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14 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



1 



not been previously frozen and thawed ont 

 of the ground, 1 tie fear need be felt of their 

 growth. But if they have beeu previously 

 frozen and tliawed. the roots when cut with 

 a knife, will have a dull brown color, and 

 not exhibit the lively, white, fresh appear- 

 ance possessed by uninjured trees, and noth- 

 ing can save, thera. If taken into a cellar, 

 avoid thawing the roots in the warm air — 

 bury them immediately. 



Trees well muddled before packing, and 

 then compactly imbedded in plenty of fine 

 damp moss, will be as little liable to injury 

 by freezing, as if packed or buried in moist 

 earth. — Country Gentleman. 



-—*- 



5 Tricks of the Tree Peddlers. 



Onr old fiiend, S. H. Ellis, who docs 

 something at the nursery business at New 

 Moscow, Coshocton county, has ^'ent us an 

 article, rather too long for our use, on the 

 frauds practiced upon the farmers in many 

 parts of Ohio during a ft'.w years past, by 

 the pretended agents of dis-tant nurserymen. 



Ho says: It seems to be a tiling of nature 

 for some people to pay theii' money for arti- 

 cles brought a long distance, when better ones 

 of the same kind can be had :\earer home for 

 a less price. A couple of men came into 

 this county the past winter as agt'Ots for the 

 old " Rochester Nujsery," and wirJi smooth 

 tongues and much sophistry, they told the 

 folks that there were no fruits to be had in 

 the nurseries of Ohio at all to bo compared 

 with those from Rochester, and this was the 

 reason why t!ie Ohio nursery a)en sold their 

 trees for about half the price of the Roches- 

 ter trees. In tiiis way, they persuaded the 

 simple ones to subscribe for a lot of trees, 

 and without being aware of it, in a ti-jtijority 

 of cases, to sign a note for the amount of 

 the bill, which note is then transferred to a 

 third perssn who delivers the trees at some 

 place specified, and if the note is not paid 

 instanter, it is put in suit, no matter wheth- 

 er the trees ure dead or alive, or the kinds 

 specified or not. 



The following are the prices at which 

 these men furnished trees: Pears, not of rare 

 sorts, $1 each; pluins and cherries, 75 cts. ; 

 apples, peach>-s, currants, gooseberries, etc., 

 25 cts., more or less, as they could catch it. 

 The trees when delivered were so badly 

 bruised and broken at the root, that but few 

 of thera could be expected to live, and at 

 best could only become harbors for borers 

 and other insects attracted to them by the 

 bruised and dead spots. Again, the selec- 

 tion of varieties when left to the agents, as 

 was commonly done, was often such as are 



of little or no value in this cUmate; and some 

 of the names are not to be found in any 

 book or catalogue. 



The remedy which onr friend Ellis re- 

 commends, as the best means by which far- 

 mers can protect themselves against such, 

 imposition, is the diffusion of intelligence by 

 means of Agricultural papers, the mere ad- 

 vertisements in which ought to be sufficient 

 to save any reader from being duped by 

 these Yankee tree peddlers. — Ohio CuUiva- 

 tor. 



-*»■ 



Snccessful Cultiration of the Prune in Pcnn- 

 • sylvania. 



Mr. Victor Scriba, of Pittsburgh, Penn- 

 sylvania, states that in the heart of Germa- 

 ny, from which he came, plimis, and especi- 

 ally the Zwetsche prune, are grown in great 

 abundance for home consumption and for 

 exportation to Belgium, Holland, and the 

 northern part of Germany. Some farmers 

 raised there from eighty to one hundred 

 bushels, and in some cases more dried prunes. 

 The trees are generally planted along the 

 banks of large and small streams, along the 

 watering ditches of the meadows, and in the 

 shades of orchards, between apple and pear 

 trees. They grow there most luxuriantly, 

 and the fruit attains a larger size and deep- 

 er color than in more elevated and exposed 

 locations. This observation induced Mr. S., 

 four years ago, when he rented a neighbor- 

 ing oichard, in which some large plum trees 

 stood that scarcely ever had produced any 

 ripe fririt before, to dig little holes around 

 the trees, and to fill the same occasionally 

 (every three of four days during the warm 

 season) with rain water, dish water or soap 

 suds. He found the trees growing more 

 luxuriantly than before, and every year a 

 good crop of most excellent plums remuner- 

 ated him for the little trouble. Last year 

 the crop was larger than any he hud seen in 

 his life, on account of the wet, rainy season, 

 the plums hanging like clusters of grapes on 

 ttie trees. One tree of the grafted prune 

 kind had about ten bnshels. They sold read- 

 ily for eight cents a quart in the market. In 

 1854 when scarcely anybody raised any 

 plums in this vicinity, on account of the 

 great heat, he had, nevertheless, a small 

 crop, which sold in market at twenty-five 

 cents a quart. During all this time he had 

 not much trouble with the curcnlio. 



In its country plum trees and cherry trees 

 nre never pruned; only the dead branches 

 are occasionally removed. Even in trans- 

 planting, the knife is not used, except in 

 trimming the roots. An old pomologist in 



^Jlj. 



