go 



JLDGE MILLER'S FRUIT- NOTES. 



come one of the popular and marketable fruits of the 

 middle states. He gathered specimens and varieties of 

 the Diospyros Virginiana from all parts of the south 

 and west, and cultivated them most carefully, and his 

 pleasant old home at Roslyn will doubtless show to-day 

 some relics of his ingenious care in the laying out and 

 arrangement of his experimental plantations. 



Mr. Bryant decided, after many years of experiment 

 with the persimmon, that the finest and most vigor- 

 ous varieties were thosa grown in the alluvial meadows 

 of southern Indiana ; and he sent me some specimens, 

 from one of which, by high fertilization and root-prun- 

 ing, I have from year to year gathered fruit of greatly 

 improved size and flavor. I enclose a rude sketch of 

 one specimen of this year's fruit from one of the trees 

 received from Mr. Bryant. The smaller drawing (page 

 89) shows the wild fruit which has received no special 

 care, gathered from another tree. 



As I have already said, the astringency of the fruit is 

 much diminished by cultivation, while the flavor is im- 

 proved ; and, as in the Japanese persimmon " Kaki," the 

 pulp becomes more abundant, and the seeds are reduced 

 in number from five in the wild state to two or even one, 

 and often quite disappear, and the fruit becomes abso- 

 lutely seedless. 



The persimmon is an ornamental tree, shapely and 

 symmetrical in form ; its bark and leaves are distinctive 

 and its wood is dense and heavy. It grows readily but 

 slowly from seeds, is a gross feeder, and with good cul- 

 tivation and care will produce fruit in its sixth year 

 It is perfectly hardy as far north as Hartford, Connec- 

 ticut, and will bear fruit on Long Island from year to 

 year without interruption. The genus is dioecious. The 



flowers of the male tree are twice as large as those of the 

 other sex, but much less abundant. The tree produces 

 numerous suckers, which, however, are unsuitable for 

 propagation, but will make tidy shrubs for the lawn or 

 border. 



Subscribers of American Gardening rejoice to see so 

 much attention paid in its columns to our native trees 

 and shrubs. One of the recent articles on the papaw 

 (Asimina) was of great interest to me, as I have culti- 

 vated the tree for years on Long Island. My own spec- 

 imen is annually covered in May with its peculiar and 

 unique flowers ; but it has never borne fruit. In the old 

 "Prince's Nursery" grounds, however, in Flushing, the 

 papaw has borne its banana-like fruit for forty years, 

 and continues to do so to-day, unless perhaps disturbed 

 by the rude hand of Modern Improvement — that pro- 

 gressive fiend which has in recent years desolated so 

 many choice plantations in the suburbs of New York 

 city, and has already laid waste the ancient " Linnean 

 Nurseries," so dear to the savant and the flower-lovers 

 of sixty years ago. 



The Central Park of New York city, although so 

 nearly complete as an arboretum, contains, so far as I 

 am aware, no single specimen of either the papaw or 

 persimmon. Both would thrive there successfully if 

 once introduced and protected for a year or two of their 

 helpless infancy, and we call upon Mr. Parsons and Mr. 

 Woolson to finish the good work they have so well begun 

 in the planting of native American shrubs and trees, and 

 not to rest until the whole catalogue of them shall be as 

 nearly complete as the limitations of soil and climate at 

 their command shall allow. 



Queen's Co., N. V. J. W. B. 



JUDGE MILLER'S FRUIT-NOTES. 



HOW HE MAKES THE BUSINESS PAY. 



AD. 1891 was a fair one for the horticulturist, 

 crops of most fruits having been good in 

 nearly all parts of our great country. This 

 means great encouragement for the fruit-grower, 

 notwithstanding his numerous failures to make it 

 profitable financially. 



The man who wishes to begin on a small scale and 

 only cultivate a few acres will do well to locate near 

 some thriving town, in which he can sell a great quan- 

 tity of fruit. It simply wants a start, and the consump- 

 tion of fruit is contagious. If a family is known to 

 purchase plenty of fresh fruit, neighbors (if only as imi- 

 tators, or from pride and jealousy) will also want it, and 

 soon the whole population of the place would be thus 

 influenced. 



Just now the black-cap raspberries seem to have the 

 lead ; yet I well know the time when one could hardly 

 be sold at all. Many years ago I had an over-stock 

 of them, but my customers would refuse them, saying 

 they were only the ordinary wild berries planted in the 



garden. I plainly saw that unless some stratagem were 

 used these berries would go to waste. So I gave to 

 a few rich, influential ladies some of the berries to try 

 and to show to their lady friends. Sure enough, the 

 trick succeeded, and soon one came and said : "I want 

 some of the same berries Mrs. Coleman got ; " another 

 wanted "the same kind sold to Mrs. Kline." From 

 that day to this, the black-caps have had the supremacy. 

 That we are in want of a first-rate red raspberry as good 

 as Turner and as firm as Cuthbert, every one knows. 



For my own eating I want nothing better than Turner. 

 As I am situated, the shipment of fruits of the quickly 

 perishing kinds, such as strawberries, raspberries and 

 cherries, is by no means a paying business ; so that last 

 summer we tried a new plan. Some of our finest cher- 

 ries and berries were canned and preserved under ar- 

 rangements with a friend's family at St. Louis to use 

 them and to pay us the price of the fruit, and the ves- 

 sels to contain them, and a fair compensation for the 

 work of putting them up. The report comes that they 



