140 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



April, 



This work naturally extends from the 

 school to the home, leading children to share 

 in dooryarrt a<lorninents, and in planting 

 trees by the wayside. Under this new stim- 

 ulus more trees should be set out by the 

 roadsides of America this spring than in 

 any former year. Nothing can add so much 

 to the beauty of oiir roads as long avenues 

 of fine trees. The shade and beauty are 

 grateful to every traveler and do>ibl.f so to 

 the planter, for there is a peculiar pleasure in 

 the parentage of trees, whether forest, fruit 

 or ornamental. They compensate a thou- 

 sandfold for all the care they cost. Happy 

 would it be for all our homes and towns, if, 

 on Arbor Day, every parent, and every 

 girl and boy, should plant, or help in plant- 

 ing (if too young to work alone), 

 some \dne or tree to be known by his 

 or her name. 



One of the educational forces of 

 Arbor Day begins when children are 

 prompted to plant, not only trees, but 

 tree seeds, acorns, Ash, Elm or Maple 

 keys, nuts, drupe-stones or pits, and 

 then year by year to observe the 

 wonderful miracles, which the tree- 

 life they have started is working out 

 before them. What interest and 

 profit, what growth of mind and 

 heart they will gain as they watch the 

 mysterious forces of these living ^^B^S 

 germs; their mai-velous assimilating ""~ 

 power, carrying on such a curious 

 chemistry in their underground laboratoi-y | 

 conjoined with the upper-story apparatus 

 of foliage, secreting acids that dissolve sand 

 and stones, transmuting coarse earth and 

 even filth into living forms of beauty and fra- 

 grance. It is something to drop such a germ 

 in the earth and think ot its possibilities. 



How lasting a contribution may thus be 

 made to the natural beauty around the home. 

 The trees which children start may be prized 

 with a growing sentiment and become living 

 memorials of happy youthful days. 



the old wood at the ground in order to force 

 new canes to grow, losing of ccnirse one 

 season's fruit in order to renew the vine. 



If we begin with this renewal system 

 while the \ines are young, there is seldom 

 trouble in getting canes to grow directly 

 from the ground. Sometimes we may need 

 tt) use a spur at the end of a cane, but it is 

 cvit away the second year and has no time to 

 fill up and clog with resin. The crops from 

 vines managed in this way are always the 

 most satisfactory. I have usually left from 

 three to Ave new canes and cut them when 

 spread at the lower vine. 



The accompanying engraving represents 

 a sample vine ten years old pruned after my 

 modified Kelly's Island system. It will be 



An Improved Fan System of Train- 

 ing. The Kelly's Island System 

 Modified. 



D. S. MARVIN, WATERTOWN, N. Y. 



Referring to my recent article, " Resin in 

 the Vine," I had occasion to allude to what 

 is known as the " Kelly's Island system " of 

 pruning the Grape. Like a great many 

 other practices in horticultural matters, an 

 observing man often finds out the best way 

 of doing his work before he knows the rea- 

 sons for his practice. This and the modifi- 

 cations of the Kelly's Island system to adapt 

 the work to all varying conditions of soil 

 and climate has been found the best of all 

 our systems, because it avoids the filling 

 up of the channels of the circulatory system 

 with the resin of the sap. 



Under our conditions what is known as 

 the fan system of pruning is perhaps as good 

 as any, but it is by no means the old fan 

 system, where the main portion of the wood 

 is old wood with a spur of new wood at the 

 end of the canes. Even this, though, is better 

 than the regtilar arm and spur system. 



In my experience the arm and spur system 

 has done well for a few years and given 

 good results; after this it has utterly failed 

 to give satisfactory crops of fruit; the spurs 

 especially become clogged as they annually 

 lengthen and fill up with the resin of the 

 sap. If continued the spurs get so clogged 

 that the vine is forced to push out canes 

 from .adventitious buds at the base of the 

 spurs. I have then been glad to use these 

 canes and cut away the old spurs to renew 

 the forces of the vine. Then the trouble 

 goes to the amis, and they clog up and fill up 

 so that whenever I could I made use of the 

 canes that push out from adventitious buds 

 at the base of the vine and matle new tops. 



I have even had to go so far as to cut away 



IMPROVED RENEWAL FAN SYSTEM OF TRAINING. 



observed that the right hand cane is two- 

 thirds of it old wood, to be all cut away at 

 the next pruning. The old canes that bore 

 a heavy crop of fruit have been pruned away 

 all but the stump of the right hand cane. 

 Three or more buds at the end of the cane, 

 as the \ine may be strong or weak, are to be 

 left to bear fruit, the others to be rubbed off, 

 except enough to form new canes near the 

 ground to renew next year's bearing canes. 



If the vine is a very strong one and the 

 spaces wide between the vines, the two out- 

 side canes are to be left longer to fill the 

 spaces and meet the next vine. In this case 

 I have left six or more fruit buds sometimes. 

 It will be seen that the system can be 

 adapted to the conditions. 



When the vines are to be laid down for 

 winter protection, there is no other system 

 that approaches this for its convenience and 

 economy of labor in the work of laying down 

 in the fall after pruning. There are no old 

 stiff canes to be broken and split in getting 

 them down to the ground. 



The system, as its name indicates, is one 

 of perpetual yoiith. All the evils of the 

 double arm system, especially the clogging 

 of the cii'culatory ducts, is avoided. 



The original Kelly's Island system was 

 one long cane or arm, with spurs for next 

 year's canes at the surface of the soil for re- 

 moval, but it was found objectionable be- 

 cause it is always difficult to get the fruit 

 spurs to grow uniform upon long canes, the 

 first and the last canes growing too strong 

 at the expense of the center canes. 



The tendency may be somewhat counter- 

 acted by bending the cane for a few weeks 

 in the spring so that the center buds are 

 highest, then after they have grown even 

 with the end shoots bringing the cane up to 

 the lower wire, again forming a straight 

 arm. This entails additional care and at- 

 tention at the busiest season of the year, and 

 is inferior to the plan given in the cut. 



Still, the essential idea is the same in both 

 plans; they each avoid the evils of clogging 

 the circulatory ducts, and the difficulties of 

 handling and manipulating old wood. The 

 roots may wax old, yet they do not become 

 infirm with age, as do canes above ground. 



European or foreign \ines can be trained 

 upon the arm system better than our own, 

 because they do not contain the resinous 

 substances in their sap that oure do. 



The Virginia Creeper. 



E. W. L. 



" The common Virginia t'reeper has be- 

 come a great favorite in Loudon for cover- 

 ing walls, and is generally preferred to Ivy." 

 The above paragraph I read recently in a 

 newspaper, and I am glad to know that this 

 beautiful American vine is so appreciated 

 in England. The Virginia Creeper (yl /iipc/oj)- 

 s(.s quinqucfoUn), often though erroneously 

 called Woodbine, is a lovely vine, and is so 

 easily grown that every yard or garden 

 should have at least one of them. 



I have a number of these viues covering a 

 shed, about one hundred and fifty feet long 

 and twenty high, and it is one of (he hand- 

 somest features of my garden. The leaves 

 are a dark glossy green, and the vines 

 that have a warm exposure will color 

 beautifully iu the autumn, from the 

 darkest shade of maroon to the most 

 brUliant scarlet. 



It is a very hardy vine, needing no 

 care or protection in the winter, and 

 is one of the earliest to cheer us with 

 its buds in the spring; and no insects 

 or worms live or harbor on it. 



It can be grown from the seed or 

 from cuttings, as it will root easily 

 at the joints, or fixim sprouts. It 

 needs little or no cultivation, and 

 makes a beautiful covering for an 

 unsightly wall, fence or building. 

 It requires support I ike a G rape-vine; 

 and when the vines are large ami l.ra .y a good 

 way to fasten them up is to get at a lumber 

 yard what are called furring strips; nail 

 blocks an inch or more thick to the wall or 

 building at proper height and distance apart, 

 and then nail these furring strips on the 

 blocks, leaving the vines between the strips 

 and the wall; and as the vines continue to 

 grow and clamber up, hold them up by nail- 

 ing on more of these strips. 



Some Notes on the February Issue. 



W. FALCONER, QUEENS CO.. N. Y. 



Early Celery. It is almost impossible for me 

 to get blanched Celer.v a.s early as July 1st (p. 89), 

 on account of rust. 



An Improved Hot-bed, p. 91.— First-rate in 

 every way. But if I could afford to build a house 

 like that I'd heat it by hot water and a base burn- 

 ing boiler. Manure at $2 a wagon load, and the 

 time spent in hauling, heating, fitting in and 

 etc.! No, it wouldn't pay on Long Island. 



Peas. I think it better to wait four or five days 

 and get delicious Alphas than to strive for earli- 

 ness and eat the comparatively tasteless Daniel 

 O'Rourke— the " Earliest " and "Extra Early" of 

 many seedsmen. 



MiNA LoBATA, to flower it, p. iC— Raise the 

 plants early, plant out in poor soil and a warm, 

 sunny exposure. It has flowered beautifully in 

 several places around New York. 



No Money in Radishes.— Riverhead,at the east 

 end of Long Island, February 'Sd, a butcher's 

 store. Splendid Turnip Radishes in bunches of a 

 dozen roots were for sale; price 3 cents a bunch! 

 Grow Radishes and star\e to death! 



An Effectfve Tree Gitard, p. 100.— Perhaps if 

 it were turned upside down. As the lowermost 

 branches are the widest spreading, so should the 

 guard be widest at the bottom. And that is bad; 

 it should be of the same width top and bottom. 



Galtonia (Byacinthus) Candicans, p. 101.— It 

 bears and ripens seeds abundantly. Seeds sown 

 in rows out-of-doors in spring germinate as 

 readily as do those of Onions or Gladioluses, and 

 seedlings bloom the second year. While young 

 bulbs have been perfectly hard.\' with mc, old or 

 large bulbs left out-of-doors have rotted. 



To Make A Quick Lawn, p. 1U.5.— No, No. If 

 you wish to make a lawn don't use cither Oats or 

 Timothy under any circumstance*, nor sow an 

 ounce of Red top that costs only 40 cents a bushel. 



Amaryllises From Seed, p. .534.- Sow any 

 time when you get the seed, providing you can 

 keep up a minimum temperature of fiO°. In sow- 

 ing I stick in the seeds edgewise; in this way they 

 are less apt to rot than if they were sown flat on 

 their sides. They germinate in 3 or 4 weeks. I 



