November 6, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



441 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribunh Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article — Fruit-di'ying;, a Representative Rural Industry 441 



Professor Buckman and Plant Variation 442 



An Interestins^ Experiment in Tree Culture C A. Diiiui. 442 



Entomoloqical : — The Columbine Leaf-miner, Phytomyza Aquilegise. (With 



H^ure.) Professor IV. £, Brlttoit. 443 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 444 



New or Little-known Plants: — Fothert^illa Gardeni. (With figure.). . C J. .S". 446 



Plant Notes 446 



Cultural Department: — Cattleya labiata E. O. Qyfiet. 447 



The Germinalion of Nuts T. H. Hoshins, M.D. 448 



Trenching in Vegetable Garden W.N. Crotg-. 448 



Correspondence : — Frosts and Fruits Profi-ssor Geirrge C Buiz. 448 



Doubling of Flowers G. Harold Poivell. 448 



Exhibitions: — Forestry at Atlanta G. 449 



Notes 450 



Illustrations : — Leaf of _Wild Columbine mined by Phytomyza Aquilegiee, 



Fig. 61 444 



Fothergilla Gardeni, Fig. 62 445 



Fruit-dr3-ing, a Representative Rural Intjustry. 



A FEW weeks ago the Lontiou correspondent of one of 

 our daily papers gave what he called "a striking illus- 

 tration of the lack of resource of the British farmer, of 

 whose woes so much has been heard." He went on to say 

 that there had been such a glut of plums in England this 

 year that the price of the best fruit fell to twopence a pound, 

 which did not pay the cost of gathering and marketing, 

 and, therefore, the growers sat down and allowed the fruit 

 to fall and rot. If, instead of this, they had bustled around 

 and dried the fruit they could have had sixpence a pound 

 in a month or two and no fear of a glutted market, since 

 England pays annually two and a quarter millions of dol- 

 lars for dried plums imported mainly from France. 



It is, no doubt, true that if glutted markets were ordinary 

 experiences with British plum-growers they ought to have 

 prepared themselves to face such a probable danger. If, 

 however, this state of things was altogether exceptional, it 

 is unjust to accuse them of lack of forethought and energy 

 because "they did not bustle around and dry their fruit,' 

 for, without the proper machinery and the skill which 

 comes from practice, it would have been utterly impossible 

 to dry a large crop of plums in such a way that they would 

 be attractive, palatable and salable. It is very easy for 

 newspaper critics to advise farmers to take up some new 

 branch of agriculture when an old one fails, but the critic 

 hardly realizes how much time and thought are necessary 

 when the entire economy of a farm is to be -readjusted. 

 When there is an overplus of milk in the city and farmers 

 are losing money on this product, it is quite easy to advise 

 them to make butter, but this means a revolution in the 

 entire system of farm practice, and it implies the work of 

 years and the building up of a new plant by men who have 

 no capital. In the same way, whenever grain farming or 

 dairy farming becomes unprofitable, the farmer is coun- 

 seled to raise fruit — that is, to learn a new trade and build 

 up a new business — and if he is not prepared to do this 

 on sight, he is reproached for his sluggishness just as the 

 critic from whom we have quoted sneers at the '■ ridiculous 

 conservatism" of the English farmer who wasn't ready 

 with evaporators of the latest pattern to turn his plums into 

 dried prunes at a moment's warning. 



How to dispose of surplus fruit in times of abundance is, 



nevertheless, a serious problem, since it is hard to trans- 

 port on account of its perishable nature, and still more diffi- 

 cult to keep in eatable condition. It is plain, therefore, 

 that if it can be converted into such a form that it will 

 endure shipping to any part of the world and will keep all 

 the year round, the market for it is practically unlimited. 

 The fundamental problem is how to prepare the fruit in 

 such a way that its palatable and nutritious qualities can 

 be preserved in the cheapest way possible. The canned- 

 fruit industry is an enormous one, but the demand for this 

 product does not increase as rapidly as the demand for 

 dried fruit, principally because the former is much more ex- 

 pensive. Dried fruit sells at about half the price a pound that 

 canned fruit commands, and yet the material in one pound 

 of dried fruit will make six pounds of canned fruit ; that is,, 

 the fruit itself, when canned, not counting the syrup, costs 

 twelve times as much as the same amount costs when dried. 

 Another reason for the increasing demand for dried fruit is 

 that when cured by the best modern processes it is much su- 

 perior to what it once was. In California they have learned 

 to prepare prunes so well that large quantities of them are 

 shipped to France, the home of the prune ; dried apricots 

 ami pears go to Europe by the thousancl pounds, while 

 California raisins have practically driven foreign raisins out 

 of eastern markets in this country, and are now exported 

 in considerable quantities. Statistics are not difficult to 

 obtain, but one needs a vivid imagination to interpret the 

 dry figures in such a way that an adequate appreciation of 

 the importance of this industry is secured. But when we 

 think of three million pounds of prunes sent out from the 

 single city of San Jose in one month, we gain some idea of 

 the magnitude of the business, and we also get an idea of 

 its rapid growth when we recall the fact that eight years 

 ago this city did not take a car-load of dried apricots in a 

 year, while now it eagerly swallows up two hundred car- 

 loads. 



But the prunes and apricots and peaches and plums and 

 pears and raisins which are sent out from California by the 

 train-load by no means complete the full supply of dried 

 fruit that is produced'in this country. Bulletin loo, which 

 has just been issued by the Cornell Experiment Station, 

 gives an account of the production of one kind of dried 

 fruit in western New York,' and from this we learn that a 

 thousand tons of evaporated raspberries are produced in 

 Wayne County alone. Something like five hundred tons 

 more are marketed from neighboring counties, and yet if 

 the visitor should inquire for dried raspberries at an)' of the 

 retail stores throughout that region he would hardly find a 

 pound. Where, then, do these berries go .'' Probably four- 

 fifths of them are consumed in lumber and mining camps 

 of the west and on the plains, where fresh fruit is scarce. 

 Very few of them are exported, and yet in cookery — that is, 

 for use in pies, puddings and the like — these dried berries are 

 nearly as good as the fresh ones. It ought to be added 

 that raspberries are also dried to an important extent in 

 southern Illinois and in Michigan, and more recently in 

 Arkansas. 



This bulletin gives an interesting history of com- 

 mercial fruit evaporation in Wayne County, .where, in 

 apple-growing communities, nearly ex'er}' farm has an 

 evaporator of one kind or another, more than two 

 thousand of these machines being in use in this one 

 county. It ought to be remembered that, great as is the 

 product of dried raspberries in western New York, there 

 are more apples dried than raspberries, and after these in 

 their order come"^peaches, pears, quinces, plums, cherries, 

 currants, potatoes, peas, corn and pumpkins. This great 

 business has grown up within twent)'-five years. One 

 little drying machine was introduced there in 1867 by 

 A. D. Shepley, and the right to use it was bought by 

 iNIason L. Rogers, who in 186S planted five acres of 

 black raspberries, with the expectation of drying the 

 fruit. The modern industry and the use of the word 

 "evaporator" did not begin, however, until Charles 

 Alden patented the tower evaporator in 1S70. The 



