 

 growers have a little trouble to raise fruit, they 

 generally wish that they could " do as they do 

 in Europe." But there too they have enemies 

 to tight, and this is what a correspondent of the 

 London Journal of Horticulture has to say about it: 



" I had a quarter of gooseberry bushes cut 

 hard down last Spring which had made good 

 heads, but nearly every bud has been taken, so 

 that they will have to be cut hard back again. 

 I have now come to the conclusion that the only 

 «afe way to grow common bush fruit is to plant 

 thickh", leaving blank spaces at intervals for the 

 sake of convenience, gathering the fruit and 

 netting the bushes over. Do the netting early 

 in the season, for when once the buds begin to 

 :swell, the work of destruction is done in a very 

 short time. 



If this plan is adopted, and the pruning de- 

 layed until the bushes are green — as gooseber- 

 ries may be pruned with impunity at such a 

 stage — hoops of green hazel or other pliable 

 wood might be bent over the bushes to support 

 the nets. Some of the long shoots will of course 

 have a tendency to keej) the nets from pressing 

 too closely •, the hoops to be left until the fruit 

 begins to ripen, as at that time the blackbirds, 

 thrushes, and sparrows are great thieves, and 

 must be guarded against; and we can seldom 

 keep either gooseberries or currants without 

 protection after they show signs of coloring. 



Later on come a host of bluebottles, flies, 

 wasps, and hornets, the latter being rather nu- 

 merous about here. Sparrows, hawfinches, and 

 jackdaws are very fond of young peas, and last 

 Spring the birds nearly cleared a quarter of early 

 peas before they were fit for table use ; and I 

 was somewhat puzzled to account for the whole- 

 sale manner in which they were taken. I had 

 accused rats of taking them, and had set traps, 

 in one of which we caught a fine old jackdaw. 

 This had a deterring effect, as the peas did not 

 disappear so fast afterwards. Wood pigeons are 

 great garden robbers in Spring. All these dep- 

 redations take place early in the morning before 



the workmen are about. In the Autumn came 

 the tits and spoiled a number of pears ; others we 

 were obliged to gather before they were ripe, 

 and many of them shrivelled." 



Fruits of Michigan.— Mr. T. T. Lyon lias 

 prepared a catalogue of fruits of Michigan on 

 the model of the one in use by the American 

 Pomological Society. It is interesting to note 

 that a large proportion of the most popular 

 fruits of the State, ai-e those equally popular in 

 the East. 



Le Conte Pear.— We wrote this Le Compte 

 in our last because we were merely quoting ; but 

 Major Le Conte is the proper name of the gen- 

 tleman after w^hom the Pear is named, and so 

 Le Conte should be the proper orthography. 



Origin of the Beurre Giffard Pear. — 

 With a beautiful colored plate the Florist and 

 Fomologi.s-t says that the variety was a chance 

 seedling discovered by Nicholas Giflfard, of 

 Fonassieres, near Angers in France, and was 

 first described in 1840 in the Bulletin of the An- 

 gers Horticultural Society. 



American Apples in England.— Para- 

 graphs go the rounds that American apples, and 

 other American products increase so enormously 

 in price by going through the hands of so many 

 agents, as to make the growers' receipts appear 

 like a single feather in the pound. But we see 

 that American apples sold the past Winter in 

 Covent Garden market London, at about three 

 dollars per barrel. 



Peaches in Delaware. — It is reported that 

 the Peach crop in Delaware, promises to be one 

 of the best known for some years. 



History of Delaware Peach Growing. — 

 A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press says : 

 " About the time that the great Clayton made 

 his famous boast about Delaware and peach 

 brandy and died, there were some folks who 

 were dimly beginning to see the value that was 

 in the peach as an article of culture and com- 

 merce. Probably the first to venture into the 

 business, was Reybold, of Delaware City, in 

 Newcastle county, who planted several large 

 orchards. People laughed at him, and told him 

 he was going into folly ; but he held his peace 

 and let them laugh. After the lapse of a brief 

 number of years, his trees began to bear pro- 

 lifically, and in less than no time he was reaping 

 a bountiful harvest. Well, time went by, and 

 his trees continued to bear abundantly; but, 

 strange to say, it was some time before any one 



