H 



POPULAR GARDENINQ. 



October, 



FRoH 

 TOE 



SOCIETIES 



lEIWMATTERTllA'I DBXtRVE* 

 TO BfrWlDEl.YKHOWM# 



Talman Sweet as Stock. 



The Talman Sweeting Api-ile 

 a good stock for top- 

 grafting.— Dr. Oioen, Mtchi- 

 1 tiaii Bnrl. Society. 



Newtown Pippin. By a 

 liberal use of lime and ashes. 

 I have succeeded in grow- 

 ing the Newtown Pippin.— I>r. Given, Michigaii 

 Hiirt.Sociity. 



Flowers as Educators. I think those who cul- 

 tivate flowers are far more apt to clean up the 

 rubbish, cut the briars and straighten the 

 fences. -Ho?-nfIst»iHc Farmers' Club. 



Cherry Caltore. Mr. Carpenter says a general 

 mistake is made in not planting Cherry trees deep 

 enough in setting them out. Mr. Day says over- 

 productiim injures many Cherry trees, making 

 them short-lived.— A'eftraska State Hort. Society. 



Life of Peach Trees, Peach trees live from 

 twelve to fifteen years, some twenty yeare on 

 very heavy soil. An old Peach orchard cannot 

 be renovated, for the young trees would die in 

 the second or third year, as the old trees seem to 

 sap all the vitality of the soil.- Gfr(i?id River 

 Valley Hort. Society. 



Effects of Draining, I have begun the work 

 of tile-draining in this State ; my neighbors have 

 been skeptical. This season I have a yield of 60 

 bushels of shelled Corn to the acre, while my 

 neighbors have only 20 bushels, which is an eye- 

 opener to them.— Jesse B. Ross (" the Indiana 

 'rile and Drainaye Asmciat Ion. 



The Vineyard Site. The evident lesson of the 

 frost of last 29th of May to vineyardist is to 

 plant vines in the most elevated, airy exposures. 

 Both as a protection from mildew and late frosts, 

 the importance of free, unobstructed ventila- 

 tion cannot easily be overestimated.— S. S. 

 Grissey, Chautauqua Hort. Society. 



Making Cider, The way to make good cider is 

 as simple as it is supposed to be that of making 

 good bread by the good housewife. Take good, 

 sound, ripe Apples, wash them, grind and press 

 and store into clean, sound barrels. If barrels 

 are new, they should be soaked well to draw the 

 tannic acid out of the wood. Before filling, clear 

 the cider by repeated racking and exclude the air 

 from the cider all the time.— Ha (ry Ke.cne before 

 the Mi.fsimri State Ho7-tictdtui-al Society. 



Fruits in Nebraska. Of Strawberries, none are 

 more successful than the proper intermingling of 

 Crescent and Capt. Jack or Jas. Vick. The Dwarf 

 .Tuneberry is coming into favor on account of its 

 hardiness and ease of cultivation. The Nebraska 

 Sand Cherry would seem to be a fruit worthy of 

 cultivation. It has been shown to increase in size 

 of bush and improve in size and quality of fruit 

 under cultivation. As yet no effort has been 

 made to make selections, and here it is believed 

 that a valuable field awaits the experimenter.- 

 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



The Best Fertilizer, The fertilizer that every- 

 one engaged in small fruit culture should use, 

 and that extensively, is a judicious mixture of 

 brains and elbow grease. And it must be used 

 in the field, and manufactured on the spot. It 

 is of little value without it is applied every day 

 and e\ery hour in the day, from Ave o'clock in 

 the morning until nine at night during the 

 growing season ; in this way it is as efficacious as 

 a patent medicine ; it will develop the plants and 

 kill the weeds, it will keep the ground loose and 

 clean and destroy the insects and worms, in short 

 will make a success, when everything else will 

 fail. Try it.— i. H. Wilcox before Minnesota 

 State Hort. Society. 



Orchard Care. You must keep an eye on your 

 orchard. Never trust to providence and your 

 hired hand, for a careless hand will do more 

 damage in an orchard than he will do good. 

 Keep all tramps out of the orchard that are 

 around after jobs of pruning. Let no man 

 I)rune in your orchard without you know he is a 

 skillful hand at the business. Wrap your trees 

 early in the fall to keep the rabbits from barking 

 the trees. The best material to use is screen 

 wire. It will keep the borers and mice away 

 from the trees as well as the rabbits. The wire 

 will cost about twenty-two cents per yard, and 

 one yard will make five guards.— Jfr. Schidiz be- 

 fore the MiKKourl State Hmi. Society. 



Training Grapes. It is impossible to obtain 

 tine, large, perfect bimches, except from strong 

 canes, hence it is necessary to renew each year 

 from the base of the vine, and this is about one 

 of the hardest things a vineyardist has to ac- 

 complish. I believe that the vineyard of the 

 future will be managed as follows ; Instead of 

 planting vines 18x12 feet apart, they will be 

 planted 6x13 feet. One-half the viues will be 

 allowed to bear fruit, and the other half only be 

 allowed to raise young canes for next year's 

 bearing wood, alternating each year. I believe 

 by some such system finer fruit could be obtained 

 than by the usual process now pursued. — J. S. 

 Kidder before the Missouri State Hort. Society. 



Depth of Draining, Drains well laid at a 

 depth of 3VJ feet, may be laid with much smaller- 

 sized tile than drains laid at a depth of two feet, 

 for the reason that the greater depth would 

 allow the e-xcess of water from heavy rainfalls 

 to pass down into the under soil and relieve the 

 surface soil, so that the ci-ops will not be dam- 

 aged ; and the smaller tiles will hold back the 

 flow of water, as compared with the larger sizes, 

 and cause a more general distribution of water 

 in the deep subsoils and clays. The effect of 

 deep-laid tile drains, using sizes only sufBcient 

 to remove the excess of water slowly, is to pre- 

 vent, to some extent, the rapid filling up of the 

 streams, rather than being the cause of floods.— 

 Indiana Tile and Drainage Association. 



Cooking Fruits. Fresh fruits should be cooked 

 with boiling water. As sugar is rendered no 

 more soluble, palatable, digestible, or nutritious 

 by cooking and is, in the presence of some acids, 

 changed to glucose by heat, and consequently is 

 much less sweet, it should be added only long 

 enough to disolve nicely, before removing the 

 fruit from the fire. Dried fruit should be 

 washed and then soaked in cold water until no 

 longer wrinkled in appearance, but until it has 

 imbibed sufficient water to give the original 

 rounded form, then cooked slowly in the water 

 in which it was soaked. If cooked rapidly in 

 boiling water without first being soaked, the 

 cells are hardened by the heat and lose the power 

 of imbibing water and the fruit comes to the 

 table unsightly, unpalatable and indigestible. — 

 Clara S. Hays before the Min. State Hort. Society. 



Apples for the British Market. The present 

 system of buying Apples in lots at one price, 

 without regard to the real value of the various 

 kinds, is very detrimental to the ultimate pros- 

 perity of Canadian farmers. In this way, people 

 would plant those kinds which yield the most 

 fruit, without regard to their value in the 

 foreign markets, a course which would ultim- 

 ately be found to be a most serious blunder. On 

 the other hand, by paying prices according to 

 the real value, planters would be led to grow 

 only those varieties which were most wanted. 

 The following is a scale of prices which should 

 be j)aid for the staple kinds of apples, in a season 

 when the Baldwin is worth $1.00 per barrel, viz : 

 — Ribston Pippin and Blenheim Pippin. $1.50; 

 King, SL.W ; Spy, J1.30 ; American Golden Bus- 

 set, gl.25. Greening, ?I.OO.— Prcs. A. McD. Allen 

 before the Ontario Fruit Qrouvrs^ Association. 



Wild Flowers. The secret of the cultivation 

 of wild Howers is not to cultivate them. The 

 only attentiim that they will tolerate is a little 

 skillful hand weeding to prevent the encroach- 

 ment of grass and Clover and a little judicious 

 thinning to preserve the more delicate species 

 from being crowded by the more vigorous. They 

 cannot, therefore, be set out in flower borders 

 with Geraniums, Heliotropes and Verbenas, and 

 even if they would grow there, the juxtaposition 

 would not be favorable to the beauty of either. 

 The all important thing is to choo.se the situ- 

 ation. It is best if partially shaded and enriched 

 only by leaf-mold. I cannot exactly say with 

 Emerson : "My garden is a forest ledge," but 

 it is on the north side of a rather high Osage 

 Orange hedge, where the natural clay soil has 

 been deepened and mellowed for twenty years 

 with mold of the rapidly decaying leaves. 

 To this spot we have been for years in the habit 

 of transfering at any season in which we chance 

 to find them, all the beautiful and interesting 

 native flowering plants and Ferns indigenous to 

 the region. And verily we have our reward. 

 The "wfld garden" may not be so gay as the con- 

 tinguo\is Tulips, Pivonias or Hoses, but it has a 

 charm to which every visitor yields. Here, dur- 

 ing the first warm days of spring, we are greeted 

 by the opening buds of Hepatica, early Butter- 

 cups and Antennarias. Almost simultaneously 

 the Hloodrootspreads it evanescent, milky-white 



blooms in company with the spring beauty of 

 the exquisite Dicentra, whose clusters of waxen 

 hearts crown the tufts of feathery, blue-green 

 foliage. To these succeed the Violets of nearly 

 all the Species occuring in this part of the state, 

 the drooping pink and blue bells of the Lung- 

 wort {Mertensia), and the still lovelier blue of 

 the Greek Valerian. The springtime succession 

 is kept up by the Crane Bills, Shooting Stars 

 (Dodeeatheon), Squills, Larkspurs, and numer- 

 ous less conspicious species. During the heats 

 of midsummer, the delicate white flowers of 

 Gillenia and Veronica mingle with Turk's cap 

 Lilies, Melanthium, Zygadenus and the glorious 

 Cardinal flower, crowned in a\itumn by a green 

 display of Asters, Golden Rod and other com- 

 posites. In this way, while we miss the indefin- 

 able chaiTu of searching out our wild favorites 

 in the nooks where nature establishes them, we 

 have the oppertunity of seeing much more of 

 them and noting many i)eeuliarities in their de- 

 velopment which might otherwise escape our 

 attention.— ilia»~y E. Murtfeldt before the Mis- 

 sotiri State Hort. Society. 



Culture of Asparagus. 



^Extract of Paper read by Cttas. W. Garfield before 

 the Michigan State Horticultural Society.] 



A rich sandy loam— a piece of ground fit 

 to grow 75 bushels of shelled Corn per acre 

 —well drained, makes a good beginning for 

 an Asparagus field. I prefer to grow the 

 plants, sowing the seed early. Plants are 

 set three feet apart, in rows four feet apart, 

 but live feet is a better distance. 



Two men can plant an acre in half a day, set- 

 ting the crowns of the plants five or six inches 

 below the level of the soil. It takes about 3,000 

 plants to the acre, in four feet rows. When the 

 planting is completed, the lines of plants will be 

 in the bottom of the furrows, which need not be 

 filled at once, but during the season cultivation 

 will gradually level the soil, and the process of 

 weed extermination is greatly aided by leaving 

 the furrows open at the outset. Clean cultiva- 

 tion is given during the growing year, and in 

 October the tops are mowed off and burned. A 

 dressing of twenty cords of fine manure is then 

 given, and the plantation plowed lightly, say 

 four inches in depth, lea\ing the ground rough 

 during the winter. In early spring, as soon as 

 the land can be worked, the smoothing harrow 

 is put over the ground, and in older plantations 

 this is followed by the planer, which leaves the 

 surface as even as a floor. The expense of grow- 

 ing Asparagus Is about ^100 per acre, up to the 

 second spring after planting, and results in a 

 net profit of $100 an acre, which is not a large 

 profit when the time retjuired to get the planta- 

 tion into bearing, the investment, and the skill 

 are considered. 



The great advantage is that the work and the 

 money come in early, at a time when the former 

 does not interfere with other duties. The cut- 

 wonn is the worst insect foe, but by stirring the 

 soil in the spring, and autum plowing, its ravages 

 are considerably reduced. The shoots are 

 broken off when gathering, instead of cutting. 

 The ends are squareil with a knife after bunch- 

 ing ; and rubber bands are used for biuiching. 

 The plantation should not be weakened by too 

 prolonged cutting. 



Two exigencies have materially reduced profits 

 with me. First, untimely frosts, which may in 

 one night destroy a full picking, which upon an 

 acre may mean from twelve to twenty dollars. 

 To avoid this I contemplate giving a surface 

 dressing with shavings manure in the spring, 

 which can be hauled over the shoots, which are 

 just breaking the earth, in an emergency, at 

 slight cost, and save the picking. 



Second, a dry, hard wind sometimes arises 

 when a cutting of Asparagus is nearlj' ready. 

 The sand blown against the tender shoots 

 punctures the epidermis, and checks growth on 

 that side. In a few hours the shoots will turn 

 over and be so unshapely as to lie unmarketable. 



Management of Small Fruits for 

 Profit. 



i Extract of jtai>cr read by J.N. Stearns before ttic 

 Michigan State Horticultural Society.) 



One great mistake I have frequently 

 made is trying to get too many crops of 

 small fruit from a single planting, and I 

 find tliis one of the hardest mistjikes for 

 the horticulturist to correct. 



