March 19, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



H3 



•attack arrives. Another preventive of blight is to burn over 

 the berry patch. This destroys the seed of the infection. 

 But the weather may prevent the doing of this at the proper 

 time. In place of fire I use sulphuric acid, which acts like 

 liquid fire. Spraying with a solution of one quart of the acid 

 in twenty gallons of water will completely burn the vegetation 

 and the fungus, and this can be done when convenient, re- 

 gardless of the weather. I thus burned some rows of blight- 

 infected plants in June, 1889. The new growth from the root- 

 crowns remains healthy. I shall, however, again spray them 

 with this burning fluid before the growth starts this spring, 

 after which I expect to see no more of Sphcerella Fragaria on 

 these plants this season. This treatment is not expensive. 

 The material will cost about fifty cents, and one may spray an 

 •acre of plants in an hour and a half. 



mond toothed cultivator, then once hoed, some twenty plants re- 

 set, and afterward twice cultivated, one way only, leaving the 

 plants in matted rows, which are matted enough. Three feet 

 apart in a row is close enough to plant the Pearl, which is a 

 strong runner. Even at four feet the rows will fill up with plants. 



In December, 1889, this acre of Pearls was top dressed with 

 two tons of Canada unleached ashes and a hundred bushels 

 of lime. Next June I expect to harvest from it a healthy crop 

 of berries which will bear transport to Canada. 



When this crop is off the Strawberry sod will be plowed 

 under and planted on the first of July to white Peach-blow 

 Potatoes, fertilized with a ton per acre of " potato manure." 

 Next year the ground may be again planted with Strawberries, 

 which will be again manured with unleached ashes and lime. 



Vineland, N. J. A. IV. Pear SOU. 





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Montgomery Place: An Avenue. — See page 139. 



It is well to avoid damage from this blight by restricting 

 Strawberry-plants to one crop. Make new plantations yearly. 

 An acre of Strawberries may be planted almost as readily as 

 an acre of corn. With ground in good order in April, mark it 

 off three feet each way. Have the plants ready with roots 

 straightened out and puddled. Use a broad bitted turfing hoe. 

 At the intersections of the rows strike this hoe into the soil at 

 an angle of say forty-five degrees. Depress the hoe handle. 

 This will open a gap in the soil beneath its blade. A man 

 with basket of plants takes one of these, shakes its roots apart, 

 and sticks them into the opening made by the hoe, so the 

 crown of plant will be level with surface of the ground. The hoe 

 is then withdrawn, the gap it made closes on the roots, the 

 man with the hoe sets his foot on the plant, firming it in the 

 soil, and proceeds to the next hill. 



This seems a rough operation, but last April two men thus 

 set an acre of five thousand plants in a half day. Two weeks 

 after setting the rows were cultivated both ways with a dia- 



Winter Notes on Trees and Shrubs. 



THE general appearance of the stems and branches of 

 deciduous trees and shrubs in our woods and gardens 

 in winter is often of a very varied character and sometimes 

 strikingly beautiful. The many pendulous, pyramidal and 

 other so-called varieties of trees, which have been diligently 

 propagated by nurserymen, are not more interesting than the 

 diversity of forms to be met with in the fields, or more rarely 

 in our open native woods. But when we regard the beautiful 

 harmonies and contrasts of color of trunks and branches, 

 occasionally produced in nature in what seems a haphazard 

 way, the wonder is that effects of this kind have not been 

 more extensively attempted in ornamental planting. The 

 form of the trunk and the position and angle assumed by the 

 bare branches of trees do not appeal to the eye of most peo- 

 ple as do the colors of the bark, which, in many cases, 

 cannot fail to attract the attention of even the least observing. 



