November 



1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



467 



dens. There have been numerous notes about it in Gar- 

 den and Forest, but we do not now remember any report 

 of successful flowering in the open in the northern 

 states. Mr. Gerard writes that he has made numerous 

 attempts to grow this plant from seeds and cuttings without 

 success, till he received, in the spring of 1893, from Mr. E. D. 

 Sturtevant, of Los Angeles, California, some strong roots, 

 which were about as thick as a lead-pencil. These were 

 planted in different locations, but the plant soon showed 

 that it would not endure overmuch moisture at the roots. 

 It grew moderately in partial shade. On the contrary, 

 planted in a well-drained, fairly dry place, fully exposed td 

 the sun, it grew very vigorously, and the first year made a 

 strong growth three feet high and as much through. It was 

 under the lee of the house, and the roots were protected with 

 a low mound of earth and manure during the winter. New 

 shoots appeared somewhat late in the spring, and eventu- 

 ally formed a many-branched plant, which occupied a 

 space about six feet by four and four feet high. With its 

 deeply cut glaucous leaves and light green stems this plant 

 is attractive and would excite attention in any garden. Its 

 handsome flowers have not appeared, however. What is 

 the reason of this failure ? Is it true that flowers appear 

 only on the year-old stems ? These stems are scarcely 

 woody enough to survive our winters unscathed, but Mr. 

 Gerard hopes to save some of them under mats this year, 

 since they will survive ordinary frosts unprotected till late 

 in the year, when they are well hardened up at the end of 

 the growing season. The roots of this plant, it may be 

 said, are creeping, and the shoots from the main stem are 

 inclined to droop and become prostrate, so that the plant 

 occupies considerable space. The plant seems difficult to 

 transplant while growing, and, no doubt, it is advisable 

 to secure the roots while dormant. 



Cultural Department. 



Peach-growing. 



SOME nine thousand acres of land in western New York 

 are devoted to the peach industry, and, in accordance 

 with the new law of that state, Professor Bailey has been 

 making reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture on the 

 condition of that industry. The facts in the case, and the 

 counsel based upon them, seem so important that we give 

 our readers a digest of parts of this report. Professor 

 Bailey thinks that the peach industry, more than any other 

 pomological interest, suffers peculiarly from careless meth- 

 ods. The first error is lack of cultivation ; the second, 

 inattention to borers and yellows ; the third is neglect to 

 thin the fruit, and the fourth is carelessness in marketing. 



Locations and Soils. — Many orchards are planted on land 

 which is unsuited to them, such as heavy clay soils, or low 

 lands with imperfect drainage of water and of air. The ideal 

 Peach soil is deep sand, upon which trees make a hard growth. 

 The wood matures early, the trees bear well and the fruit has 

 high color and flavor. It is such soils and exposures which 

 have made the Peach region in Delaware, New Jersey, the 

 eastern shore of Lake Michigan and some parts of the south 

 famous. Peaches may be made to grow on heavy land, but 

 the trees must be severely headed in. The gravelly soils about 

 the New York lakes are well adapted to the Peach, but in the 

 interior part of that state, away from the lakes, Peaches only 

 thrive on elevated lands which are naturally drained and escape 

 the late spring frosts, so often disastrous to the peaches on 

 lower places. 



Cultivating and Fertilizing. — Peach orchards should 

 never be cropped after the third year, and on sandy lands 

 especially, if the trees stand less than twenty feet apart, they 

 should never be cropped from the time they are set. Frequent 

 stirring of the surface-soil from May until August is desirable, 

 and thereafter, perhaps, a green crop should be raised, to be 

 plowed under next spring. The orchard should, under no 

 circumstances, be sowed to grain or seeded down, but it is 

 easy on strong land to produce an overgrowth. Trees grow 

 quickly to a great size, they bear poorly, and in some cases are 

 never productive of much fruit ; they run to wood, and the 

 wind tears them to pieces. In addition to land which is too 



strong, too free a use of barnyard manure or other nitrogen- 

 ous fertilizers is often made, and cultivation is continued too 

 late in autumn. Potash and phosphoric acid, and not nitro- 

 gen, are the true fertilizers for Peaches. Ashes, muriate of 

 potash and bone fertilizers make productive trees. Tillage 

 with green crops, to turn under at the end of the season, will 

 furnish sufficient nitrogen generally, and even then it is pos- 

 sible to plow under too much crimson Clover. Nitrogen, it is 

 true, lies at the foundation of successful agriculture, but its 

 greatest benefits are to be had from annual crops in the farm 

 and garden. It can also be applied advantageously to newly 

 set fruit-plants, but it can be easily used to excess. 



Pruning. — The differences of opinion as to the proper 

 methods of pruning turn on three practices : (1) short trunks 

 with rapidly ascending branches ; (2) high trunks with more 

 horizontal branches ; and (3) shortening in or heading back the 

 annual growth. Each of these methods has distinct advan- 

 tages for different cases. The nature of the soil is the control- 

 ling factor in deciding which is preferable. The natural 

 method of pruning trees on a sandy soil is to allow the tree 

 to spread at will into a vase form, with no heading in — that is, 

 to let the trees have short trunks and forking branches. The 

 low trunk allows an open top, where the peaches color better. 

 High-topped trees are more easily tilled, and it is quite as easy 

 to pick their fruit. It is the better method on rich land, for it 

 keeps the tree within bounds. Heading in is usually done in 

 winter, and one-third to a half of the annual growth is removed. 

 This heading in always makes a thick-topped tree. 



Thinning Fruit. — No two peaches should be allowed to 

 develop nearer than five inches apart. No work of the 

 orchard pays better than thinning the fruit either in the price 

 which the remaining produce brings or in the energy which is 

 saved to the tree. When regularly thinned the tree bears 

 every year unless injured by frost. The fruit must be picked 

 sooner or later, and the work is more easily done in June than 

 in September, so that no labor is lost. The thinning should 

 be delayed until the fruit is the size of the end of a man's 

 thumb, and by this time the "June drop" has occurred, and 

 the truit can readily be seen. 



Marketing. — But if growers are negligent in thinning, they 

 are positively careless in marketing, and everybody knows 

 that nicely packed fruit brings good prices wholly independent 

 of its quality. Hand-boxes containing sixty wrapped Cali- 

 fornia peaches have sold from $2.00 to $4 00, although of infe- 

 rior quality when they reached our market, and alongside of 

 them our own peaches, of better flavor, have sold for twentv- 

 five cents to seventy-five cents when carelessly dumped into 

 a half-bushel basket. The main faults in handling peaches are 

 too large packages, lack of grading and selection, lack of 

 covers to the basket, which allows the fruit to be crushed, 

 when it will have a disagreeable and forbidding look, and can- 

 not command a fair price. 



Grapes under Glass. 



T N the earliest house the vines should be pruned at once, if 

 -*- this has not been done already, and in a few weeks more 

 all the houses may be pruned, as opportunity offers. The 

 vines should be cut in as closely as can safely be done, as this 

 prevents the spurs from getting long and unsightly. They 

 should be well washed with some insecticide ; the old Gishurst 

 compound, in a good strong solution, will answer the purpose 

 well. Before washing remove any bark that is loose, and no 

 more, as the old custom of scraping the vines is undoubtedly 

 a mistake. The wood-work of the house, if it does not require 

 a fresh coat of paint, should also be well washed, using plenty 

 of soap and warm water, and all parts around the brick-work 

 and pipes should be syringed with a strong solution of anti-pest 

 or other insect destroyer, as mealy-bug and other insects are 

 apt to lodge in the crevices. After removing about an inch 

 of the surface-soil give a liberal dressing ot bone fertilizer, 

 and cover this up with about two inches of fresh fibrous loam, 

 or more if necessary. Most borders, especially those that 

 have been recently made, keep settling a little, and they may 

 require more than two inches of fresh material to keep them 

 up to the level. 



All the outside borders should have a good covering of fresh 

 stable-litter to keep the soil from heing frozen, and the tem- 

 perature of the houses should be maintained as low as possi- 

 ble, using just enough fire-In. n on cold nights to keep the 

 frost out. Every possible opportunity of admitting air should 

 be taken advantage of until about the 20th >>! December, when 

 the earliest house should. have a good watering and be kept 

 rather closer for about a week. Alter this time the night tem- 

 perature may be raised to fort) five degrees, and the vines 



