I89I. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



149 



too, in the case of seeds with bony, hard 

 covering, which germinate slowly, such as 

 the seeds of the Olive, and of most of the 

 Rose family, nut-bearing plants, etc. 



There are also a number of vegetable 

 seeds which take a long time to germinate, 

 siich as those of the Parsnip, Carrot, Sugar 

 Beet, Parsley and Tarragon; these are im- 

 proved by being placed in layers of sand be- 

 fore planting, although their germination 

 can be hastened by more active treatment. 

 Many systems are in use for this purpose 

 among gardeners. 



Sometimes good results are obtained by 

 mixing seeds of this character with fine 

 soil, and then, after placing them in a pot 

 or sack, plunging them tor some time into 

 hot water. Others soak such seeds for a 

 longer or shorter time, varying from six to 

 forty-eight hours, in tepid water, to which 

 is added a little salt or chlorine Some 

 gardeners soak Carrot and Beet seeds in 

 liquid manure for two or three days before 

 sowing them. All such methods are gener- 

 ally good if they are carefully used. 



I do not recommend the method of hasten- 

 ing germination which consists in plung- 

 ing seeds into water strongly impregnated 

 with potassium or caustic soda. The 

 strength of these salts is so great that if a 

 Coffee-seed is dropped into a solution made 

 with them, germination takes place at the 

 end of a few hours; but .seeds so treated, 

 instead of continuing to grow, perish when 

 they are transferred to the soil. 



I have secured the germination of seeds in 

 half the ordinary time by plunguig them 

 during a period varying from six to thirty- 

 six hours, according to the hardness of their 

 coats, in water to which was added one- 

 tenth of its volume of the liquid ammoniac 

 of commerce. 



The best agent of hastening germination 

 appears to be ammoniac. In practical ap- 

 plication it is best applied in the form of 

 fresh horse-manure or horse-manure re- 

 freshed with horse-urine, which should be 

 used either mixed with other substances or 

 alone, and which for this purpose should 

 be placed in a bed in a warm greenhouse, 

 I have caused in this way the germination 

 of Pear and Grape-seeds, nuts, Plum-stones, 

 Almonds, the seeds of the Coffee-tree, of 

 Palms, Sugar Beets, Peanuts, Fraxinella 

 and other seeds of slow germination in half 

 the time needed to secure the germination 

 of the same seeds sown in the ordinary 

 condition. 



In the case of Beets, Beans, Lupins, and 

 other plants of the Pulse family, the use of 

 heated soil produces the most deplorable 

 results on account of the rapid develop- 

 ment of the cotyledons, which results in the 

 breaking and destruction of many embryos 

 when the seeds are treated in this way. 

 For all such seeds it is recommended to 

 immerse them for six or eight hours in 

 slightly heated water, which softens the 

 coating of the seed and facilitates the exit 

 of the germ. 



Why Not Grow More Carrots. 



JAMES K. HENDERSON, BUCHANAN CO., IOWA. 



There is no root crop cultivated that has 

 the nutritive and medicinal qualities pos- 

 sessed by the Carrot. Fed to cows they not 

 only increase the flow and value of milk, 

 but give a rich color to the butter that can- 

 not be obtained in the winter without the 

 use of coloring matter, and unlike Turnips, 

 they never impart a strong or disagreeable 

 taste to the butter. 



Fed to horses, they improve them in every 

 way, appearance, spirits, health and sound 

 flesh. A horse fed with Carrots is said 

 never to be troubled with worms. 



Williams, the famous breeder, who sold 

 Aitell for .$105,000, and bred Alberton whom 



he considers worth more still, feeds two or 

 three thousand bushels every winter. 



With the highest cultivation, as high as 

 twelve hundred bushels have been raised 

 on an acre, but from four to six hundred 

 bushels per acre will prove a prolitable 

 crop. They do best on land manured the 

 previous year. Never use fresh stable 

 manure the year you plant. Sow in rows 

 fifteen inches apart with a good garden drill, 

 and when about two inches high, thin to 

 three or four inches apart. If to be culti- 

 vated with a horse, plant two feet apart. 

 For cultivation I prefer the Planet Jr. 

 horse hoe, model 91, using narrow steels 

 the first few times at least. Use Guerande 

 or Oxheart seeds in narrow rows. Half- 

 long Danvers can be sown when planted in 

 rows eighteen to twenty-four inches apart. 

 Do not plant any of the old-fashioned long 

 kinds, they will disappoint you in all- 

 around results. 



If one has plenty of land, and help is 

 scarce, it might be more profitable to sum- 

 mer-fallow the ground, thus killing all 

 weeds and grass, besides turning one or 

 two coats of green manure under; then next 

 spring plow and harrow thoroughly, crush- 

 ing all lumps with roller or plank. 



In harvesting if you have plenty of time, 

 cut the tops off at the crown so none of the 

 buds will sprout during winter. If hurried, 

 twist tops off, throw Carrots in piles to be 

 picked up and loaded in wagons. Then cut 

 tops in leisure hours during winter. 



If the ground is hard, or the roots rather 

 long, run a plow within an inch or two of 

 the row, when they can be pulled easily. In 

 small fields they can be loosened easily 

 with a spade. 



Sixty Years of Fruit Growing.— Judge 

 Miller tells His Early Recollections. 



My father was a farmer, and a good one, 

 and not without love for horticulture. 

 According to my earliest recollections, 

 there were Mayduke, Bleeding Heart and 

 Ox Heart Cherries on the place; also Yellow 

 Gages, German Prunes, and Magnum Bo- 

 num I'lums; Apricot trees on the terraces; 

 Golden Chasselas Grape vines trained 

 against the eastern walls. We also had a 

 good selection of Apples in the orchard, and 

 Peaches plenty, mostly seedlings, but 

 Early York and a few other budded varie- 

 ties among them. 



In spring when the last snow fell over a 

 foot deep, all hands were turned out to roll 

 snow balls up to the Peach trees, two or 

 three to each tree as large as a barrel kettle. 

 This on a foot of frost in the ground retard- 

 ed the blooming so that they escaped the 

 late frosts. 



That season there was a crop of Peaches 

 such as I have seldom seen since. There 

 were about two acres in the orchard, and as 

 the crop was almost a failure in that vicinity, 

 people came near and far for Peaches, with 

 baskets, sacks, and even with one-horse 

 wagons. But the latter was too much for 

 even my generous father, who put a stop to 

 it. Then the idea of selling Peaches was 

 out of order with a well-to-do farmer; so all 

 these Peaches went free. But the writer of 

 this had a different notion, and asked why 

 these people should not pay twenty-five 

 cents a bushel. I had the same idea about 

 Cherries, of which we had perhaps thirty 

 trees of red and black Mazzards, some of 

 them extra fine for that class. Of these 

 there were trees three feet in diameter at 

 the base and fifty and sixty feet high bear- 

 ing a large wagon bed full of fruit to the 

 tree. And there came one of my troubles, 

 what tired me of farming and turned my 

 whole mind to horticulture, to which my 

 energies have now been devoted for about 

 half a century. 



But to go back a little and tell how these 



Cherries going to waste worried me. In 

 haying and harvest I told my father, that I 

 could gather a bushel a day of these 

 Cherries, take them to .Jamestown, six 

 miles off, and get two dollars for them. 

 This would pay two grown men theirwages 

 for the day, while I, but a boy, would be 

 paying them, and at the same time enjoy 

 myself greatly. But it was overruled, and 

 a very discontented boy had to carry water 

 to the field hands, and help turn hay, 

 gather sheaves, etc. 



This subject is commented on more par- 

 ticularly, as the time is here when boys 

 seem so prone to leave the farm and go to 

 the cities. Some hints may be taken from 

 this by parents. 



Well do I remember seeing bushels of 

 white and red Currants dry on the bushes 

 in the garden. The first Raspberry plant I 

 ever saw in a garden, I helped to plant my- 

 .self. At that time we had the Alexander 

 Grape, but it and the Golden Chasselas 

 were the only two we had. 



The Gages and Prunes grew in the house 

 yard where the ground was hard beaten. 

 We never found a wormy specimen, while 

 in the garden the Magnum Bonums never 

 perfected a Plum. Curculio was not known 

 then to be the cause. We only called them 

 worms. Pears then were few in variety, 

 Summer Bon Chretien, White Doyennes, 

 Houser and Uvedale's St. Germain, were 

 about all we had. The large Winter Pear 

 I saw budded, growing on an Apple tree as 

 fine as ever since. 



At an exhibition, many years after, 

 Seckels that were grown on a Hays' Apple 

 tree took the premium. Ten years ago I 

 saw as fine white Doyenne Pears on a 

 Prince's Harvest tree as ever on a Pear tree. 

 In my orchard here, nice Pears grew for 

 years on a Boston Russet Apple tree graft- 

 ed years before I bought this place. 



When a boy how I loved to stroll along 

 the banks of the Pequa creek, looking on a 

 little ledge of rocks jutting the waters' edge 

 thirty feet high as a romantic spot, and 

 little dreaming that late in life I should 

 dwell on the banks of the mighty Missouri 

 river, and be surrounded with hills. 

 Within half a mile I can see a perpendicular 

 cliff near two hundred feet high. On the 

 south side of these cliffs there is a slope 

 ranging from fifty to one hundred yards 

 broad to the river, and at an angle of about 

 thirty degrees. This is all made soil from 

 the hills above, and on this we are now 

 planting fruit trees and Grape vines, the 

 latter so as to be trained under projecting 

 ledges, with the expectation of escaping rot 

 and mildew. 



Next to the growing of grain, fruit is in 

 my estimation the most important. Not 

 one-half of the people in the country have 

 half enough of fruit. 



At this time, beginning of March, several 

 persons have come to me for a few Apples, 

 say they have sick children and crave 

 Apples. The pleasure it gives me to furnish 

 them free of charge, goes far to compensate 

 me for the labor and care it required to har- 

 vest them. My Newtown Pippins in the 

 cellar just now would command at least 

 -*2 a bushel, but none will be sold. 



PoKTEK Api'LE. I am in possession of a 

 handsome and good Apple that should be 

 given to the world as it might otherwise be 

 lost, since the originator, as well as the 

 original tree have gone to dust. A neigh- 

 bor perpetuated and placed it in my care 

 for propagation. I forward specimens. Tell 

 us what you think of it. The trees bear 

 abundantly every year, and last season 

 were overloaded. Porter is its name. 



[Specimen of medium size received. 

 Highly colored with deepest red. Quality 

 very mild sub-acid, spicy, rich, melting. 

 Apparently a good keeper. Ed.] 



