THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



205 



In raspberries I ordered 1,000 Brandy- 

 wine, 1,000 Turner, 500 Davidson's 

 Thornless, 500 Gregg, and 100 each of 

 two other varieties. I ordered the above 

 except the Sharpless and Early Canada, 

 from A. M. Purdy, of Palmyra, and 

 with some other things my order 

 amounted to nearly 8100, but instead of 

 getting what I ordered, he sent me 

 things I never ordered in the place of 

 what I did order. He did not send me 

 one cane of the Gregg Raspberry, but 

 he sent me hundreds of Green Prolific, 

 the same as to the Bidwell, and also hun- 

 dreds of the Glendale Strawberry. The 

 latter strawberry, with Green Prolific, 

 I never planted. This, I consider, ex- 

 tremely dishonest in any nurseryman. 

 What would he (Purdy) think if he 

 were to send $20 to a grocer for that 

 worth of tea, and he kept his $20 and 

 sent him soap instead. Why that would 

 not be as bad, because soap is not a per- 

 ishable article, but strawberry plants are. 

 I also set out a few grape vines, a few 

 plumbs and apples, of course, and I am 

 trying the Flemish Beauty, Clapp's Fav- 

 orite and the Sheldon Pears. The two 

 first came out all right, but one of my 

 Sheldon's was frozen down about 18 

 inches. This I expected, as it sent out 

 a shoot about three ft. long. This I don't 

 like in a fruit tree of any kind in our 

 section. I want them to grow slow. I 

 know the Flemish Beauty and Clapp's 

 Favorite to be doing well in and near 

 Perth. One Flemish I have had under 

 my eye for ten years now. There are 

 two seedling pear trees (Old Patriarchs) 

 in the Township of Bathurst, that bear, 

 I am told, large crops of fruit every 

 year. I have seen the trees, but never 

 when the fruit was in season, i hope 

 to taste the fruit this coming fall. I 

 boast of being successful at grafting, but 

 I could not get a graft from one of these 

 trees to grow for me. If the fruit suits 

 me I will try again. At the time I 

 found these pear trees in Bathurst I also 



found an apple I mistook for a Spitzen- 

 burg. It was in the month of March, as 

 good a desert apple as the Spitzenburg, 

 a good cooker, and the person (a highly 

 respectable farmer) in whose house I 

 got them assured me they grew on an 

 old tree in his orchard, and he express- 

 ed himself as exceedingly sorry that the 

 tree being very old was showing signs 

 of decay. He could not give me 

 the history of the tree. It was on 

 the place when he bought the farm 

 over 40 years ago. I took some 

 scions home with me, and in the spring 

 I grafted them into seedlings ; I try al- 

 ways to have somefor such purposes, and 

 I hope next year to see some of them 

 bearing fruit. I found another old 

 apple tree that bears a good crop 

 every year of fruit larger than the 

 snow apple, and I think a little better 

 in quality. This tree, I am assured, is 

 a seedling. I hope also to see this tree 

 fruit on my place next year. I am try- 

 ing several varieties of apples, and I 

 have a plum I found with a farmer that 

 bears large crops of plums every year of 

 a quality if not equal to the old English 

 Magnum Bonum, they are nevertheless 

 very good and a good size, and I ex- 

 pected to have seen it growing on my 

 own grounds this year, as one of the 

 trees I have set bore quite a lot of fruit, 

 and some I took off to make sure of some 

 maturing, as I felt rather anxious about 

 it. I visited the tree every day and I 

 found the plums to be dropping off until 

 there was only one left, and as this one 

 stayed for some time all alone I thought 

 I was to have one, but woe is me, one 

 day I went to look at my poor lone 

 plum and found an insect of some kind 

 making a seat of it, and whilst I was 

 looking at it, down went the plum, in- 

 sect and all. (No sparrow near.) I 

 looked on the ground to find the insect, 

 but could not see a trace of him. I 

 wished to know whether the weight of 

 the insect brought it down or whether it 



