June 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



67 



.jga.^^ 



The Hemlock. 



The Hemlock is one of the most beautiful 

 and graceful evergreens of t!ie American 

 forest, and when its merits shall have be- 

 come duly appreciated it will everywhere 

 have a place In ornamental 'grounds. The 

 Hemlock finds no competitor for graceful, 

 waving branches — green the whole year 

 except a few weeks in June, when the new 

 growth of yellowish green contrasts beau- 

 tifully In the dark back ground. For hardi- 

 ness it has no superior among evergreens. 

 It is found growing naturally in the most 

 exposed as well as sheltered locations. It 

 stands pruning as well as any other tree — 

 evergreen or deciduous — and makes a most 

 beautiful hedge — a wall of green both sum- 

 mer and winter. Plant the hemlock. Our 

 engraving is a most perfect illustration of the 

 tree, when grown in the open ground. In the 

 forests of New England the tree attains a 

 very large size, two to four feet in diameter 

 at the ground and running up straight as an 

 arrow sixty or seventy feet before reaching 

 the first limbs. We have very pleasant 

 recollections of hemlock bark peeling times' 

 when a youngster, in the forests of New 

 England — an occurrence that came around 

 no less regular than corn planting. The 

 bark contains the most valuable tannin 

 properties of any substance known to 

 tanners, and is used to the exclusion of any 

 other ingredient in the produclion of the 

 finest and most durable quality of leather. 



For the Weetern Pomolof^iet. 



A Valuable Native Plum. 



Mark MrLLEK : Dear Sir :—l have a fine 

 native plum which has not failed to bear a 

 very full crop annually since it began, which 

 was eight years ago. It appears to belong to 

 the Chickasaw family. Fniit—smn]], (about 

 one inch in diameter,) round, yellow, colors 

 long before it is ripe, firm and acid nntil 

 mellow, then becomes soft and sweet ; equa. 

 to the Green Gage in flavor, according to the 



opinion of many. Season, September and 

 October. It withstands the attacks of the 

 curculio with me, while the Green Gage and 

 others near by it are destroyed. If it suc- 

 ceeds as well in other localities as here, it 

 will be valuable for its fine flavor, great pro- 

 ductiveness, late ripening, and firmness — 

 enabling it to be shipped long distances, and 

 afterwards mellowed up. 



I send you herewith a few cions of this 

 new plum, which I wish you to graft on to 

 a bearing tree. I hope you will hold the 

 stock in your hands until you test its quali- 

 ties and report the result to me. 



I am sending cioas of it to other compe- 

 tent pomologists in various State, to have it 

 tested in various localities. 



B. P. Hanan. 



Luray, Mo. 



N. B. Please give us a table of contents 

 to each number of the Pomologist, and an 

 index at end of the volume, then it will be 

 the best journal of the day that the country 

 affords. B. P. H. 



Remarks. — Thanks for the plum cions. 

 We shall give a very full and complete index 

 to the Pomologist at the close of the volume. 

 We deem it unnecessary to give a monthly 

 table of contents, for the reason that the 

 paper is sowell sub-divided into departments. 



The Miner Plum. 



Ed. Pomologist : — Do you know anything 

 about the Miner Plum, except from hearsay ? 

 Have you it in cultivation. Can- you or any 

 reader of the Pomologist tell us whether it 

 has been tested at all in Southern Iowa, and 

 with what degree of luck or failure ? -Is it 

 pufled and blowed by nurserymen for their 

 own profit, or does it pos.sess real worth ? 

 S. H. Gates, Leon, Decatur Co. 



Kemarks. — We are just as well posted on 

 the Miner Plum practically, as our corres- 

 pondent, and no better. We' have no trees 

 either in orchard or nursery, nor have we 

 ever seen a tree or the fruit. From what is 

 said of it by those who ought to speak hon- 

 estly, we are inclined to think well of it. 



Sweet Potato Experiments.— Colonel 

 Baylor, of Georgia, aided by some scientific 

 gentlemen in Boston, has been for .sometime 

 conducting a series of experimeuts upon the 

 sweet potato. The articles produced are 

 starch, dextrine sugar powder, a sweet kind 

 of vegetable flour. It is said that there is a 

 variety of sweet potato cultivated in the 

 Southern States which will yield ten per 

 cent of cane sugar. 



It is estimated that the sweet potato crop 

 of Georgia, properly manufactured for com- 

 mercial purposes, would add from $10,000,000 

 to $15,000,000 to the wealth of that State. 

 The value of the manufactured crop in North 

 Carolina would exceed this sum. 



The Best Time for Pruning Grapes. 



I have read the various articles in Tilton's 

 Journal of Horticulture in regard to the 

 pruning of grape vines. I do not propose 

 to theorize upon the subject, but to give the 

 experience of twenty years for what it is 

 worth. At first I supposed it was improper 

 to prune in the Spring, when they bleed the 

 worst, the Germans, whom I mostly em- 

 ployed, having a prejudice against it. But 

 sometimes some parts of the vineyard were 

 trimmed at this supposed improper time. 



The closest observation I was able to 

 make, discovered no bad result, and I have 

 never seen that it made any diflerence when 

 the vines were trimmed, from the time the 

 leaves were ripe in the Fall to as late as the 

 20th of June. I seldom get all my vines 

 trimmed before the first of June. 



Since we have had the rot, I have in some 

 vineyards tried leaving the three canes the 

 full length until August, when if no rot ap- 

 pears, I cut off the surplus wood, but if the 

 rot set in have left the whole vine, and got 

 a larger yeiUl than from vines short pruned. 

 But where there was little or no rot, the 

 shortest-pruned vines have uniformly borne 

 the best crops. I am clearly of ojiiniou that 

 the best time to trim is whenever it is most 

 convenient after the leaf is dead in the Fall, 

 until the first of June. 



I have always root-pruned pretty severely, 

 plowing deep close up to the vine, and cut- 

 ting the roots in the first hoeing in the Spring 

 in most of my vineyards, but I have also 

 tried the reverse, and must confess I have 

 never been able to see much diflerence in 

 the results. There are now seven to eight 

 hundred acres here in bearing. 



Some persons think that Spring trimming 

 is best, but do not claim that thej' have any 

 facts to prove it. It is true that some parts 

 of vineyards have been trimmed in the Fall, 

 and did not bear as well as the part trimmed 

 in the Spring, but the reverse is also some- 

 times true. It is quite common to have one 

 part of a vineyard do better than another 

 one year, and the case reversed another 

 year. If Mr. Byington or Mr. Underbill will 

 give us tacts instead of theory, I think it 

 would aid us more iu the direction of correct 

 conclusions than theorizing. — Addison Kdiey, 

 in Journal of Horticulture. 



The Sex of Plants and Vegetables. — 

 Hamilton Perry, of Saratoga, contends that 

 in ever}' variety of the vegetable, as in the 

 animal world, there is male and female. In 

 some vegetables, as the potato, one end is 

 male and the other female — the latter produc- 

 ing more abundantly than the former, and of 

 better quality. Where the female or seed 

 end of the potato only is planted, there will 

 be no rot, and a much better yield than when 

 both ends are mingled in the same hiU. 



Preparing Sulphur for Grapes.— Mr. 

 J. A. Flagg, in a small treatise on the ap- 

 plication of sulphur, says much of the flour 

 of sulphur contains sulphuric acid, which 

 injures the leaves of the vines, which may 

 be washed out sufficiently by stirring well 

 in a tub of water, then letting the sulphur 

 settle, then pouring off the water and re- 

 peating the process three or four times, and 

 then drying the sulpher on boards. Mr. 

 Flagg is now importing some ground sul- 

 phur from Italy for samples, such as is large- 

 ly used in the "Meditemneaa districts ; this 

 has no acid, but is iu other respects inferior 

 to flour of sulphur. 



