14 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
The home-built summer house affords a grateful lounging place. The vines are Hall’s honeysuckle 
as late as December 7th. The Magnolia 
is, for some reason, not recommended by 
the nurserymen, while to me it seems the 
most desirable for the home garden. It 
is practically ever-bearing, and if it happens 
to be frozen or broken down will go on bear- 
ing the next year on new shoots sent up from 
the roots. The fruit is of good quality when 
fully ripe. Fig trees here have no enemies 
except an occasional hard winter, which may 
kill them back to the roots, but they always 
come up again. ‘They do not require culti- 
vation, as their roots run so close to the sur- 
face, but are benefited by a top dressing of 
stable manure and by mulching. The 
suckers which are sent out each year from 
the roots should be pulled off as the trees are 
hardier when trimmed to a single stem. 
We built an arbor in a different part of the 
ground for grapes, of which we have Concord, 
Delaware, and Niagara, not because they 
succeed best, but because they were favorites 
of ours. One vine of Carman, a Texas va- 
riety, has borne enormously, and one year 
bore a second crop in the fall after a heavy 
yield in June. 
We tried the experiment of planting rows 
of blackberries between the fruit trees—sixty 
plants altogether—and the second year were 
surprised by a crop of sixty quarts a day dur- 
ing the time they were at their best. The 
vines, and also the dewberry vines which 
we had to crowd in next the fence, are given 
the culture which has been found to succeed 
best in Texas. It consists simply in cutting 
away the entire vine, new growthand old,as 
soon as the plants are through bearing. 
Pomegranates are so ornamental that we 
planted them around the house and in the 
shrubbery. The double flowering varieties— 
bright crimson, variegated and cream—are 
the ones usually grown for ornament, but to 
me the fruiting kinds, with single blossoms, 
are much more beautiful. They bear their 
blossoms more gracefully and the flower is 
beautiful from the time the bud appears, 
looking likea brilliant scarlet berry, until it 
hangs drooping from the slender stem as a 
crimson ripened fruit. The California Ever- 
bearing, a dwarf variety, begins blooming, 
like the others, in March, and continues to 
bloom and bear fruit until stopped by frost. 
The Spanish Ruby is not quite so prolific 
but has more brilliantly colored and larger 
fruit, and perhaps a better quality. The 
Jacobson, a Texas seedling, is a shy bloomer 
Nature insists on flowers: the pinK Mexican primrose creeps into spots where nothing has been planted 
FEBRUARY, 1908 
and bearer, but makes up for this deficiency 
in the wonderful beauty of the very large 
scarlet blossoms which hang from its droop- 
ing stems. The fruit is larger and considered 
good, but to me is rather insipid. It has pink 
seeds instead of the usual coral. I have 
never eaten any in Texas as fine as those we 
used to get in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. 
I am sure that the difference arises from our 
not having the variety grown there—just 
as the Mexican oranges are incomparably 
better than the California ones because 
they grow such atrocious varieties in Califor- 
nia. The pomegranate here seems to re- 
quire no culture of any kind. You cannot 
choke it out with Bermuda grass or wither 
it by drought or starve it with barren, rocky 
soil. 
In order to succeed here with peaches, 
plums, pears, and grapes—without irrigation 
—the surface of the soil must be cultivated 
frequently and kept free from weeds. In 
large orchards it is customary to cultivate 
with a broad shallow orchard plow, but we 
have confined ourselves entirely to “the man 
witha hoe.” If this sounds primitive, let me 
assure you that I once saw a Mexican plow- 
ing—actually and effectively plowing—with 
his bare feet—simply and joyfully digging 
up the soil with his toes! Peach and plum 
trees must be headed low, so that their trunks 
will be protected from the sun. 
Strawberries are the only fruit I know of 
that require irrigating here, and they require 
so much of it that very few people grow them. 
We raised beautiful ones under the plum 
trees, and they began to ripen in March and 
continued until we went away for the summer 
in July, but after two unusually dry summers 
we gave them up, for the present at least. 
The Texas strawberries that supply the Chi- 
cago market come from nearer the Gulf. 
Cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, and 
currants do not succeed. 
So far no San José scale has been discov- 
ered about Austin. ‘The only enemies that 
I know of that attack fruit trees are the 
blight on Le Conte pears and a borer that 
kills the apricot trees by ringing the trunk 
under the outer bark, and we have discov- 
ered no satisfactory relief from this latter 
pest. 
Our fruit season lasts from the first dew- 
berries in March to late figs in December, 
Plums may be had continuously from May 
ist to October, and some of the plums in 
our orchard—notably Gonzales—measure 
seven inches around and are deliciously 
sweet. 
The season for peaches is from the latter 
part of May until October. The earlier va- 
rieties are surer bearers as they bloom later 
and thus escape injury from late frosts. E|- 
berta, however, is a July peach and has so 
far never failed in our orchard. 
We have never found it necessary to ferti- 
lize any of our fruit trees. 
FLOWERS 
Our flower season extends the year around, 
—from the blooming of the Jasminum nudi- 
florum in January to December violets. Our 
main crop has been roses. We gather 
