THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



Reports Should be Reliable. 



Sir,— In the Sept. No. of the Horticul- 

 turist, one J. Henderson, of Stittsville, finds 

 fault with the accuracy of my report on 

 fruit prospt-cts in your July Number, with 

 special reference to plums and strawberries. 

 Evidently your correspondent's knowledge of 

 plums is limited to the native wild plum of 

 country gardens and fence rows, which has 

 undoubtedly been much subject to blight of 

 late years, but as I did not mention this type 

 of plum, I fail to see the point of his criti- 

 cism. The kind of j)lums I referred to and 

 mention l)y name, Oueii, Pond's Seedling, 

 (Jlass Seedling and others of that class, as 

 well as the Western forms, UeSoto, Weaver, 

 Cheney, etc., bore and ripened the greatest 

 crop on record in this district, not only in 

 what your correspondent chooses to call my 

 "sheltered cottage garden," which he never 

 saw, but in such exposed situations as the 

 Experimental farm here and many other 

 similar places that I know of. I know of one 

 fiiass Seedling, off which the owner sold 

 twelve pailfuls besides what they ueed. We 

 think that a pretty good crop here. 



He is quite correct in saying there was no 

 cold weather in June in the Ottawa Valley. 

 No one said there was. The blooming sea- 

 son of strawberries this year was from the 

 fifteenth to the end of May, during that time 

 we had continuous cool weather, which I 

 thought was the cause of the very uneven 

 fertilization which was so prevalent in this 

 district. 



1 have always endeavored to have my 

 reports as accurate as possible, never sending 

 in one without consulting with several fruit 

 growers and sometimes writing six or eight 

 letters to giowers in the Ottawa Valley, ask- 

 ing for information before makinu; up my 

 report, so that if they are so unreliable and 

 erroneous as your correspondent thinks they 

 are, 1 am not alone to blame. 



R. B WilYTK. 



Ollawa. 



Wild Flowers and Women. 



Salient characteristics of the American 

 Institutes National Photograph, Flower and 

 Fruit Show at the Academy of Design. 



Wild flowers will form one of the most 

 interesting, beautiful and important depart- 

 ments of the national exhibition of photo- 



graphs, flowers and fruits, which will be 

 opened Monday, September 2<jth, by the 

 American Institute at the Academy of 

 Design. Because of the general interest that 

 women take in flowers, and because of the 

 number of exhibits made in the show of 

 amateur photographs by women, the coming 

 novel exhibition will be peculiarly a woman's 

 show. 



The exhibition will be opened in the height 

 of the (Golden Hod season, and will be timely 

 for other late maturing species of American 

 flowers that are recognized by the many, and 

 that are popular favorites. The veteran 

 authority on horticulture, Dr. F. M. Hexa- 

 nier, who is the most ardent and active of all 

 his associates in the Board of Managers of 

 the American Institute Fair in organizing the 

 Flower Show, promises that the coming ex- 

 hibition of native American Howers will be 

 most valuable as a practical botanical lesson 

 and a thing of great beauty as well. 



Re Curled Leaf. 



Sir, -Mr. J. M. Dickson, of Haniilton, 

 writes, rt curled leaf and mentions the use of 

 wood ashes. It would be interesting to 

 know how much per tree was applied, time 

 of year exact, if possible, at which applica- 

 tion was made, also if the trees owned by 

 the two gentlemen were of the same variety 

 of peach. The latter question seems to the 

 writer a very important one in deciding 

 whether the ashes were or were not a pre- 

 ventive of the curl. As in many orchards 

 this year, as in general some kinds were 

 almost free from curl, while others were com- 

 pletely covered with it. 



W. C. Orr. 

 Winona. 



'■'■Re peach curl" party claims to have 

 used wood ashes with success in former years 

 on Crawford, Early Alexander and other 

 varieties. 



This season, Crawfords treated were un- 

 affected, while Crawford, Elberta and un- 

 known, not treated, were attacked. About 

 one peck of hard wood ashes was applied in 

 early spring, as soon as snow had gone, and 

 dug into the soil at a later period. 



I am not a practical fruit grower, and can- 

 not say much about the matter. I migiitadd 

 that I am a practised consumer of peaches. 

 J. M, Dickson. 



Hamilton. 



THE APPLE MARKETS. 



Messrs. J. Keltrick & Co. write : 

 Official statistics are now published regard- 

 ing the crop in the Home Districts, from 

 which it appears that out of 3.31 reports, 150 

 are to the efifect that the supply will be an 

 average one. 



42 . . . . over. 



139 under. 



so that it may be taken for granted that the 



result will be fairly satisfactory. As to the 

 quality, we have no reason to believe the 

 fruit will shew any improvement, consequent- 

 ly we repeat that English Apples will inter- 

 fere very little with shipments from your 

 side. 



One indication of this is the fact that al- 

 though English fruit is even now on the 

 market, our imported Lisbon Apples are 



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