1S82.J 



TME LANCASTER FARMER. 



109 



which Is to be a station on the Mexican Central. 

 Mr. Murphy raises wheat on his California Iiuul, and 

 and catlle on Miat in Navacla. He ijot, 5.i,000 sacljs 

 last year and ships fi. 000 head of cattle a year rifjht 

 along. — Jieno {Xei'.) Gar.t'tte. 



Best Pasture Grass. 



The best pasture grasses have creeping or wholly 

 lilirous roots, the creeping root running horizontally 

 under ground and pushing up sterns every few inches 

 iri'in this creeping part of the root or rhizorr.e. Tliis 

 creeping root is not likely to be injured by close 

 cropping, and retains its vitality better througli se- 

 vire droughts after close feeding, when a bulbous 

 rciots would be destroyed. The function of the bulb 

 ill bulbous grasses is evidently to store up materials 

 for luturc growth, and if these bulbs are injured or 

 eaten otfthe root, is destroyed. The nutriment in all 

 grasses is gathered by fibrous roots alone, and these 

 tibrous roots are joined to the rhizome or the bulb 

 in creeping or bulbous roots. Tlie best specimens of 

 creeping rooted pasture grasses are blue grass, June 

 grass (Poa prateiixii:) and wire grass, also called 

 blue grass (Poa comprcsm). Both of these grasses, 

 when well established in the soil mentioned, will re 

 tain their foothold against many discouragements. 

 Both of these grasses start quickly after cropping. 

 Orchard grass {l)ac(yHs glomorata) is one of the 

 very best pasture grasses when once established. !t 

 starts, perhaps, more rapidly afier cutting or crop- 

 ping than any other grass. It will grow in the night 

 almost as much as cropped off in the day. Red top 

 {Agrostis vuli/itris) should be included. White and 

 red clover should always be mingled with the seeds 

 for pasture. There are many other grasses that 

 might be sown, but the seeds are difficult to be ob- 

 tained. A good mixture of these seeds is the follow- 

 ing : Timothy, six pounds; Kentucky blue grass, 

 four pounds; wire grass, three pounds; orchard 

 grass, four pounds; red top, three pounds; red 

 clover, four pounds ; white clover, three pounds, and 

 sweet-scented vernal grass, two pounds. A pasture 

 well stocked with these grasses and clovers will cer- 

 tainly produce the milk for "gilt-edge" butter. 

 Too little attention has been as yet, paid to the 

 stocking of pastures. The subject needs careful ex- 

 amination and discussion, and we shall be glad to 

 have the views of some of our experienced readers 

 upon it. — National Live Stock Journal, Chicago. 



Hort:cl ,ture. 



Pacific Coast Wheat Items. 



Washington Territory promises to be as great a 

 wheat-growing State as Oregon or California. A few 

 items will interest farmers. 



Walla Walla Union: At the depot in Walla Walla 

 tons of wheat are being stacked out of doors, the 

 warehouses being full. At Valley Grove, (Nelson's 

 place on dry creek) a large platform is nearly covered 

 with stacked wheat. At Hadley's another platform 

 is full. At Prescott a platform is full andjtous are 

 piled upon the ground. At Waitsburg, Kinnear & 

 Weller's warehouse is overflowing and great piles of 

 grain being made outside. W. N. Smith's plat- 

 form is nearly full, and wagons are being constantly 

 unloaded at both places. A mile above Waitsburg 

 another platform is full. At Huntsville there is 

 wheat, at Long's there is more wheat, and at Dayton 

 the wheat is piled up in warehouses and on plat- 

 forms, "till you can't rest." Parties from Blue 

 Mountain station and Milton report the warehouses 

 and platforms there filled to overflowing with sacked 

 wheat, and great stacks of sacks in adjacent fields. 

 Buyers are asking producers to "let up" on delivery, 

 while the railroad men are worked night and day 

 trying to carry the wheat away. But is like trying to 

 empty a barrel by the spigot while a big stream is 

 flowing into the bung. Parties who have visited the 

 farming region say "the farmers have not begun to 

 haul in wheat yet. Just wait until they have got 

 through threshing if you want to see wheat." 



A farmer on Whidby Island harvested a field of 

 wheat which harvested 60 bushels to the acre and a 

 field of oats which cut 103 bushels per acre. Such a 

 yield for any other than reclaimed tide land is re- 

 markable. 



Summer Grape Pruning. 



About this, as in nearly every other horticultural 

 subject, there is considerable ditt'crence of opinion. 

 We have ktown vines lo he " pruned to death" in 

 following out some wild theory that some addle- 

 headcd fellow had started, while others would prune 

 so sparingly as to be of no benefit at all. Manyttrip 

 the vines of three-fourHis their leaves to allow the 

 sun and air to get in, as they say, while others allow 

 the grapes to be smothered for want of a judicious 

 removal of the leaves. Pinching the ends olf the 

 vines, or clipping off a portion of the sprouts where 

 they are growing rampantly, so far as It appears to 

 be necessary to any reasonable judgment, will greatly 

 benefit the crop, just as the reverse will damage It. 

 The thinning out of the surplus bunches, by remov- 

 ing from a third to a half of them as they usually 

 show themselves, is of the greatest importance. In 

 doing this be sure always to remove the weakest and 

 most imperfect. The laterals of the fruit bearing 

 branches, which have been pinched or clipped, will 

 throw out more branches, and these also should be 

 pinched, so as to leave only a single leaf. The later 

 als on the canes, remember, are to be the fruit bear- 

 ing canes lor next year, and should be allowed to 

 grow unchecked. Care must be taken to tie up such 

 of the branches containing bunches which are too 

 heavy to bear its own weight. Tliere should, also, 

 be no more wood allowed to grow than is needed for 

 the following year's fruiting. These simple general 

 hints may be of service to those whose knowledge of 

 grape-growing is limited. In a little while^a few 

 years of experience, which may be greatly aided by 

 examining the way that good grape-growers follow — 

 will soon put one in the plain road to success. — 

 Oermantoiiin Telegraph. 



The Care and Pruning of Peach Trees. 



It is a rare thing to find an orchard that has been 

 kept properly pruned and cut back, and most of 

 them are found with bean-pole stems or main 

 branches bare of any fruit or foliage, except such as 

 are crowded closely together at their extreme tips, 

 resulting in overcrowded leaves and fruit, and poorly- 

 colored, late ripening and small fruit, with a ten- 

 dency to rot from overcrowding and shade. 



The model peach tree, for the best results, we 

 think, should have a clean stem about three feet. At 

 this point a regular whorl of four or five branches 

 should be started. When these are started, the tree 

 should have vigor enough to give each a growth of 

 at least three feet the first season. These, early the 

 next spring, should be cut back to eighteen inches, 

 being careful to leave on them any sub-branches 

 near their base. The next spring the resulting or 

 next crop of branches should be cut back in about 

 the same way, aud the sub-branches half of them 

 cut clear away, leaving every other one, aud those 

 not cut away cut back one-third to one-half. The 

 summer after this the trees should give a splendid 

 crop of fine fruit that will need no thinning. The 

 after-cutting back and pruning should be after the 

 same general plan, thinning out and cutting back the 

 upper and outer branches, but never thinning out 

 the small branches, except as above. As the trees 

 grow older it will be necessary to cut back and thin 

 out more year by year, and eventually it will be 

 necessary to cut back half of the main branches to 

 near their base, at some point just above where a 

 thrifty young twig is growing, so as to form a new, 

 vigorous head, aud to cut back the remaining branches 

 the next year, and then follow again the same sys- 

 tem of training gives above. We think that this 

 system, carefully followed, will give continuously 

 crops of fine fruit, with but little or no thinning ; or, 

 in other words, that by this renewal system of train- 

 ing trees can be kept in a young, vigorous condition 

 for a great many years. Who can find fault with it? 

 Who will give us a belter system ? Our preference 

 would be to have our trees with lower heads, rather 

 than higher, were it not necessary to run the curcullo- 

 catcher in the orchard. On strong soils trees might 

 do well with four feet of bare trunk.-iVairie Farmer. 



The Delaware Peach Crop. 

 In view of the certainty that announcement will be 

 duly made in the early spring of the melancholy fact 

 that the Delaware peach crop was almost totally de. 

 stroyed by the terribly cold weather in January, it Is 

 interesting to note the following paragraph in The 

 M'ibninglon Republican : " Especially in the cold snap 

 bright with promise to the fruit growers of the penin- 

 sula. Their great dread of short crops has always 

 been open mild winters, which forced on the buds 

 prematurely onl} to be killed by the more severe 

 spring frosts. The lale Samuel Townsend, consider- 

 ed good authority on peach growing, has maintained 

 that healthy peach trees could stand a temperature 

 of five degrees below zero, depending somewhat upoD 

 the forwardness of the buds when the frost occurs. 

 Assuming this to be correct, the crop of peaches 

 south of us Is still safe, as the mercury only fell two 

 and three degrees below zero in some of the most ex- 

 posed points around Wilmington, which is the enter- 

 ing door of the great peach grounds of the peninsula 

 south of us. So far, therefore, as the present season 

 has developed, the indications are favorable to next 

 spring's agricultural operations." 



Strawberry Beds. 



A writer in the New York Trihuiie says : " The 

 time lor seeing to the security of next yearns ittraio- 

 berry yield is immediately on stopping picking this 

 year. Dig, plough or scarify deeply between the 

 rows or In lines through the mass, and clear the hills 

 or rows left of every weed, however small. Some 

 add to this severe-looking treatment that of mowing 

 olf the old leaves, and they declare that the plant 

 gets its summer rest all the better and more com- 

 pletely for it, starting then with the August rains 

 into a luxuriant September growth which Is the 

 making of the fruit beds for next year's expansion. 



Quince Culture, 



Almost every good housekeeper who has a garden 

 wishes there were quinces in it. No fruit seems 

 more desirable in tiie kitchen, but It Is seldom 

 that it is seen there They are planted in the gar- 

 den lime and again, but seldom seem to do much 

 good. They just live, growing but little, and that 

 little seldom of the vigorous, healthful kind. The 

 whole plant is knotty and scrubby, and though they 

 may Uower freely, the young fruit drops premature- 

 ly, and a bush of a dozen years old will often not 

 give a dozen sound fruit. 



Now, some say that the trouble is in the soil, that 

 it is very peculiar and particular in this respect, hut 

 but we think this is an error. Certainly we havn 

 DOW and then seen quince trees doing well In all 

 sorts of soil and in all sorts of situations. It Is more 

 than probable that much of failure comes from in- 

 juries by tlie borer, which saps the strength of the 

 whole tree. The borer enters the stem at or near the 

 ground, and boring into it cuts offa largo portion of 

 its supplies. Some trees, like the apple and plum, 

 when attacked by the borer soon die, but the quince 

 roots out so readily from every part of its bark that, 

 unless very badly attacked, it will manage to live on 

 in a lingering sort of way for a go.id many years 

 without any but a practical eye suspecting what the 

 real matter is. 



But sometimes the quince gets what gardners call 

 hide bound. The bark has a hard scrubby look, and 

 the growth is puny and not at all what we expect to 

 see on a healthy tree. Whether this hide bound 

 condition is the result of some disease, or is a dis- 

 ease, in itself, is not clear; but it is removed tolerably 

 well by scraping and washing the stem with soapy 

 water occasionally, and a trimming out of the 

 weaker shoots. This course seems to lead to a vig- 

 orous growth, after which the bark seems to expand 

 as nsiturally as any one can desire. 



It is frequently recommended in the newspapers 

 that salt should be given as a manure to the quince, 

 and perhaps in some cases it may do good. The 

 quince does not send its roots far away, but has an 

 immense number in a small compass. It will there- 

 fore require good feeding to a greater extent than 



