AMERICAN INSTITUTE 135 



it is "better to put all tliat are large enough in tlie cellar, where they can be 

 got at to Avork upon in winter. If left standing and covered, the trees are 

 sometimes half cut off by mice. 



CHERRY CURRANTS ON SANDY SOIL. 



Solon Robinson. — I hold in my hand a letter from S. F. Covington, In- 

 dianapolis, which although addressed to me personally for information, I 

 choose to answer here, because it refers to matter discussed here, and both 

 the questions and answers are interesting to others, as well as the writer. 

 Members, too, will notice that the number of persons interested in matters 

 talked of here, are not merely the fifty or sixty in the way of attending 

 these meetings. The letter reads as follows : 



" I have just read your remarks upon the cherry currant at the American 

 Institute Farmers' Chib, published in The Tribjaie, July 20. You recom- 

 mend the cultivation of this currant upon the waste lands of Long Island, 

 from which I infer that it might be cultivated to advantage on the sandy 

 lands in this State, lying near to Lake Michigan. I own some of this sand 

 land, which is now unproductive — indeed, it is a barren waste. I am anx- 

 ious to find something — and I doubt not but there is something — adapted 

 to such lands, and in this is my apology for intruding this note upon you. 

 I believe you know the character of the land to which I refer. Do you 

 think the cherry currant can be made to grow upon it ? I should be very 

 glad to have your advice, though it may be brief, upon this matter." 



To be brief, then, this writer, like a host of others, supposes, because 

 thousands of acres of land right by the threshold of this city has been per- 

 mitted to remain unused and worthless, because its semi-savage occupants 

 choose to keep it for a deer park, grouse preserve and charcoal-burners' 

 paradise, that it is a sandy barren. I wish he could have been of the party 

 that spent a day lately on Long Island, and wrote an account of the trip in 

 The Tribune. He would have learned that it is not a barren, although 

 treated in a barren manner by some of its owners. It is true that portions 

 of Long Island are like the lands spoken of near the head of Lake Michi- 

 gan, a sand drift. The writer is right in this. I do know the character 

 of those lands around the head of Lake Michigan. They lie in circular 

 ridges around from Chicago to Michigan city, extending back several miles, 

 alternating with sand-hills, low ridges and flats, thinly covered with pine, 

 cedar, oak, and some little other timber, and marshes, creeks, bayous, la- 

 goons, springs, ponds, and one navigable river. Some of the ridges have 

 been cultivated and proved productive in various crops. The greatest dif- 

 ficulty appears to be a tendency of water, by capillary conduction, to the 

 surface, where the land is flat and richest, at the foot of the ridges. Such 

 land must be underdrained, and at present, rich prairie in close proximity 

 is too cheap and too easily cultivated to make draining and expensive 

 preparation of land an object. No doubt the dryer ridges may be planted 

 and successfully cultivated in these fine currants, but it must be by adding 

 muck from the adjoining marshes, or manure from Chicago, which can be 



