THE CANADIAN HOKTICULTUETST. 



245 



should report all such offenders to the 

 County Crown Attorney, whose duty 

 it should be to prosecute the offenders 

 before the County Judge. It is only 

 by the adoption of some such severe 

 measure as this that we can ever hope 

 to contend successfully against those 

 noxious weeds which threaten to annex 

 the province within a few years. As 

 regards these troublesome pests, I can 

 do no better than to quote some ex- 

 tracts from " Colin Clout's Diary," by 

 Geo. A. Allen. 



I have had the extracts copied by 

 one of my grand-daughters, who has 

 been here on a visit for some months. 

 She has a habit in writing of placing 

 the words very far apart, but I do not 

 Suppose your compositors or proof- 

 readers will find fault with her on that 

 account. 



APPLES AND PEARS. 



I have never had such a wretched 

 show of small size apples and pears as 

 I have had this year. A kind of blight 

 seems to have passed over the apple 

 trees. The blossoms set well at first, 

 but many of the fruit spores, with 

 their leaves and blossoms, withered 

 away, and in some cases when the apple 

 had become a fine size they dropped off, 

 bringing the spores with them. 



PLUMS. 



My plums are pretty on the whole, 

 though small ; however, I have only lost 

 one plum tree, a Lombard, grafted some 

 years ago on a wild stock. Some of my 

 neighbors have lost most of their plum 

 trees. The summer rains were local, so 

 that in some places the fruit, both apples 

 and pears, was of a large size. 



CRACKI.VG AND SPOTTING. 



Some years ago a St. Lawrence apple 

 tree (dwarf) had almost every apple 

 cracked ; this year, on the same tree, 

 not one. Two years ago, the only snow- 

 apple tree I have (dwarf) was loaded 

 with fruit, but nearly every apple badly 



spotted. Last year it bore very few, 

 but they were good. This year the 

 same tree is bearing moderately, and 

 scarcely a spot on any of them. The 

 Yellow Bellflowers seem rather more in- 

 clined to spot this year, though they usu- 

 ally do not. A kind of blight seems to 

 have passed over the apple trees this 

 year ; the leaves assumed, svhen seen 

 from a little distance, a kind of greyish 

 tint, and the leaves ai-e curling badly, 

 especially near the ends of the branches, 

 and the leaves begin to fall off unusu- 

 ally early. 



SMALL FRUITS. 



Of small fruits I have very few ; 

 some red and black currants and 

 gooseberries ; these last were stripped 

 of their leaves by the caterpillars, but 

 the wild raspberries were very abund- 

 ant. I had one of tb" Russian mul- 

 berries last year ; it did not come on 

 very well ; perhaps the soil was too 

 heavy for it. It was cut down in the 

 winter, but is coming on again this year. 

 I had some more last spring and planted 

 them in a drier, better drained place, 

 one failed ; the other is growing very 

 well. They are said to stand the win- 

 ter without protection ; in Montana 

 with protection. Either the soil must 

 be too stiff a clay loam, or the climate 

 too damp for them. I sent one to a 

 friend in Cornwall, England, and he 

 tells me it is growing very well. Some 

 years ago I sent him some cuttings of 

 the Concord grape. They grew well, 

 but as yet show no signs of producing 

 fruit. 



GRAPES. 



My grapes failed altogether to ripen 

 last year. This year the cool weather 

 in July, which was so favorable 

 to the filling of the grain, was un- 

 favorable to the grapes. The warm 

 weather in August brought them on a 

 little ; I was in hopes they would ripen, 

 but the cool, unsettled weather we have 

 had since renders that very unlikely. 



