POPULAR GARDENING 



AND FRUIT GROWING. 



"AOOaaX NOT nature, she hate done HEB PART; DO TBOV BUT TBr/iVl!."-MiLTON. 



Vol. IV. 



oycj^iaaii, xsss. 



No. 6. 



March. 



WIndx and muddy, and fitful and dark- 

 Sloughs for our footsteps and clouds overhead; 



Oh ! tor the not<;s of the bluebird and lark. 

 Whispering hopes that the winter has sped. 



Ah ! there is blue smiling out of the sky- 

 Never a day but has one gleam of light; 



Never a winter that clouds did not fly; 

 Never a time but a day followed night. 



Here Is a blossom right down at our feet, 

 Pearly and pure as the first flakes of snow; 



List to the songs of the warblers so sweet,— 

 Smiling is hope and forebodings may go. 



—Oood Housf^keeping. 



Settino trees deeply is not a sigu of good 

 planting, a lesson many planters have yet to learn. 



Dunn's Kbpobt says that for 1888 the sales of 

 nursery stock and seeds in our neighboring city 

 of Kochester, amounted to $2,535,000. 



Postage Rates on Fruit. While the postage 

 on seeds, cuttings, bulbs, plants, etc., has been 

 reduced to a half cent per ounce, yet contrary 

 to the idea of some of our readers the reduction 

 does not include samples of fruit sent by mail; a 

 recent ruling of the Post OfiBce Department being 

 that the old rate of one cent per ounce must 

 apply to these. 



HoHTK^ULTnRAt. SOCIETIES generally might 

 well follow the example of the StateHorticultural 

 Society of Missouri; they seem to have got a very 

 large number of lady members, and we all know 

 where our wives and daughters talie a hand, it 

 makes it extremely interesting. I must say that 

 of the many excellent society reports I receive, 

 that from Missouri is ahead in interest.— itf. T. 

 Thompson, Ohio. 



A New Vine Disease in California. Much 

 alarm is being manifested in certain portions of 

 the State over the appearance of a mysterious dis- 

 ease attacking the vines' in all southern districts 

 except that of Riverside, seeming especially par- 

 tial to the vineyards in the irrigated sections. 

 No variety seems exempt, and the study of it by 

 experts offers no relief for this disease, which 

 perhaps might be termed a wet rot apparently 

 resulting from a stoppage of the sap flow. 



A New Departure. Early in February the 

 President approved the act to enlarge the powers 

 and duties of the Department of Agriculture, 

 and to create an E.vecutive Department, having 

 a Secretary who will bo a member of the cabinet. 

 The functions or limits of this new department 

 are not defined by the law creating it and must 

 be in a degree experimental. That agriculture 

 the most important factor is our nation's wealth 

 and prosperity .thus finds recognition at the hands 

 of our representatives in Congress and the Ex- 

 ecutive is a most gratifying fact, which augurs 

 well for its future. 



Andrew J. Catwood. In the death of this 

 gentleman a valued contributor to these columns, 

 at his home in Marlborough, N. Y., in January, 

 the country lost a most intelligent and enterpris- 

 ing horticulturist, one who by his efforts left 

 his beloved art richer than he found it. As a 

 hybridizer and grower of new fruits he gave the 

 world a number of valuable new varieties, 

 among which are the Duchess, Ulster, Pough- 

 keepsie, and other grapes, the Marlboro Rasp- 

 berry, the Minnewaski Blackberry, etc. He was 

 a prominent member of the leading horticultural 

 societiesof the counti'y, and an extensive grower 

 of fruits, in the Hudson River Valley. Mr. Cay- 

 wood was in his 70th year. He left a wife, two 

 sons and two daughters. 



Stick to your Business Looking to 

 the Main Chance. 



H. C. SMITH, BROWN CO., WIS. 



This past season has been marked by ex- 

 tremely low prices for vegetables of all 

 kinds in the Chicago market, and the grow- 

 ers got very little for their work. But what 

 was our loss was the consumer's gain; they 

 surely could not complain that the prices 

 were not low enougli. 



Still I do not feel that we should be dis- 

 couraged from putting forth our best ettorts 

 for the coming season's crop. One thing is 

 certain, we don't have to figure on any old 

 crop on hand as the grain grower so often 

 does. So pile on the manure; see that the 

 hotbed frames are ready for business; fix 

 up the tools and running gear; have the 

 teams ready for their work; lookout for 

 first-class seeds and plants; and we may 

 reasonably expect to do eaough this year, 

 to make up for at least part of the losses 

 of the last year. 



Do not drop your regular line of crops 

 because there has been no profit in them. 

 The man that goes from Cabbage and Pota- 

 toes into Strawberries, and then into 

 Onions, and from these into Celery, and 

 then into something else, generally manages 

 to strike low prices all around. One year 

 we put over a thousand bushels of fine 

 Onions into the dung heap. The next year 

 we managed to dispose of the crop at a los- 

 ing figure, while the next year we sold all 

 we had or could buy in the fall at 60 cents 

 per bushel, and the fourth year averaged 

 very nearly or (luite one dollar per bushel- 

 We raised four acres of Onions each one of 

 these years, and the average crop was over 

 BOO bitshels per acre all through. 



We have had a good many such expe- 

 riences with various crops; at one time 

 dumping out a hundred or two barrels of 

 Kraut in the spring, because we could not 

 sell it for as much as the barrels were 

 worth, and then two years after selling our 

 whole make at eight to ten dollars per 

 barrel. These things have taught us: First, 

 not to be discouraged because our goods 

 will not sell at a profit in any one season, 

 and next, never run in debt heavily on the 

 strength of what you make one year, think 

 ing to do as well or better the next; more 

 than one fellow has made a failure by going 

 counter to that last point. 



Water Lily Culture. 



E. r. POWELL. ONEIDA CO., N. T. 



The common Water Lilies may be grown 

 in any dooryard to perfection. I have a 

 neighbor, a lady of great taste, Mrs. Owen 

 Root, who has them in profusion. You 

 must first secure a few tubs that will not 

 leak, and will hold half a barrel, plant them 

 in the ground nearly or quite to the top. 



Place in the tub six inches of soil or any 

 good garden sod, plant in this a large piece 

 of Lily root, then fill up with water. Keep 

 the tub full as it evaporates, and you have 

 nothing more to do. In the tall lift the tubs 

 and store in a cellar where they will not 

 freeze. You can pour off the water and 

 leave the roots nearly dry all winter. When 

 a tub is crowded with roots divide, but they 

 blossom best with the tubs well filled. 



Tile Draining at "Woodbanks." A 

 Detailed Account of the Work. 



The thirteen acres which are embraced by 

 the Pori'LAR Gardening and Fruit Grow- 

 ing experiment grounds, at LaSalle, were 

 tile drained years before we came into pos- 

 session, but the old system of drains does 

 not work. As a chain is only as strong as 

 its weakest link, so any draining operations, 

 however costly, can only be as effective as 

 their weakest features. The work here re- 

 ferred to had been done so obviously imper- 

 fectly, and there being no record of the loca- 

 tion of the pipes, and the former owner not 

 being available to consult regarding their 

 courses, we saw no other way than to under- 

 take a new system of draining for the place. 

 This we did in part last autumn, beginning 

 in October and finishing the work under- 

 taken near .January 1st. As our farm is 

 in a sense our reader's farm , 

 we purpose in the present 

 article to show how we did 

 the underdraining, for we 

 feel satisfied that the foun- 

 dation has been laid for as 

 perfect a system of work for 

 a moderate outlay as well 

 could be carried out. 

 The Lay of the Land. 

 It might at first 

 glance seem a 

 difficult job to 

 drain this place 

 well, for sing- 

 ularly enough 

 the surface of 

 the land, in the 

 main, slopes 

 away from, in- 

 stead of to- 

 ward the creek 

 which forms 

 one boundary 

 of the place. 

 To this fact is 

 naturally to be 

 attributed the 

 failure of the 

 former drain- 

 ing done, for 

 without doubt 

 proper level- 

 ling was disregarded. When, therefore, we 

 undertook to secure good drainage for the 

 place, the first thing carried out was an ac- 

 curate course of levelling, indicating the 

 results on a suitable map prepared, as repre- 

 sented by Figure 1. 



The Levelling. Before our intelligent 

 readers we will not argue the importance of 

 basing all tile draining operations on a care- 

 ful course of levelling. Enough to say that 

 the course here adopted was a most simple 

 one, such as can be followed by any person, 

 while the implements employed were gotten 

 up on the place at almost no cost. A first 

 move was to locate at the point indicated by 

 I on the map, Fig. 1, and which commands a 

 view of every portion of the farm, the simple 

 device for taking levels, shown in Fig. 3. 

 The level used was a common carpenter's 

 level, its support consisting of a frame 18 

 inches each way, nicely made of inch stuft' 

 sawed to about three inches wide and the en 

 tire upper surface smoothly planed to be pe r 



hraril F^ines 

 if Drains. 



