VEGETABLES, FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 



This result should encourage us to thin fruits more 

 thoroughly. It takes a brave man to break or knock off 

 a large part of apparently good fruit when only partly 

 grown. What grower would have dared to thin his 

 quarter-grown apples in a manner even to approach the 

 example set by nature last summer ! Few have ever 

 practiced thinning any kind of fruit to a quarter of that 

 extent. We now have a substantial proof that even ap- 

 parently extreme thinning is profitable, as it results in a 

 full crop of salable fruit. 



The owner of the largest peach orchard in the state, 

 in a conversation the past summer, stated that he had 

 men provided with long cedar poles go all through his 

 orchards and knock off a large part of the fruit where the 

 trees seemed to be overloaded. Yet this man left 15,000 



Cluster of Po.nderosa (Hemderson 400) Tomato, as grown on Editors' Grounds 



bushels of peaches on his trees to rot, simply because 

 they were so small, in consequence of too many being 

 left, that it would not pay to market them. What a 

 waste, and this simply because the men with the poles 

 had been too timid ! 



This principle holds good in vegetable-growing. We 

 used to leave pretty nearly all the radish-plants that 

 came up in the rows, both in hotbed and outdoor culti- 

 vation. We know better now. The plants are thinned 

 early to not less than one inch apart in the row, and we 

 get a far better and more even crop. In growing celery 

 and cabbages we have of late been even more anxious to 

 thin the plants at an early stage, and thoroughly. Often 

 we cut out ten plants and more where we leave one, and 

 all this for the purpose of insuring good, strong, stocky 



plants. We have learned that the only safety here lies 

 in prompt thinning. Every plant above the number re- 

 quired to give a full crop must be considered a weed, 

 and pulled up or cut down without delay. A great 

 surplus of plants, as an excessive number of fruits left 

 to grow, will render the individual vegetable or fruit 

 undersized, poor in quality, less attractive, and generally 

 less valuable and salable. 



Crab-Trees for Ornament. — We have neverindulged 

 in the practice, quite commonamongfarmers, of planting 

 pear, apple, cherry, plum and quince trees on lawns for 

 ornament. This has not been because of our not recog- 

 nizing the qualities of beauty in orchard trees, but rather 

 because we have always had to provide places for so 

 many other subjects in the line of shade and ornamental 

 trees which very 

 fittingly belong to 

 the lawn, that we 

 have been quite 

 content to enjoy 

 the beauty of our 

 fruit-trees in the 

 fruit-plat. 



But there are 

 certain fruit-bear- 

 ing trees that pos- 

 sess such marked 

 beauty as to be 

 well-entitled to 

 consideration 

 purely for lawn 

 e m b e 1 1 i shment. 

 One of these which 

 has given satisfac* 

 tion secondtonone 

 afforded by any 

 other tree in our 

 or namental 

 grounds, is a Hys- 

 lop crab. This is 

 a tree of moderate 

 size, extremely 

 handsome in 

 flower and fruit, 



while the habit of growth and the appearance of the 

 foliage is attractive. The bloom, of light pink color, is 

 more profuse, larger and rather more delicate in outline 

 than that of the common apple. It is also more fragrant, 

 the odor being wafted to a considerable distance when 

 the tree is in full flower. But the height of its beauty 

 is reached in early autumn, when the prettily -shaped 

 apples assume their remarkably handsome deep crimson 

 color, slightly obscured by a delicate bloom. The fruit 

 will hang all through the fall if not picked. For fully 

 six weeks last fall, during which many persons visited 

 our grounds, no one other object attracted all eyes as 

 did a single handsome specimen of this crab, promi- 

 nently located on the lawn. 



Another tree of the crab race which deserves special 



