178 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



June, 



and meaty to the taste, with a fresh, sprightly, 

 vinous flavor. Soil, climate and cultivation 

 unite to secure this perfect result.'i Fine quality 

 is secured in the vineyard, or it is never secured. 

 Failure there is failure all the way through. 



The Grape vine is the child of the sun. The 

 wild vine climbs to the top of the tallest tree 

 that it may bathe its foliag-e in the upper sun- 

 light and air. Abundant lijrht. air and cultiva- 

 tion. In that trio you have the secret of health 

 and vigor for ;the vine and the highest quality 

 for the fruit. 



The baneful effect of weeds are two-fold, dim- 

 inution of quantity and deterioration of quality. 

 If you have the weeds and thistles up even with 

 the top wire of the trellis, you will get none but 

 second quality fruit. 



Planting and Pruning. We use good, one- 

 year-old number one vines, grown from heavy, 

 "well-ripened cuttings, in rich soil, in the open 

 air. The rows are nine feet agart, and vines 

 eight, nine and ten feet apart in the row. 



Insufficient pruning means overproduction, 

 and overproduction means poor quality. At the 

 close of the season one acre of good Concord 

 vineyard, in rough numbers, will have 150,000 

 buds on the new wood. The capacity of the soil 

 win, we will say, mature five tons. This requires 

 2.5,000, buds, or one-sixth of the whole. So you 

 see our vineyard is loaded.up>ith buds enough 

 for 30 tons. It will only carry five. Hence wo 

 must prune away five-sixths of the bearing 

 wood. If we have too much, the soil is taxed 

 beyond its capacity, and the result is a lot of 

 second quality and refuse Grapes. The amount 

 of bearing wood left in pruning varies with dif- 

 ferent varieties. With Concord leave five canes 

 of nine budseach with Delaware, leavethree, and 

 Catawba only two. Prune and train to secure 

 the fullest and most even distribution of fruit. 

 Because it more perfectly enables you to do this, 

 a three wire trellis is better than two, and a four 

 wire oetter than three. 



CnltiTation. This extends from May 15 to 

 August 15. In large vineyards the best tool is 

 the two-horse riding cultivator. Cultivate about 

 twice in three weeks, or eight times during 

 the season, each time of uniform depth, and 

 don't be afraid to go down four or five inches. 

 Vineyards thus cared for maintain throughout 

 their dark, glossy green, and are as a rule abso- 

 lutely drought proof. 



Harvesting. Have your baskets all on hand 

 and good help engaged before the first cluster 

 ripeus. Picking and packing Grapes is the most 

 healthful and delightful out-door and in-door 

 work known to this latitude. Invalids forget 

 their ailments, the weak become strong, the lean 

 grow fat. Women are the best help. Their 

 gentle touch just suits the need in handUng a 

 fruit exceedingly susceptible to in.iury. 



Befnse Qrapes- What shall we do with them? 

 Don't have any. It don't pay to raise Grapes for 

 vmegar. Kefuse Grapes comes from two sources, 

 first from over-production, which calls for closer 

 pruning; second, from bringing into the vine- 

 yard the manners and roughness of the coal yard, 

 or from careless handling when first picked. Of 

 course in the last half of the season there will 

 daily accumulate some cracked berries, say about 

 one pound in one hundred. But if in 20 tons you 

 have over 200 pounds of cracked or refuse 

 Grapes, or one-half of one per cent, you are not 

 up with the practice of the best vineyardists. 



Varieties, We need more early Grapes to 

 lengthen the market season and to economize the 

 cost of hired help. But beware of the Tallman 

 Grape. It has no merits. Don't buy it, don't 

 sell it, and I need not say, don't eat it, for you 

 caimot do that if you try. The Concord gives a 

 good illustration of the trite maxim, " Nothing 

 succeeds like success." The Concord Grape crop 

 of IKliO brought to Chautauqua county over one 

 million dollars, and to the lake shore, including 

 Erie county. Pa., about a million and half. In 

 the face of this statement criticism is dumb, and 

 comment needless. 



Ups and Downs In Horticulture. 



{Extract of a jiaper by P, C. Rynolds, before the West- 

 ern New York Horticultural Society.) 



Discouragement. The first cause of dis- 

 couragement that I shall notice is climatic. 

 Peaches and Sweet Cherries have been 

 killed by low temperature in winter, and 

 Peach trees, Cherry trees and Grape vines 

 have been killed by the combined eflects of 

 prolonged low temperature and the ab- 

 sence of moistijre. Our fruit crops are also 



frequently diminished, if not totally destroy- 

 ed by late spring or early autumn frosts. 



3. Although the ordinary growth of weeds, 

 which can be subdued by proper culture, ought 

 not to be reckoned among the discouragements 

 of horticulture, the introduction of new and 

 strange weeds, with unusual means of rapid 

 propagation and ver.\' difficult of extirpation, 

 whose names and habits are not familiar to us, 

 prove very discouraging. We regard ordinary 

 weeds that succumb to beneficial culture, as 

 rather a blessing than a bane to the horticultu- 

 rist, but such weeds as Plaintain, Canada thistles. 

 Quack grass tTriticum npciis), and many others, 

 introduced with foreign seeds or plants, or pur- 

 chased manures, require so much culture for 

 their subjection or extirpation, as to absorb the 

 profits of the business. 



3. Two classes of enemies of fruit culture have 

 increased with fearful rapidity during the last 

 two decades, namely, parasite fungi and destruc- 

 tive insects. The very climatic conditions which 

 promote the rapid germination and vegetation 



Bome-made Wheel Boe. See opposite page. 

 of the germs of desirable plants are also favor- 

 able to the rapid development of parasitical 

 growths. The increase of mildews, blights, scabs, 

 rusts, etc , are only equaled by the rapid multi- 

 plication of insect enemies and by their com- 

 bined depredations the products of the horticul- 

 turist are very greatly reduced in quantity and 

 impaired in quality. 



i. There is another class of parasites, preying 

 upon the products of horticultural industry 

 that sometimes prove more discouraging than 

 even the fungal and insect parasites combined. 

 These are the inter-consumer and often manage 

 to consume the lion's share of the profits if not 

 of the gross receipts. It not infrequently occurs 

 that planters of nursery stock and consumers of 

 fruits, pay from 50 to 200 per cent more than 

 nurserymen and fruit growers receive. All this 

 difference is absorbed by transporters and 

 dealers or commission men. The honest, fair 

 dealing middleman, is a benefit to the producer, 

 but the grasping, extortionate one is a curse to 

 both producer and consumer. He not only robs 

 the producer of hard earned money but he so 

 limits consumption by his extortionate prices, 

 as to cause glutted markets. 



5. The fifth and last discouragement is, over- 

 production, or restricted consumption. Perhaps 

 none of the causes of discouragement that I 

 have noticed are so disheartening as that of pro- 

 ducing an abundant crop of fine fruit and find- 

 ing the market so overstocked that it will not 

 sell for enough to compensate for its production. 

 These frequently recurring gluts of fruit mar- 

 kets are caused by restricted consumption rather 

 than by over-production. This state has never 

 yet produced one-half the fruit that its citizens 

 would be able to consume if they would use 

 daily, all the fruit that an enlightened judgment 

 would pronounce conducive to healthful nutri- 

 tion, highest gustatory enjoyment, and at the 

 same time consistent with true economy. 



One way to so increase consumption of fruit 

 as to prevent these peril idical gluts is to en- 

 lighten the public on the value of fruit as an 

 article of diet, to use every means within your 

 power to reduce the ditlerence between prices 

 received by producer and iiaid by consumer, and 

 to grow better frait and ijlace it upon the mar- 

 ket in better condition. Every producer who 

 puts upon the market poor, wormy, unripe fruit, 

 or puts upon the market deceptive packages of 

 fruit, with fine specimens upon the top and 

 poor fruit underneath, contributes to lessen 

 consumption. Our markets are flooded early in 

 the season with green Strawberries from the 

 south and by the time our own product is ripe a 

 large portion of coiisumers are thoroughly dis- 

 gusted with the very name Strawberry. In the 

 Autumn many Grape growers are so anxious to 

 realize on their fruit and so fearful of loss by 

 frosts that they hurry their Grapes to market as 



soon as the color has turned, before they bear 

 the slightest resemblance to the delicious flavor 

 and fine aroma of the well ripened Grape. Of 

 course those who form their opinions of the 

 Grape by such samples are not going to expend 

 much money in that kind of fruit. 



Encouragements, Some of the greater en- 

 couragements of horticulture grow out of the 

 seeming discouragements. The obstacles to 

 success in horticultural pursuits do but stimu- 

 late to mental effort, to the study of the nature 

 of the obstacles and the means necessary to 

 overcome them. What we have lost in products 

 we have gained in mental development. What 

 we have lost in money we have gained in man- 

 hood. Is it not a profitable exchange? Horti- 

 culturists may not become millionaires but they 

 may become (what is better) men. 



It is the high privilege of horticulturists to co- 

 operate with creative energy in the grand work 

 of creation. We cannot create matter; we can- 

 not form worlds out of matter, but with matter 

 and the earth and the soil prepared for us we 

 can assist in the grand process of evolution, by 

 which inferior forms of matter are transformed 

 into higher forms, into Uving organisms. We 

 can assist in the preparation of the seed-bed, by 

 breaking up and pulverizing the hard stubborn 

 soil. We can select and plant the seeds, or cut- 

 ting of species and varieties best adapted to the 

 sustenance of man or beast, or, in ornamentals 

 that best please the ,'esthetic taste. By supply- 

 ing more plant food, cultivating the soil, irriga- 

 ting or watering, we can create variations, and 

 by selecting and crossing variations we can pro- 

 duce new varieties, better adapted to our wants. 

 Thus we are permitted to assist in the process of 

 evolution and progress. 



Home-made Fruit Evaporator. 



(Extract of paiicr by S. A. Latimer, read before the 

 Missouri State Horticultural Society. 



Construct a frame-work of scantlings, 

 the edges of which should be dressed so 

 that all the scantlings will be exactly the 

 same width. Cut them four feet long and 

 fasten together with strips of plank three 

 inches wide and of sufficient length to place 

 them exactly three feet and one-fourth of an 

 inch apart. 



These strips should be fastened to the side of 

 the scantlings near their ends. Make seven of 

 such frames and place them two feet apart, and 

 fasten together by nailing on the ends of the 

 scantlings strips of plank for plates and as wide 

 as the scantlings and twelve feet two inches in 

 length. Side up with weather-boarding, or what 

 is much better, flooring, shiplap or boxing, 

 which should be placed on perpendicularly. At 

 each end there should be a door. 



The roof should be made in the ordinary way, 

 except a vent at the top two mches wide the en- 

 tire length of the evaporator. A trough-like 

 covering should be made for this opening and 

 placed one inch above the roof. Strips of mould- 

 ing to support the trays should be tacked to the 

 inner edge of the studding. These strips should 

 be at least one-half an inch thick and not more 

 than one inch in width Begin six inches above 

 the lower end of the studding and tack these 

 strips three inches apart. 



The trays or frames upon which the fruit is to 

 be placed should be just two by three feet and 

 one inch in depth. The tray frames should be 

 made of strips one inch square. The bottom of 

 the trays should be made of plastering laths two 

 feet in length. They should be placed about 

 one-fourth of an inch apart, except in the center 

 of the trays, where there should be a vacancy of 

 two inches to give proper ventilation. 



The laths at each end of the tray should have 

 their outer edge dressed, and they should be 

 placed on in such a way as to give the tray a play 

 endwise in the evaporator of one-eighth of an 

 inch. There should be seventy-two of these trays. 



The evaporator, when completed, should be 

 placed over a furnace of stone or brick, made 

 similar to a Sorghum evaporator furnace. 



Dig a trench ten feet long and as deep as de- 

 sired for a fire-pit, and wide enough when lined 

 with brick or stone to be fifteen inches from wall 

 tci wall. Cover the front end of the furnace with 

 a wide Hat stone, and the remainder of the fur- 

 nace with heavy sheet iron or pieces of old stoves. 



Around this furnace build walls two feet high. 

 The distance between the side walls should be 

 three feet, and that of the end walls twelve feet. 

 Upon these walls rests the evaporator. 



