244 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



May, 1910 



and natives. Some people plant plums in the 

 chicken yard or the chicken coops near the trees, 

 in order that the chickens may eat the curculio, 

 which fall off when the trees are slightly shaken. 

 Curculio catchers are used in large plum orchards. 

 The black knot on plum and cherry trees is best 

 controlled by cutting out and burning well such 

 branches on which it first appears. 



In my opinion the best European plums for 

 planting in New York are Reine Claude, Brad- 

 shaw, Shropshire Damson and Fellenburg. 



PEACH AND APRICOT 



The best dessert stone fruits are the peach and 

 apricot. The peach family is semi-hardy, and its 

 general culture is restricted to certain conditions 

 of climate; sections in our country having such 

 conditions are known as "peach belts." 



One method which is most certain to give satis- 

 factory results to growers who live outside of the 

 peach belts is -winter protection by covering. The 

 trees may be headed low- and trained to trellises 

 or to the side of buildings, in a similar way to the 

 grape vine, then covered with straw and burlap 

 during winter. Another plan which I know has 

 worked well, where the temperature seldom goes 

 lower than 20 or 25 degrees below zero, is to harden 

 the trees by planting them in rather poor soil, 

 in the same way I have described for plums. 

 Amongst the Japanese plums I have mentioned 

 that were tender on low lard and hardy on high 

 land were some peach trees. These all died on 

 the low land, but were hardy on the high land. 



For the family garden or orchard, the Champion 

 is about the best peach we now have, as it is both 

 hardy and of high quality. Greensboro and Hill's 

 Chili are also good. The apricot is a little more 

 tender than most varieties of peaches, but is given 

 the same culture. It is not grown in New York, 

 except under the most favorable conditions. 



In the latitude of New York, I advise spring 

 planting of all fruits, and the planting may be con- 

 tinued up to the time they begin to leaf out. If 

 trees are wanted for immediate planting, buy two 

 or three year old trees from the nearest reputable 

 nursery, although if one can afford to wait, it is 

 better to buy one year old trees, and plant them in 

 nursery rows, letting them grow one or two years to 

 get acclimated to local conditions. Trees freshly dug 

 on one's own place all live and grow with little check. 



Therefore, plant stone fruits on well-drained 

 land that was cultivated last year, and put the 

 trees from fifteen to twenty feet apart in the orchard 

 and somewhat less in the garden. A row of trees 

 can be planted along one side of the vegetable 

 garden, division fences, driveways, etc. 



The trees should be cultivated during the first 

 two or three years and the best way is to grow hoed 

 crops between them. Make the soil just rich 

 enough so that the trees will make a rather slow, 

 thrifty growth. Head back to one or two feet for 

 the garden, and two or three for the orchard. 

 Prune to get the vase form after the tree is started 

 right, do not prune too closely, as the leaves are the 

 feeding organs of the tree, and the larger the leaf 

 surface, the greater its growth. 



New York. W. H. Jenkins. 



The Best Fruit Districts 



IN THE December issue of The Garden Maga- 

 zine, page 252, reply is made to F. R. S. that 

 the best table grapes come from the north central 

 and northwestern parts of the State of New York. 



This leads me to suggest that the most intensive 

 part of the Chautauqua grape belt is in the State 

 of Pennsylvania, more grapes being shipped from 

 the little town of Northeast, Pennsylvania, than 

 from any other town in the world. 



This section, in reality, is an extension of the 

 Chautauqua belt of Western New York into Erie 

 County, Pennsylvania, along the southern shore 

 of Lake Erie. 



The region of next most importance is the Keuka 

 district in the so-called "Finger Lakes" district 

 in the west-central part of the State. 



Virginia and Pennsylvania feel, too, and with 

 justice, that Western New York does not surpass 

 them in the production of the finest apples, though 

 she does in the quantity of product. Considering 

 this, and also the rapid extension of orchards in 



these States, should they not also be included in 

 the sections of the Eastern United States from 

 whence the finest apples come ? 



Washington, D. C. H. J. Wilder. 



Bagging Grapes 



THE accompanying photograph is a much more 

 powerful sermon on the advantages to be 

 obtained from bagging grapes than one composed 

 of words alone. 



I read in a bulletin received from the United 

 States Department of Agriculture that both the 

 quanity and quality of grapes could be improved 



Bagged and unbagged grapes. Bag yours -when the 

 blossoms are fully matured and outwit their enemies 



by enclosing each bunch in a common paper bag 

 at the time when the blossoms are fully matured, 

 but just before the grapes begin to form. I decided 

 to experiment. 



The vine selected was a strong, healthy Moore's 

 Early, which had been pruned by the Kniffen 

 system. Some twelve or fifteen bunches were 

 selected at random, and carefully enclosed in com- 

 mon yellow paper bags, size number five. The 

 result is very apparent in the photograph. The 

 bunch on the right was not bagged, that on the left 

 side was. The photograph simply reproduces 

 the conditions as the}- were, neither of the bunches 

 illustrated being selected because it exaggerated the 

 results one way or the other. 



The method is simple. Simply slip the bag over 

 the bunch, tie the neck tightly around the stem, 

 and with a knife make a small hole in the lowest 

 corner to let out the water. 



Illinois. Royden E. Ttjxl. 



Planting the Plum Trees 



THOSE who have studied Japanese plums, in 

 relation to self-fertility, have come to the con- 

 clusion that most of them are self-fertile. Certainly 

 if three or four varieties are grown in the same 

 orchard, and if the planting is not on such a scale 

 as to make large blocks of each variety, there should 

 be no question about cross-pollination. As a rule, 

 however, the domestica plums, such as Lombard 

 and the prunes, do not cross readily with the Jap- 

 anese varieties. 



In this cross-pollination question, it is fair to say 

 that there are a great deal of misstatement and mis- 

 conception. As a general principle, plum orchards 

 bear better when varieties are intermingled. The 

 same does not hold true so strongly in the case of 

 apples or cherries, but it is a pretty good principle 

 to keep in mind in the planting of all fruits. Some 

 of the sweet cherries seem to fail on account of self- 

 sterility, but I imagine that other causes enter in, 

 and many plant fruit only to be destroyed by the 

 curculio or brown rot. Sometimes this failure is 

 charged to self-sterility. 



New York John Craig. 



Brown Rot of Peaches 



BROWN rot has long been recognized as a most 

 destructive disease of stone fruits, particularly 

 the peach. It is a fungous disease. Spraying wfth 

 diluted Bordeaux mixture has been most commonly 

 recommended, but it must be applied during the 

 growing season and it then injures the foliage. 



A cheap and simple remedy for this disease has 

 been found in the self-boiled lime-sulphur wash 

 which can be applied throughout the growing sea- 

 son with but little danger of injury to the fruit or 

 foliage. By mixing arsenate of lead with the fung- 

 icide, curculio can be destroyed at the same time. 



Write to the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture and ask for their recently issued bulletin 

 describing the preparation and use of the wash. 



Heading off the Kieffer Pears 



IN the spring of 1908 we planted, in a corner 

 of our orchard, a block of small two-year 

 Kieffer pear trees. The land was thin, and had 

 been cleared of timber early that same spring. 

 Holes were dug and the trees set without breaking 

 up the land. The hill-top soil is mostly clay with a 

 little sand and gravel. 



The trees were neglected the first season, the few 

 inches of growth being almost wholly cut back the 

 following spring. At that time we used a mattock 

 to thoroughly loosen up the soil to a distance of 

 three feet all around each tree. Later, one or two 

 hoeings were given. One forkful of well rotted 

 manure was scattered around each tree. 



The trees shot upward. Late in June the ter- 

 minal buds were all pinched and the branches 

 stopped lengthening for a while, gaining strength 

 and thickness. But you can't keep a pear tree down 

 if you keep cultivation up. Last year one tree had 

 made a growth of sixty-six inches by September 

 24th, notwithstanding the pinching back it got in 

 mid-summer. Other trees made, proportionately, 

 the same growth. This spring the half of last 

 year's growth will be cut off. 



West Virginia. Will W. Stevens. 



From the paper below to the hat above marks 

 the season's growth of sixty-six inches on the 

 Kieffer pear 



