222 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



July, 



Burying Grapes. 

 the Western N. Y. 



C^i^tOfT -xr SOCIETIES 



ZZjEINQMATTER'niAT OBSERVES 

 TO airvnoEPr KNOWS. 



Plants in the Window< 



No home of tiiste is com- 

 [ilete without a window 

 garden. It is the least 

 e.Ypensive and most sim- 

 ple of all the departments 

 of rural taste, and im- 

 possible to none.— C. S. 

 Smith. 

 P. B. Crandall stated, before 

 Horticultural Society, that 

 Grapes, picked and wilted, then buried in stone 

 jars three or four feet below the surface, will 

 come out with stems grreen and fruit plump and 

 bright in the spring. 



For the Trees. A mi-^ture of copperas and 

 fflue is the best thiny; I know of to keep rabbits 

 and mice from trees. I lost a great many before 

 I commenced using this preparation. I have 

 tried taned paper, and do not like it; it is too 

 slow.— ^. R. TVIiitiictJ. 



When to Apply Manure. At the Spring meet- 

 ing of the New England Agricultural Society, 

 Dr. Goessman, in reply to questions, said that ma- 

 nure should be applied to the soil as soon as possi- 

 ble. He was not sure but barn cellars are doing 

 harm by encouraging the keeping of manure for 

 several months. On level land there is little 

 waste from immediate surface application. 



Locust Trees for the West. Many will remem- 

 ber that the Black Locust was about the only 

 timber planted on the prairies of Illinois years 

 ago, but the borers got to working on it so badly 

 that people ceased planting. We are commenc- 

 ing to plant it again in Iowa, and the borers do 

 not attack it as badly as they used to, and when 

 planted with other timber it escapes the ravages 

 of the borer almost entirely. It is the most valu- 

 al)le timber we have. We consider it of much 

 more value than the Catalpa.— Pro/cssor Budd 

 before the Nortlwrn Itlitmis Society. 



Pruning Orchards. I will give my method. The 

 trees should not Ijc allowed to go as they please. 

 Keep them low, so that a man on top of an eight 

 foot ladder can pick all the fruit. Cut out the 

 top and center of the tree so that the sun can get 

 into the center of it. This will cause young 

 branches to grow out all along the body and main 

 limbs of the tree, and these, when they are not 

 expected to fruit, should be clipped off to within 

 an inch of the stem. For every one of these cut off 

 from two to six more will grow out. Thus you 

 will have a fine lot of truit^bearing branches all 

 alcmg the inside of the tree. A tree thus pruned 

 can bear up all the fruit that will grow on it; it 

 will bear more and the fruit will be of the first 

 iiuality. Herein, I believe, lies the secret of 

 growing fine Peaches.— B. A. Riehl. 



Horticulture. President Earl in a recent ad- 

 ilress hit the mark when he said Horticulture is 

 a broad term. It covei-s almost everything that 

 makes our country beautiful and sweet to live 

 in. It embraces the operations of the fruit 

 grower, the skillful manipulations of the gardener 

 the arts of the landscape builder, and all that re- 

 lates to the planting of forests in a land that 

 perishes without them. Every horticulturist 

 should be a missionary. He should be an educa- 

 tor of the public taste as regards trees and flowei-s 

 and lawn plantage and fruit gardens. He should 

 be an enthusiast for the beauty of his town. He 

 should stimulate the making of parks; the adorn- 

 ing of cemeteries and school-house yards; the 

 planting of groups of roadside trees. The true 

 horticulturist will make his mark in the commu- 

 nity in which he lives. 



Commercial Fertilizers. Following are a few 

 comments on these as made by members at the 

 liLMt meeting of the Western N. y. Horticultural 

 Society. Green— The Fruit Growers in this sec- 

 tion seem afraid to use them, though in other 

 parts of country they are depended upon to quite 

 an extent. Harry— Can't tell what we are buy- 

 ing. Hooker — Nothing so satisfactory as stable 

 manure, though has used other fertilizers. Ni- 

 trate of soda had a remarkable effect on Cui"- 

 rants, at the rate of three hundred pounds per 

 acre. Its action, however, is only that as a stimu- 

 lant; no plant food, to speak of, in it. It is also 

 of value with Fall Spinach. Dunning— Had used 

 ashes and other fertilizers, but prefers pure 

 ground bone, which in the vineyard is applied at 

 the rate of one hundred pounds per acre. Var- 

 uey — The most successfid Strawberry growers 



use one ton of ground bone per acre, composted 

 and heated before applying. It is also an excel- 

 lent material to compost with hen manure. 



To Beautify the House will pay. It should be 

 adorned with brilliant and fragrant flowers. 

 Flora's gifts are free to all. She scatters them in 

 the valley, on the mountain-side and hill-top. 

 The Kose will bloom as freely on the rustic bower 

 of the poor man as on the tasty arbor of the rich; 

 will unfold its buds, give its fragrance in the poor 

 man's cottage as freely as in the rich man's pal- 

 ace. If all our Kansas homes were thus beauti- 

 fied what a grand State we should have ! How 

 attr.active to all that come within her borders ! 

 It would be the best advertisement the State has 

 ever made — be worth more to her in dollars and 

 cents than all the booms manufactured by syndi- 

 cates. In spots for beautiful homes nature has 

 done her best in her gras.sy knolls and sunny 

 slopes. They need but the touch of taste and 

 genius to make them lovely. The refining and 

 moral influence of the beautiful, happy home can 

 hardly be overestimated. The hallowed memo- 

 ries of such a childhood home will cling to us 

 through all our after Wte.— President niicelcr, nf 

 Topcka, Kansaii. 



Green Manuring, Of course in green manur- 

 ing we ilon't add mineral matter, we add atmos- 

 pheric plant food. The leguminous plants, of 

 which Clover is the leading one, take more from 

 the atmosphere than Uye and Barley, and others. 

 Then again these plants have large roots. They 

 extend far into the ground. They carry the 

 plant food from the lower part of the soil where 

 the plants have their growth. It is a substitute 

 for sub-soil plowing. They reach two or three 

 or four feet below the surface, and bring matter 

 to the surface. Thus they furnish food for the 

 plants that succeed them. The plant food needs 

 to be brought where it does the most good. The 

 root is an impoi*tant part of plants. Rye has a 

 spreading root while Wheat has a compact root. 

 The roots are not capable of going around for 

 food, therefore Rye may succeed and Barley suc- 

 ceed, while Wheat fails. For every two f)r three 

 years there should be a crop of that kind and 

 there should be trial ctiltivation with them. 

 Stirring the ground up from time to time breaks 

 up the weeds, and does more for the cleaning up 

 of crops.— Dr. One-man before the N. E. Agri- 

 cultural Society. 



Forestry Points. The Pennsylvania Forestry 

 Association wants every owner of woodland, 

 to know that his wood-lot contains a valuable 

 crop, which it will pay him, not only to not cut 

 down and slaughter, but to manage and utilize 

 judiciously. That the time has come when forest 

 destruction must give way to forest manage- 

 ment; for timber is becoming more valuable 

 every year, as it grows scarcer in the country at 

 large. That in the woodlands in proper propor- 

 tion lie, to a large e.xtent, the conditions of a fav- 

 orable climate and successfull agriculture and 

 healthfulness. That the forest breaks the force 

 and tempers the fury of the northern, and cools 

 and moistens the breath of the southern wind, 

 thus tending to equalize temperature and hu- 

 midity over the intervening fields. That while 

 open, treeless, heated areas prevent the fall of 

 rain, allowing moisture laden clouds to pass over 

 undrained, we must thank our forest-clad hiUs 

 and mountains for our more frequent, more gen- 

 tle, more useful showers ; and, above all that the 

 forest cover preserves the even water flow in our 

 springs, brooks and rivers, while its destruction 

 or even deterioriation, increases the danger of 

 floods, and the washing of the fertile soil. 



Grapes for the North, Judging by our experi- 

 ence, we would cut the list of varieties planted 

 down to a small one, of which the Moore's Early 

 should lead, mainly because it Is a Grape of fair 

 quality and very early; earliness is the great de- 

 sideratum in a state so far north as Wisconsin. 

 After the Moore comes, in our estimation, the 

 Worden, Concord, Wilder and Delaware in the 

 order named, though for shipping, the Worden 

 might have to come last on the list; for family or 

 home consumption it stands next to Moore's 

 Early. Don't plant everything offered by the trav- 

 eling tree peddlers. Even if they lU'C reliable 

 they charge two prices for things. Buy of 

 reliable nurserymen living near you who have 

 business standing, or from nurserymen advertis- 

 ing in reliable agricultural papers. What farmer 

 woidd think of buying horses or cattle of travel- 

 ing agents who showed pictures of the hoi*ses or 

 cattle they proposed to deliver? The fraud 

 would be too apparent, yet the same persons will 

 buy plants and trcH.'S eagerly of peddlers who 

 show overdrawn pictures. An.v of the G raises 



named can be bought at from 10 to l.'i cents a 

 vine, acenrdingto variety, of nurserymen. Leave 

 high-priced novelties for amateurs and special- 

 ists to test.— Pro/. W. A. Henry, Wi-ic^inKin Ex- 

 pcHment Station. 



Treatine Peach Yellows. Mr. J. H. Hale gave 

 some of his experience in this line before the 

 Mass. Horticultural Society recently. He said 

 that after getting into the Peach business in good 

 earnest, his last pre\ious planting having been 

 .5,700 trees, he gave much care and thouglit to his 

 orchards. One thing was particularly noted in 

 his extended travels— that of many unhealthy 

 orchards none had received any very heavy ap- 

 plications of potash, it any, while of the healthy 

 ones most had been treated with it. Also, the 

 trees that had the whole field to themselves, with 

 clean culture, were far more healthy than othera. 

 No trace of yellows had as yet shown itsel f in any 

 of Mr. Hale's orchards that had received potash, 

 but last season a hundred or so had a sickly yel- 

 low foliage, with some curl to the leaf, and many 

 said this was the yellows, but an application jnst 

 before a rain of two pounds of nitrate of soda 

 per tree soon changed this to a dark, healthy 

 green, and a rapid growth commenced and con- 

 tinued till fall, when the trees were apparently 

 as healthy as any in the lot. The fii'st trace of 

 real yellows was seen in 18K5, when one tree in 

 the middle of the field sent out from its body 

 and larger branches many small, wiry shoots, 

 producing small, yellow, lance-like leaves— an 

 indication that it was in a very advanced stage 

 of the disease. Ten pounds of potash and five 

 pounds of nitrate of soda was put on immediately, 

 and vigorous gi'owth stimulated. Early in the 

 following spring fully one-half the toi> was cut 

 away, and more potash and soda given, with ex- 

 tra cultivation, and by August this tree was the 

 pride of the whole orchard, its rapid gi-owth of 

 daik green foliage being noticeable above all 

 others, and the past season it bore a full crop of 

 healthy fruit. In 18K0 one whole row of trees 

 had all the symptoms of the disease, yet with the 

 same treatment the past season they came out 

 bright and fine, and matured their fruit perfectly. 

 Still other trees showed the disease two years ago 

 for the first, and many did the ne.xt year, but past 

 experience leads to the faith that they can be 

 saved for a time at least, and Mr. Hale will at- 

 tempt it before sacrificing them. 



Draining to Lessen the Effects of 

 Drought; Sub-Irrigation. 



[James E. Joties before the Hantoul, (III.), Farmers' In- 

 stitute.'] 



Old Method of Draining. Heretofore it has 

 been our object to get rid of any overabund- 

 ant raififall in the quickest possible way, 

 hence we have dug large open ditches or 

 canals for outlets, and run our tile ditches 

 into these as shown iu Fig. 1. 



This plan is very good in wet seasons and in- 

 sures a crop, other conditions being eqiml; but 

 in very dry seasons they are practically useless, 

 as the writer could prove by facts if necessary. 

 The water which falls so plentifully in the .spring 

 is by the above method drained off and thrown 

 into the rivei-s and finally into the sea. We never 

 know when we shall recei\'e our next supply. 



New Method. The methed I propose to adopt 

 in laying tiles enables the farmer to govern the 

 flow of water from his lands, and save a part of 

 the mf>isture he now discards, to be taken up by 

 the plants when dry weather comes on. Instead 

 of laying the tiles on a grade parallel to the gen- 

 eral fall of the surface, as in Kg. 1, lay them in 

 section on dead levels, as shown in Fig. 2, A, B, C, 

 with a .log or step connecting these sections, and 

 another at the outlet. Place at i)oints 0, h, c, 

 traps or gates in the tile, which can be operated 

 from the surface, and at which the discharge of 

 water may be governed. This line of tile may 

 represent the main tile, on say HO acres of land, 

 into which laterals may be run on the same le\els. 



To operate this system properly it would be 

 necessiiry to keep the traps open in wet weather, 

 allowing a free discharge of the surplus water; 

 but as soon as the surface becomes dry enough 

 to cultivate, the traps should be closed and all 

 the moisture then in the ground retained. As a 

 matter of coui'se, the'sthface of the higher level 

 (Sec. A) would become dry first, then trap " a " 

 should be closed. Section H would become dry 

 next, and C last. In this manner all the benefits 

 of tile drainage can be obtained and the soil kept 

 moist underneath for a much longer period than 

 in the old way. 



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