POPULAR GARDENING 



AND FRUIT GROWING. 



"ACCUSE NOT NATURE, SHE HATH DONE HER PART; DO THOU BUT THfAK."— MiLTOM. 



Vol. III. 



3i/C^-5r, X888. 



No. 8. 



The Spring-scented buds all around me are swelling; 



There are songs in the stream, there's health In the 

 Kale; 

 A sense of delight In each bosom is swelling 



As float the pure day-beams o'er mountain and vale_ 

 The desolate reign of old Winter is broken. 



The verdure is fresh upon every tree; 

 Of Nature's revival the charm, and a token 



Of love, O thou spirit of beauty! to thee. 



— Willis Qaylord Clark. 



No OAIN ever comes from working a wet soil. 



Where will it Stop. One thing is certain.the 

 size <»f the Strawberry has more than doubled 

 within the last 40 years. 



William Parby. In the death of this eminent 

 horticulturist, at Parry, N. J., on Feb. 28, the 

 country sustained a great loss. He was a most 

 intcllitrent and successful cultivator of fruits 

 and nursery stocli, and the originator and intro- 

 ducer of numerous new varieties that have be- 

 come famous, notably the Kiefler Pear. He was 

 "I years of age. 



Catch the Thieves. There is one class of plant 

 " raisers " who should be vigorousl.v suppressed. 

 We refer to those who steal bedding plants from 

 flower beds about town at the planting season. 

 Then the plants are put into pots and the next 

 day the stolen article is peddled out at low rates. 

 This evil has grown to a grievous extent in many 

 places, and our advice to florists in these places 

 is to form a protective association, olTering a re- 

 ward of $.50 or more for the conviction of any 

 plant thief. This has been tiied in some eastern 

 cities with good results. 



Apple DR^^NO in Western New York. We 

 note in a New York paper the following: The 

 Apple-drying and fruit-evaporating industry of 

 Western New York developed with astonishing 

 rapidity last year. Over a dozen new and large 

 evaporators have been erected in Niagara county 

 alone. The market for this kind of fruit is found 

 in Europe, and dried Apples are supplanting in a 

 great measure the green fruit. The barreled 

 Apples rot so in making the transatlantic trip. 

 Many European firms have taken the trouble 

 this year to send their agents to this country 

 to buy from personal inspection rather than 

 through their commission men. The blow the 

 dried fruit strikes at the green is surprising. 

 It is estimated that over $100,000 have been ex- 

 pended in evaporating Apples and canning them 

 in this county alone. Of course this county 

 naturally leads all the others as being the chief 

 Apple market of the world, but Wayne, Monroe, 

 Orleans, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus are not 

 far behind. 



" WOODBANKS." 

 Popular Gardening and Fruit Grow- 

 ing's New Experimental Grounds. 

 As boy and man the conductor of ttiis journal 

 had previous to three years ago always been en- 

 gaged in fnjit growing and gardening in one or 

 more branches. For many years it was as active 

 manager, in part, of one of the largest fruit and 

 market gardens near Buffalo. About five years 

 ago, however, the march of the city's improve- 

 ments had so crowded on its outskirts as to ren- 

 der the sale of his grounds desirable, and this txiok 

 place. It was following on this event that he 

 turned his attention to popular horticultural 

 .iournaiism, and shortly afterwards, as controlling 

 jiartner, to publishing the present successful 

 .journal. At the same time he temporarily took 

 ui> his residence in Buffalo, first to he at the very 

 helm of affairs in the publication oiBce during 

 the critical ijeriod of founding the jouinai; sec- 

 ond, to for a si)ell mintrle somewhat freely among 

 retail consumei"S instead of as always before 

 among producers of horticultural products, and 

 lastly he desired time in which to select a new 



fruit farm and garden, properly located, and 

 which might be conducted in the interests of 

 American hoi-ticulture in general, and of the 

 readei'S of this journal in particular. The time 

 for making a change from the basis referred to has 

 now arrived and the conductor takes pleasure 

 in stating that a new and most desirable faim 

 has recently been chosen and negotiated for by 

 him.and at this writing the transfer is in progress. 

 This farm, which shall iirobably be known as the 

 Niagara Experimental Grounds, is located in that 

 most famous fruit section, Niagara Co., N. Y., 

 La Salle post office, and in the very midst of num- 

 erous fruit farms, market gardens, evaporating 

 establishments, etc. Its site is one-half mile from 

 Niagara River on the banks of an arm of said 

 liver, hence the name " Woodbanks," and five 

 miles above the great cataract. At this late 

 hour, before the May issue is printed, we have 

 neither space nor time to go into particulars 

 concerning the place and its future; this infor- 

 mation will keep until next month. Sufficient to 

 say that here the editor will live and here— being 

 but .3.5 minutes ride from the Buffalo office— he 

 will jointly conduct the journal and manage the 

 farm in the interest, and as he believes, to the 

 great profit of all readers. 



Forcing Rhubarb and Asparagus. 



PETER HENDERSON. JERSEY CITV HEIGHTS, N. J. 



In these days of low prices for nearly all 

 horticultural products, it behooves both the 

 florist and track grower to use every means 

 to help out the unfortunate condition of 

 affairs; a condition brought about in the 

 florist's department, particularly in grow- 

 ing cut flowers for market in the vicinity of 

 large cities, by over-production, while in the 

 frtiit and vegetable department in the past 

 ten years T think the depreciation in price 

 is undoubtedly due to the immense areas 

 now cultivated in the Southern States, and 

 that these products are shipped to New York 

 and other large cities about three or four 

 weeks before the local crop is ready, thus 

 blunting the edge of the appetite, so that 

 when our home grown crops of fruits or 

 vegetables come in they are less valued. 

 They are now grown to such an extent, that 

 it is doubtful if the prices realized average 

 much more than at the North, but labor in 

 the South costs as yet but about one-half its 

 cost at the North, and land probably not one 

 tenth as much as it does in the vicinity of 

 New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, where 

 nearly all market gardeners yet pay S.'MI.OO 

 per acre rent per annum, and in many cases 

 without a lease. But be it as it may, the 

 fact remains that the growing of fruits and 

 vegetables in the South has seriously dam- 

 aged the Northern growers whose main re- 

 liance to make ends meet now is in cultiva- 

 ting under glass, either by the use of hot- 

 beds, cold-frames or greenhouses, and it is 

 the adaptation of these to the culture of 

 Rhubarb and Asparagus to which I will 

 now refer. 



Al)out the first week in April I happened 

 to call on an old market gardener, who that 

 day had .pist begun to make his lirst pulling 

 of Rhubarb from hot-beds, which had been 

 put down about thirty days befoi'e. It was 

 then selling, he said, at Al.lXl per tjunch, and 

 he wa.s getting lifteen bunches from each of 

 his 8 X .5 feet sashes. Asparagus, he claimed, 

 paid even better. 



Now, although hot-beds will answer evei-y 

 purpose for forcing Rhubarb and Asparagus, 

 it is short-sighted economy to use them at 



this day for such purposes. The modern 

 greenhouse, 20 feet wide, heated by a flue is 

 even better than ahot-bed,and when heated 

 by steam or hot water is infinitely better, 

 because you can use and control the green- 

 house in all weathers, and above all, you 

 can luake it produce a double crop by grow- 

 ing Lettuce, Radishes, or flowering plants, 

 if so desired im the top of the benches, while 

 Rhubarb and Asparagus can be grown 

 under the benches, as they reqviire no li.ght. 

 The main reason why the forcing of Rhu- 

 biirb and Aspanigus is profitable, is that it 

 requires the foresight of some years of 

 preparation before the roots are large enough 

 to force. If to be done on a large scale, the 

 cheapest way to go at it is to sow the seed 

 (both of Rhubarb and Asparagus) on well 

 enriched and deeply cultivated land; sow 

 rather thickly in rows about three feet apart 

 and thin the young plants out the first sea- 

 ,son to three or four inches, next sea.son thin 

 out again, so that the plants will stand fif- 

 teen inches apart in the rows. In three or 

 four years from the time of sowing, accord- 

 ing to the quality of the land, the roots will 

 be large enough to force, but in lifting them 

 up, only every other plant should lie taken, 

 which will then leave the plants standing 

 thirty inches apart in the rows, and three 

 feet between. This space will be none too 

 much for the full development of the re- 

 maining roots, as the larger they are, the 

 more numerous and strong will the roots of 

 the Rhubarb and the shoots of the Aspara- 

 gus be. Of course they must be dug from 

 the ground before the severe weather sets in 

 in the fall, in this latitude not later than the 

 end of November, but as they should not be 

 taken in to force until .lanuary, they must 

 be placed in some dry and sheltered place, 

 and covered completely with twelve or fif- 

 teen inches of leaves, which will be sufficient 

 to exclude frost from the roots until the time 

 of starting them in heat force. This may 

 be begun about January 1st. all that is nec- 

 essary being to .iam the roots as close to- 

 gether as possible on the damp flooring 

 under the greenhouse benches. It Ls not 

 necessary to shake any soil over them, if the 

 roots are closely packed together, and they 

 are not likely to need water except such of 

 them as are near to flue or pipes. 



The fli-st lot, put in .lanuary last, will be 

 ready by February 1.5th, if the temperature 

 has averaged TO degrees. This crop can be 

 gathered in about two weeks, so that the 

 roots can be taken out and thrown away (as 

 after forcing, they are of little value), and 

 the space filled up again with the roots from 

 outside. This second crop, if put in March 

 1st, will be marketable from the .5th to the 

 15th of Api-il, at which time forced Rhubarb 

 and Asparagus u.sually sells higher than in 

 Febniary. 



It will be seen that the main expense in 

 Rhubarb and Asparagus forcing is to keep 

 up the supply of the roots grown in the open 

 ground. To do that, new sowings must be 

 made every year and the whole process of 

 growing tlie plants to the forcing size gone 

 through as already described. 



When an abundance of strong roots of 



Rhubarb or Asparagus can be grown at a 



moderate co.st. where land is cheap, it must 



I for a long time continue to be a most profit- 



