June 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



69 



The Obligation to Plant Fruit Trees. 



Whnt a pity it is that pfoplo do nnt, as a 

 genoral tliiii^;^, appreoiato more fully than 

 they do the value of fruit. There are thou- 

 sands of farniors who do not grow enough 

 fruit on their own premises to sujiply the 

 ordinary wants of their families, mueh less 

 any for market. Now, when the fuel is taken 

 into consideration, that as an article of diet, 

 fruit is not only wholesome and healthful, 

 but that it can be in many caseS substituted 

 for other expensive articles of food, and 

 more especially meats, it is surjjrising that 

 comparatively so little attention is paid to 

 its cultivation. We are not of those who 

 believe that everj' one is capable of becom- 

 ing what is generally termed a successful 

 fruit-grower ; by which we mean, that to 

 produce such specimens as those usually 

 shown at a horticultural exhibition requires 

 more care and attention than a great many 

 farmers are willing to be able to give to the 

 suliject. But on the other hanil, no man 

 who tills the ground, if he possesses even 

 the most superficial knowledge of horticul- 

 ture, need hesitate about setting out fruit 

 trees, and attempt the cultivation of a jiatch 

 of strawberries, blackberries or raspberries. 



Murseries abound now in almost every 

 section of the countrj', and the cost of young 

 trees is so trilling that the first expense of 

 setting out a small orchard cannot be urged 

 as an objection, and as the subsequent atten- 

 tion required by the trees after planting is 

 to be regarded as little more thau pleasant 

 recreation, there is no reasonable excuse that 

 can be ofl'ered by farmers for not giving 

 more attention to the planting of fruit trees. 



I'here is nothing that we know of that 

 presents an appearance more fTtrbiddiug or 

 desolate than a farm on which there are few 

 or no fruit, shade, or ornamental trees, and 

 yet there are many such, and it may be .set 

 down almost as a fixed fact, that a farmer 

 who will not cultivate fruit trees, generally 

 speaking, has few or none of the ornamental 

 or shade kind about his house, unless they 

 were planted by other hands than his own. 



Fruit tree plauting should be regarded r.s 

 a privilege and a duty, and the farmer who 

 neglects to exercise this privilege and dis- 

 charge this duty, is false to himself, his fam- 

 ily and posterity, for the cultivation of a 

 bountiful supply of good fruit, is one of the 

 strong claims which the farmer's family', and 

 those who are to follow, have upon everj' 

 owner of a piece of ground in the country. 



Car. Journal of the Furm. 



♦-♦-♦ 



The Cultivation of Timber. 



" When you have nothing else to do, plant 

 a tree ; it will grow when 3'ou are sleeping." 

 This advice, we thiak, may be extended to 

 times when people are not at leisure, and to 

 the United States Government as well as 

 private individuals. Why not make a busi^ 

 ness of planting trees? We are well aware 

 that in man}' cises trees have been planted 

 and grown with .success, by private individ- 

 uals and on private estates, but the fact re- 

 mains that large areas of public domain are 

 to-day entirely without timber, and the 

 sources from which lumber can be derived to 

 supply the needs of this territory upon its 

 future settlement, are undergoing a drain 

 which will ultimately exhaust them. 



If tliere exists reasons why the agricultural 

 department of our goverameat could not, if 

 disposed, greatly increase the value of the 

 public lands by rendering mule portions tree- 

 bearing, they are not now obvious to us. 



Our continent possesses a varietv of forest 

 trees of industrial value, exceeded hv no 

 area of similar extent. Certainlv in all" this 

 vaneity there may be found soine adapted 

 to vigorous growth in almost any climate, or 

 any soil capable of sustaining vegetation. — 

 ^ieiiiific American . 



California Fruit-Exportation. 



A correspondent of the Chicago Republi- 

 can, w^riting from San Francisco, remarks 

 upon.the exportation of fruit from Califor- 

 nia to the Atlantic markets : 



The exportation of fruit, fish and vegeta- 

 bles is going to be an important item of in- 

 come to California. A short time since an 

 experimental shipment was made of 13,000 

 pounds of salmon, packed in ice ; the fish 

 reached its destination in excellent condi- 

 tion, brought a large price, and many addi- 

 tional orders. Several bales of fresh celery, 

 caulirtowcr, cucumbers, and other vegetables, 

 are forwarded to New York in a refrigerator 

 car by each day's express, and to-morrow 

 1,500 pounds of straw'berries will be shipped 

 to the same market. To prevent bruising 

 they are carefully placed in wooden trays, 

 each one holding but a single layer of fruit. 

 These are then put in coaveaieut sized boxes 

 or crates, and ice is liberally distributed over 

 them. The coming summer will witness an 

 immense fruit exportation. In nothing does 

 CalifiH'uia so much excel as in her orchard 

 produce. Last year about 300 tons of apples, 

 pears, grapes, and plums were sent east by 

 railroad. The average price netted for pears 

 was fifteen cents a pound. Grapes of Mus- 

 cat, of Alexandria, fiame-colored Tokay, and 

 Black Hamburg varieties brought thirty 

 cents, and the native California grape twenty 

 cents a pound. A strange anomaly is that 

 last year we imported 6,000 barrels of dried 

 apples, and left hundreds of thousands of 

 bushels of the same fruit, far superior in 

 quality, to deaiy under our trees, and then 

 we wonder that the state is poor. 

 *-♦-* 



Introdtjction op the Honey Bee. — L. 

 V. Biercc, in the Medina (Ohio) Gazette, does 

 not think the honeybee is "native and to 

 the manor born," but like the skunk and 

 gray squirrel, precede the advance of civili- 

 zation. To back up his opinion, he presents 

 the following testimony : 



LETTER OF GEN. BIEUCE. 



Akuon, Sept. 11, 1869. 



In 1759, Dugald Campbell, a Highland 

 Scotchman of the Campbell clan, was living 

 in the Tuscarora valley, on the bank of the 

 Canacaquia creek in Cumberland county, 

 Pennsylvania. Campbell had a daughter 

 Mary, a lovely black eyed child of seven 

 summers. A party of Delaware Indians 

 captured Mary ;md took her to their camp 

 on Catanious in what is now Armstrong 

 county, Penn.sylvania. Mary was adopted 

 by Natawawees, head chief of the Turtle 

 band of the Delawares, who signed the treaty 

 of 1718 at Canastoga. 



The following year Natawawees with his 

 band left Pennsylvania and removed to the 

 big fall of the Cuyahoga, just below what is 

 now i;uyahoga Falls, in Sununit couutv. At 

 the f<iot of these falls were two villages. 

 One the south belonging to the Iroquois, the 

 one on the north side to the Delawares — the 

 river being the boundary between them. 



After being a prisoner four years, Mary 

 w.as surrendered up to the whites at the 

 treaty of Mn.skingum in 1763, and taken 

 back to Pen!:S3dvania. 



1771 she was married to Joseph Wilford 

 of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and 

 became the mother of Rev. Samuel Wilford, 

 who died a few 3'ears since near Orville, 

 Wayne county ; and grandmother of Hon. 

 Joseph Wilford, late Senator from Wayne 

 county, in the Ohio Legislature. B®„TFfofe 

 Mary wan living at tlieftl.ls of Cuyahoga, honey 

 heei made t/ieir appearance among the Indians 

 in this country. Tlie Indians leere greatly 

 trouUMl, an they said bees were the forerunriers 

 of the palefaces. 



Evergreens and. Fruit Trees Dying. 



Under the above heading a correspondent 

 of the Country Oentleman, under date of 

 May 11, writes from Champaign count}', 111., 

 that evergreens and fruit trees are, this 

 spring, dying in a very unexpected way : 



I notice in almost every collection of ever- 

 greens, more or less are dead, or are going 

 to decay. The causes which kill, seem to be 

 operating on all alike — white pine, Norway 

 spruc(;, Austrian pine, and the Scotch pine 

 too— while I think those Balsam firs, ten 

 years or more planted, are looking more 

 faded, ragged and forlorn than they else- 

 where generally do at that age. The blight 

 has re-appeared" in pear orchards, and is even 

 afiecting those root pruned, cut and manured 

 according to the wisdom and direction of 

 our State Horticulturist, Dr. Hull. Morello 

 cherry trees are dying, against the popular 

 opinion, which classes them with mules and 

 donkeys, which are .suppo.sed to never die. 



We are beginning to notice that after trees 

 have been ten years or more planted on the 

 prairies, though up to that time they have, 

 where cared for, grown and flourished in a 

 wonderful way, suddenly this growth and 

 vigor disappears, and then, if disease and 

 death do not come, a period of no growth or 

 torpidity follows. Are the prairies treeless, 

 because from some recondite cause, arboreal 

 vegetation will not achieve a long life. on 

 them? some of us are beginning to ask our- 

 selves. The general opinion is, that the 

 prairies are bare because arboreal vegetation 

 has never had an opportunity to cover them. 

 We may have to reverse our opinion on this 

 head. Before I can advise your correspond- 

 ent as to the growth of evergreens in Central 

 Illinois, I must wait and see to what an 

 extent this dying of evergreens goes on. 



A Successful Pear Orchard. 



M. B. Batuham gives in the Northwestern 

 Farmer, an account of the pear orchard 

 planted .some years ago by A. Fahnestock, 

 six miles below Toledo on the Maumee Riv- 

 er. The soil is a strong clay loam, well un- 

 derdrained and subsoiled. Ten acres are 

 occupied by a thousand trees, all of which, 

 with scarcel_y a failure or defective tree, are 

 of fine size and shape. Mr. Fahnestock 

 says: "A large portion of my trees are per 

 feet beauties of form, as well as in health and 

 vigor. They are branched from within two 

 feet of the ground, and are ten to twelve feet 

 in width at the base, regular cones or pyra- 

 mids in shape, from eighteen to twent.y feet 

 high." Of the varieties, there are 100 Seckel 

 lO'O Anjou, 300 Flemish Beauty, 300 Sheldon 

 300 Bartlett, 100 Bufl'um,aad the rest sorts in 

 smaller quantities on trial. I he Buftum 

 is found to grow too fast, the shoots averag- 

 ing three or f jur feet annually, the wood 

 soft and spongy, and the trees liable to blight 

 It is obvious they are in too rich a soil. 

 Trees of the age mentioned should never 

 be allowed to grow more than two feet 

 j'early — less would be better. The trees of 

 other sorts, mentioned as of twelve feet 

 spread and twenty feet high, grown in seven 

 j'ears, have had a rather more rajjid growth 

 than we should regard as safe, although as 

 j'et there has been but little blight among 

 most of the varieties. Trees in this orchard 

 which sent their roots down four feet or 

 more into the clay subsoil, are found to be 

 more healthy than those having roots near 

 the surface. The Bartletts outbear, four to 

 one, any other sort. 



♦*-». 



Seth Boyden, a famous strawberry raiser, 

 said if he lived twenty j'ears longer he 

 would ]iroduce a strawberr}' as large as a 

 pineapple and as delicious as the best field 

 strawberr}'. 



