1882.J 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



49 



planting, nor allow the soil to become hard or 

 dry. Let trees branch low, and prune a little at 

 transplanting. 



The Strawberry, where it has been covered 

 during the winter, should be uncovered as early 

 as possible in spring, that the warm spring suns 

 may exert all their influence on producing an 

 early crop. As soon as growth commences, a 

 sowing of guano has been found to be of great 

 benefit to the crop of fruit. 



Raspberries and Blackberries may be planted 

 towards the end of the month ; they should be 

 cut down to within a foot of the ground at 

 planting ; they will, of course, not then bear the 

 next season after planting. But this is a benefit ; 

 no fruit tree should be allowed to bear the same 

 season. 



Pruning of fruit trees, when required, should 

 be proceeded with at favorable opportunities. 



The rule, in pruning grape vines, is to shorten 

 the shoots in proportion to their strength ; but, 

 if the advice we have given in former summer 

 hints has been attended to, there will be little 

 disproportion in this matter, as summer pinch- 

 ing of the strong shoots has equalized the 

 strength of the vine. Those who are following 

 any particular system will, of course, prune ac- 

 cording to the rules comprising such system. As 

 a general rule, we can only say, excellent grapes 

 can be had by any system of pruning ; for the 

 only object of pruning, in any case, is to get 

 strong shoots to push where they may be de- 

 sired, or to increase, with the increased vigor of 

 the shoot, which pruning supposes will follow 

 the act, increased size in the fruit it bears. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



FRUIT CROP IN TENNESSEE. 



BY E. S. NIXON, CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 



In this part of the South, the fruit crop of 

 the season just closed affords a subject for reflec- 

 tion and thought that is worth looking into. 

 Not that there can be any remedy, as the terri- 

 tory affected is so extensive, but a knowledge 

 of the probable cause of the failure may do some 

 good. 



In the early spring it was noticeable that there 

 were some localities, particularly in low ground, 

 where the peach trees failed to bloom, and the 

 trees looked as though they were dead, not a 

 single bloom appearing on any of them, while on 



higher grounds on either side within a short dis- 

 tance all the trees were in full bloom. 



A strip of this kind running parallel with, and 

 east of Missionary Ridge, in Tennessee, extended 

 quite a distance into Georgia. This was our first 

 trouble. 



Subsequently, or on the first day of April, 

 there was a heavy snow storm, the wind blowing 

 from the north-west ; the weather after it re- 

 mained was very cold for several days. At this 

 date the fruit trees were in full bloom. It was 

 a beautiful sight, but to the fruit-grower a very 

 unwelcome one. 



The cold wave seemed to take a south-east 

 course, its eastern edge being about the line of 

 the Nashville & Chattanooga and Western & At- 

 lantic Railroads, resulting in the almost total 

 destruction of the fruit crop of Alabama and that 

 portion of Georgia west of said line, and south of 

 Atlanta. Apples, pears and peaches all fared 

 alike, the pears probably came off a little the 

 best. 



At Calera, Alabama, there are a few pear or- 

 chards that are well cared for ; they bore proba- 

 bly one-tenth of a crop of defective fruit, and this 

 was the best that could probably be produced in 

 the State. 



During the summer I visited several counties 

 of North-east Georgia, east of the Western & 

 Atlantic Railroad and north of Atlanta, and the 

 fruit crop there was immense. I saw hundreds 

 of peach trees with every main limb broken 

 down with the very heavy load of fruit on them. 

 The apple trees were equally well loaded, but 

 they were able to sustain the weight. 



It must be remembered that the trees have no 

 care whatever, never having been pruned to 

 make them able to sustain the weight of the 

 fruit. The people said this was the first crop 

 they had seen in four years. 



East Tennessee, which also escaped the cold 

 wave, has had the best fruit crop it has had for 

 some years. The people of that section dried 

 the most of their fruit, which brought them a very 

 good price, while the people of Georgia, with 

 very few exceptions, saved but very little of it, 

 the hogs coming in for the largest share. Some 

 of the finest was hauled to the railroads, where 

 the parties lived adjacent to them, but hardly 

 any of it was shipped off. Most of the peaches 

 (being grown on seedling trees) were small and 

 the owners did not know how to dispose of 

 them. 



In several localities I noticed that the Shock- 



