THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



41 



»r#'n.{^^-< 



Fig. 1. 



TAKE CARE OF YOUR ORCHARD 



TREES. 

 When the owner visits his young 

 orchard after the fnows have melted 

 away in spring, he often makes the dis- 

 heartening discovery that many of his 

 trees have been 

 girdled by mice or 

 rabbits. Judging 

 from our own cor- 

 respondence, the 

 damage by these 

 animals must in 

 the aggregate be 

 very hea\-y. 



The first thing 

 to be done is to 

 examine the ext-ent of the injury. Fre- 

 quently it is not so bad as it looks, and 

 the inner Inii'k is not entirely removed. 

 If this covers even a fourth of the 

 wounded portion, 

 and connects the 

 bark above the 

 wound with that 

 below it, the 

 chances are that 

 the wound will 

 heal if diying can 

 be prevented. The 

 ordinary grafting 

 Fig. 2. wax, applied on 



old, worn cotton cloth, or on papei-, as 

 used in grafting, should be applied over 

 the injured portion. This, especially 

 on quite small trees, will prevent all 

 evapoi'ation. Another 

 application is the old 

 grafting clay, made by 

 thorovighly mixing and 

 beating together stiff 

 clay with half as much 

 cow manure. Apply I 

 this over the wound 

 quite thickly, and ' 

 fasten it in place by i 

 Fig. 'A. wrapping with an old 



cloth and tying wdth strings. If the { 

 inner bark is completely gone, nothing I 

 2 ' 



remains but to bridge over the wound 

 with scions, and thus restore the com- 

 munication between the i-oots and the 

 top. The scions may be taken from 

 the same tree if they can be spai-ed, or 

 those from another of the same kind 

 will answer as well. — American Agri- 

 culturist. 



Figure 1 represents the tree completely girdled and 

 the inner bark removed, and figures 2 and 3 shew the 

 manner in which the girdled portion is bridged over 

 with the scions. 



CHIXESE FARMING AROUND SAN 

 FRANCISCO. 



The Chinaman began his usefulness as 

 a market gardener in and around San 

 Francisco nearly thirty years ago, in the 

 days when the Americans had greater 

 treasures to dig for in the earth than 

 vegetables. Men enjoying the prospect 

 of turning \\]y a gold mine with their 

 spades, were not likely to apply them to 

 a potato patch. Yet these men had to 

 eat, and others, not above the humbler 

 occupations, worked to feed them. The 

 first of the Chinese vegetable farmers 

 tlirove so well that other compatriots 

 followed suit, and the housewives of 

 San Francisco soon became familiar 

 with the queer yoked figures and their 

 heaped-up baskets, who announced their 

 coming with a shrill cry, not unlike that 

 of a New York milkman. At first each 

 farmer made his first day's trade on the 

 contents of two baskets. Then the 

 more enterprising hired men to carry 

 additional supplies. The farmer him- 

 self always led, and still leads, the van 

 in these processions, which number fi-om 

 two to a dozen men. He carries the 

 same burden as his hired hands, and 

 does the bargaining for them ; and as 

 their baskets are emptied they are sent 

 to the I'ear, instead of back to the farm 

 to work. The procession leaves town 

 as it entered it, in single file, while the 

 usual chatter is still continued, as if 

 keeping time to the pattering of their 

 slipshod feet. 



