1871 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



237 



As to other sorts, he regards Fameuse highly, 

 finds Willow Twig the best of all keepers, reckons 

 Porter among the most desirable. Golden Sweet 

 indispensable. Sweet Bough the queen of perfection 

 among sweet apples, Winesiip and Yellow Bell- 

 flower unsatisfactory. Red June does well with 

 high culture. Early Pennock profitable. His choice 

 of five varieties in the order of their appreciation 

 is, Benoni, Jonathan, Porter, Fameuse and Willow 

 Twig. Such is the opinion on sorts of one of the 

 oldest and most intelligent orchardists in Iowa. 



HOW HE TR.\PS THE CODLING MOTH. 



The depredations of this loathsome pest of the 

 apple has for years, annually depreciated the com- 

 mercial value of the apple crop of the country mil- 

 lions of dollars. "How shaU we get rid ot this in- 

 tolerable pest," has been a mooted question from 

 every lip. Dr. Weed has studied out and put in 

 practice a very cheap and simple device for the pur- 

 pose, that throws straw ropes, rags, sweetened bottles, 

 clothes wringers, and such like appliances far in the 

 back- ground. He has been using it two or three 

 years, and has become well assured of its feasibility 

 and perfect success. A strip of cloth IJ^ inches 

 in width is fastened around 

 the trunk of the tree a little 

 below the branches, by stick- 

 ing a large tack in one end 

 with the head projecting, to 

 which the other end with a 

 short slit is hitched. Under 

 this band the worms seek a 

 shelter where they undergo 

 _ transformation in the chrysa- 

 lis. The band is applied 

 Illustration, o. Baud, about the middle of June, 

 and for five or six weeks at intervals of ten or fif- 

 teen days, unhitched, rolled back with one hand, 

 and all chrysalis found, stabbed with a sharp point- 

 ed knife in the other. The band is then replaced 

 for another crop. It requires but a very few mo- 

 ments to go through the whole operation, as we 

 found by trying it. We were told that as many as 

 seventy or more of the chrysalis had in some cases 

 been taken from under a single band at one haul. 



EXPERIMENTS IN CHESTNUT GROWING. 



At an early day of his nursery business Br. Weed 

 started a nursery of chestnut trees, and which was 

 the first experiment of the kind known to have 

 been made at that time any where in the West. 

 The results of that experiment as now seen upon his 

 farm, is worth a journey of manj' miles to sec. 

 One of the principal avenues of the form is border- 

 ed on either side with long rows of chestnut trees 

 transplanted from the nursery, and many of them 

 are now in bearing. A very tew years will suffice 

 to make these trees a source of profit, and the ave- 



nues they line most delightful walks and driveways. 

 The Dr. finds that the chestnut from the seed sports 

 some. Among his trees as they come into bearing, 

 he finds quite a difference in the fruit. He has one 

 tree that produces fruit very much superior to the 

 common American chestnut — so large and fine that 

 he intends to propagate it by grafting. Let no man 

 believe that chestnuts can't be raised in Iowa. 



Among other things on the place is a cider mill 

 of the Dr.'s contrivance, which is a nondescript in 

 its way. We should think by its looks that it 

 might squeeze apples to " etarnal atoms," and con- 

 vert them all into juice. 



Having spent a half day and tarried one night 

 with the Dr., we were early on the way to friend 

 Foster's, with whom we had intended to spend the 

 day in looking through his nursery grounds and 

 extensive orchards, and to take an up river boat in 

 the evening. But calling at the oflice on our way 

 we learned with much regret that, on account of 

 very low water, the boats were very irregular, and 

 that the point business engagements required us to 

 make by the following morning could not possibly 

 be reached by boat. In this dilemma we felt com- 

 pelled to take the first train of cars, to leave in a 

 few minutes, and to very reluctantly forego a day's 

 visit, full of pleasant anticipations, to one of Iowa's 

 best pomologists ; but we mean to make it yet at 



no very distant day. 



« ♦ » 



inarketlng Apples. 



Ed. Pomologist and Gardener: — I hand you 

 some timely remarks on marketing apples, selected 

 from my note book. Those who order apples from 

 the producer, at a distance, with remittance, are of- 

 ten most egregiously swindled. If you complain, 

 "Oh! it was the fault of the packer — can't at all 

 times have an eye on hirelings." I sent to a certain 

 Illinois fruit grower last fall for five barrels of sound 

 first class apples — naming varieties. The apples 

 came, but my conscience, what apples ! In a bar- 

 rel of Jonathans, one-fourth were not above the 

 size of respectable hickory nuts. And worse than 

 that, there was not one peck, all told, that was not 

 gutted by the apple worm. By the way, Mr. Editor, 

 is there no way by which this intolerable nuisance 

 of the apple cannot be got rid of? [Exactly — you 

 will find it in another column. — Ed.] When one of 

 the barrels was opened that had stood four or five 

 weeks, and the fruit taken out, I found many worms 

 that had left the fruit and hid away in the crevices 

 of the barrel, where I suppose they were under- 

 going tran.?mogrification for a new start in life. 

 But for the extract. 



"In the marketing of apples it is the practice with 

 some to put in all sizes and qualities as they are 

 found on the trees, both sound and unsound. This 

 we have so often seen, that it appears almost, if not 



