BUDS, BLOSSOMS, FRUITS. 



you will shorten the lives of the trees. The year iSgt 

 was poor preparation for 1892, and much of thestored-up 

 vitality of fruit-trees, etc., was used up in the autumn 

 effort at producing a second crop. When the spring 

 opened the canes and scions very much resembled those 

 that have just yielded a crop, or are near the close of a 

 harvest. Only that this has been a year of abundant 

 showers, we should have had, especially with berries, a 

 most meagre yield. The growth of trees was also severely 

 checked in the summer of 1891, and forced in the autumn. 

 In the spring of '92 the bearing wood and blossoming 

 buds were alike inferior, and the anthracnose found them 

 favorable to its attacks. All around the fruit-crops of 

 this year have been poor. But the wood-growth , on the 

 contrary, has been excellent. I have never seen bette^ 

 strawberry rows, or shorter raspberry canes than are now 

 ready for 1893. But so great was the exhaustion of some 

 kinds of fruit-trees in i8gi that they could not fairly bat- 

 tle with anthracnose, and lost foliage this year a month 



or more ahead of time. Some varieties of apples, such 

 as autumn strawberry and Jonathan, and some of the 

 plums, such as Washington, stood bare of foliage in Sep- 

 tember, before touched by frost. The fruit on all these 

 trees was a failure. A few of the grapes, such, notably 

 as Jessica, set full of fruit, but the foliage gave up the 

 struggle before the ripening season, and the grapes were 

 worthless. 



I have gone over this study of the subject because it is 

 necessary for us as horticulturists to become masters of 

 the situation. Our New York and New England hillsides 

 and valleys lose, year in and year out, one-fifth of the 

 estimated crops because of the lack of irrigation. Our 

 potatoes are, one year in four, seriously impaired by dry 

 weather. For the same reason, two years ago, the farm- 

 ers of Jefferson county had not enough hay and other feed 

 to keep their stock, and at heavy loss sold half their dairy 

 cows. Much of this trouble is needless. A good well, 

 furnished with a windmill, will go a long way in saving 

 a crop. I have my strawberry-beds for '93 below my 



barn, and can, at any time, supply them with water 

 through troughs from the barn well. Many fruit-growers 

 have unfailing springs which they can utilize cheaply. 

 Another lesson is that we should thin our fruits, and not 

 allow any tree to exhaust itself by fruit-bearing. It is a 

 dead waste to syringe our apple trees to prevent the cod- 

 ling moth from thinning the fruit, and then decline to do 

 the work ourselves. With proper irrigation no danger 

 results from heavy bearing in our berry-gardens. But 

 our plum trees show their weariness very grievously. 

 Nature's plan has been to alternate good crops with poor 

 ones on some sorts of fruits, so that we cannot look for 

 two good crops in succession. This we can modify if we 

 choose, by irrigation, ditching, feeding and thinning. 

 Nature invariably sends mildews, anthracnose and insect 

 scavengers when foliage is enfeebled. This doubles our 

 work, for we must not only try to keep our trees from 

 becoming enfeebled, but must fight off the insects. The 

 use of copperas is entirely successful against anthracnose 

 and the arsenites against 

 moths. I have, this year, the 

 handsomest, cleanest apples I 

 ever saw, after two sprayings 

 with London purple. 



The conclusion of the whole 

 matter is that our trees and 

 bushes must not be over- 

 worked any more than ani- 

 mals. They must be fed and 

 watered with as much care as 

 our cows, and must be allowed 

 natural rest. Indeed, they will 

 have rest or die. Not one 

 farm in ten has a healthy, pro- 

 ductive orchard. Trees every- 

 where are starved and worked 

 to death, while horses are 

 groomed and fed. The plant 

 world and animal world arg 

 common life, and require much the same 

 and care. We must learn to sympathize 

 with our fruit -trees. — E. P. Powell, Oneida Co., N. Y. 



The Chinese Wistaria. — The illustration of wistaria 

 given is from a photograph of a specimen growing close 

 to Horticultural Hall in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, 

 aud conveys an excellent idea of the beauty of this re- 

 markable Asiatic climber. If its presentation here should 

 lead a multitude of our readers, with whom it is not al- 

 ready a favorite, to plant the vine, we shall be glad of 

 having thus called attention to it. We do not know why 

 this fine vine is not more popular ; one reason may be 

 that it is somewhat slow coming into bloom — the clem- 

 atises, which usually flower the first season after plant- 

 ing, suiting impatient Americans much better. But this 

 is not sufficient reason for such general neglect of one of 

 the handsomest vines in our catalogues. It may take a 

 few years for the Chinese wistaria to reach a flowering 

 age, but when the blooming period does come, from that 

 time on we are certain to have ia it one of the grandest 



branches of 

 consideratioi 



