24:8 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



NEW PACKAGES FOR PEACHES. 



Sir, — ^The peach basket you repre- 

 sent, in the September issue of your 

 interesting and instructive journal of 

 horticulture, as being used in New 

 Jersey and Delaware, we beg to advise 

 you have been almost entirely super- 

 ceded by modern, cheaper slat baskets 

 and crates ; for peaches it has been 

 altogether abandoned and replaced by 

 a similarly shaped slat basket, which 

 costs 4c. to 5c. each. 



For choice peaches, etc., the 4-quart 

 basket crate has become very popular 

 as a " gift package." But for uni- 



formly large, fancy peaches the paper 

 cell crate is growing into popular use. 



The truck basket is too deep 

 for shipping peaches in ; the peaches 

 below the third peach from the 

 top are under too heavy pressure and 

 become more or less bruised and 

 mashed. The basket crate is better 

 ventilated, and the peaches are only 

 two to three deep, according to size of 

 the fruit. The paper cell packages 

 ventilates and holds separate each 

 individual peach, which makes it most 

 suitable for fancy delicate fruit. 

 Yours respectfully, 

 Pancoast & Griffiths. 



Philadelphia, Sept. 21, 1887. 



WINTER PROTECTION. 



By p. E. BucKi, Ottawa. 



As the time is fast approaching when 

 tlie rigors of winter will again be upon 

 us it is well to look ahead and profit by 

 past experience. The px'actice of pro- 

 tection even where the winters are 

 much milder than in the Ottawa Val- 

 ley is becoming more genei'al every 

 year. A prominent fruit grower in 

 Michigan says that he considers the 

 time he spent, covering his vines in the 

 .autumn, paid him at the rate of one 

 hundred dollars per day whilst he was 

 so employed, in his next year's crop ; 

 and there is no doubt in my own mind 

 he was perfectly correct in his state- 

 ment. If in Michigan the best culti- 

 vators protect grapes, raspberries and 

 blackberries, and the labor thus ex- 

 pended yields the amount per day as 

 stated above, it will surely pay the 

 fruit growers of Ontario to follow suit. 

 I am informed that an individual who 

 has several acres of a plum orchard in 

 Nova Sdfetia lays down his trees regu- 



larly every winter. This he does by 

 cutting the roots on one side, throwing 

 the trees over and placing a few sods on 

 the top branches to keep them in a 

 recumbent position. 



There is no doubt the high breeding 

 of our edible fruits has a tendency to 

 weaken the plant on which they are 

 produced. That is to say, the further 

 we depart in the excellence of the fruit 

 from the native wild type, the less is 

 the vine, tree or shrub able to with- 

 stand the cold of our climate. Why 

 this should be so I am unable to define, 

 except that highly cultivated plants 

 produce larger sap-vessels, which, when 

 fi'eezing and thawing, expand and con- 

 tract to a greater degree than those of 

 smaller size which are produced by wild 

 plants, the result of the swelling and 

 shrinking being that the sap-vessels are 

 impaired or destroyed. But it is prac- 

 tice not theory the ordinary fruit 

 grower wants. I say, therefore, that 



