230 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTUEIST. 



matter how rich the land is, I find it 

 pays to manure in the hill ; cover the 

 manure about four inches with mellow 

 earth, and drop the seed on the hill and 

 step on it. This presses it down firmly 

 into the soil, and prevents its drying out, 

 while the loose earth, with which I 

 cover, keeps it from baking. The seed 

 will come up sooner and much more uni- 

 formly for this pressing into the soil. 

 If the weather is favorable the vines will 

 run in five weeks so that one cannot 

 cultivate with a horse and up to that 

 time the more they are cultivated the 

 better. 



As soon as fairly in the rough leaf, 

 thin to four in a hill. With good 

 weather you can begin picking in six 

 weeks from planting, and to get a nice, 

 uniform-sized pickle, they must be gone 

 ov< every day. The vines should never 

 be moved in picking them, for a vine 

 that is disturbed never does so well after- 

 wards. The best-sized pickles are those 

 from three to four inches in length. If 

 any are missed until they are too large 

 for pickles, they must be taken off" the 

 next day, for the vine on which a cu- 

 cumber is going to seed will not continue 

 to bear pickles. A forty-gallon barrel 

 will hold about 4,000 of the small-sized 

 pickles, after they are salted, and I have 

 kept them three or four years. I do not 

 use brine for salting, but put in a layer 

 of salt, and one of pickles, and let them 

 make their own brine. It will take 

 about a half bushel of salt for a barrel 

 of pickles, and the barrel will need to 

 be filled up two or three times as they 

 settla A board that will fit into the 

 i^sad of the barrel should be placed on 

 them, and a weight sufficient to keep 

 them under the brine. I would rather 

 sell the pickles as gathered for $1.50 per 

 1,000 than to salt them, although I have 

 never sold at less than $2.50. It is 

 difficult to state with accuracy the yield 

 of an acre of pickles, but under favorable 

 circumstances they will yield a large 



profit at the lowest price named. I 

 have often grown my best turnip crops 

 among the pickles, and I have adopted 

 the rule of always sowing turnips at the 

 last hoeing of the pickles. The shade of 

 the vines seems to be favorable, and 

 there is plenty of time after the pickles 

 are done bearing for the turnip crop to 

 mature. — <W. F. Brown, in the Country 

 Gentleman. 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE 

 SUMAC. 



There are thousands of people who 

 wander through the woods in AutumjD, 

 picking the beautiful scarlet and yel- 

 low leaves of the sumac bush to deco- 

 rate their rooms, without knowing that 

 there is any other use for the plant. 

 Yet the importation of the sumac into 

 the United States this year, will 

 amount to about 11,000 tons, costing 

 about $1,000,000. The leaves of the 

 sumac, dried and ground, are largely 

 used in tanning and dyeing, and in 

 Sicily and other parts of Italy the plant 

 is carefully cultivated and treated. In 

 view of the fact that the American 

 sumac contains from six to eight per 

 cent, more tannic acid than the Italian, 

 and rem.embering that the plant grows 

 in wild profusion throughout the coun- 

 try, it seems reasonable to believe that 

 it might be a very profitable crop. At 

 the present time the amount of native 

 sumac brought into market does not 

 exceed 8,000 tons yearly, and its mar- 

 ket price is only $50 per ton, just half 

 the price of the Italian product. This 

 large difierence in the market value of 

 the foreign and domestic article is due 

 to the fact that the American sumac, as 

 at present prepared, is not suitable for 

 making the finer white leather so much 

 used for gloves and fancy shoes, owing 

 to its giving a disagreeable yellow or 

 dirty color. 

 The many attempts that have been 



