1 888. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



165 



Fi'y. 1. Imiiriiml Kiiiffcn System (if Tralniiiy 

 IlliKtiatcd. 



are of a bronzy-green color with deep crimson 

 veins, and are very beautiful, especially when 

 the sun is shiniuR through them. I plant the 

 tuber.s in the shade of an Apple tree, where their 

 foliage would make them worth cultivation if 

 they never bore a flower. In August each plant 

 producci a large loose cluster of delicate pink 

 flowers, of good size and lasting some time in full 

 beaut.v. I t«ke them up in October for reasons 

 stated in the note on Galtonia candicans, but I 

 have often left a few in the ground, entirel.v un- 

 protected, and these have always stai-ted well the 

 following May. 1 believe that, by using this 

 species as one parent and B. Pearci, Veitcbi or 

 racemifiora for the other, a race of tulxTous 

 varieties might be produced which, with a co\er- 

 ing of leaves, would survive any winter we are 

 likely to have in the latitude of Boston. 



Persimmons. Perhaps our native Persimmon 

 hius been subjected to cultivation, if so I have 

 not heard of any results. 

 Vet the following 

 would seem t<j show 

 that it is not incapable of 

 improvement. In Sep- 

 tember, IHKt, I found in 

 a ploughed Held near 

 rull)e|ier,Va.,atreeful] 

 of fruit of unusual size, 

 (avcraging,t<i the best of 

 my recollection, about 

 two inches ip diameter)- 

 and ijerfectly ripe and 

 free from astringency, 

 although there had 

 been no frost. 



Remiivino Stamens from Bowel's which are to 

 be hybridized is no doubt frequently necessary, 

 but not always. If you plant the seed formed by 

 Gladiolus purpureo-auratus which has grown 

 near the ordinary Gandavensis varieties, .vou 

 will find that in nearly every case the resulting 

 flowei"s will show that the hybridization has been 

 eflfected without human assistance, and that such 

 seed will produce the flower of the female parent 

 in only the rarest instances. I have raised over 

 five thousand seedlings in this way and only three 

 of these produced the purpureo-auratus flower. 

 — W. E. Eiidiaitt, Norfom Co., Ma»<. 



Orange Ktjst. Regarding this among Black- 

 berries and Raspberries, I know of no preventive 

 any more than I do for Peach Yellows or Pear 

 blight, black knot on Plum trees, or scab on 

 Apples. When a plantation is but slightly af- 

 fected, and wanted for further fruiting, our 

 practice here is to remove such canes as soon as 

 possible, and burn root and cane, and scatter salt 

 or lime where the atfected canes were removed. 

 This application may neutralize the spores that 

 may have become detached from the canes before 

 removal. When, however, the plantation be- 

 comes badly affected, self protection and common 

 justice towards others should require that they 

 be dug up and burned. The land should be for 

 some years devoted to other crops, until the soil 

 is entirely renovated, the roots destroyed and 

 every trace of the fungus removed. 



Peach Tree Grub. The application of coal 

 tar to a young Peach tree would surely be a 

 "heroic" remedy so far as the grub is concerned, 

 and the tree too, for neither would be likely to 

 survive more than one year. My practice is clean 

 culture. In the spring remove the soil from 

 the crown of the tree; if any grub is there 

 he will show it by his chips. This allows the 

 bark to harden and gives the grub less chance 

 to work, and if he does work he is easily removed 

 by a sharp-pointed pocket-knife. The applica- 

 tion of wood ashes, I think, has some effect on 

 the grub. I know it has on the tree if properly 

 applied; but if placed in quantity against the 

 crown of a young Peach tree, the caustic alkalis 

 will burn the tree like Are and kill it. 



The Codling Moth. This is the most destruc- 

 tive enemy the Apple grower has to deal with in 

 Michigan, and I dare say in nearly every other 

 State. And yet how little do we know about this 

 insidious foe. If C. E. P. will take the pains to 

 examine the cocoons in the latter jiart of June, 

 or even in August, he will find his birds have 

 flown. In Michigan we can grow three broods 

 of these insects in one year and then not crowd 

 the season. In fighting these insects, we have 

 abandoned our old tactics, as unsatisfactory and 

 useless, and are now going for them with the 

 spraying pump. This .Moth, like the Anarchist, 

 works in the dark, and all we can do is t(j cut off 

 its posterity. The Moth hasno occasion for food, 

 for she lays her eggs and dies. We never can 

 succeed in destroying all the larva, hence, 



like the ( 'urculio, they remain with usallsummer. 

 -ir. H. Siiiilli, Henliin Harbor. Mich. 



Best Vine vou Screens. Page 121. "Every 

 alternate flower is white and yellow " is not 

 strictly ccjrrect of Hall's Japan Honeysuckle. 

 They open imre white ami turn yellow afterward 

 in warm weather the second day. The Variegated 

 Japan Hone.vsuckle, although it does not flower 

 so freely, as Hall's has the advantage of it in 

 beaut.^• of foliage, which is green and gold in 

 summer, the gold turning to crimson as cold 

 weather comes on. 



Snvuer lii.ACKUEHRV. P. lU!. I do not Under- 

 stand why you call thisdwarf. Itiseven stionger 

 than Kittatiny with us, hut the fruit is small and 

 not of e.\tra c|uality wilh us, and its value is in 

 its hardiness for cold climates only. There is no 

 danger of over-nuuiuring Kittatiny here, but it 

 does best in muck which has been exposed to 

 frost and air. The best berries I ever got from 



Fhi. 



it were from plants gi'owing in an old heap of 

 decaying muck turf. 



The ('anna. Page 134. Many varieties of 

 ("anna are difficult to winter, every broken root 

 and every stump where a top has been cut off 

 being inclined to rot. I And it an advantage to 

 grow a few plants (if such varieties in pots and 

 winter them in the pots they were grown in, 

 without cutting off the tops at all, except to 

 remove the leaves as they dry off. Very small 

 plants will be best to use for this purpose in spiing. 



Distance to Plant Blackberries. Page 13a. 

 In large fields we find it a great saving of labor 

 to plant at eiiual distances each way, and culti- 

 Nate in both directions, only leaving a little hand 

 hoeing close to the hills.— By IT'. F. Bo.'wcM, At- 

 taiilic Ci}.. N. J. 



Double Petunias. My experience with Petu- 

 nias differs somewhat from that of L. W. G's. in 

 March number. Have grown plants from seed 

 and cuttings that produced double flowers, and 

 were as free flowering and required no more care 

 than the same number of Pansies.— E. L. Patter- 

 siiii, Grau'fiinl ()//., Pa. 



Two Other Systems of Training 

 the Vine. 



D. S. MARVIN, WATERTOWN, N. V. 



The Kniffen System. Of the various other 

 systems besides the renewal fan system described 

 last month the Kniffen system comes nearest in 

 some important respects to a good system. It 

 does away with the arms of old wood, hut it 

 has two great defects. Its lower arms in a few 

 years are useless, because the sap will all go to 

 the arms upon the upper vines and deprive the 

 lower ones of nutriment and thus fail. Again, 

 the main trinik will, in spite of all that man can 

 do, clog and fill up so that the sap can no longer 

 circulate freely, the same as in every other ex- 

 cept the renewal system referred to last month. 



The first objection may be avoided by starting 

 two canes f rf)m the giound as in Figure I annexed. 

 Here the sap flows to the lower arms just as \ig- 

 orously as to the upper, and in so much it isa de- 

 cided improvement. . But in a windy climate the 

 fruit sways ujion the hanging canes so much that 

 it is often bruised, and sometimes spoiled. It 

 does much better for early than late Grapes, the 

 early varieties being picked before heavy fall 

 winds come. It may be characterized as the lazj' 

 man's method of training, and has this other ad- 

 vantage, a larger crop of Grapes is growing be- 

 cause the sjip and the fruit forming elements is 

 thrown more into the fruit than uito the canes, 

 which hang, and thereby cause a retarded 

 growth. It is common to all slovenly systems of 

 training, and apt to be the mother of neglect in ; 

 failing to propcrl.v summer or rather spring 

 prune thin or break out the redundant canes in 

 the early part of the season. 



When properly perff)rmed this system is cer- 

 tainly one of the best of the old systems, and as 1 



before stated, lietter adapted to the foreign than 

 our native vines, because the resin in the sap of 

 (mr natives will sooner or later clog and till the 

 circulatory duets of all old wood above ground; 

 there is no known way to avoid this except by 

 the renewal sysK-m illustrated last month. 



Spur and Double Arm System. Figure 2 is a 

 drawing of a ten year old vine, as near as I could 

 sketch it, trained upon the douljle arm systt^-nu It 

 will at once be seen that the spurs have bec<ime 

 elongated, all the economies and activities of 

 the vine have had to go on through those s|>urs, 

 and the con.«ei|uence is that the circulatory iluets 

 have all iK'come so closed that the vine no longer 

 bears nnich fruit. It did well and bore good 

 crojis for four or five yeais. Its usefulness in its 

 present condition is at an end. I consider this 

 about our worst s.vstem of trimming. 



On this vine there is a spur, not shown clearly 

 in the engraving, from a cane that fortunately 

 pushed out at the bot- 

 tom of the vine from an 

 adventitious bud. This 

 is exactly what I ha^•e 

 lieen waiting for and 

 shall allow to grow un- 

 checked, and next fall if 

 I get wood enough shall 

 saw the oM vine all off 

 just above thisspur. If 

 thisbott-omspurhad not 

 so fortunately appeared 

 I should have cut off the 

 right hand arm last fall 

 and left a cane upon 

 the first spur to lie bent 

 down and .su|iply its place. This would usually 

 cau.se a cane to pu.=h near the bottom, but if the 

 <:ane had not appeared I should have cut off the 

 left arm in the same way a year later, and again 

 waited for a simrfrcmi the bottom to form a new 

 vine and which I will then train upon the re- 

 newal system; thus changing from one syst<'m to 

 the f)ther. 



OiM' of the great facts to be observed in this 

 double arm system of pruning is that it cuts off 

 all the cvirrent year's growth except the spurs. 

 This is too violent a change on the vine's econ- 

 omies; all the activities of the vine are confined 

 to these spurs, the old wood contributing nothing 

 but a channel for the work, while the renewal 

 system gives the vine from six to eighteen or 

 more feet of new wood. This the vines greatly 

 appreciate, as shown by their increased crop. 



2. Horiz^mtat Arm Stintrnt sliowinu 

 etonontcd «pHr.s on an nUl riiif. 



Profitable Potatoes. 



GRANVILLE COWING, DELAWARE CO., IND. 



Among novelties in Potatoes, some of the very 

 best ai-e Green Mountain, Summit, Everitt, State 

 of Maine and Empire State. Of many hundred 

 varieties tested on the Rural New Yorker's expe- 

 rimental grounds, the first two named proved 

 most profiuctive— Green Mountain standing high- 

 est. On my soil Empire State exceeded all others 

 in productiveness, and next to it in that respect 

 stood Summit and Everitt. 



In shafie the tubers of Green Mountain are 

 o\al, slightl.i' flattened, in size large U> very 

 large, skin white, very handsome and of good 

 (luality. State of Maine resembles Green Moun- 

 tain in every respect except that the tubers are 

 more round. Roth mature in August and are 

 long keepers. Summit originated in Northern 

 Ohio, where it is fast becoming verj- popular. 

 Tubers long, oval, skin buff, eyes large and but 

 few, from medium to large size and of best 

 qualit.v. A most productive and desirable \'ariety. 



While on my grounds Empire State i)roved to 

 be a stronger grower and more productive than 

 any other variety, it exhibited a tendency to 

 lot and its tubers were not quite as handsome 

 as those of the other varieties I have named. In 

 general appearance it resembles Burbank, but 

 a>'erages much larger; skin white, qualit.v good, 

 and matiM'es in September. Everitt is the most 

 productive early Potato I have ever tested. It 

 is large, smooth and handsome, of good quality 

 and matures with Early Rose. Early Pearl, Early 

 Maine and Pearl of Savo.v are all of the Early 

 Rose type, smooth and beautiful and in ever.v 

 wa.y desirable. 



Of older \ai'ieties for the main crop I ha\'e 

 found none bett<'r than Lee's Favorite, Earl.y 

 Ohio, Magnum Itonum and Jordan's Prolific. 

 Lee's Fa\"orite is more producti\'e than Early 

 Ohio and equal to it in ever.v other respect. 



The selection of pure seed of the best varieties 

 for planting would probabl.i' double the Potato 

 crop of this country without enlarging the area. 



