1 89 1. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



185 



Failure or Success.— Two Ways to 

 Raise an Orchard. 



SAMUEL MILLER, MONTOOMERV CO., MO. 



Failure. One plan is to give an order 

 to some traveling tree agent who is not re- 

 sponsible, and who may not represent any 

 respectable nursery, but who buys surplus 

 stock wherever he can get it cheapest, puts 

 up the orders regardless of correctness of 

 names or varieties. If in the fall, when the 

 trees are delivered according to notice, he_ 

 may go for them or wait a few days. When 

 he does go and gets his trees on the wagon, 

 without any wrapping, he may meet some 

 cronies in town and stop for a social time. 



When he gets home, perhaps he will heel 

 them in, perhap.s they will lie in the wagon 

 until next day. In damp, cloudy, calm 

 weather the trees will not suffer much; but 

 on a dry, ^indy day, followed by a frost in 

 the night, these trees have already been 

 more than half ruined. It he plants them 

 in the fall, or heels them in until spring, 

 the planting will most likely be done in a 

 careless manner, in holes barely large 

 enough to hold the roots without bending, 

 and in ground not previously prepared; per- 

 haps in a sod or in a field sown to Wheat. 



Sod is the worst place of all, unless at- 

 tended to properly afterwards. If planted 

 in a Wheat field, even if the Wheat is hoed 

 up around for three feet in diameter, the 

 intense heat in that little circle when the 

 Wheat is nearly grown, will give the trees 

 another hard lick. The grass after Wheat 

 harvest, and perhaps his cattle turned into 

 pasture, will just about finish the trees. 

 Then the planter will say with disgust: " I 

 have no luck with trees. I might as well 

 have thrown that money away." But sup- 

 posing he gets good trees, plants them in 

 good ground well prepared, and gives them 

 fair cultivation, he is by no means "out of 

 the woods," particularly if it is near any 

 woodland where the borers always are; for 

 without proper attention to this he will 

 never have a complete orchard. 



When I first came to Missouri, 23 years 

 ago, I planted lOU Apple trees, to-day three 

 of these are all that are standing. Borers 

 then were strangers to me, so that the mis- 

 chief was done here ere I knew what was 

 the matter. While on this subject, I will 

 state that removing the earth from around 

 the trunks of trees a few inches, wrapping 

 with paper (double thickness of newspaper 

 will do), if done in May.will insure the safety 

 of the trees for that season. This is for the 

 round-headed borer; the tlat-headed one will 

 never attack a sound part uf a tree. Only 

 where the sun scalds the bark, either on the 

 trunk or limbs, is were it will attack, how- 

 headed trees are safe from this pest. 



Su(;CESS. The other way to plant an orch- 

 ard, is to go to a responsible niu-seryman and 

 get your trees, first having your ground 

 prepared, the holes dug and all ready. If 

 you are not well posted on fruit, it is better 

 to leave the selection to the boss ol the 

 nursery, for five times out of six he will 

 give you a better outfit than you would 

 select yourself. It is hardly necessary to 

 tell that the holes should be large, both in 

 width and depth, and top soil used in filling 

 in, the subsoil scattered around where the 

 top had been taken to fill in. If the ground 

 is not rich it will pay to mix in old black wood 

 and log mould from the woods, or manure 

 that is properly decomposed. It neither of 

 these are used, cover the ground around the 

 trees tor three feet with fresh manure from 

 the barnyard three inches thick. 



Cultivate the land in all cases for four or 

 five years. Corn, Potatoes or other crops 

 that need working will do no harm, provid- 

 ing that no planting is done near enough to 

 the trees to rob the roots ot nourishment, 

 and be sure to put fertilizers of some kind 

 to make up for what is taken off in crops. 



This will, in the course of six or eight years, 

 make a young orchard that will delight and 

 also pay the owner. 



Sometimes it happens that we want to set 

 out trees where the ground is set in Clover, 

 which we don't wish to plow under. Such 

 was the case last fall when I planted about 

 .50 Apple and Peach trees. But the holes are 

 made three feet square, and this summer 

 this will be hoed up loose (has had one 

 loosening already), and if still left in Clover 

 another year there will be a foot more dug 

 around the outside, so that the roots will 

 have fair play. 



Some ask me why I plant trees when past 

 my three score and ten? My answer is for 

 fruit, and if not for me for some who are 

 still here when I am gone. And just here 

 it may not be amiss to state that temperate 

 and regular habits in life, with plenty of 

 pretty hard work, has left me at this age 

 hale and hearty, and usually I do more work 

 among trees and plants in a day than any 

 man 1 can employ. I can pick more Apples 

 from trees than any man in these parts, and 

 do it well too. This is intended as a hint to 

 young men who are setting out in life. I 

 give the same answer as did the great Field 

 marshall of Germany, Von Moltke (now 

 dead), when asked to what he attributed his 

 old age, " To the grace of God and my tem- 

 perate habits." Horticulturists, as a rule, 

 live to a good old age, and if they don't 

 enjoy the beauties and the good things of 

 this world, I don't know what men do. 



We don't pretend to live in style here, in 

 the wilderness as it were, yet every one who 

 comes here says: "What a lovely place you 

 have, and what a variety of fruits and 

 flowers. No wonder your children are not 

 anxious to leave home, etc." The man who 

 owns land and does not have plenty of good 

 fruit, is not fulfilling his mission here, and 

 is depriving himself and his family of com- 

 forts that they are justly entitled to. 



We have now. May 3d, still a half barrel 

 of sound Newtown and Michael Henry Pip- 

 pins, also some Jennettings in the cellar 

 which will last until Strawberries are ripe, 

 which are now well set with fruit. Our 

 prospect for a full crop of Peaches (a rare 

 thing of late years) is very flattering. Cher- 

 ries and Plums full. Pears moderate, Apples 

 a good show. 



On the Propagating of Roses. 



The following notes are taken from EU- 

 wanger's book, "The Kose":— There are 

 four methods used in propagating Roses— 

 by cuttings, by budding, by grafting, by 

 layering; in importance they rank in the 

 order named, and in this order we will 

 briefly consider them. 



Cuttings.— There is no doubt but that 

 plants grown from cuttings are the most 

 useful for general purposes, and the greater 

 number of our choice varieties can be grown 

 in this way without difficulty; but there are 

 some beautiful kinds, like Baroness Roths- 

 child, which root with great difficulty; these 

 sorts can only be profitably grown by bud- 

 ding or grafting. Cuttings can be made at 

 any time of the year. The old ideas that 

 the wood /;ii(st be cut at a joint or with a 

 heel, and that it is csm ;itia) they should be 

 placed in bottom heat, have been thorough- 

 ly exploded. The most successful propaga- 

 tion by cuttings, for the most kinds, is 

 made during the lale winter months trom 

 strong plants one or two years old that have 

 been grown in open ground, potted in the 

 month of November, or from plants which 

 have been grown in pots for one year, or 

 planted out under glass. Cuttings of all 

 kinds which root freely, like General Jac- 

 queminot, Victor Verdier, etc., can be made 

 from one eye only, and cut between the 

 joints just as well as after the old fashion 

 of cutting to a heel, and with three or more 



eyes— an unnecessary and wasteful process. 

 All of the large commercial establishments 

 in America do most of their Rose propaga- 

 tion in the months of .lanuary, February, 

 and March; the cuttings are made to one 

 eye and dibbled in beds of sand, or in some 

 cases are placed in pots of sand and these 

 pots plunged in beds of sand; underneath 

 the staging which supports the cuttings run 

 hot-water pipes or flues; these are common- 

 ly boarded in to secure bottom heat, and 

 this I believe to be the best method. Some 

 Rose-growers make no attempt at confining 

 the pipes or flues, and produce excellent 

 plants without resorting to bottom heat, but 

 it is a slower process, and there is a some- 

 what greater percentage of cuttings that 

 fail to root. Advocates of this system claim 

 that they secure healthier, stronger plants 

 in the end than they would by the use of 

 bottom heat. There is no doubt that plants 

 propagated in a closely confined house in a 

 high temperature are apt to turn out of 

 weak constitution, but we believe the best 

 results follow where plants are propagated 

 in a bed at a temperature of 70 degs., with 

 the temperature of the house a few degrees 

 less. However, these matters concern nur- 

 serymen and florists more than amateurs, 

 for this class does not care to put in opera- 

 tion anything that requires much expense. 

 When but few cuttings are desired, they 

 can be placed in pots and will take root in 

 four or five weeks after insertion, grown in 

 any ordinary conservatory or greenhouse. 

 After the cuttings have taken root they 

 should be potted in pots not exceeding two 

 and a half inches in diameter. Certain 

 kinds of Roses take root without diflHculty, 

 others are so stubborn that the amateur 

 would do well not to attempt their propa- 

 gation until he has proved himself an adept 

 in growing the others. The sorts most 

 difficult to root are the various varieties of 

 Moss, most of the summer Roses, and cer- 

 tain varieties of Hybrid Remontants be- 

 longing to the .lules Margottin, Baronne 

 Prevost, and Baroness Rothschild families. 

 All of the Tea and monthly Roses, with 

 very few exceptions, root and grow freely 

 from cuttings. 



Besides using green wood, some propaga- 

 tors make cuttings from hard wood— that 

 is, shoots thoroughly ripened, taken in the 

 autumn. Manetti cuttings are always made 

 from wood taken in autumn, and the vari- 

 ous varieties of Prairie Roses are often 

 grown in this way. In some establishments 

 large quantities ot cuttings are made during 

 the summer months and grown in hot-beds; 

 the plants produced are salable in the 

 autumn and are largely used by florists. In 

 selecting stock plants from which to propa- 

 gate, care should be had that only those be 

 chosen which are vigorous and healthy, 

 otherwise a sickly or weak progeny will 

 result. 



Budding.— This is an important method, 

 second only to propagation by cuttings. 

 The chief disadvantages are these: first, it 

 is more expensive. The stocks are to be 

 purchased and cared for, and it will be 

 found that the labor of budding, suckering, 

 cutting back stocks, etc., will make the 

 operation far more costly than growing 

 plants Irom cuttings. Budded plants are 

 not desirable for inexperienced amateurs, 

 since novices do not detect the suckers 

 which, not infrequently, come up from the 

 roots, and if not cut away ultimately choke 

 the plant. A third objection is found in the 

 fact that budded plants are more frequently 

 killed by severe winters than plants on own 

 roots. On the other hand, by budding we 

 are enabled to grow varieties which are so 

 difficult to root from cuttings, that their 

 propagation would be discontinued by all 

 large Rose-growers were it not for this 

 method. Varielies like Baroness Roths- 



