POPULAR GARDENING 



AND FRUIT GROWING. 



"ACCUSE NOT NATURE, SHE BATH DONE HER PART: DO THOU BUT THINE." -Miziroif. 



Vol. VI. 



JUlsTJE, 189X. 



No. 9. 



June. 



Most welcome, thou of lavish hand ! 

 A subtle fragrance fills the land, 

 The sea Is silver and the strand 



A wave of gold: 

 The fruit peeps forth on every hanil 



And flowers unfold. 

 The verdant hills are proud to wear 

 Thy blushing favors and declare 

 Thy purple richness; everywhere 



Is glory spread, 

 And tree, and shrub, and earth, and air. 



To beauty wed. 

 — C. E. Banks, in Youth's Companion 



The weed battle should be won in June. 



The tendency of city business men to live in 

 the country, grows more marlted yearly. 



To FREE Strawberries from sand, in a way less 

 injurious to their fragrance and delicacy than 

 washing, it is recommended to gently shalie them 

 in a piece of damp muslin. The sand will remain 

 attached to the muslin. 



Nitrate of Soda for Tomatoes. The New 

 Jersey Station people, after careful practical and 

 c»»mparative trials, are very much in favor of 

 the use of nitrate of soda in commercial Tomato 

 growing. They say it pays well. 



A Veteran Fruit Grower Dead. Elisha 

 Moody, of Lockport, N. Y., well-known as a 

 horticulturist, died April 18th, at the age of SI 

 years. Mr. Moody was one of the originators of 

 the American Nurseryman's Association, and its 

 first i>resideat. In 1867 he was appointed com- 

 missioner of Horticulture to the Parisexhibition, 

 but he resigned the position. 



The FRniT OnTLOOK. The general fruit pros- 

 pects, at this writing seem to be most flattering. 

 The Strawberry and Grape crops may be reduced 

 in some localities by May frosts. On the whole 

 these fruits will be in good supply, and probably 

 ill good demand. Peaches, Plums, Cherries and 

 most varieties of Pears bid fair to yield abund- 

 antly. Apples, however, will at best be only a 

 short crop, since the Baldwins, the main stay for 

 a winter Apple in this and other sections, are 

 almost entirely without bloom. Some of the 

 summer Apples, also Greenings, Spy and other 

 sorts, have an abundance of apparently healthy 

 bloom, and " set " freely. What damage scab, 

 and insects may do yet, remains to be seen; but 

 by taking proper precautions against these 

 enemies (i. e. by thorough and persistent spray- 

 ing) we should be able to secure a full crop of 

 the varieties "now blooming and setting so freely, 

 even in spite of fungi, bugs and worms. Alto- 

 gether we think the fruit grower can look more 

 hopefully into the future than for yeai-s. 



Mulching In Summer. 



Has the reader ever in a dry spell, pitched 

 a.si(le a pile of garden litter or manure 

 that may have lain since the spring garden 

 making V If so, you discovered that under- 

 neath the stuff the soil was surprisingly 

 moist, while that all about was perhaps as 

 dry as dust. 



Why not forestal injury from drouth this 

 season, by applying this practical lesson for 

 the good of your trees, shrubs and plants? 



It should be done at once. 



A mulch will help all trees, Roses, shrubs, 

 as well as Peas and all vegetables. If the 

 soil is now dry, draw the earth away from 

 the stems to make a basin-like receptacle, 

 and apply one or several pails of water to 

 each tree or shrub, and apply the mulch later. 



Materials: Lawn clippings, straw, horse 



droppings, leaf mold, old manure. The coat 

 should be at least an inch and a half thick, 

 three inches would be better. 



Basket Nailing Bench. 



GEO. a. JONES, WINNEBAGO CO., WIS. 



I find a bench, such as shown in accom- 

 panying sketch, quite convenient for nail- 

 ing berry-boxes. Upon a standard n, which 

 is a piece of scantling two and one-half feet 

 long, another piece nine inches long h is 

 mortised and bolted. An iron plate, r, one- 

 quarter inch thick, screwed upon I>, serves 

 a good purpose in clinching nails. The seat 

 d is two and three-quarter feet long, and 

 made of two-inch plank, a foot wide. This 

 is mortised and bolted to a, and has two 

 legs at the back end, which are 18'<r inches 

 long. The holes through which they are 

 inserted into the plank seat from below, 

 should be bored nearly but not quite 

 through. Upon the plank seat, next to the 

 standard, is a little tin box, made of an old 

 oyster can, for receiving nails. I am well 

 pleased with this device. 



Notes from the Popular Gardening 



Grounds at La Salle-on-the- 



Niagara. 



The Knapsack Sprayer. We are well pleased 

 by our first experience with the $14.00 knapsack 

 sprayer, now put on the market by several man- 

 ufacturers. Ours, made by a Washington firm, 

 and in accordance with descriptions and specifi- 

 cations furnished by the Department of Agri- 

 culture, holds about five gallons of spraying 

 liquid, and seems to answer its purpose admirably. 

 Of course it is more than play to operate it all 

 day long. The weight, when the sprayer is filled, 

 sets quite heavily on one's shoulders, but de- 

 creases steadily as the spraying continues. We 

 think there are a good many jobs in farm and 

 garden management requiring more effort and 

 endurance than carrying ^nd operating the 

 knapsack sprayer. 



The spray can be forced at least fifteen feet 

 from the end of the nozzle, and this is sufficient 

 to reach from the ground even the highest limb 

 in our Apple orchard of flf teen-year old trees. 

 The hose, however, did not prove to be strong 

 enough forsuch forceful si>ray, and soon burst 

 in several places. We procured a longer and 

 stronger hose, which makes the machine all right 

 for spraying high trees. The end with the nozzle 

 was fastened on a Bamboo shoot ten feet long, 

 and by the help of this device we succeeded in 

 reaching the higher branches in an older orchard 

 with the spraying solution. We cannot see any- 

 thing about the Knapsack sprayer, that if 

 properly made, should be liable to give out very 

 soon or to need constant repairing. 



The first application with the ammoniacal solu- 

 tion of copper carbonate to the trees was made 

 middle of May. Powell's prepared mixture, cop- 

 perdine, is in quite convenient shape for use; but 

 it would probably be somewhat cheaper to pre- 

 pare the carbonate at home, from sulphate of 

 copper and sal soda making the solution accord- 

 ing to the improved formula given elsewhere. 



The second application to the trees will be 

 made just as soon as the blossoms drop, the 

 spraying liquid to consist of the Bordeau.x mix- 

 ture with an ounce of Paris green added to every 

 12 gallons of the mixture. This, we hope, will 

 dispose of codling moth, and all leaf eaters as 

 well as of scab. 



The Grapes, after the first treatment with a 

 saturated solution of suliihate of iron (green 

 copperas) in early April, and when the buds were 

 only just swelling, have received a thorough 

 spraying with the ammoniacal copper carbonate 

 solution on May 19th. The first leaves were then 



only beginning to show themselves. Later on 

 we shall use the Bordeaux mixture, and then 

 fall back upon the carbonate treatment. 

 Altogether we ai'e quite sanquine of success. 



Where we expect to see the virtues of the 

 sprayer and spraying liquids put to a severe test, 

 is in the Potato field and in the Tomato patch. 

 The former we have to spray any way, to fight 

 the Potato bugs, and perhaps flea beetles; and 

 while we use Paris green, we may as well use the 

 Bordeaux mixture with it to insure immunity to 

 the foUage, not only from the attacks of blight 

 and rot, but also from the caustic effects of even 

 a large proportion of Paris green in water. 



Tomato-leaf blight injured a good many of our 

 plants last season, and we already notice signs of 

 it on some of our Early Ruby plants in the 

 frames now ready to put out at this writing. On 

 May 19th these plants were given a thorough 

 spraying with the copperdine solution, and the 

 treatment will be frequently repeated in the 

 field. We live at least in hopes of conquering 

 this destructive foe. 



The Emerald Gem Musk Melon. We like 

 Melons, especially good and spicy ones, such as 

 for instance the Emerald Gem, the superior of 



A Banhet Nailing Bench. 



which in flavor we have never met. Some of 

 our neighbore growHackensack.and similar sorts 

 for market. We find most of these ordinary 

 sorts too late for our climate and grounds, unless 

 started early under glass and transplanted. But 

 we do not see what we could gain by growing 

 these later sorts merely to get size and insipidity 

 when we can plant the Emerald Gem in open 

 ground in its proper season, and get quality, 

 sweetness and spiciness. 



The Emerald Gem is early, consequentlj' we 

 can plant it confidently expecting a long season 

 of the most luscious Melons Imaginable. And 

 this variety well deserves even a little extra 

 painstaking to make it earlier. Our way is to 

 dig a hole for each hill and fill it with a mixture 

 of sand, rotted manure and loam, and plant the 

 seed in this. Some of the hills are started even 

 before the time for general planting, and cov- 

 ered with a little frame with a pane or two of 

 glass on top. 



If you have never tried the Emerald Gem, it 

 is time yon should. If planted at once they will 

 still give you ripe Melons before frost, even in a 

 locality with as short seasons as ours. 



Lawn Grass Tests. When some millions of 

 people are interested in having the best possible 

 lawn that can be obtained for a reasonable out- 

 lay, the question of what varieties of grass are 

 the most suitable to sow for the yard sward, be- 

 comes a very important one. Realizing this fact, 

 it was early determined when the Popular Gar- 

 dening Grounds were begun to make a very 

 complete test of lawn grasses, with a view to 

 gathering light upon this subject. Accordingly 

 in the first two planting seasons after moving 

 here, namely, in 18S9-90, the following grasses 

 and mixtures were sown under fair con- 

 ditions. In the case of mixtures from 1.3 to 18, 

 these were obtained from six leading seedsmen, 

 as their very best strains, respectively: 



1. Creeping Bent Grass [Agrostis sUAoniferai, 



2. Crested Dog's Tail (Cynosurtis crintatxut). 

 3 English Rye Grass (iolium perenne). 



