April and May 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



SS 



"best;" to my taste it is not so good as 

 "Mother," or "Pryor's Red," or "W. W. 

 Pearmain," wlieu in perfection. Yet it is 

 good enough to give satisfaction to anybody 

 as an eating or cooking fruit, and to the pro- 

 ducer it is bound to be one of the satisfactory 

 varieties. Better than Wine Sap, than 

 Rawles' Janette, grown this far north. A 

 richer apple than Jonathan — not quite so 

 sprightly nor juicy. 



The specimens I sent to you last winter 

 had been kept in open air, both too 

 diy and warm for the best results. If 

 they had been kept in close barrels, or in 

 the ground, they would have been more 

 juicy and crisp than they now are. I think 

 of planting this spring fifty or one 

 hundred trees of Grimes' Golden, as an 

 earnest of what I think of " Gkimes' 

 Golden." Z. Hollingsworth. 



Sandusky, Lee Co., loioa. 



P. S. We need a flood of light iu tliis 

 Western country uponPomological matters, 

 and a journal in the interest of the suliject 

 ought to excite a lively and universal 

 attention. 



Remarks. — On the qualitj' of this apple 

 in contrast with that of Jonathan, we beg 

 leave to differ in opinion with Dr. Hollings- 

 worth. To our taste the " Golden " is more 

 " juicy," and more " spicy " than Jonathan, 

 and in this opinion we have the concurrence 

 of Mr. James Smitli, and other good judges 

 in such matters of taste. The flesh of the 

 " Golden " is not quite so crisp and tender 

 as that of Jonathan. 



For the Western Pomologiat. 

 Lipping Pear Trees— Converting Dwarf 

 into Standard. 



This is recommended in order to cause 

 dwarf pears to throw out roots above the 

 union with the quince, as it is asserted that 

 very few dwarf pears continue to pay unless 

 gradually converted into standards by the 

 above or some natural process. Glass is 

 recommended, but I have found that the 

 scales of the shad fish are much to be pre- 

 ferred — first, as more conveniently inserted ; 

 second, as not separating unnecessarily the 

 bark ; third, composed of plant food in a 

 more soluble form ; fourth, naturally of the 

 size wanted — but as a substitute (and per- 

 haps better still) I have used Mica, such as 

 is necessarily replaced in stove doors, or 

 rather windows. This contains a large pro- 

 portion of potash. Cut the lip or incision 

 as near the junction as possible, aud insert 

 the scale to prevent reunion. 



D. S., Pmi Penn, Dd. 



The London Gardeners' Magazine says 

 that in the department of Vandoise (France) 

 out of 60,000 acres of vines, 20,000 acr^s have 

 been utterly ruined by what is called the 

 "vine disease," and the loss in some districts 

 has been even greater than this, so that many 

 entire vineyards have been grubbed up, and 

 the ground planted with other crops. 



Curculio— Bark-lice. 



C. v. Riley, State Entomologist of Mis- 

 souri, read a paper before the Ilortieultural 

 Society of that State, from which we take 

 the following iuteresling extract: 



Owing to the .severe drouthof 1868, which 

 was unfavorable to its successful trausforma- 

 tioiis, that dreaded foe of the fruit-grower, 

 the Plum Curculio, was scarce in the early 

 part of the season, and our plum and peach^ 

 trees set a fuller crop than they had done 

 before for years; but the subsequent moist 

 weather was favorable to the underground 

 evolutions of this little pest, and the new 

 brood aijpeared in great numbers about the 

 end of June and beginning of Julj', when 

 they did much damage to stone fruit aud 

 ■some damage to jiip-tVuit by the gougiugs 

 wliich they made for food. 



As stated in an e.ssay read bef ire the State 

 meeting of our Illinois horticultural friends, 

 I have discovered a little cannibal in the 

 shape of a minute species of Thrips, which 

 destroj's vast numbers of the little turi<'s 

 eggs; and let us hope, that by attacking the 

 Curculio in its most vulnerable point, this 

 Thrips may in the course of a few years 

 reduce the numbers of tlie Curculio, as the 

 ladybirds have done with the Colorado Po- 

 tato Bug, or as the minute mite (Acarru 

 vmli) is known to have done with the 

 common oyster-shell Ijark-louse of the ap- 

 ple. 



The eggs of the apple-tree plant-louse, 

 {Aphis iiiali) which last winter so thicklj' 

 covered the twigs of the apple trees iu many 

 orchard.s, hatched and produced a prodigious 

 number of lice as soon as the buds com- 

 menced to burst. In this immediate neigh- 

 borhood they were soon swept away, how- 

 ever, by their cannibal foes, and by insect- 

 ivcrous birds, such as the warbler, etc. ; but 

 a physiological fact connected with this in- 

 ,sect has been developed this year by Dr. E. 

 S. Hull, of such importance that I can- 

 not pass it over even in this brief report. — 

 He has ascertained that we suffer from the 

 injurious punctures of their little beaks long 

 after the lice themselves have disappeared. 



Iu fact he has jtroved to his own s;ilisfactiou 

 that the so-called"scab" in apples, wliich pre- 

 vailed to such an alarming extent last vear, 

 and rendered thousands and thousands of 

 bushels valueless for market purposes, is ac- 

 tually caused by the punctures of these lice. 



I said that the doctor had proved this mut- 

 ter "to his own satisfiction," because I be- 

 lieve that cjiution requires that we sliould 

 not consider it an established fact until all 

 objections to it can be dispelled. Personally 

 I have made no observation on this mat- 

 ter, but the facts in the case all add weight 

 to Dr. HuU's theory, if such it can be called. 



Hithertotlieciiu.se of the "scab" on ap- 

 ples has been involved in mystery. It was 

 supposed to have a fungoid origin ; yet an 

 examination will show tliat the scabby ap- 

 pearance is not caused by any live fungus, 

 but by arrested growtli of the cells which 

 have become corky and cicactrized. The 

 importance of this discovery of Dr. Hull's 

 should it once be firmly established, cannot 

 well bit estimated ; for when we have once 

 ascertained the cause of a disease, it need 

 scarcely exist any longer. By destroying 

 the lice we shall prevent scabby apples, and 

 experience teaches that the}' can be de- 

 stroyed by a good syringe of tobacco water. 



We may e.xpect, in this immediate vicini- 

 ty, an almost total exemption from " .sc:ib " 

 next year, for the apple trees are remarkably 

 free from the minute thread like eggs of the 

 plant-louse with which they were so thor- 

 oughly i)eppered a year ago. 



Remedy for Cut "Worms and Wire 

 Worms. 



I observe an inquiry by " W." for a rem- 

 edy for wire worms in corn. Conversing 

 with an old farmer a few years ago on this 

 subject, he told me that he was iu the habit 

 of .soaking his seed corn in .strong brine — 

 meat jiickle would answer — and tliat corn 

 thus treated was never injured by worms. 

 I think he said he soaked his seed in the 

 pickle about 34 hours. I expressed some 

 apprehension tliat steeping corn in Iirine 

 would injure the germinating principle, but 

 he assured me that such was not the case, as 

 it all came up well. He said he once farmed 

 a place to the shares, and intended pursuing 

 his plan with his seed corn, but his landlord, 

 objected, thinking it would ruin the seed; 

 he, however, after much persuasion con- 

 .sented that a portion of it should be thus 

 treated, and the result was, the corn from the 

 pickled seed came up well and grew on un- 

 tlisturbed by worms, while tliat from the dry 

 seed was almost totally destroyed by them. 



I remember of hearing my father tell once 

 of some peach trees he once liad in liis yard 

 which were badly injured by the borer. In 

 order to destroy the worms he poured a 

 quantity of fish pickle about the roots. The 

 trees bore a plentiful crop of peaches, but 

 the fruit was so salty as to be unfit for u.se. 

 It would appear from this that the saline 

 particles were taken up iu the circulation of 

 the tree, and thus disseminated to the fruit ; 

 and this may account for the efficacy of the 

 salting process in the case of seed corn, the 

 saline matter being taken into the plant and 

 thus preventing the ravages of worms. — 

 Cor. Practical Farmer. 



Why Noxious Insects Increase Upon Us- 



It is an old and very true rcnark that the 

 various insects that afflict tlie gardener and 

 fruit-grower are, year by year, becoming 

 more numerous and destructive. One prin- 

 cipal reason for this result is sufficiently ob- 

 vious. The continual tendency of modern 

 improvement is to concentrate vegetable 

 gardens and fruit firms iu certain peculiarly 

 favorable localities, instctad of scattering 

 them evenly and uniformly over the whole 

 countrj'. Hence every injurious insect that 

 troubles the gardener and the fruit grower 

 has an abundant supplv of such vegetation 

 as forms a suitable nidus for its future ofl- 

 spring, close at hand, instead of having to 

 search for it, with much labor, over an" ex- 

 tensive surface of country. Such insects 

 are, therefore, enabled- by this means to in- 

 crease and multiply with greater ease and 

 greater rapidity. Upon precisely the same 

 principle, if you scatter over the surface of 

 a whole country the amount of shelled corn 

 that is just sufficient to feed a certain gang 

 of hogs, and compel them to seek it out and 

 pick it up every day of the year, they will 

 not thrive so well nor multiply so fast as if 

 you feed out the very same amount of corn 

 to tliem in a ten acre lot, day after day, for a 

 whole year. — Canada Fanner. 



How IT Must be Done.— To be able 

 successfull}' to cheek the insect scourge and 

 eventually destroy the more noxious kinds, 

 it is necessary to understand their habits — 

 the moth that lays the eggs, where and when 

 to look for them, when the transformations 

 take place, etc., and the remedies to be ap- 

 plied, to destroy egg larva, pupa, or adult 

 insect. 



