VOL II.] NOVEMBER, 1879. [No. 11. 



NOTES FROM CHATHAM. 



BY R. O'HARA, CHATHAM. 



In Kent Country at this date, July 25th, 1879, the fruit growers 

 have every reason to be satisfied with the general results of their labor. 

 A June frost somewhat damaged the strawberry crop in the interior 

 of the county, otherwise, all fruits except apples were in great 

 abundance. This crop is thin, owing probably to the prodigious yield 

 of last year. Grapes and peaches are in great profusion. 



This is with me the fourth summer of the Salem Grape vine dis- 

 tributed by the Association, who with perhaps unintentional liberality 

 sent me two specimens. For the reception of these interesting plants, 

 I prepared, at the foundation of a verandah with a south-western 

 exposure, two trenches six feet square and three feet deep; these I 

 filled with fresh sods, bones, charcoal and ordinary garden soil. A 

 space of twenty-nine feet by eight feet is now almost entirely covered 

 with rank foliage, and with such a weight of fruit that I am tempted 

 to cut part of it off. I lay down the vines every winter in the angle 

 formed by the surface of the plot and the base of the verandah, 

 covering with an ordinary board. I am satisfied that in every part of 

 Canada this extra trouble is well repaid, and in this latitude we are 

 satisfied that every vine twig so treated in the autumn will be alive 

 in the spring. 



The Downing Gooseberry has succeeded famously. The bush 

 bears well. Tlie fruit, a light greenish white, being of the size of a 

 musket ball. The flavor, however, in the opinion of most people being 

 decidedly inferior to that of the Houghton Seedling. The former shows 

 a trace of mildew here and there, the latter never. 



The Glass' Seedling Plum is still growing with the rapidity 

 peculiar to this fruit tree under favorable circumstances. I may add 

 that all ray operations in gardening are in a rich clay soD, disintegrated 



