THE GENESEE FARMER. 



313 



The handsomest tree on the lawn is this Euro- 

 >ean Linden. Hoohstein made a drawing of it, 

 mt he has, for once, hardly done his subject justice, 

 rhe branches trail on the ground, and spread out 

 nore than is shown in the engraving. As a shade 

 tnd ornamental tree the Linden has no superior, 

 rhis and the Mountain Ash are great favorites with 

 ne ; and the Maple, and the Beech, and the cut- 

 eared Weeping Birch, and this White Oak, and 

 ronder glorious American Elm, are — well, I scarcely 

 :now a tree that is not more or less a favorite, 

 low can people enjoy life in a house with no trees 

 iround it ? 



A FRUIT GARDEN IN IOWA. 



S. Foster, of Muscatine, Iowa, furnishes the 

 homestead with some interesting horticultural 

 lotes. 



Strawberries have been a big crop — Wilson first, 

 ,nd Triomphe de Gand not far behind in produc- 

 tiveness. 



Of Currants, the Cherry is best; then White 

 tnd Red Dutch — the White much the pleasanter. 

 le had an acre, four years from planting. The 

 irop was at the rate of 100 bushels per acre. In 

 wo years he thinks they will be double this. 



He thinks he shall give up the Catawba and 

 'sabella Grape*. The Concord is first. It is healthy, 

 vhile his Catawbas mildew and rot. Concord and 

 jlinton will stand the winter, and are as healthy 

 is an oak tree with green acorns. Delaware 

 )leases him, especially when he comes to eat the 

 rait. In quality it is best of all. 



He had bragged a good deal about the good 

 lealth of his pear trees on his white oak clay bluff, 

 rhey look nice and healthy now, but the blight 

 i3s made its appearance on five or six of them. In 

 lis dwarf pear orchard, six years old, no blight has 

 ret shown itself. His best and most productive 

 ;rees are White Doyenne (Virgalieu) ; second, Vi- 

 jar of Winkfield. Then comes several : Louise 

 Bonne de Jersey, Bartlett, Seckel, and Steven's 

 Genesee. For a standard, Bartlett is best, though 

 it is sometimes injured by a severe winter. Flemish 

 Beauty does very well. 



Some of his apple trees have the blight, also. 

 Most of his trees that bore to excess last year are 

 not bearing this. Northern Spy is tolerably full 

 this season. 



He advises farmers in the West to plant an 

 acre of orchard, and half an acre in strawberries, 

 currants and grapes. No more danger of failure 

 than there is in raising corn and wheat. He says : 



"Set your trees about twenty-five feet apart; 

 plant two rows of maple and cotton wood ; thick 

 together, on the north and west, for wind-breakers. 

 Plant your orchard with corn or potatoes for at 

 least six years, and no sowed crops ; turn the fur- 

 rows toward the trees every time, and get a good 

 ridge about the roots, and let the water run off 

 freely in winter. If your land is dry and rolling, 

 and thin soil, you will have a good orchard, if you 

 take as good care of it as a good farmer does of 

 his field crops." 



CHARCOAL FOR GRAPE VINES. 



Btjlwer is writing a series of essays on "Life, 

 Literature and Manners" for Blackwood's Maga- 

 zine, and in illustrating some remarks on mental 

 culture, tells the following admirable story : 



A certain nobleman, very proud of the extent 

 and beauty of his pleasure-grounds, chancing one 

 day to call on a small squire, whose garden might 

 cover about half an acre, was greatly struck with 

 the brilliant colors of his neighbor's flowers. " Ay, 

 my Lord; the flowers are well enough," said the 

 squire, " but permit me to show you my grapes." 

 Conducted into an old-fashioned little green-house, 

 which served as a vinery, my Lord gazed, with 

 mortification and envy, on grapes twice as line a8 

 his own. "My dear friend," said my Lord, "you 

 have a jewel of a gardener; let me see him!" 

 The gardener was called — the single gardener — a 

 simple-looking young man under thirty. "Accept 

 my compliments on your flower-beds and your 

 grapes," said my Lord, "and tell me, if you can, 

 why your flowers are so much brighter than mine, 

 and your grapes so much finer. You must have 

 studied horticulture profoundly." "Please your 

 Lordship," said the man, "I have not had the ad- 

 vantage of much education; I ben't no scholar ; 

 but as to the flowers and the vines, the secret as 

 to treating them just came to me, you see, by 

 chance." 



"By chance? explain." 



" Well, my Lord, three years ago, master sent 

 me to Lunnon on business of his'n; and it came on 

 to rain, and I took shelter in a mews, you see." 



" Yes ; you took shelter in a mews ; what then ?" 



"And there were two gentlemen taking shelter 

 too; and they were talking to each other about 

 charcoal." 



" About charcoal ? — go on." 



"And one said that it had done a deal o' good 

 in many cases of sickness, and specially in the first 

 stage of cholera, and I took a note on my mind of 

 that, because we'd had the cholera in our village 

 the year afore. And I guessed the two gentlemen 

 were doctors, and knew what they were talking 

 about." 



"I dare say they did; but flowers and vines 

 do not have the cholera, do they ?" 



"No, my Lord; but they have complaints of 

 their own; and one of the gentlemen went on to 

 say that charcoal had a special good effect upon all 

 vegetable life, and told a story of a vine-dresser, 

 in Germany. I think, who had made a very sickly 

 poor vineyard one of the best in these parts, 

 simply by charcoal-dressings. So I naturally prick- 

 ed up my ears at that, tor our vines were in so bad 



