1894. 



GARDENING. 



57 



MUSCAT OF ALEXANDRIA GRAI 



till after the fruit is ripe and cut. When 

 the fruit is well set I let the night temper- 

 ature drop to 65°. 



Before thinning them I allow the berries 

 of muscats to get larger than those of 

 free setting varieties. By that' time give 

 a chink of front ventilation on fine days. 

 Scalding during the stoning period can be 

 avoided by leaving a little ventilation on 

 topand bottom, day and night, with a lit- 

 tle fireheat at the same time to keep the 

 air moving. 



When the berries begin to color, leave 

 air on the house day and night, gradually 

 increasing it as the fruit gets riper and 

 better colored. We generalh' begin cut- 

 ting muscats about the last week in 

 .\ugust, cutting it as we need it for use 

 until the middle of November when what 

 is left is all cut off with a little piece of the 

 cane attached and put into the fruit room 

 where the ends of the canes are stuck into 

 bottles of water. In this way we keep 

 the grapes till Christmas. 



We use water very freely in watering 

 the vines, and at all times even when the 

 fruit is ripe. As we keep the roots of our 

 vines close to the surface of the ground 

 should we let the surface get dry the fruit 

 would shrivtl, and after it shrivels no 

 amount of water will plump it up again. 



If the vinery is glazed with Al glass it 

 will need no extra shading, but if the 

 glass is thin or of inferior grade and full 

 of blisters, a thin shading is an advan- 

 tage. The Madresfield Court black mus- 

 cat is a grape I think very highly of. As 

 you know the berries have a fault of 

 cracking when they commence to color, 

 but I find that that lasts only for a brief 

 season like scalding and can be overcome 

 in the same way as that disease. 



George McWii.i,i.\.m. 



1 he following is an answer to "A 

 Reader:" 



By all means plant in the fall, and as 

 early as possible, vour plants will gain 

 almost a vear's growth bv it, that is if 



they are in good, healthy condition when 

 received, and the ground in which you 

 plant them is not low enough to hold 

 water on in winter. Both gooseberries 

 and currants start togrow so early in the 

 spring that it is better to plant them in 

 fall than in spring. In planting, don'tcut 

 them hard back, simplv tip them, but cut 

 out the branches, leaving from three to 

 five to tach plant according to its 

 strength. They do not need covering in 

 winter but a good mulching of manure up 

 about them will help them. We some- 

 times have it as cold as 25° to 30° below 

 zero here, and I find both gooseberry and 

 currant bushes quite hard}'. 



I would also plant raspberries now. 

 Cut the canes back to eighteen inches or 

 two feet and before hard Irost sets in lay 

 down the plants and cover them with a 

 good coating of soil. 



Planting these things early in the fall 

 has been my practice for years and I sel- 

 dom lose a plant. John T. Temple. 



Davenport, Iowa. 



FRUITS FOR ARKflNSflS. 



In G.vKDKNi.NG, page328,June 15, 1 note 

 the reqviest of A. L. C .\rkansas, for 

 varieties of fruit, etc. I would like to 

 call his attention to the various seedling 

 apples of that state. It would be hard to 

 find better or finerapples any where than 

 the Shannon, Crawford, Arkansas 

 Beauty, and Arkansas. The state is 

 called the seedling ground of the country, 

 not only of apples, but also other fruits, 

 notably the Howard County Seedling 

 pear and Arkansas Seedling peach. 

 The finest canned peaches I ever ate 

 were the White Heath, raised in Sebas- 

 tian county, .\rk., and I have eaten them 

 from New York, Delaware, New Jersey, 

 Michigan, Nebraska, Colorado, Califor- 

 nia and Kansas. In looking over the 

 annual report of the Arkansas State 

 Horticultural Society, 1893, X find in 

 strawberries Michel's Early stands first, 

 Crescent comes next, and when land is 

 too poor for any other sort Crv^tal City 

 will do. In blackberries Earlv Il.-irvest 



and Snyder are those which do the best 

 and Brandywire in raspberries. Some 

 varieties of apples, like Ben Davis, which 

 is called in the west an apple of poor 

 (|uality assumes different texture and taste 

 on the soils of Arkansas, being of finer 

 grain and far richer, in fact it is a very 

 good apple. The Kieffei pear grows to 

 enormous size there. For (|uality the 

 Seckel stands first. It seems to "thrive 

 fine on the red lands of .\rkansas valley. 

 Nebraska. F. C. J. 



JflPflNESE SWEET CHESTNUT. 



The Japanese sweet chestnut, though 

 very little known, will prove of great 

 value to us. It is comparatively dwarf, 

 fruits early, and is far hardier than the 

 S]5anish species. There are trees of it here 

 not over six feet high, .\ith many burrs 

 on them now, and these trees are seed- 

 lings, not more than five j'cars old. I 

 have seen Ijurrs on them when mere 

 bushes of but three to four feet. Being 

 hardier than the Spanish is a great gain. 

 Hereabouts the Spanish has to become 

 acclimatized before it 'stands our winters 

 unscathed. On the other hand, of the 

 Japanese species as represented by hun- 

 dreds of seedling and other trees of it here 

 I have never known of one to be injured 

 in winter. It will probably succeed in 

 Western New York, and perhaps further 

 north. The nuts are as large as the 

 Spanish, but not the equal of our native 

 species in quality. Large size in fruits, 

 however, is very taking. As this Japan- 

 ese sort grows to but a small tree, it ren- 

 ders possible the growing of it in small 

 gardens, where room could not be given 

 to one of the larger growing sorts. 



Philadelphia. Joseph Meeh.\n. 



"MAIDEN" TREES. 



The suggestion is now being made, and 

 indeed strongly urged, that orchards be 

 set with trees of only one, or at most, 

 two years growth from the bud, or the 

 root graft. So good an authority as T. 

 T. Lyon says: "Set maiden trees always" 

 —by' which I understand that yearlings 

 are meant. Twenty -two years ago I was 

 urging the same thing, when laboring to 

 induce the setting of iron-clad varieties in 

 northeastern Vermont. My idea, at 

 that time, was that the yearling trees 

 could be sold much cheaper, and people 

 could afford to buy and plant them in 

 larger quantities. But I found it to be 

 very difficult, in fact practically impossi- 

 ble to sell yearling, or even two year old 

 trees, with straight unbranched stems, 

 because they look so small as to produce 

 the impression that few planters would 

 live to see them come to any considerable 

 degree of fruitage. As for myself, I have 

 planted hundreds of them, and they are 

 now among the best trees in my older 

 orchards. Of course subsequent gi-owth 

 depends upon subseciuent care. 



Vermont. T. H. Hoski.ns. 



I have been a reader of C..\rde.ni.ni. 

 about a year * * and I expect to con- 

 tinue to be one as long as it is published 

 on its present lines, for I like it immensely. 



Branch Co., Mich. Geo. D. Ford. 



I like Gardening very much, it is so 

 thoroughlv practical. H. G. P. 



September 24-, •9-1. 



The Gardeni.\g I consider is the best 

 floral and gardening journal published. 

 C. W. P. 



Shickley, Neb., Sept. 26, '94-. 



