January 30, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



59 



allowed to encourage a rank growth of weeds, which drank up 

 the moisture needed by the trees. He had used nitrates with 

 success for peaches. He did not believe they encouraged a 

 weak, spongy growth of the trees that would suffer in winter. 

 If appHed early, the trees would make a strong, early growth, 

 which enables them to ripen their wood well and produce 

 abundant fruit buds. As fruits and vegetables are improved 

 in quality they need richer land, just as improved varieties of 

 live stock repay for the best of treatment. Beyond any ques- 

 tion, early vegetables need nitrates before the warm weather 

 comes, when nitrification goes on more rapidly in the soil. As 

 a matter of practice, he found no loss from applying the 

 nitrates he needed at a single apphcation, for summer rains 

 did not fall in sufficient abundance to wash the fertilizer out 

 through the drains. The so-called "complete fertilizers " in the 

 market did not contain enough nitrogen in available forms, 

 and as it had not been demonstrated that plants took up this 

 element to any great extent in other forms than that of 

 nitrates, he advised the use of nitrates directly, and, fortu- 

 nately, nitrogen could be bought more cheaply in this form 

 than in any other. He did not counsel the indiscriminate use 

 of nitrate of soda, although he used it largely and with profit. 

 But he thought that no gardener or fruit-grower could afford 

 to neglect making a careful trial of this fertilizer. 



FUNGUS DISEASES OF PLANTS. 



Professor A. N. Prentiss, of Cornell University, in his report 

 as chairman of the Committee on Botany, gave a summary of 

 the losses to fruit growers in the different counties from plant 

 diseases. These losses were comparatively light during the 

 past year, and yet in the aggregate they amounted to hundreds 

 of thousands of dollars. Professor Prentiss considers these 

 diseases more dangerous foes than destructive insects. Con- 

 cerning a large proportion of them our information is limited, 

 and we have few remedies that can be trusted. Not only is 

 the fruit destroyed by parasitic fungi, but the plants and trees 

 are robbed of the vitality necessary to the production of 

 remunerative crops. Decreased vigor in the plant means less- 

 ened profit from its fruit. Careful study and experiment in this 

 special field by men of scientific training, is one of the most 

 urgent needs of horticulture. Recent investigation of the 

 black rot of the Grape by agents of the general Government 

 seem to prove that copper sulphate can be successfully used 

 as a preventive of this disease, and the same substance will 

 check the growth of the downy mildew of the Grape leaf. 

 Flowers of sulphur is the best known remedy for the powdery 

 mildew of the vine. The apple fruit-scab not only disfigures 

 the fruit and often makes a large proportion of it unmarketable, 

 but the same fungus attacks the leaf, weakening the tree, so 

 that even if the fruit escapes the scab it is small and imperfect. 

 Experiments by Mr. E. S. Goff point to spraying with a solution 

 of soda hyposulphite and potassium sulphide as hopeful treat- 

 ment of this fungus. But for black knot in the Plum, which has 

 caused the total loss of many orchards, cutting away the 

 affected parts as soon as the disease appears, and burning 

 them, is the only safe course known. It is now agreed that 

 Pear blight is a bacterial disease, but no remedy has been sug- 

 gested for it except the amputation of the affected limbs. 

 Peach yellows is the cause of loss beyond computation every 

 year, but almost nothing is known of its origin or character, 

 and no remedy for it has been found. Professor Prentiss con- 

 tinued through a long list of rusts and blights which preyed 

 upon small fruits, chiefly to enforce the lesson that research 

 of the most thorough and patient kind is needed before fruit 

 growers will be able to meet these diseases with any feeling of 

 confidence that their ravages can be arrested or controlled. 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE PLUM FOR MARKET. 



Mr. S. D. Willard, of Geneva, read a most instructive paper 

 on this subject, in which he insisted that success can only be 

 gained when good trees of varieties suited to a particular loca- 

 tion are selected ; when these varieties are adapted to the 

 local market ; when the orchard is carefully cultivated and 

 liberally fed, and when constant watchfulness is exercised 

 against the attacks of insects and diseases. The Plum is ca- 

 pricious in its likes and dislikes, and very often a variety 

 which does well in one locality will fail a few miles away on 

 soil of apparently the same kind. Markets are quite as varia- 

 ble. In one, Damsons are more highly prized than choicer 

 sorts, while in a neighboring town colored varieties are re- 

 quired to the exclusion of all others. The selection of varie- 

 ties therefore depends on the proper solution of very many 

 problems, and yet these points which are vital to success must 

 be settled beforehand by the planter from such observations 

 and information as are within his reach. To the inquiry, then, 



what varieties should be planted for profitable orchard cul- 

 ture, Mr. Willard can only reply that the Lombard, Reine 

 Claude, Quackenboss, Bradshaw, Purple Egg, Gueii, German 

 Prune, French Damson, Peter's Yellow Gage and Copper 

 have proved among the best for his soil and market, while of 

 the newer sorts Stanton is one of much promise. 



Against the curculio the jarring process has proved satisfac- 

 tory. If spraying with the arsenites is tried, care should be 

 taken to use a solution as weak as possible, because the foliage 

 of the Plum is easily injured. The green aphis is often 

 more destructive than the curculio even, sometimes defoliating 

 entire orchards. Professor Cook feels certain, however, that the 

 kerosene emulsion dashed forcibly upon the tree by a pump 

 through one of the new spraying nozzles will overcome this 

 pest. The orchard should be carefully inspected as often as 

 twice a year for the black knot, and on its first appearance the 

 limb should be cut off far below the diseased point. Good 

 culture and an enriched soil will prove helpful against leaf 

 blight. The plum is perishable, so that careful preparation for 

 market is essential, and when the fruit is to be sold from re- 

 tail stands it should be picked with stems adhering, closely 

 sorted and carefully laid in five to eight pound baskets. Other 

 things being equal, a clay loam is the best soil for Plums. 

 Cultivation of the orchard should begin early and should not 

 be deep. The new growth of thrifty trees should be cut back 

 to one-half every year in vigorous trees, and no thinning out of 

 the branches is needed. For home use Mr. Willard named as 

 choice varieties, M'Laughlin, Reine Claude, Washington, 

 Bradshaw, Peter's Yellow Gage and Stanton. The productive 

 life of a Plum-tree averages from fifteen to eighteen years, 

 but the Lombard, under proper cultivation, might last twenty- 

 five years. 



CANNING AND EVAPORATING FRUIT. 



Mr. S. G. Curtice read a paper on the canning industry, Avhich 

 began in a small way a little more than thirty years ago, and 

 has grown so rapidly that now fruits and vegetables are put up 

 in this way not only for western mining camps and for winter 

 use, but they are so cheaply and successfully preserved that 

 they compete at seaside resorts and inany other places with 

 green fruits and vegetables in their season. No accurate data 

 as to the total amount of business done by the canneries of the 

 country are available, but the estimates made were so enor- 

 mous that Mr. Curtice refrained from giving the approximate 

 figures. In his own establishment last year $236,000 were paid 

 for fruits, $70,000 for tin, $14,500 for sugar and $68,000 for 

 labor. As to complaints of the overproduction of fruits, Mr. 

 Curtice said that he never could obtain as much as he wanted 

 of choice kinds — fruits of a particular color or flavor. He had 

 given $80 for the fruit on a single White Cherry tree, and 

 more profit was often realized by the owners of a few trees in 

 a city lot of Rochester than was yielded by many acres of farm 

 land. 



The evaporating industry is still younger, having begun in 

 western New York some fifteen years ago. Mr. M. J. Doyle, 

 who read a paper on this subject, stated that within forty miles 

 of Rochester there were nearly 2,000 fruit evai:)orators, besides 

 many small dry-houses on farms, and the business was still 

 rapidly growing. Of apples alone, 25,000,000 poimds were 

 evaporated here, and the total dried product of all kinds of fruits 

 amounted to 37,750,000 pounds, for which producers received 

 $1,485,000. More than 4,000,000 pounds of dried fruit were 

 exported from this region last year, and Rochester fruit is in 

 demand at such remote markets as Australia. 



NEW VEGETABLES. 



Mr. E. S. Goff made a report on the new vegetables offered 

 by the leading seedsmen of the country last spring and tested 

 at the Geneva Experiment Station. Of Beets, Lentz Turnip 

 (Bragg) is 'a strain of the old Bassano, as early as the earliest ; 

 the New Market Garden (Iowa Seed Company), a short, coni- 

 cal variety, of large size and quick growth, is not as early as 

 Egyptian or Eclipse, but yields a larger crop than either. Mit- 

 chell's Perfected Carrot (Gregory) is hardly distinct from the 

 Coreless Red, but it is worth notice as being of good size, fine 

 form, almost as thick at the bottom as at the top, and with- 

 out the pithy core foimd in most of the larger varieties. 

 Among several excellent new varieties of Cabbage, Marvin's 

 Savoy (Hallock) yielded twelve heads from twelve plants aver- 

 aging nine inches in diameter and weighing six pounds each. 

 This is an extraordinary production for the Savoys, which are 

 decidedly superior to common cabbages in tabic qualities. 

 Dreer's Earliest Snowstorm and Gilt Edge Snowball (Thorhurn) 

 lead the list of Cauliflowers in point of productiveness and 

 neatness of the heads. None of the Sweet Corns were supe- 

 rior to older sorts, but the Ruby Sugar (Rawson), a tall variety 



