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CA^''ADIA^'' HORTICULTURIST. 



off. Another advantage is that most 

 seedlings are quite late and ripen after 

 the main crop is over, and the markets 

 are no longer glutted. Most of them 

 too are well suited for drying, being 

 freestones, and of sufficient firmness 

 to be easily parted in halves. Though 

 not at all adapted for the dessert table, 

 they are more desirable in the opinion 

 of the writer, for that prince of dishes 

 for the tea table, known as " feaclies 

 and cream " than any of the sweeter 

 and higher flavoured kinds. They 

 have just enough acid to make them 

 delicious, when served in this Avay. 



Another excellent addition to our 

 dinner tables of late years is a jar of 

 " pickled ^;eacAes." In our estimation 

 no pickles are half so palatable as these, 

 none so wholesome. Here again the 

 seedling peach is most serviceable. 



Without seeing a sample of Mr, 

 Curzon's peach, it is impossible to say 

 whether it is a seedling worthy of 

 special propagation or not, and if he 

 would choose to send one to this office 

 at the proper time we should be glad 

 to state how it compares with 

 other seedlings with which we are 

 familiar. 



TRICKS OF THE TRADE. 



Bt Parke Earle, President, American Horticultlral Society. 



ONE grave reason why the build- 

 ing up of regular fruit trade is 

 more difficult than it should be is the 

 irregular quality and serious imper- 

 fections of a inajority of the fruits sent 

 to market. Both the dealers and con- 

 sumers soon get disgusted when they 

 find half the peaches in a basket, or 

 half the apples in a barrel, wormy ; and 

 in the case of the peaches find all of 

 them green, hard and inedible below 

 the top layer ; and even the top course 

 seeming ripe and well colored only 

 when seen through the delusive tarlatan 

 which is bound tightly over them. A 

 basket of green peaches with a goodly 

 supply ot: worms, and with sizable 

 specimens placed on top, and then all 

 covered tightly and beyond examina- 

 tion by a colored netting which makes 

 them all appear blushing with ripeness, 

 is a cheat and a fraud so contemptible 

 and disgusting that it should consign 

 the perpetrator of such a swindle to 

 the tender couch of the county jail. 

 It is only equaled by a barrel of apples 

 that is faced up handsomely at both 

 ends and is filled with scabby and 

 wormy scrubs through the middle. 



I regret to say that such baskets of 

 peaches and such barrels of apples are 

 forced off upon an innocent buying 

 public by hundreds of thousands every 

 year. I think and hope that the most 

 abused fruit market in the world in 

 this respect is that best of all the fruit 

 markets of the world, the city of Chi- 

 ^cago. 1 will venture the guess here 

 that, of all the millions of people 

 that have this year bought peaches 

 coming through the Chicago market, 

 not one in four has had occasion to 

 bless the growers of the fruit ; and in 

 most cases he has been objurgated, if 

 not cursed. I dwell particularly upon 

 this kind of fruit and this kind of 

 package because it is the most notable 

 example of a wide-spread attempt to 

 deceive the buyer to be found in all 

 our fruit marketing history. It will 

 not be a good excuse to say that red 

 tarlatan is necessary to hold the fruit 

 in place in the basket, because white 

 netting with a very open mesh will 

 serve that purpose equally well and 

 will not obscure the real color. 

 And no well-colored peach can be 

 made more beautiful by any kind of 



