5S 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



pear trees, and about one-third of them 

 are now coming into bearing, but dis- 

 eases are, it seems, following up as fast 

 as the trees are growing. Please, sir, 

 if there is any cure, will you let me 

 know through the Canadian Horticul- 

 turist, and oblige your constant reader % 



D. B. H. 



January 19, 1883. 



FRUIT IN CLINTON, ETC. 



To THE Editor of the Canadian Horticulturist. 



I think that the readers of the Hor- 

 ticulturist should return you thanks for 

 its excellent appearance, and for the 

 valuable reading it contained during 

 the past year. I think it a shame that 

 every fruit-grower cannot be induced to 

 take it. As an old member and resid- 

 ing in a cold part of Ontario, the diffi- 

 culties of fruit-growing the past year 

 have been many. I think that it was 

 the spring frost that killed the plum 

 and peach crop and lessened the grape 

 crop. I trimmed the grape in the fall, 

 laid them down and covered them with 

 leaves and boards. 1 had a medium 

 crop. The Clinton and other thin-leaf 

 vnrieties were eaten bare, so that the 

 fruit did not ripen ; the spring was late 

 and the frost came on early in the fall, 

 so that the late grapes were destro3'^ed. 

 My Burnet grape has fruited three 

 years. I have had to root it up as I 

 cannot prevent it from mildewing ; also 

 the Salem. I potted strawberry plants, 

 and they bore a good crop the first 

 year. There was an insect that eat the 

 leaves in small holes. If I found a 

 plant dying, on digging up the root 

 there was the larva of the June beetle, 

 good to feed chickens. The gooseberry 

 and currents were badly affected with 

 worms on the leaves all the season till 

 the fruit was ripe; the rain washed the 

 helebore off". To avoid the loss of my 

 bushes by the pith worm, I think the 

 bush form is the best, as you can cut 

 out the affected stems and renew with 



new wood ; not so with the single stem 

 or tree form, as it will destroy it. I 

 tie them together in the fall, so as to 

 prevent the snow from breaking them 

 down. I have a number of unfruited 

 English gooseberries ; most of them are 

 aff'ected with the mildew. The Down- 

 ings and Houghton Seedlings are the 

 best for a sure crop here. The Grimes 

 golden pipin apple has fruited some 

 years. I picked three bushels last fall 

 badly affected with the worm ; the fruit 

 is good quality for eating, cooking or 

 keeping. I have them on hand now. 

 The crop of apples was not good in this 

 country last fall — worm-eaten, spotted 

 and disfigured — yet thousands of barrels 

 were shipped ; but the greatest diffi- 

 culty is to get fruit-growers to be honest 

 and pick and pack them right for the 

 English market. My Grimes golden 

 pipin tree is badly affected with the 

 bark coming off in scales, leaving a 

 hole open into the wood underneath ; 

 it is full of insects, and I call them the 

 woolley aphis. They are red and look 

 like a mildew on them ; they came 

 with the tree. What is your remedy 

 to kill them 1 I was going to wash the 

 tree with soft-soap water in the spring. 

 [Yes, that is right. — Ed.] What is the 

 cause of the strawberry flower going into 

 a black, hard substance instead of to 

 fruit ] [Probably late frost. —Ed.] The 

 plum trees are all getting badly affected 

 with rot and black knot. We ought to 

 get a law passed, making a fruit-grower 

 a constable, to protect him from boys 

 stealing his fruit. I have tried differ- 

 ent ways to keep grapes. The only 

 way I have succeeded is in putting them 

 down in sawdust. I found hemlock 

 best, dried in the oven. We j)ut down 

 some Clinton, Isabella, Salem and a few 

 of Rogers in cork sawdust that I pro- 

 cured at the fruit stores, that the Span- 

 ish grapes are packed in. My grapes 

 are opening out as fresh as when they 

 came off the vine ; some of the stems 



