OF DWARF FRUIT TREE CULTURE. 15 



fornia system. There the vines are cut back to mere stubs, each one 

 being shortened annually to only three buds, these buds sending out 

 fruit bearing canes the next season and greatly improving the yield 

 and quality. The grape grown in California is of the "Vitis Vini- 

 fera" species, and are of the highest quality, but will only grow on 

 the Pacific Coast in the open air. The American grape is of the 

 "Vitis Labrusce" species, and will not bear the short pruning the 

 California grape stands. 



The plum, too, is well adapted to the miniature garden, and is 

 a fruit the best of which is hardly known beyond the Pacific Coast. 

 In Europe and on the Pacific Coast the "Prunus Domestica" is the 

 species chiefly grown; it contains as a class plums of the highest 

 quality, while inferior varieties principally are grown in the Eastern 

 and Western states. 



Quinces are a very valuable fruit and well adapted to the minia- 

 ture fruit garden as it is naturally a slow growing shrub and may 

 be farther dwarfed by root pruning. It is chiefly used as a cooking 

 fruit, making delicious marmalade, jelly and preserves. The small 

 fruits, as strawberries, currants, raspberries and blackberries should 

 all find a place in the suburbanite garden. The strawberry may be 

 grown as a border or edging around the flower beds and vegetable 

 plots, not allowing them to produce any runners, and by planting 

 them a foot or eighteen inches apart in the row they will produce an 

 abundance of fruit. I have grown strawberries on this hill plan, 

 keeping the runners clipped off, and have kept the same plants on 

 the same ground for 15 consecutive years and yielding satisfactory 

 crops all the time. This system is not adapted to commercial culture, 

 but fits in to the suburbanite's requirement admirably. Raspberries, 

 especially of the red and yellow varieties, may be controlled and 

 rendered less rampant by pinching the leading bud of each new cane 

 in June. When the canes have reached about three feet in height 

 they will send out side shoots and become more stocky. This pinch- 

 ing of the canes may be continued all through the suntmer if re- 

 quired to control the growth. I fancy I hear some suburbanite 

 possessing only a small 25-foot lot close in town say : What is this 

 man "giving us?" How can I plant all these fruit trees on my little 

 patch of ground? Wait a bit, my friend. There are suburbanites 

 and suburbanites, some living close in town with their 25-foot lots, 

 and some living further out with lots of one or more acres and all 



