1879.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST 



299 



quiet place, when new roots will form, or the 

 plant learn to depend on all that are left. Ifj 

 the injury to the roots be very severe, it may 

 take more than a few days to recover. If, after 

 this the leaves have a dull or haggard look, the 

 tops of the branches had best be shortened. ■ 

 This will surely mend the matter. The H. D. 

 is a good idea ; but so long as the Gardener's 

 Monthly is willins to answer all questions at 

 the subscription price of $2.10 a year, we fear | 



the 11. D. would find but little practice.— Ed. 

 G. M.] 



Cornelian Cherry. —-"Somebody' wants 

 to know what these berries and branch are. 

 Says the berries were reported to be poisonous 

 to eat, but don't know." 



[The above is on the editor's table. If " Some- 

 body " can identify himself, his berries are of 

 the Cornelian cherry, and very good for those to 

 eat who like them, as many do. — Ed. G. M.] 



Fruit and Vegetable Gardening. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Once on a time there was a craze on dwarf 

 pears. Millions were raised, and all were sold. 

 Kow when a person has anything to sell it is 

 but natural that he should see all the good 

 points in the article he has to sell, and that he 

 should feel he has to sell just exactly what every 

 one wants to buy. There are many who want 

 to make money out of fruit culture, as well 

 as many who simply want to enjoy a fruit gar- 

 den and eat of the fruits thereof; and so it was 

 only to be expected that when a seller had a 

 pear tree that would bear in a few years from 

 planting, would admit of -100 trees to the acre, 

 and bear "so many bushels to a tree, so many 

 trees to the acre, so many dollars for a bushel, 

 such immense profits from so many bushels," so 

 many should rush to their culture. Then again 

 it was natural that those who read and believed 

 in all this and planted accordingly, should pro- 

 nounce dwarf pears a humbug, when they found 

 80 little for their pains. But after all, the fail- 

 ure is not so much because the pear is dwarf, but 

 because the proper knowledge was wanting 

 wherewith to treat them. We know of many 

 cases where dwarf pear culture is a great suc- 

 cess, but it is usual in these cases to hear the re- 

 mark that they are now standards •, that the pear 

 has thrown out its own roots, and outgrown 

 those of the Quince. But this is no real objec- 

 tion. They never grow as large as an original 

 standard would do, and they have given the owners 

 all the advantages of dwarfs while they remain in 



that condition. There are some who can make the 

 dwarf pear profitable even as a fruit crop, but 

 few will be able to do this who are not well 

 skilled in practical details. For these, dwarf 

 pears will be still attractive. As to what con- 

 stitutes skill in dwarf pear culture, it is need- 

 less to state here. The readers of the Gar- 

 dener's Monthly know that an immense 

 amount of failure has come from defective 

 teaching. Fruit culture is not the complicated 

 and costly study some would make it. It takes 

 knowledge and skill to find out how simple and 

 easy a thing fruit culture is. In the pear es- 

 pecially is this true. It is on the whole one of 

 the most satisfactory of fruits to handle in the 

 American climate, not equal to the apple or 

 grape as a commercial venture perhaps, but as 

 an adjunct to the amateur's garden. Much 

 injury has been done to fruit culture by the 

 expressed dread some cultivators have of a 

 " too rank growth," and a consequent advice not 

 to manure. A fruit tree never suffers from too 

 much manure, if the roots are healthy. If a 

 tree seems to suffer after a heavy manuring, it is 

 only that it was in a bad way before this. Of 

 course, if one were to empty a cesspool, a cart 

 load of fresh lime, or some other inordinate 

 mass of food under a tree, it would suflfer; but 

 our meaning is that no amount of manure that 

 would be found of benefit to any regular garden 

 will be otherwise than beneficial to a fruit tree, 

 if the roots be healthy. 



Celery as it grows will require earthing up, 

 and endive successively blanched ; but the main 

 business of the month will be preparations for 



