FRUIT NOTES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 



PRACTICAL HINTS BY PRACTICAL MEN. 



ON MY twenty-acre fruit-patch I am trying to de- 

 velop the highest quality in fruits that can be 

 obtained by heavy manuring, and frequent and 

 thorough cultivation. The Bartlett pear or- 

 chard set ten years ago has produced seven heavy crops. 

 Duchess dwarfs also bear regularly, and the fruit of 

 both sells from 30 to 40 per cent, above the market price. 

 The plum orchard set eight years ago has borne six heavy 

 crops, and all the trees have made enough growth to 

 insure a crop next year. 



PEARS AND PLUMS FOR MARKET. 



Some people, seeing the labor bestowed on my trees 

 and the manure carted on to the lot from the village, 

 think it could not possibly pay me, but it does. My 

 plums bear at the rate of six tons per acre, and sell at 

 a net price of twenty-two cents per ten-pound basket. 

 This gives about $250 per acre. Last year the fruit 

 from this orchard brought a little over I350 per acre. 

 I manure this plum orchard with fifty loads of stable 

 dung brought from the village, and fifty to seventy-five 

 bushels of ashes or hen manure per acre each year ; 

 I apply the stable manure in fall and spring, and the 

 ashes in June or July. My bearing pear orchard re- 

 ceives about as much. The pruning consists in cutting 

 back about one-half of each year's growth, and removing 

 black-knot and blighted limbs. I have obtained per- 

 mission to cut all the black-knot out of my neighbors' 

 trees. In some instances I have cut down whole trees 

 and burned them up. I am suffering now but little 

 from this disease. I have tried painting with oxide of 

 iron, pure linseed-oil, and turpentine, but think it had 

 little effect. I find the Lombard, Reine Claude, Smith's 

 Prune and American Damson the most profitable. We 

 picked the Lombard thirteen times over, commencing 

 August 27 and finishing September 30 ; the other varie- 

 ties from three to six times. It was not until we com- 

 menced to pick the Lombard the sixth time that the 

 limbs appeared to be any lighter. 



The land is plowed early in spring and late in fall 

 with a two-horse plow, and six or seven times in the 

 summer with a one-horse plow, and kept well dragged. 

 The trees hold their leaves nearly as well as the apples 

 or pears, unlike any other plum orchard in this vicinity. 



The fruit crop here was larger and fairer than it has 

 been for many years. Insect enemies have nearly all 

 disappeared. Nearly all growers are disappointed by 

 having more apples than they expected. The foliage 

 never looked better than it has this season. I believe 

 we may look for a large crop next year. 



I am building a cold-storage fruit-house near the rail- 



road for my cherries and other summer fruits, intending 

 to ship hereafter in car-lots and thus to save the express 

 charges, which are altogether too high on fruit. 



Orleans Co., N. Y. Virgil BoGUE. 



THE INSECTS OF iSgi. 



The insect crop of 1891 in this locality has been a 

 general failure. The turnip-fly, which usually destroys 

 many young cabbages and turnips, was absent. The 

 gooseberry saw-fly, which produces the worms that 

 destroy the leaves of currants and gooseberries, oper- 

 ated so feebly that I still have my stock of hellebore. 

 The raspberry saw-fly, which is a near relative of the 

 preceding, but which produces worms of the same color 

 as the leaves, operated severely upon my young Gregg. 

 These were planted where Cuthbert had recently been 

 grown, and this accounts for the difficulty. It would 

 be better to use land which has not recently grown 

 raspberries of any kind. 



The Colorado potato-beetle appears to have lost its 

 grip. The curculio. which usually thins the plums, 

 forgot his work this year. The consequence was an 

 enormous crop of plums, at ruinously low prices. 



There seems to have been an unusually short crop of 

 white grubs, which at midsummer eat off the roots of 

 strawberry plants. These grubs produce the June 

 beetles, and they too were scarce. The codlin-moth 

 does not seem very obstreperous hereabouts. 

 C In looking over hundreds of bushels of swede turnips, 

 I find no signs of worms. The inconspicuous cabbage- 

 worm as well as the conspicuous ones were conspicuous 

 by their absence. This lack of insects, combined with 

 favorable weather, has given us a plethora of fruits 

 and vegetables. This is fine for the nation, but it is 

 death to the hopes of many of the over-sanguine who 

 were satisfied that without experience they could make 

 a heap of money by truck-farming. 



Welhuid Co., Oiiliirto. E. Worden. 



THE BANANA INDUSTRY. 



South American people do not regard the banana as 

 a luxury. There is a " banana patch " in every garden 

 just as surely as you find a potato-patch near every 

 little cabin in the United States. Some kinds grow 

 wild in the woods, but the fruit of such plants is almost 

 always too bitter to eat. 



A growing banana plant looks, from a little distance, 

 somewhat like an immense calla lily. The rows are 

 started from young shoots, which are cut off and set in 

 the ground just as we set geraniums. Soon they send 

 up two long leaves, which are curled so tightly together 

 that they look just like a round stick. After a time the 



