84 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[March, 



Virginia correspondent for the information. I an- 

 ticipate in the near future an entire change in 

 many forms of our choicest fruits, and perhaps the 

 plum will lead in the change, for it is certainly 

 among our choicest fruit and now seems to re- 

 ceive a special attention from many of our leading 

 horticulturists." 



Improved Persimmons. — Mr. L. B. Case, re- 

 ferring to this fruit says : " Undoubtedly we shall, 

 at no very distant day, secure choice and service- 

 able forms of our native persimmon, worthy a place 

 in every fruit garden." 



Budded Apple Stocks. — WiUiam Bustrin, Dal- 

 las, Texas, says : " Referring to the subject of 

 growing apple trees from buds, I would like to say 

 something of my experience in Texas. Small seed- 

 lings set out in spring, and budded in June, made 



excellent trees by fall. Parties to whom I sent 

 these trees reported them the best they had got 

 from any one for many years." 



Kieffer's Hybrid Pear. — Mr. Edwin Satter- 

 thwaite said at the recent meeting of the State 

 Horticultural Association at Harrisburg, January 

 i6th, 1883: "I have fruited the Kieffer three 

 years, and had last year more than one hundred 

 bushels of the fruit, of uniform large size and as 

 perfect in shape as if made in a mould, and all 

 ripening of a rich golden yellow color, quite a 

 number with a beautiful red cheek, keeping for 

 weeks after coloring and when perfectly ripe of 

 uniform good quality. It must be borne in mind 

 that this pear is not fit to eat until perfectly ripe 

 and soft, which it commonly is not until long after 

 it begins to color." 



Forestry. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Practical Forestry. — There is an im- 

 mense amount of practical knowledge yet to 

 be evolved before forestry culture can be 

 made a great success in our country ; but the 

 rapidity with which Americans learn when they set 

 themselves seriously about learning, will enable 

 them to plant and manage forests with tolerable 

 success whenever forest planting shall become an 

 everyday business. Even in the old world, where 

 they have had ages of inducement in forestry 

 planting, they still find they have neglected to 

 work out many valuable problems. For instance, 

 the French arboricultural journals are now discus- 

 sing whether it is best to set out one year old 

 plants when a forest is to be founded, or whether 

 it would be better to take plants several years old. 

 Now at first thought, the usual forestry essay 

 writer for the newspaper would say at once, take 

 the young seedlings, by all means. They are 

 cheaper ; they take less handling ; they are planted 

 more rapidly ; they are more certain to grow ; and 

 they recover from the check of transplanting in a 

 much shorter time than larger trees. But on the 

 other side are some considerations seldom thought 

 of. In the case of small trees, many more are 

 planted than are necessary to form a permanent 



forest, because young trees need the protection of 

 one another against wind and weather in infancy, 

 and there has to be the labor of thinning after the 

 young trees have grown. Then it is found best — 

 nay, almost essential to profitable forestry — that 

 the forest of young trees to grow ' rapidly into 

 profit, must be as well cultivated as crops of corn, 

 and thus we have four or five years of hard work 

 in the case of the seedling plant. Now plants for 

 a forest of a thousand acres, sown thinly in a nur- 

 sery plot, may be grown on a half acre for five 

 years at a comparatively low cost. They need not 

 die in transplanting more than one year old, if the 

 planter understands his business, and there need 

 not be more than one year's difference in the re- 

 sult of check to growth from the larger size. 

 There is no doubt but in these five-year old seed- 

 lings there would be four years gained in interest 

 on ground and labor expenses, with no necessity 

 for the cost of labor in thinning as in the other 

 case, as they could be set just where they are to 

 remain. 



As we have said, it is an unsettled question in 

 Europe, and they are doing there just what we are 

 often apt to do, writing about it with hours on hours 

 of labor on each other's opinions, but so far as 

 we see, no one attempting to solve the matter by 

 figures. It really looks as if the larger tree 



