246 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



August, 



Z^EINQMATTERTKAT OBSERVES 

 TO aErWIDELYKHOWM* 



The Beat Orchard for 



the market is the j'oung 

 orchard,— B((/. 



New Fruits— Why they 

 Fail. One reason is that 

 originators look more to 

 the quality of the fruit 

 than to hardiness and 

 adaptation for the 

 country at hirge.— Kansas Review. 



Acquaintance with Insects. Secretary Good- 

 man of tlie Missouri State Society, is urging his 

 society to offer premiums for collections of in- 

 sects, and wisely thinks it an especially good 

 work for young people. 



Pomace for Hilch Cows. At a meeting of the 

 Boonville, Mo. Horticultural Society, it was 

 generally agreed that Pomace freely fed to 

 milch cows would dry them up, that from sweet 

 apples being the least harmful. Mr. Eut said 

 that in running his cider mill, at Amazonia, the 

 whole town was dry on one occasion, and he 

 nearly got himself involved in a law suit. 



The Northern Spy Apple. Mr. E. Moody in 

 speaking before the Western N. Y. Horticultu- 

 ral Society, of this variety which is so often 

 defective on crowded trees, said it would yet be- 

 come very profitable when we make up our minds 

 to thin it thoroughly, and that if we would take 

 off from three-fourths to seven-eighths,iu time we 

 would get nearly as much in measure, and twice 

 the price of any other apple we grow. 



Fruit in America. In no city in Europe can 

 so fine fruit be bought as can be found in New 

 York, and in no country in Europe is fruit with- 

 in the means of the working classes as it is in 

 our own. American nurserymen may congrat- 

 ulate themselves that, owing to their efifoi-ts, 

 there is produced in no other country in the 

 civiUzed world fruit of so fine a quality, and in 

 such Immense quantities and so wonderfully 

 cheap as in our o-wn.—Irwin Rmtse^s paper at 

 Ntirserymcti'a Meeting. 



Twenty-five Dollars Profit. At the last meet- 

 ing of the Franklin, Mass. Farmers' Club, D. C. 

 Colt<in told of his planting half an acre to Pota- 

 toes and garden truck. He paid for fertilizer, 

 seeds, cultivating, marketing, taxes, etc., S45, 

 and added to the expenses $2.5 for interest. He 

 received $1.5 for the Potatoes and $80 for garden 

 truck, leaving a profit of $25 over and above the 

 interest. The second year he let it out at halves, 

 and his expenses were $7. .50 and receipts $2.5, so 

 that it did not pay the interest. 



Charles W. Garfield. It pains us to learn on 

 direct authority, that this accomplished horti- 

 culturist has been obliged, on account of ill 

 health, to resign his offices in various Horticul- 

 tural Societies. These include the Secretary- 

 ships of both the American Pomological So- 

 cieties, and the Michigan State Horticultural 

 Society, and the Presidency of the Grand River 

 Valley Horticultural Society. It is to be hoped, 

 that the rest he is now taking from his arduous 

 duties, will secure to him a full return of health, 

 and to horticulture the renewed services of an 

 efficient society worker. 



Improvement Association. The Alton, Ills. 

 Impr(t\'enicnt Association, has engaged Mr. J. 

 G. George, of St. Louis, to lay off its forty acres, 

 adjoining Middletown, into suburban lots and 

 tracts. The property will not be laid off at right 

 angles, but in graceful curves to correspond 

 with the contour of the grounds. The result 

 will be a lovely suburban retreat, with winding 

 avenues and shady streets, with parks and foun- 

 tains and all the attractions of nature, includ- 

 mg a beautiful view of the river. In addition, 

 the residents of this favored locality will have 

 all the advantages of city life, including water 

 works, electric lights, street cars, and the best 

 of sewerage and drainage. It will become the 

 most delightful residence locality within fifty 

 miles of St. Louis. The plans of the Alton Im- 

 provement Association, to which their new 

 street railway is but a preliminary step, are on a 

 grand scale, and will work a revolution in 

 Alton, which cannot but be appreciated. 



Forcing the Onion Crop. It would do to apply 

 nnu'iate of potash to the Onion bed, but from 

 my experience 1 should prefer the sulphate of 

 potash. The muriate effects the quality of the 

 Onions, and they will not keep when ripe, if 

 quantities of muriate of potash have been ap- 



plied. Of the sulphate, 300 to 500 pounds per 

 acre would be a good dressing broadcast and 

 hoed in, applied when the Onion tops are per- 

 fectly dry; otherwise, it might burn the tops. 

 Always apply nitrate of soda to Onions while 

 growing, using 100 pounds per acre at each ap- 

 pUcation. The first time it is put on as soon as 

 Onions are well up, and again when the leaves 

 are in their first double. I always put it on just 

 before rain, or during one, and have never burnt 

 or effected the tops other than to make them 

 grow faster. Try it once and you will always 

 do it— T. F. Baker, President New Jersey Horti- 

 cultural Society. 



Society of American Florists. The Fourth 

 Annual meeting of this vigorous society will 

 take place in Cooper Union hall, junction of 3rd 

 Avenue, 4th Avenue and 5th Street, New York 

 city, from the 21st to 24th of the present month, 

 while the exhibits will be located in Nilison hall, 

 15th Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues. 

 A more elaborate programme than that for the 

 coming meeting has never, to our knowledge, 

 been given forth by any Horticultural Society. 

 Copies of the same may be obtained by address- 

 ing the Secretary, W. J. Stewart, Boston, Mass. 

 The headquarters of the Society will be held at 

 the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The Treasurer and 

 Secretary will be at the committee room on 

 Monday evening, August 20th, from S to 10 p. M., 

 where they will be prepared to receive the mem- 

 bership fees ($3.00) from all those who have not 

 already paid. But to avoid the rush and incon- 

 venience, members are advised to send postal 

 order, or check, for the amount of their dues to 

 the Treasurer or Secretai'y before the date of 

 Convention. The Society's badge and receipt 

 will be given in return. Those desiring to ex- 

 hibit, should correspond at once with John 

 Thorpe, Pearl River, N. Y., who will give par- 

 ticulars and all information relating thereto. 



Marketing Grapes. Mr. J. H. Skinner gave 

 the following points, based on the practice in 

 the famous Chautauqua County Vineyards, be- 

 fore his Horticultural Society, some time since: 

 The grapes are all picked by girls. The pickers 

 each have a number; and in picking, each one, on 

 filling a basket, marks with the picking shears 

 her number on the handle. In this way the 

 responsibility for any careless picking can be 

 traced. Not how much, but how well is the rule. 

 The picker is not allowed to touch the bunches 

 with the hand, but to handle them by the stem. 

 In packing, the clusters are lifted with thumb 

 and finger, and with the sharp pointed grape 

 scissors, all green, imperfect or bruised berries 

 are deftly removed. Thus the bloom on the 

 grapes is preserved. The fruit, after picking, 

 stands three or four days to wilt, before packing. 

 Of 10,000 baskets sohl last season, the average 

 weight was eight and seven-tenths pounds per 

 basket. None but perfectly seasoned baskets 

 are used; green baskets causing mold. Where 

 Concords have been picked two weeks or over 

 in the warm fall weather, all the cracked and 

 bruised berries will show some mold, but as in 

 picking all these are scrupulously removed, no 

 harm Is done. The Concord is never fit for ship- 

 ping long distances, except it has been first care- 

 fully picked, then wilted, and then packed. 

 The packers soon learn to lay in the clusters 

 so as to fiU the baskets just level. 



French Nurseries as Seen hy an A merican Nur- 

 seryman. Mr. IrWng Rouse in a paper read at the 

 recent meeting of the Society of American Nurse- 

 rymen, related some of his observations on a trip 

 as follows : The first thing that strikes an ob- 

 server, he said was the lack of implements con- 

 sidered necessary on this side of the Atlantic ; 

 no cultivators, no harrows, no plows, and no 

 horses with which to work them. Not one nur- 

 seryman in ten owns a horse, or has any use for 

 one. As the Irishman said, " The ground is 

 plowed with a spade." With the assistance of 

 mattocks, it is also cultivated with a spade. No 

 use for tree or seedling diggers. It seems hard- 

 ly credible, but a proprietor of a nursery of over 

 'JOO acres, said a plow had not touched his ground 

 in more than fifty years. As horses are not 

 used, all the land can be utilized; no fence 

 corners are left untilled. Our deep system of 

 cultivation is, of course, not possible; the only 

 thing that can be done is to keep the ground 

 clean and surface loosened up by the use of hoes. 

 At great expense the ground is manured very 

 heavily; the fertilizers being carried from the 

 cctrapost heaps in baskets upon the backs of 

 workmen. If some of our i>eople, who think 

 they have a hard time, could see women packing 

 out manure at 40 cents a day, for 12 hours' 



work, they would conclude that there were people 

 worse off than they, and a worse country to live 

 in than the United States. Labor is cheap, but 

 land is high, $1,000 per acre being the average 

 price near the large towns. The deamess of 

 land and the cheapness of labor account for the 

 lack of laboi-saving machinery. The tree agent 

 and dealer are unknown in France; most of the 

 orders being sent direct to the nurseries. A 

 good deal of stock, however, is sold at the fall 

 fairs. The peasants come in from the surround- 

 ing country with cart loads of trees, and the 

 nurserymen say, that the peasant seller always 

 has on hand any sort the customer may ask for. 

 It was the opinion of Mr. Rouse that the tempta- 

 tion to substitute under the whole system is 

 greater than under the agent and dealer plans. 



Women as Berry-Growers. 



[Paper by Itrs. O. H. Root, Fondulac Co., Wis.] 



Can a woman make a living raising ber- 

 ries? Some woiikl say, yes, if she coukl do 

 all the work herself. (Jthers woulil say, 

 no, for she would be obliged to hire a man 

 to look after things, and keep a team 

 besides, and there would not be profit 

 enough to pay the e.xtra expense. 



Capacity for the Work Let us reason this 

 point a moment. How many grain, stock, or 

 fruit farmers are there who do all the work 

 themselves? The majority keep help and still 

 provide comfortably for their families. The 

 work that needs a team will pay for itself. It is 

 keeping the horse in front of a carriage 

 instead of a cultivator, that makes the team too 

 expensive for this business. Berry-growing, 

 then, does pay for the work, whether the grower 

 be a man or a woman. 



But, has a woman the capacity for managing 

 hired help? Are o\it-door laborers more diffi- 

 cult to manage than indoor ? Cannot the same 

 intellect which will hold three-score children at 

 study in school manage the same number who 

 depend on her for employment ? The work is 

 not more complicated than housekeeping, with 

 often the added task of helping to earn the Uving. 



In raising berries, the land must be properly 

 prepared for the crop. Plants properly set at 

 the right time and cared for through the grow- 

 ing season. The crop must be gathered and 

 marketed and the plantation put into shape tor 

 winter. Surely no great genius is required to 

 master the business either by man or woman. 



The Outlay Necessary for Planting. I will 

 give some figures as they were given me by a 

 woman who has gone quite extensively into 

 berry growing. Si.x thousand plants to an acre 

 cost on an average, $.1.50 per thousand, or $21, 

 and cultivating the same until berries are ripe 

 the following year cost $C0. The average price 

 of land being $150 an acre, the interest would be 

 $9. The poorest yield which could be called a 

 crop, was 135 bushels, or 4,320 boxes, while the 

 average crop is at least 200 bushels, or 6,400 

 boxes. The boxes cost one cent each ; com- 

 mission will average about one cent a box ; the 

 delivery and picking will make a total cost of 

 four cents to market a box of berries. 



The Beturns. Now, if the average price is 

 seven cents, the profit is three cents a bo.x, and 

 on 6,400 boxes $192, deducting the $90 it cost to 

 raise them, the net gain Is $102 from one acre. 



We know of cases where these figures have 

 been doubled, but I wish to give every day facts. 

 Every hour of work was paid for at the 

 market price ; every day's work with a team, 

 $2.50, and every day's cultivating with single 

 horse, $2.00. Raspberries and Blackberries, 

 I think, are fully as profitable, the expense 

 being about the same. I think this, more 

 profitable than teaching, sewing or clerking. 



Healthfulness. It is attended with more wear 

 and tear on clothing than the other work, but it 

 is not attended with so much wear and tear upon 

 the health. A woman, even in feeble health can 

 stand one third more work in the open air than 

 in the kitchen. Out-door labor will never hurt 

 a woman if she uses judgment. 



Independence. If a woman wishes to run a 

 small berry plantation without much help, she 

 can set the plants, keep them free from weeds 

 and make her own crates and boxes, pick the 

 berries and prepare them for the market, as well 

 as a man. I know this to be true from experi- 

 ence, and it is my candid opinion that any 

 woman possessed of common sense and a 

 reasonable amount of energy may become a 

 successful berry-grower. 



