7 6 



GARDENING. 



Nov. 75, 



south as Alabama, in the usual way, 

 through congressmen, to farmers, pro- 

 miscously; and as very few farmers can 

 graft (simple as the operation is), these 

 were probably mostly thrown away. At 

 any rate, ten years later, comparatively 

 few of them were known, or in cultiva- 

 tion 



But the necessity still remaining for 

 fruit trees which would endure the win- 

 ters of the northern tier of states and 

 Canada, it was arranged that two ex- 

 perts, Prof. Budd, of the Iowa />gricul- 

 tural College, and Mr. Charles Gibb, of 

 Montreal, should proceed to Russia, and 

 obtain from among the nurserymen and 

 orchardists of that empire, the best pos- 

 sible collection of tree fruits; not only 

 apples, to which the national importa- 

 tion had been limited, but a full collection 

 of all tree fruits known in Russia, of posi- 

 tive merit, and suited to American re- 

 quirements. In this list it was intended 

 to include summer, fall, and winter varie- 

 ties of apples; and also seasonal varieties 

 of pears, pluins and cherries; all tree fruits, 

 in short, that were likely to prove useful 

 in our cold North. 



The results of such an importation 

 could only be fully knovtui and estimated 

 after a sufficient time to allow ot the bear- 

 ing and testing which must precede gen- 

 eral acceptations. This testing is now 

 beginning to show appreciable results in 

 many gardens and orchards, from Maine 

 to Dakota. In the northern states of the 

 Mississippi Valley there is yet naturally 

 some difference of opinion; and this will 

 no doubt continue until the adaptation 

 of different varieties to differing localities 

 and methods of treatment is more thor- 

 oughly studied, and reported upon by 

 experimentors. 



One of the greatest difficulties in this 

 connection arises from the fact that these 

 fruits were to a considerable degree ob- 

 tained from a portion of Russia many 

 degrees north even of our northern bound- 

 ary, and consequently where the season 

 of growth is considerably shorter than 

 on the same parallel in America The 

 results now show, as might be expected, 

 that some if not all of the winter sorts 

 are not as good keepers here as in Russia; 

 and the question is anxiously being asked 

 whether any of the Russion apples will 

 continue to be such, even in our northern 

 tier of states, and in the southern parts 

 of Canada. 



As variety after variety has come to 

 fruitage in my orchards, I have watched 

 and tested them with lively interest; and 

 I have now become quite convinced that 

 we are to get from among these Russians 

 a sufficient number of good marketable 

 winter apples to put us, as growers, upon 

 an equality with orchardists handling 

 the old standard English varieties, and 

 their native seedlings. One of these, 

 which came to me without name, and 

 which Prof. Budd has not as yet identi- 

 fied or found in his own great collection 

 at the Iowa Agricultural College, keeps 

 perfectly well into May, which is consid- 

 erably better than our old Baldwin does 

 under the most favorable conditions. 



The apple here alluded to is not by any 

 means the only one of these Russians 

 which keeps into the winter season. 

 There are a dozen or more in my collection 

 which continue firm and well flavored 

 two or three months after the usual time 

 of gathering the fruit in the fall. We also 

 have some valuable native seedlings (of 

 which the now widely known Scott's 

 Winter is a representative), that are good 

 keeping fruit. But we h .ve not enough 

 ol these to make more of the same class 

 less highly esteemed, or less than verv 



welcome, whether from abroad or at 

 home. With these varieties now in pos- 

 session, and the reasonable prospect of 

 continued additions, the "cold north" 

 from Maine to Dakota, will soon be ac- 

 knowledged as a legitimate section of the 

 great northern fruit beltof our continent. 

 As new accretions to this already valua- 

 ble collection are made, interest in the 

 subject will be more and more aroused. 

 The high color of nearly all these north- 

 ern fruits is in itself quite important 

 especially as this is, among these north- 

 ern fruits, associated with high flavor in 

 many instances T. H. Hoskins. 



Newport, Vt., Oeto" er 30, '96 



Mushrooms. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MUSHROOM BEDS. 



Mushroom growing will form a large 

 part of our work this winter, and we 

 mean to try and grow them in many dif- 

 ferent ways. Our first bed was put in 

 September 2 and spawned eight days 

 later. The first mess of mushrooms was 

 gathered in just 32 days from the time of 

 spawning. The bed was made up in the 

 usual way excepting that I did not mix 

 soil with all the manure. I used eight 

 inches of rough, strawy manure in the 

 bottom of the bed that no soil had been 

 put into, as I think the heat keeps up 

 better in this way; four inches of finer 

 manure mixed with one-third ot loam 

 was then put on top. I always 

 put in my beds with good hot manure, 

 that is to say, when the manure has been 

 well prepared and the rank heat gone. I 

 like the heat of the bed to go up to 110° 

 to 120°; it will soon come down again, 

 and I have better success with such a bed. 

 I have tried it when the heat of the bed 

 would not go over 85° and got a fair 

 crop, but the mushrooms are always 

 slower in coming, sometimes taking ten 

 weeks to appear. My present bearing 

 bed was spawned when the heat in it 

 declined to 95°, and in this way it stayed 

 for nearly two weeks. 



The experiments I tried were in the cas- 

 ing of the bed; instead of using soil I used 

 dry cow manure in different ways; one 

 part of the bed was cased with cow ma- 

 nure alone, and on this part the finest 

 and earliest mushrooms grew. The mush- 

 rooms were showing in this part of the 

 bed 26 days from spawning, where soil 

 and cow manure were used in equal parts 

 the mushrooms did not show till 36 days 

 from spawning, and where soil was used 

 alone the mushrooms are just beginning 

 to appear; this shows that cow manure 

 is better for casing than soil alone. Then 

 again, I tried quite wet cow manure alone, 

 and on this part the largest mushrooms 

 were, and they came in as early as where 

 the dry cow manure was used. All this 

 is quite interesting, and we will give it a 

 further trial in our next beds, which will 

 be put in next week. 



The bed I have in bearing now is 27 feet 

 long by 4 feet wide, and from it I pick on an 

 average 3to pounds of mushrooms a day. 

 In the early part of October the cellar 

 was rather warm and the mushrooms 

 were not so large as they are now, but 

 now that the temperature has gone down 

 to 50° they are coming on large and solid. 

 I also tried putting the spawn in in pieces 

 about 3 inches square, but find that the 

 plan is not a good one, as the mushrooms 

 come in in such large clumps that half of 

 them have to be wasted while picking a 

 few. A cake of spawn cut into 15 pieces 

 is just about right. David Fraser. 



Mahwah, N.J. 



Raising Mushrooms.— J. J. Abel, Boston 

 street, Baltim re writes- "Kindly let me 

 know where I can find the directions you 

 gave before the Mass. Hort. Society, two 

 or three years ago, for raising mush- 

 rooms." Ans. In the proceedings of the 

 Mass. Hort. Society, part I, 1894-. Apply 

 to Mr. R. Manning, Secretary Hort. Hall, 

 Boston. But if you want to know how 

 to grow mushrooms, it will pay you to 

 get the book "Mushrooms: How to grow 

 them." 



Vegetables. 



VEGETABLE GARDEN NOTES. 



After again trying several varieties of 

 lima beans, including Seibert's Early, all 

 of which are good, we conclude that for 

 next year we « ant only Dreer's Improved. 

 Friends visiting us, who have known 

 only other varieties, generally say they 

 have never seen its equal. It is not much 

 later than the earliest, and when it comes 

 it is the only kind wanted by the family. 



Again I would say if you want a sweet 

 beet, sow yellow turnip; grown in the 

 same bed with the much praised Sutton's 

 Globe (the seed from Sutton), it is very 

 much better on the table. 



The Chantenay carrot for field culture 

 is very satisfactory, because being thick 

 and rather short it can mostly be easily 

 pulled by the stems without digging. 



This year the large white egg plant has 

 been true to name and is of good size and 

 excellent flavor. It grew and yielded 

 better than New York Improved in the 

 same bed. 



Starting onions in flats inside has been 

 successful and has the advantage, if no 

 other, of giving them when planted out a 

 start of the weeds. 



Suttyn's Vegetable Marrow has been 

 very fine, better than any other summer 

 squash we have had. It grows 18 inches 

 long and is thick and heavy, but the vines 

 are so rampant that they need a field to 

 grow in. 



The tomato is greatly modified by cult- 

 ure. Plants from the same sowing of a 

 leading variety were set, a few in an old 

 hotbed to hurrj' them, and allowed to 

 fruit there; these were of incomparably 

 better form and substance than those 

 planted in a rather poor field, and then 

 these well fed plants gave us our latest as 

 well as our first tomatoes. E. R. 



Plainfield.N.J. 



ONION SEEDLINGS INDOORS. 



Inquirer, N. J., asks: "Is it well to 

 transplant onion seedlings in flats before 

 taking them to the open ground?" 



If the seedlings have come up thickly in 

 the flats and are early, it would be well 

 to transplant them pretty close together 

 into other flats, but if they are not very 

 thick and not too early to stand in the 

 boxes unmolested till planting out time, 

 let them alone till then. We have always 

 pricktd them ofl into other flats, or as 

 vou say, transplanted them, it saves 

 them from damping off. But few ama- 

 teurs will ever bother to do this. 



Broccoli v. Cauliflower. — E R.asks: 

 "Is Broccoli desirable where cauliflower 

 succeeds? And will it grow where cauli- 

 flower does not?" 



We prefer the cauliflower. So far as 

 our experience goes — and we have grown 



