198 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



1871 



Horticultural Notes from Florida. 



F.n. POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER : YoUl' roild- 



ers will recollect that iu the June number for 1870, 

 I stated that "it was as easy to raise apples in Flor- 

 ida as to raise persimmons in North Carolina." I 

 still think so. The Red Astrachan tree on the Haw 

 1 at that time alluded to, is now four years old from 

 the graft, and this season bore nearly five hun- 

 dred good apples. I now have on the Haw nearly 

 every well known variety of summer apples. But 

 for this climate I prefer the Astrachan. 



The Bartlett pear on the Haw promises to do as 

 well as the apple. It also dses well here on the 

 (luince. I gathered some last month that were very 

 tine. The trees on which they grew were only two 

 years old from the graft. Standard pears do not 

 promise much. 



The peach is at home here, and I have no hesita- 

 tion in advising the growing of it extensively. I 

 have nearly 3000 bearing trees three years old, and 

 from which I commenced shipping fruit on the 8th 

 of May last. I realized on the first sales $1.00 per 

 dozen. 



For my success in grape growing I herewith hand 

 you a slip cut from the Land Register, published in 

 this place. 



"The readers of the Register will remember 

 that in the May No. of 1870, we gave an account of 

 these Nurseries. As we drew near the house we 

 could not hut be impressed with the great change 

 in the vegetation that one short year had wrought. 

 Tree and vine and shrub had attained a size that 

 seemed marvellous. 



As our readers know, the Colonel's theory is that 

 the grape requires greater protection from the sun 

 than its own foliage affords, and so places his vines 

 under his fruit trees. As novel as the theory may 

 appear, the results seem, in some respects to justify 

 it. The bunches were large, free from blemish and 

 very tine flavored. 



The Colonel has all the usual varieties, together 

 with several we have not observed elsewhere. The 

 Golden Chasselas and Black Hamburg were very 

 fine. Think of the Black Hamburg, that tender pet 

 of Northern conservatories, growing in the open 

 air, without even a mosquito netting over it through 

 the winter, and hanging with fruit nearly ripe the 

 23d of June. But we must have a look at our old 

 friend the Scuppernong. 



Four years old from the slip, it covers now a lat- 

 tice work sixty-five feet long, eighteen feet wide, 

 and running up at one end nearly thirty feet ; a 

 mass of vine almost impenetrable to the sun's rays, 

 and tilled with fruit." 



We were never so hopeful of the prospects of 

 Florida, as a fruit country, as we are to-day. Here, 

 upon our sandy soil, so often the subject of ignorant 

 and unjust aspersion, we find growing, without pro- 



tection and with a minimum of cultivation, the 

 most delicate varieties of that peerless fruit, the 

 grape, and yielding to the grower, within a time of 

 two or three years, a rich return for his labor. In 

 no other land upon the continent, except the lower 

 Pacific coast, can such results be obtained. That it 

 has not been done before, is owing to causes that 

 need not be explained. It is enough to know that 

 the initiative has been taken and the first results 

 obtained in the highest degree satisfactory. No 

 man in Florida is so poor that he may not sit under 

 his own vine and fig tree. What the future may 

 bring forth no man knows, but we prophesy that 

 before many years, the vast interests of the grape 

 growing region upon the Pacific coast will find a 

 rival in our own favored State." 



L. A. Hardy. 

 Jackaoiiville, Fla., July 3, 1871. 



The AVood-roriniug aud Frnlt-prodnclng 



Forces.— Tbelr Relation to tbe Art 



of Frnnlng. 



Hitherto, in the pomological world, no Newton 

 has appeared to weigh and balance the forces which 

 stand at the head of this article, nor has any Keplar 

 undertaken to interpret and reduce to writing the 

 laws by which those forces are governed. But, for 

 all this, there is no denj'ing the fact that in fruit 

 trees (to say nothing of the rest of the vegetable 

 world) there is a force or power to produce wood, 

 which may, by artificial means, be stimulated to in- 

 creased vigor or enfeebled even to debility. 



Indeed, so long ago as 1780, fruit and even forest 

 trees were stimulated to increased wood-formation 

 by the operation of heading back, although it ap- 

 pears the operator knew so little of the law which 

 governs the action of this wood-forming force as to 

 ascribe his success to the covering of the wounds 

 made in pruning with a thin coat of cow dung and 

 elaj', instead of imputing it to the operation itself 

 This fiict in the history of the art of pruning we 

 gather from the report of the operator to the Com- 

 missioners of the Land Revenue in Great Britain, 

 which in substance states "that tlie operator by cutting 

 out the diseased and dead wood, (that is, by heading 

 back,) had succeeded so well as to have more 

 fruit in two and three years than a tree newly-plant- 

 ed will produce in thirteen or fourteen years." In 

 more modern times, every author on pruning rec- 

 ognizes the power of stimulating to increased wood- 

 growth, by heading back or shortening in, and 

 Downing, among the first of authorities iu giving 

 the rationale for the process of pruning to promote 

 wood-growth, furnishes a key for the proper time 

 of pruning for that object. He says: "If we as- 

 sume that a certain amount of nourishment is sup- 

 plied by the roots to all the buds and branches of a 

 tree, then, by cutting off one-half of the branches 

 at the proper season, we direct the whole supply of 



