Clje Canabiim |5oriixiiltmiA 



VOL L] MAY, 1878. [No. 5, 



HOETICULTURAL GOSSIP. IL 



BY LINUS WOLVERTON, GRIMSBY, ONT. 



The Term Horticulture m^ans garden culture, or the art of culti- 

 vating gardens, and I notice that English books and Phihidelphia 

 znagazines seem to confine it to gardens in which flowers and 

 vegetables, or perhaps small fruits are grown. But here, and in 

 Western New York, the word is used in a wider sense, to embrace the 

 culture of fruit in general, as well as of flowers and vegetables; and it 

 seems to me justly, for the successful growth of apples, pears, and 

 peaches implies that careful and rich cultivation, as well as that beauty 

 which belongs to the idea of a garden. 



The Northern Spy Apple. — In the month of March of the current 

 year I opened a barrel of this fruit It was a perfect luxury. So crisp 

 and juicy, so beautiful for dessert, so delicious for cooking, so attractive 

 for market; surely it is destined to hold the first place among our 

 Winter apples. True, the Eoxbury Eusset keeps longer, but I had 

 rather for a longer interval preserve ' the remembrance of the superb 

 Spy, than spin out the season a little longer with the dry tough-skinned 

 Eoxbury Eusset. 



Most growers are too eager for the fruit to wait from twelve to 

 fourteen years for the Spy, but I agree with J, J, Thomas, who says "it 

 is worth waiting for;" and when once it begins bearing, it yearly re- 

 wards the patient husbandman with loads of beautiful fruit. 



There is one class of orchardists, however, whom we would advise 

 not to plant Northern Spy, and that is those who expect alnmdance of 

 fine fruit with little outlay of cultivation, and still less application of 

 mauure. Such persons had better grow some other kind of apple, for 



