1850. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



243 



THE SEASON. FRUIT CROP, BLIGHT, &c., IN THE 

 BRIE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



Our correspondent, A. Huidekoper, Esq., of Mead- 

 ville, Pa., in n business letter dated Sept. 9th, gives 

 us tlie IVilknving information, which we take the lib- 

 erty of e.xtracting : 



"Our summer has been a very beautiful one, and 

 vegetation lias been stimulated to its utmost capacity 

 of growth by the warm weather and frequent show- 

 ers. Crops of all kind.s have been very good, except 

 the hay crop, which was but moderate, and the po- 

 tato crop, which, since August, has suffered badly 

 with the blight. 



Apples arc very abundant, and a few Yellow and 

 Red Rareripe peaches have found their way to mar- 

 ket. Our farmers have not yet paid sufficient atten- 

 tion to having an abundance of the better varieties. 

 A few illustrations of what can be done, however, 

 will soon stimulate others to follow the example. — 

 I have had a fme crop of Dcarborne and Bloodgood 

 nenrs thi*' year, nml have also some of the Winter 

 Xelis, which are now maturing. 



The insect blight has touched a good many apple 

 trees this year, but my pear trees have been entirely 

 exempt. I cannot help believing that much of the 

 blight is owing to vitiated sap from the winter frosts. 

 A due attention to trees will frequently disclose inci- 

 pient blight ill the spring, which only becomes fully 

 apparent during the heat of summer. I do not think 

 the blighting of new wood, of the season's growth, 

 any objection to this causi}, for we frequently find 

 new shoots made from t-he limbs, the bark of whicli 

 is either dead or entirely diseased, The death of the 

 shoot, or final' development of the disease in that part 

 of the tree, seems to he owing to some change in the 

 direction of the sap, or some law in the organization 

 of the plant which requires a supply of healthy sap, 

 which the diseased limb cannot furnish. 



The fruit convention in Cincinnati, I see has been 

 postponed until the 1st October. This will bo too 

 late for peaches, but will afford a better opportunity 

 for pears and winter apples, which are perhaps of 

 more consequence. Peaches we have now as fine as 

 any body need wish to eat ; but the better kinds of ap- 

 ples and pears should be more extensively known, 

 and many kinds now cultivated, rejected ; great al- 

 lowance, however, will always have to be made for 

 tliat great fact which cannot be altered, viz., a vari- 

 ety of tftstes," 



CARRYING FRUITS TO MARKET. 



Not a day passes during this season of the year, but 

 we witness the effects of carelessness in carrying 

 fruits to market. A farmer has early apples for sale 



— he shakes them from the trees, throws them into 

 the box of a lumber wagon, places his half bushel 

 measure and a dozen other things on the top of them, 

 and drives oft' at a good round trot eight, ten, or per- 

 haps twenty miles, over a rough road, to the market 

 town. When he arrives there, his apples are all 

 bruised and blackened — entirely unfit for human use. 

 He tries to sell them ^ he passes up and down the 

 streets — calls at all the groceries, and after spend- 

 ing most of a day, "uccceds in bargaining them off 

 for a mere nominal price, say a shilling or two a 

 bushel. Another farmer has the same sort of fruit 



— he picks them carefully, puts them in baskets or 

 barrels, and drives them carefully to market. If he 

 succeeds in reaching the centre of the town before 



he sells, he is instantly surrounded by a multitude of 

 eager purchasers, who will not hesitate at giving him 

 fifty cents or more a bushel, and feel well pleased 

 with their bargain. This man has had some satis- 

 faction as well as profit in disposing of his fruit, and 

 he goes home well pleased with his orchard and de- 

 termined to take good care of his trees ; while the 

 former goes home grumbling atevery body, declaring 

 that " fruit aint worth growing — they wont pay for 

 carrying to market," kc, and determined to give 

 himself very little concern in future about his trees. 

 In all branches of trade, the articles that are pre- 

 sented in the best condition in market will command 

 the quickest sale and best prices. If an animal is 

 driven to market, starved, goaded, abused and worn 

 out with fatigue by the way, it will not sell for half 

 its value. Hay that is cut at the proper time, well 

 saved, and sweet, will sell for twice as much as the 

 same hay would improperly cured We have seen a 

 salesman in a dry goods store, that had the faculty 

 of showing articles to such advantage that he could 

 sell more than half a dozen others, and at better 

 prices. An old friend of ours, who always gets the 

 highest price for his fruit, told us that he was once 

 in the wine trade, and by simply sealing up bottles 

 tastefully with wax, he had been able to double their 

 price. So it is in everything, and above all things 

 such a perishable commodity as ripe fruit. 



ENGUSH AND AMERICAN LANDSCAPES. 



Mr. Downing, in his letters from England, makes 

 the following remarks on the difference between 

 English and American landscapes : 



The chief diftcrence, after all, tjetvveen an English rural 

 lanitscape and one in the older and hetter cult. rated part.s of 

 of the IJniled Slates, is almost vvtiolly in the universality of 

 verdant ffedges, and the total absence of all other fences. 

 The hedges (for the most part of hawthorn) divide all the 

 farm-fields, and line all the roadsides — and even the borders 

 of the railways, in all parts of the aountry. I was quite sat- 

 isfied v\ith the truth of this conjecture, when I came, accident- 

 ally, in my drive yesterday, upon a little spot of a few rods 

 — where the hedges had been destroye<l, and a temporary 

 post and rail fence, like those at home, put in their place. 

 The whole thing was lowered at once to the harshness and 

 rickety aspect of a farm at home. The majority of the farm 

 hedges are only trimmed once a year — in winter — and there- 

 fore have, perhaps, a more natural and picturesque look than 

 the more carefully trimmed hedges of the gardens. Hence, 

 for a farm hedge, a plant should be chosen that will grow 

 thick of itself, with only this single annual clipping, and 

 which will adapt itself to all soils. I am therefore confirmed 

 in my belief, that the buckthorn is the former's hedge plant for 

 America, and I am also satisfied that it will make a better and 

 far more durable hedge than the hawthorn does, even here. 



Though England is beautifully wooded, yet the great pre- 

 ponderance of the English elm^a tree wanting in grace, and 

 only grand when very old, renders an English roadside land- 

 scape in this respect, one of less sylvan beauty than our finest 

 scenery of like character at home. The American elm, with 

 its fine drooping branches, is rarely or never seen here, and 

 there is none of that variehj of foliage which we have in the 

 United Slates. For this reason (leaving out of sight rail 

 fences,) I do not think even the drives through Warwick- 

 shire so full of rural beauty as those in the valley of the Con- 

 necticut—which ihey most resemble. In June our meadows 

 there are as verdant, and our trees incomparably more varied 

 and beautiful. On the other hand, you must remember 

 that here, wealth and long civilization have so refined and 

 perfected the details, ihat in this respect there is no compar- 

 ison—nothing in short to be done but to admire and enjoy. 

 For instance, for a circuit of eight or ten miles or more here, 

 between Leamington and Warwick and Straifort-on-Avon, 

 the roads, which are admirable, are regularly sprinkled every 

 dry day in summer, while along the railroads the sides are 

 cultivated with grass, or farm crops, or flowers, almost to the 

 very rails. 



