ILLUSIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE. 



BY J. S. H. 



I think it was the oracular Emerson who said, 

 with painful truth, to one who had a yearning for 

 country life without practical knowledge of rural 

 pursuits, "to have no land was bad, but to 

 have some land was worse, for it took a salary to 

 maintain it." Many such persons, I fear, who 

 thought "Ten Acres Enough" have found, to their 

 sorrow, that less than ten acres was entirely too 

 much. 



My friend, Jesse Rural, who has a small place in 

 the country, and who is a perfect enthusiast in hor- 

 ticultural matters, has had some sad experiences in 

 his time. 



Jesse planted his first batch of Raspberry plants, 

 Ca new variety purchased at a high price,) with long 

 canes attached to the roots, and fruited them the 

 first year of planting. I shall not soon forget the 

 glow of triumphant pride upon his broad, rosy face 

 when he came to town, on the cars, with his first 

 bucket of fine, luscious berries on his arm, on his 

 way to market. "Ah, my boy !" said he, "look at 

 that, for a city farmer ! " Poor Jesse ! he did'nt 

 then know that canes fruited the first year of planting 

 would utterly exhaust and destroy his costly plants. 

 He is wiser now. 



But Jesse also went early and largely with the 

 Everbearing Raspberries, — those marvellous kinds 

 which fruit throughout the four seasons. They 

 grew enormously, and finally, after two years, Jesse 

 had half an acre of plants. I often asked him how 

 the Everbearing things produced, but got no decided 

 answer, until, at last, he replied that he thought he 

 had been deceived, (like a person reported in one 

 of the Conventions,) who, instead of the Ever- 

 bearing, had got the iVeyer-bearing sort. 



Jesse, being a convert to the doctrine of surface- 

 planting for fruit trees, placed his Dwarf Pear 

 trees in holes not more than four inches deep, and 

 put a small mound of earth about them. The 

 mound, in process of time, got hoed away, and the 

 quince roots got exposed, and dried up in the hot 



August sun, and stunted the trees ; and that inter- 

 esting little specimen of Entomology, the Saperda 

 bivittata, (which was unknown to Jesse,) laid its 

 eggs on the quince roots, and, finally, the trees ex- 

 hibited signs of chlorosis, and died ; and Jesse was 

 perfectly astonished to find his pet trees entirely 

 girdled by the borer. 



My friend Rural now became convinced that sur- 

 face planting and cultivation would not answer ; so 

 he planted again, full of hope, in grass sod, and 

 mulched his trees heavily with litter. All weni on 

 well for a year or two, until one spring Jesse no- 

 ticed that his trees did not put forth the foliage as 

 usual, and on examination he found that the mulch- 

 ing and grass had furnisshed a nice harbor for field 

 mice, and all his trees were girdled again by these 

 industrious Rodentia ! 



But Jesse planted again, with all the indomitable 

 energy of a man determined not to be overcome by 

 the small accidents of life. This time he went in 

 for standards, and bought large trees, so as to get 

 the fruit early. Some of the trees were "full ot 

 fruit buds" he told me, and he expected to get 

 fruit in two years at least. I regret to say that more 

 than halt of these large trees died from natural 

 causes the first season, and a pet goat, which he 

 bought for his son, nearly finished the remainder, 

 while Jesse was absent at the seashore. 



Besides the trees above noticed, planted in orchard 

 stj'le, Jesse had others in his garden, near the house, 

 on which he tried experiments in manuring, with a 

 view to produce heightened color and increased fla- 

 vor. Some of these, I fear, have been over-dosed 

 with manure, as they have died, very mj steriously, 

 once in a while. Jesse attributed the mortality to 

 " aridity of the atmosphere," I think, "parasitic 

 fungus at th'^, roots," &c. The Pears with beau- 

 tiful color and improved flavor have never ap- 

 peared ; but I tasted some specimens, rather cracked 

 and spotted, picked from his favorite trees, which 

 had a flavor somewhat resembling a mixture of cop - 

 peras, persimmons, and decayed bananas. 



Peaches, Jesse has endeavored to produce, but 

 has met with no marked success. The Peach-worm 

 was his great enemy, until he read in the Country 

 Gentleman s Companion that gas tar applied to the 

 bark of the tree would banish them. Jesse tried it. 

 — It did banish them, but unfortunately killed the 

 trees. 



Jesse has tried his hand at raising Strawberries- 

 He read in his favorite journal that Strawberries 

 liked a deep, rich soil, and that trenching was espe- 

 cially useful. So he dug trenches or ditches, three 

 feet deep, and filled them with rich dung and soil, 



