i.^so 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[October, 



inner surface of the walls are lined with pot- 

 ter's clay, which is also found in abundance 

 on the land leased by the company. The 

 outer surface of the walls are riprapped with 

 stone and planted with dwarf English basket 

 willow, the tangled roots of which do much in 

 strongthcnin? them. The upper pond, or 

 that nearest the springs which feed them, has 

 a higher bottom than the one next below it, 

 and the third is lower than the second, and so 

 on down to the fish house, which is lower 

 still. By this arrangement the ponds are fed 

 by the same water which passes successively 

 from the upper to the lower ones and thence 

 into the stream below. 



To avoid the possibility of an overflow, 

 even during the heaviest rainstorms, large 

 ditches have been dug, with properly ar- 

 ranged sluices, to carry off all surplus water. 



The company have not yet placed any of 

 their carp on market for table use, as they 

 have found it more profitable to sell them to 

 persons going into carp culture, of which 

 there are now great numbers in all parts of 

 the country. This winter, however, it is 

 probable the company will place their fish on 

 the market, as besides the hundreds of thou- 

 sands now in the ponds that have been de- 

 scribed, they have over l-.',000 carp in Mr. 

 Hershey's ponds, just within the city limits, 

 many of them being of marketable size. Our 

 citizens will then have an opportunity of judg- 

 ing for themselves of the merit of German 

 carp as an edible fisli. 



A Successful Enterprise. 



The Piscatorial company has been at several 

 thousand dollars expense in fitting up these 

 ponds, and although they have not yet placed 

 a fish upon market, we are informed that 

 their receipts almost equal their expendia- 

 tures. Besides the money they have made by 

 selling fish to stock other ponds they have cut 

 from their own ponds immense quantities of 

 the purest ice. Last winter they built a tem- 

 porary frame ice house near the principal 

 pond, and filled it with 1,400 tons of ice, and 

 sold in addition l,(iOO loads more which was 

 bought and hauled to town by Messrs. 

 Sprenger, Reiker, Royer, Demuthand others. 

 All this ice was cut from a single pond. 



The company is now engaged in the erec- 

 tion of a large new ice house, 100 feet long 

 and GO feet wide, capable of holding 3,000 

 tons of ice. It will be finished by the time 

 cold weather sots in, and should the winter be 

 a favorable one it will not only be filled, but 

 will be stacked up on the banks as it was last 

 winter, for the use of others. Altogether the 

 financial outlook of the company is very favor- 

 able, as by next spring they will have cleared 

 all expenses anil have a clear seventeen year 

 lease, during which time they can count their 

 gains. 



We cannot close this sketch better than to 

 say a good word for J. Martin Eckman, the 

 manager in charge. He is the right man in 

 the right place. Intelligent, industrious, re- 

 liable and deei)ly interested in fish culture, he 

 is withal a jolly good fellow, able and willing 

 to give information to those who seek it of 

 him. With his family ho lives pleasantly in 

 a neat cottage erected on the company's 

 grounds. " May he live long and prosper." 



Send in youi subscriptions for 1SS5. 



IS COLD WATER INJURIOUS TO 

 PLANTS? 



Those who study works on horticultural by 

 different writers will discover many opposing 

 views in respect to the modes of caring for, 

 and the treatment of plants. The proper 

 temperature for water when applied to plants, 

 has been frequently discussed by different 

 writers ; some contend that cool water just 

 drawn from a well or cistern, should never be 

 showered upon plants, but that it should first 

 be heated to the temperature of the room in 

 which the plants are standing. Others, with 

 equal zeal, claim the cold water will not in- 

 jure the plants in the least, contending that 

 the water vMl assume the right temperature 

 before injury is done the plant. Now which 

 is right ? We have experimented in this 

 matter to a considerable extent, in order to 

 satisfy ourselves as to which of these two 

 views is correct. lu the month of December 

 we took from our collection twelve large 

 geraniums, and placed them by themselves in 

 the conserv-atory ; six of these we watered 

 with cold water, drawn from a hydrant pipe 

 at the temperature of forty-five degrees, and 

 the other six were supplied with water from 

 a barrel standing in the conservatory, and 

 was of the same temperature of the house, 

 that is from sixty degrees to eighty degrees. 

 The plants watered with the cold water gave 

 little if any bloom throughout the winter, 

 while the six geraniums watered from the 

 barrel grew finely, and bloomed profusely. 



Always water your plants in winter time 

 with lukewarm water, if you would have a 

 profusion of flowers, and thrifty-growing 

 plants. The water should be of the same 

 temperature as tlieroom or place in which the 

 plants are kept. There is no theory about it, 

 this is a practiial fact. 



ABOUT FRUIT TREES 

 I give personal experience for fifty and 

 history for a hundred years to prove that the 

 disease known as " yellows" in the peach tree 

 and "blight in the pear tree are on the in- 

 crease ; and I would here take opportunity to 

 say that these shows are merely symptoms of a 

 disease m its last and final stage, and ought 

 to have been prevented by apprehension of 

 the disease in a former stage, overlooked and 

 unknewn. 



To seek for a remedy for " yellows" after 

 it has thus appeared is too late for anything 

 ta be available; while to find a preventive 

 sooner is the part of wisdom and the only 

 possible remedy. When yellows appears, it 

 is positive proof of constitutional taint, and 

 however much may be done to ameliorate, 

 nothing is available to cure that which has 

 come to pfiss. No tree ever shows the symp- 

 tom we call yellows antil it is constitutionally 

 affected, not only in its own life, but also in 

 its seed, from which a succession is procured. 

 This is just why we find the yellows on the in- 

 crease, because the taint is in the seed, from 

 generation to generation, so that many orch- 

 ards die before ever bearing a crop, while 

 others may be so far assisted that they will 

 bear a crop or two at some rate, by which- 

 they become so further weakened as not to be 

 able to ever recover to bear another. 



Now, the peach derived from the almond, 

 is susceptible of being improved by culture up 



to a certain degree of perfection as long as 

 the same means that brought perfection out 

 of imperfection is continued and moderation 

 in our designs maintained ; but just as soon 

 as we aim above the possibilities of nature, 

 or fall below its requirements that has tended 

 to the perfection attained, a marked degree of 

 disease bgcomes apparent. 



But why do we not know that any devia- 

 tion from nature's balance is disease ? A fat 

 hog or horse, or person, is not a healthy hog, 

 horse, or person, but a person or animal forced 

 out of nature's medium toward some per- 

 sumed perfection. For some purpose it may 

 be called a perfection, for this is a quite in- 

 definite term ; but for the good of the nature 

 of the individual it is just so far an imperfec- 

 tion that will, if not prevented, run back to 

 its natural standard. I know full well that if 

 I should say to the amateur fruit grower that 

 his fine productions were unnatural, and con- 

 sequently, in the light of natural philosophy, 

 symptoms of inherent disease, he would not 

 take quite kindly to the idea, but might tell 

 me they were improvements on nature, which, 

 for his purpose, they are, but not for nature's 

 purpose. Disease is any departure from 

 nature's primary fiat, and must be maintained 

 by the means used to originate it. If the 

 changed condition renders the subject liable 

 to other disease, we must set one disease to 

 cure another. But never imagine for a mo- 

 ment that art is an improvement on nature, 

 and not a diseased condition of it. The his- 

 tory of the peach tree amply proves all that I 

 claim. The first disease (or departure from 

 nature) was a profit to us in an improved 

 fruit, and while our desires were thus satisfied 

 and the means of change kept up, our position 

 was a tenable one ; but push for a still greater 

 perfection, being a greater degree of depar- 

 ture from nature, gives us a different stage of 

 the one disease, and the last stage we call the 

 "yellows," from which there is no return to 

 health, and disease and death are established^ 



Now, what I have said of the peach is 

 equally true of the pear, and the " yellows" 

 and pear "blight" are but varied .symptoms of 

 one disease acting upon different subjects ; 

 which disease is simply a departure from na. 

 ture, the first symptom of which is a good 

 fruit to man, and the last symptom is 

 "blight" of the brancnes of the tree and 

 death in the end. To one who can trace 

 eft'ects to their causes, all the degrees between 

 our imaginary perfection and the end of our 

 liberties with nature's facts may be marked 

 at every stage. We have now millions of 

 peach trees in a state of disease, bearing fruitg 

 of many degrees of perfection, as we look 

 upon the subject ; but all are more or less dis- 

 eased, according to the degree of departure 

 from nature's balance between our finest 

 fruits and her original fiat. 



I now lie wide open to all comment that 

 may be brought to bear upon this view of the 

 inevitable truth of fruit culture, and though 

 it may ill suit the amateur culturist, it is that 

 to which nature will eventually bend the will 

 of man, if not by reason, still by the force of 

 fact. Art is but the handmaid of nature, and 

 the nearer its accords with its mother energy 

 in practice, the greater the duration of the 

 liberties afforded us through its means.— S. 

 F. Larkin, in Oermantown Telegraph. 



