444 



I N D FA LLS. 



around the growing ferns, and it was the richest looking 

 carpet for my case that could be imagined. I enjoyed 

 it all winter, but the first warm days of spring brought 

 out an astonishing development — quantities of disgust- 

 ing worms hatched out from germs that probably were 

 in the moss. They were an inch long, with a horny 

 covering, and with numberless legs all down their sides. 

 Nor was this all ; the fronds were bitten just as they 

 appeared, and the large leaves of my beautiful begonia 

 Rex served for breakfast, dinner and tea, and lunches 

 between. It would have made an angel weep to see the 

 ruin in ray once lovely case. I pulled up the moss, 

 full of wriggling, many-legged worms, and thrust it into 

 the midst of a glowing furnace, and grinned to see the 

 things squirm. Since then I have been fighting the last 

 reserves of the enemy, taking out a dozen or two every 

 day, cutting off the tops of the ferns, and shedding tears 

 over the leaves of my stately Rex. The roots are all 

 right, and in time, with care, will grow again, but it 

 probably will be a hospital in a fern case until next fall. 

 All plant raisers have to live through and make the 

 best of such reverses, and learn the lesson. Mine is, 

 not to take moss out of the woods, however beautiful, 

 and carpet my fern case with it. — Sister Gr.acious. 



Horticulture in Southern Illinois. — Southern Illi- 

 nois is in latitude 37° to 39° — the same as Petersburg, 

 Va. The elevation ranges from 300 feet above the Gulf 

 of Mexico, at Cairo, to 800 feet in the region of Cobden. 

 Average annual rain fall is 45 inches, while the average 

 temperature at Cairo is 58° and at St. Louis 55°. A 

 " gulf stream " of warm air flows up the valley of the 

 Mississippi, rendering the climate so mild that southern 

 cane grows spontaneously on the north bank of the Ohio 

 river, attaining to a height of twenty feet or more; and 

 the Magnolia grandijlora and crape myrtle flourish with- 

 out winter protection. 



To demonstrate the horticultural possibilities of this 

 section, take as an illustration the region adjacent to the 

 Illinois Central railroad — not that it is in any respect 

 superior to any other, but simply because it has been 

 developed. This road when constructed (1852) passed 

 through but one town south of Vandalia and Effingham 

 until it reached Cairo. Now there are forty busy, pros- 

 perous towns and cities. Soon after the completion of 

 the road, N. C. Meeker and a few ether enthusiastic hor- 

 ticulturists settled in Union county and began fruit grow- 

 ing. From that small beginning the industry has grown 

 until the shipment of fruit and vegetables for iSgo, from 

 stations between Mounds and Centralia, a distance of 

 105 miles, was 32,900,600 pounds and 142,538 barrels 

 of apples. From Centralia alone, the same year 137 

 cars with 72,000 cases of strawberries were shipped. 

 From Cobden the same year were shipped 682 carloads 

 of fruit and vegetables. From Villa Ridge 200 carloads, 

 90 of these being grapes, and a proportionate number at 

 other points. This was over the Illinois Central railroad. 

 Other roads did much freighting of these products. 



The Filson apple orchard of Clay county, twenty 

 years old, has cleared the owner more than fi,ooo per 



acre. John Pritchitt, of the same county, cleared over 

 $300 per acre from his orchard last year. W. S. Morris, 

 Marion county, netted $6 per tree from a five year old 

 Kieffer pear orchard in 1889. From my own orchard, 

 in Massac county, I sold 125 barrels per acre from Wine 

 Sap trees that had been set eleven years. The land had 

 been in cultivation over seventy years, no fertilizer 

 having ever been used. — D. H. Freeman, before Illinois 

 Horticul tiirnl Soiielv , 



A Serious Pear Pest. — Dr. J. A. Lintner, State En- 

 tomologist of New York, gives an account of the pear 

 midge [Diplosis pyrivora) which has been discovered 

 along the Hudson. Dr. Lintner regards it as the most 

 serious pear insect known. It attacks the fruit. "The 

 infested fruit can be recognized by its upper three-fourths 

 being enlarged and irregularly swollen, and of a some- 

 what different color from its base. Uponcutting it open, 

 it discloses perhaps from ten to twenty pale yellowish 

 footless larvae, of about cne-tenth of an inch in length, 

 pointed at the ends, and much resembling the larvae of 

 the wheat midge, to which it is very nearly allied. 



' ' Hitherto, as far as I know, it has only been reported 

 from a single locality in the United States — at Meriden, 

 Conn. It was probably introduced there about the year 

 1880 in some pear stock imported by Coe Brothers, from 

 France. A few years thereafter, it almost entirely de- 

 stroyed their crop of Lawrence pears, while several other 

 varieties were infested in a less degree . Effort was made 

 to exterminate it before it should spread, by picking off 

 the entire crop in an 'off year,' and destroying it. It 

 was believed that they had succeeded in bringing it un- 

 der control, for since the notice of its presence at Meri- 

 den, given in Professor Riley's report to the department 

 of agriculture for 1884 and 1885, nothing more had been 

 heard of it. Last week F. A. Cole, of Catskill, sent 

 me some pears, showing an insect attack which had been 

 troubling him for five or six years past, and had recently 

 caused almost the entire loss of his crop of Lawrence 

 pears. I recognized it at once, as that of the dreaded 

 pear-midge. Visiting and inspecting his orchard the 

 following day, I found the attack a very severe one. 



' ' I recommended to the owners of the infested orchards 

 at Catskill to follow the method pursued at Meriden, and 

 at once to pick off and burn all the infested fruit. This 

 would be practicable, to a great extent, where the trees are 

 not large, but Mr. Cole deems it too laborious and ex- 

 pensive in trees that have attained the size of his. In a 

 letter received from him to-day, in lieu of cutting down 

 and burning the older infested ones as he at first proposed, 

 he will allow the Lawrence to stand as lures, and when 

 the eggs have all been deposited, then by some applica- 

 tion to blight the blossoms and thoroughly destroy the 

 contained insect by depriving it of food. This seems 

 quite plausible. I propose to make experiments to see 

 whether the larvae after entering the ground may not be 

 destroyed by some such applications as kerosene emul- 

 sion, lime, or ashes." 



Gardening in the Ninth Century. — The list of vege- 

 tables in Charlemagne's garden, in the May issue (page 



