168 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[November, 



TREE-PLANTING IN STREETS AND 

 GROUNDS. 

 The whole of good farming aud gardening 

 does not consist alone in raising good stock 

 and growing crops ; the farm and home need 

 ornament and pleasant appearances. 



Trees and shrubbery, well chosen and prop- 

 erly arranged, constitute; the means to give 

 charm to the homstead, as also to give beauty 

 to the town and park ; their shade is also a 

 comfort. 



Taste, knowledge, and skill are as necessary 

 to secure highest satisfaction in tree and 

 shrubbery planting, as in drawing fine land- 

 scapes and designing elegant buildings ; being 

 simply a good civil and topographical en- 

 gineer does not qualify a person to be a suc- 

 cessful and tasteful landscape gardener ; land- 

 scape gardening, in its completeness, is a 

 high order of profession in itself, requiring 

 talent and experience to attain high efficiency. 

 True, a thorough study of surveying and en- 

 gineering is considerable help in that direc- 

 tion. It takes fine talent and varied expe- 

 rience to make such a happy landscape gar- 

 dener as Wm. Saunders has proved himself 

 to be. 



Besides knowing the character and habits 

 of trees, their climatic requirements, the best 

 mode of planting, and the right adaptation 

 of soil for their successful growth, an eye and 

 judgment for pleasant effects are equally re- 

 quisite ; in fact, both taste and experience are 

 indispensable in producing the most delight- 

 ful results in lawn, park, and street planting 

 of trees and shrubbery. 



In addition to various evergreens — as 

 cedars, firs, pines, arborvitKs, and the like — 

 the ashes, catalpa, elms, lindens, maples, 

 oaks, and some others are both useful and 

 handsome, and are adapted to a wide range 

 of climate and diversity of soils. 



Tlie best experience proves that the plant- 

 ing of young trees should not be too deep ; in 

 tliis, as in most operations with plant-growing, 

 the methods or habits of nature are safe 

 guides to tree-planters. 



An experienced writer in this matter says: 

 " Large, round holes for tree-planting are 

 better tlian square ones ; tlie bottom of the 

 liole should be elevated towards the center, 

 with rich, pulverized soil, upon which the 

 tree should be placed in planting ; then the 

 roots should be carefully spread out in all di- 

 rections toward the circumference of the 

 hole, and carefully covered with rich, fiue 

 soil, the tree to be gently shaken and slightly 

 lifted while this is being done in order that 

 soil will settle around all the roots." 



Full and complete guide and instructions 

 cannot be given nor expected in a single 

 short article, on this beautiful aTid too much 

 neglected subject ; but only a few sugges- 

 tions are thrown out on the kinds of trees to 

 be chosen and the rudiments of planting. In 

 future articles I will give more specific details, 

 in regard to tlie natures and necessities of 

 various tioes and shrubs, as also in regard to 

 the natures and necessities of various trees 

 aud shrubs, as also in regard to adapting 

 dill'erent ones to various locasions and soils. 

 This is to awaken interest only. 



The planting of various fruit-trees, as well 

 as their adaptation to soil and locality, will 



also be considered in these plain and brief 

 articles, with the aim of being perfectly 

 practical rather than fanciful. 



Some varieties of fruit-trees are decidedly 

 ornamental as well as useful for fruits, espe- 

 cially when interspersed among cedars and 

 pines, and in many cases drawing among 

 evergreens, particularly cedars, is known to 

 prevent, to a good degree, the ravages of 

 many insects upon the fruit-trees. 



The pear tree, the apple and the cherry are 

 many of them very fine and graceful in their 

 habits and forms. We have known plum- 

 trees growing among walnut and hickory 

 trees to be preserved from insects. — D. 8. 

 Curtiss. 



THE FAIR SEASON. 



We are in the midst of the season for fairs 

 and expositions. Whoever has produced any- 

 thing of more than usual excellence in his 

 own estimation and that of his friends, 

 whether in the farming, mechanical or art 

 line, brings it forth for public examination 

 and approval. Mankind thus puts its best 

 foot forward. The scope of the agricultural 

 fairs has enlarged of late years, until they 

 have become comprehensive industrial sympo- 

 siums, with a little extraneous entertainment 

 included in the shape of horse-racing and oc- 

 casional other diversions. In many localities 

 there is a department of art, and where cir- 

 cumstances will not permit of that dignity in 

 its high sense, there are exhibitions of fancy 

 needlework and what not from fair fingers, 

 that help to give an agreeable coloring to the 

 whole and widen the field of interest. The 

 motto seems to be, " something of everything 

 for everybody," and it is a very good one. 



The animating principle of fairs is compe- 

 tition, and the benefits they bestow come in 

 the shape of the advertisement of new and 

 practical ideas, comparisons, and a relaxation 

 of the humdrum round of daily life. The 

 farmer and the mechanic are brought together 

 in a mutually profitable way. If the latter 

 has an improvement in the way of saving 

 agricultural labor, and is interested in finding 

 customers for it, the former is equally inter- 

 ested in finding it out. Tests between the 

 different machines are frequently made before 

 discriminating witnesses, and, by a process of 

 natural selection, the good are established in 

 the market, while the inferior are numbered 

 with the infinity of human failures upon 

 which progress is built. The results of differ- 

 ent methods of cultivation are brought to- 

 gether and discussed. The merits of various 

 kinds of slock are illustrated, and that species 

 of intelligence is dissenuuated among faamers 

 which is of the greatest se.ivice to them. 



The aggregate infiuence of fairs upon the 

 advancement of the agricultural interests 

 must be very great. Formerly they were main- 

 ly places of bargain aud sale ; now they have 

 a more direct educational infiuence, and they 

 are developing in accordance with the de- 

 mands of the age, nntil something like a uni- 

 versal system has been evolved. 



The county fairs su^iply tlie want of local 

 interchange of ideas and comparisons; then 

 come fairs, representing larger sections; then 

 State fairs, and so on up to the world's fairs, 

 which have now, it may be said, become es- 

 tablished institutions held at a comparatively 



regular intervals every few years, and in the 

 sustentation of which the civilized nations 

 have spontaneously and, in a manner, instinc- 

 tively united. 



These fairs, large and small, are great lev- 

 elers, but they level up. Their effect is to 

 raise the low places, not to cut down the sub- 

 stantial heights. They do not strike an ave- 

 rage, but push the inferior out of existence 

 altogether, and when all the world's excel- 

 lence and advances are to choose troin, tlie 

 eflect is a compact partnership of civilized 

 forces in the work of progress. In thus re- 

 garding the world's fairs, the smaller ones are 

 not to be despised. They are as important in 

 their sphere as the larger ones are in theirs. 

 It is through local endeavor and the inspira- 

 tion of local competition that the marvels of 

 ingenuity and of careful labor are produced. 

 Usually each separate locality possesses ad- 

 vantages in some particular direction that 

 others are deficient in. The local competition 

 they all repre.sent is not only an incentive to 

 the best effort, but it is instructive. Many 

 heads can furnish more valuable hints than 

 one can. The more the general subject is re- 

 garded the more it will appear that the fair 

 system is a very important one, and bears a 

 little short of vital relation to the various in- 

 dustries. It supplies them with a nervous 

 circulation that they would advance very 

 sluggishly and unevenly without. 



ITALIAN BEES AND HOW TO ITAL- 

 IANIZE THE COMMON BLACK BEES 



After having tested the Italian bees for ten 

 years we can say very truly that they are far 

 superior to the black or native bees. First, 

 they are more energetic and resist the attack 

 of robbers and the bee-moth ; never had a 

 strong colony of Italian robbed or destroyed 

 by the bee-moth. Second, they are better 

 honey gatherers and can gather honey from 

 flowers that the black bees cannot. Our 

 Italians, during a dry spell, the fall of 1881, 

 were busy working on red clover while there 

 could not be a black bee seen. Third, they 

 will gather at least one-third more honey 

 than the black bees, to take one year with an- 

 other. Fourth, and last, they are more quiet 

 and better to handle, the bees stick close to 

 the combs. 



A pure Italian should have three distinct, 

 yellow bands or rings across the lower part of 

 the abdomen, and a bright yellow hair over 

 the body. The so-called Albino bees are a 

 strain of Italians, having white bands and 

 hair ; they are the finest workers of the two 

 and very nice to handle ; they are of Ameri- 

 can origin, and are distinguished in scientific 

 bee culture as (-4j3is JL»ie?-ica.) We got our 

 first (lueen of Mils strain of Italians, October, 

 1879. The next year, 188',1, this colony gave 

 us two swarms and 110 pounds of o"e-pound 

 sections of honey, and last year the same 

 (picen's colony gave us (33 pounds of one- 

 pound sections of honey. The honey of 1880 

 brought us $lti.50, while that of 1881 brought 

 us »12.G0. 



Our average last year was i2 pounds per 

 colony (Italians,) when the average per colony 

 black bets, last year, fell below par. 

 How to Italianize. 



First, procure a good queen from a reliable 

 breeder, and when the queen arrives, if in 



