FRUIT NOTES. 



Nut Culture is constantly enlarging. In many parts 

 of the country it is profitable, and it is always interesting. 

 Every fruit-grower should include a few nuts in his 

 spring plantings. Good things to try, in various parts of 

 the country, are walnuts, chestnuts, pecans, filberts and 

 hickory nuts. 



Those who get Good Crops in the face of diffi- 

 culties are almost sure to make money, because the 

 majority of people fail. " The average farmer or fruit- 

 grower," writes J. F. C. Hyde, " became discouraged by 

 the curculio and black-knot, and no longer attempted to 

 grow plums, while the few who were able to do so ob- 

 tained large prices for their fruit." 



Identical. — The First Season Strawberry is Gandy 

 (Gaudy's Ir'rize). Essentially the same cut answers for 

 both varieties. But such impositions are common. 



Protecting Blackberries. — Where you can't grow 

 peaches, winter protection is necessary, even with the 

 hardy varieties. They may pass a winter unharmed at 

 20° below zero, but when you freeze a plant sixty nights 

 and thaw it sixty days in February and March, it weak- 

 ens and fails to do its best. Five minutes will cover a 

 bush that will bear a peck, and when thus protected it is 

 the surest of all the small fruits. It blooms after frost 

 in spring, and usually all fruit is ripe before fall frosts 

 injure, and with good cultivation or a generous mulch in 

 June it will withstand any drouth. These plants, after 

 one season's growth, should all be laid up or down the 

 row, and laid the same way every year. Use a spading 

 or manure fork ; take out earth enough each side the 

 plant so that it will bend in the root ; put your foot at 

 the base, the forV on the top, and bear it to the ground ; 

 place on it earth enough to hold it down ; lay the next 

 plant on this one, and so proceed till the row is down ; 

 then go over it and cover the main cane with earth. It 

 is not usually necessary to cover all the branches ; earth 

 is the safest, handiest and best covering. If they were 

 bent down and weighted, and no mice in the field, a 

 little marsh hay would be sufficient, but when you can 

 insure a quart to the minute for the labor bestowed in 

 covering, what is the use in making any further objec- 

 tion ? As soon as you plant your early potatoes, take a 

 fork and lift the blackberry bushes up, work out the dirt 

 from under them, press the soil firmly about the root 

 so they will stand erect ; they will not start enough to 

 be injured by frost. I have left them so long that they 

 had budded to grow under cover, and when taken otit 

 ■were injured by a frost following ; if taken out earlier 

 they would have been tempered to the frosts. — George 

 J. Kellog. 



In Sicily lemon culture is 30 per cent, more profit- 

 able than orange culture ; lemon trees are more prolific 

 than orange trees. Prices for lemons are higher than 

 for oranges. 



Black-knot. — Robert Manning finds the Prnnits 

 myrobdlana , some of the varieties of which have lately 

 been recommended for planting as ornamental trees, 

 exceedingly subject to the black-knot, and he advises 

 caution in planting them. 



The Le Conte Pear. — Parker Earle writes that in 

 the south this year ' ' the Le Conte pear bore heavily 

 wherever planted, and it shows some market value, but 

 its quality runs exceedingly low." 



Protection from Mice, Borers and Birds. — I fre- 

 quently "cut across lots" in going to the "corners," 

 and thus pass through a neighbor's young orchard, where 

 he has put wire netting around the base of his trees 

 to keep the mice away, and it occurs to me that this 

 would be a good way to keep the borers away also. 

 Would it not be practicable to grow small fruits, grapes, 

 and even cherries under wire netting to protect them 

 from birds ? Strong posts might be set up and light 

 rails laid across their tops, and the netting spread on 

 the rails, also around the sides of the plot. Such posts 

 should be high enough to allow a horse to walk freely 

 under the netting, say eight feet high. The cost would 

 not be very much to enclose even a half-acre, and if the 

 wire was galvanized it would last a lifetime. The meshes 

 might be one inch square. Portions of the netting around 

 the sides might be arranged to allow of its being rolled 

 up or down to allow insect-eating birds to enter during 

 the forepart of the season ; but when fruit began to 

 ripen it would have to be closed. Would it pay ? I 

 think it would. At any rate, the fruit-grower would 

 have the satisfaction of picking and eating fruit that had 

 not been mutilated by the birds, and he could allow it to 

 remain on the plants until it was fully ripe. — J. T. Mac- 

 OMBER, I'cnnont. 



The Olive in the West. — There are millions of acres 

 of foot-hill lands and rocky mountain sides in Cali- 

 fornia exactly suited in soil and climate to the culture 

 of the olive, and of very little value for any other pur- 

 pose than scanty pasture. The olive is an evergreen 

 fast-growing fruit, with slender lanceolate leaves like 

 some of the willows, light green on the upper and nearly 

 white on the lower surface. The tree is quite hardy, 

 much more so than the orange. It grows readily from 

 cuttings, and its culture is quite simple. Not injured, 

 we believe, by any insects, except the scale (bark lice); 

 these are often very troublesome. The olive is claimed 

 by many to be the most profitable of all California's 

 wonderful fruits. — D. B. Wier, California. 



Novel Training of Grapes. — A grape-grower in Bris- 

 tol county, Massachusetts, has adopted a plan which, 

 though it may not be new, is certainly interesting. He 

 sets stout posts at suitable intervals, with smaller ones be- 

 tween wherever there is a vine, and upon these stretches 

 two strong wires at a proper distance apart, the lower 

 one being placed far enough from the ground to allow a 

 horse and cultivator to pass freely underneath. By the 

 use of high step-ladders the fruit can be readily har- 

 vested and the vines trimmed or handled at will. The 

 advantages claimed are : Ease in cultivation, and extra 

 quantity and quality of fruit. The sun has a more 

 direct effect by this method, and this is, of course, an 

 obvious advantage. In many home gardens the old- 

 fashioned trellis is being largely superseded by stake 

 culture, with a decided gain in convenience. 



