217 



producing a gallon of wine throughout the southern 

 counties of California. 



The mention of grapes and wine, carries me back 

 to Los Angeles, where more than fifteen hundred 

 acres are in vines ; and to Anaheim, with its thou- 

 sand acres ; and finally to " Lake Vineyard," the 

 splendid place of B. D. Wilson, Esq., with its 200 

 acres of vines, its plantation of olives, oranges, 

 limes, lemons, figs, &c. — American Farmer. 



Fatrmount Park, Philadelphia. — In our first 

 volume we gave an engraving of the plan adopted 

 for the new park at Philadelphia, which was begun 

 with the idea of making it a rival of the Central 

 Park , New York. Unfortunately it could not be 

 put into the hands of a respectable commission, as 

 New York did, hence it became a hospital for rot- 

 ten pohticians ; and though enormous sums have 

 been used up about election times, nothing of the 

 name of Landscape Gardening has appeared. The 

 disgust of the Citizens of taste was so great thaf, 

 last session, the Legislature appointed "a commis- 

 sion" to take charge of it. But t^e matter has 

 not been much mended, for the politicians took care 

 that the body should be made up of most of their 

 ranks, some of whom have had the mismanagement 

 of the affair before, and not a single name of one 

 who has any reputation for taste in Landscape 

 gardening, either as an amateur or in a professional 

 way, appears on the list. The only gain is in a few 

 respectable people, whom the community feel above 

 corruption, being parts of the board of Commission- 

 ers. Major G-eneral Meade is President of the Com- 

 mission,— in his honesty the public have confidence, 

 and if he and the other gentlemen like him, shall 

 only prove to be the loorldng rnen of the body, some 

 good may yet come. 



At a recent meeting of the Board, we see that 

 the total cost of the ground for the Park, so fiir 

 has been $402,861. We have not been able to get 

 at the amount squandered on " Lnprovements. " 



The Eamie. — We several years ago called the 

 attention of our readers to this new staple, a mem- 

 ber of the nettle family, Boehmeria tenac/ssima. It 

 appears to have been tried in the South with some 

 success, and Mr. Bacon in 1866, read a very inter- 

 esting paper on it, before the New Orleans Academy 

 of Sciences. The monthly Magazine of^ he Agri- 

 cultural department at Washington has ai ength 

 learned that there is such a thing, and recently cal- 

 led the attention of its subscribers to the fact. 



The plant introduced to France from Java in 

 1844, was sent to Mexico under the auspices of Mr. 



Boezl, and in that country it has been found to 

 grow well. The fibre is stronger than hemp, and 

 said to be finer — some say nearly as fine as silk, 

 and it is believed can be probably raised to a profit. 



Diseased Fruit Trees in North Carolina 

 — Mr. D. D. Moore says in the Hand New Yorlcer ! 

 of a garden in the grounds of Mr. Blackmer in N. 

 Carolina: ''Pears and cherries have succeeded re- 

 markably well, but last year, for the first time, the 

 pear blight made its appearance, and has destroyed 

 or seriously affected many of the finest trees. To 

 my surprise the trees of the Seckel pear, both 

 standard and dwarf, are affected by the blight, 

 though none are yet seriously injured or destroyed. 

 As a singular fact I will als stata that IMr. B.'s 

 cherries — especially the Black Tartarian and Napo- 

 leon Bigarreau — are affected by a blight similar to 

 that of the pear. Ail the leading northern varie- 

 ties of the plum are rendered worthless by the cur- 

 culio, while southern varieties escape its effects. 



Dwarf Pears.— A visitor to Mr. Yeoman's fruit 

 garden reports the following conversation : 



I see you have gone pretty extensively into dwarf 

 pears ; do you consider them more certain than 

 standards, or are they more profitable? "The ad- 

 vantage of dwarf over standard pears are several. 

 Many varieties are wo:thless on pear stocks, like 

 the Duchess D'Angouleme, but good on the quince. 

 Then they come into bearing earlier, and are much 

 more easily gathered. My orchard, that you admire 

 so much, contains about ten acres of land, andnum- 



A Large Cherry Tree at Walworth, N. Y. 

 — I visited a giant cherry tree growing on the farm 

 of a Mr. Lawrence, about three-fourths of a mile 

 fi-om the residence of IMr. Feomans, and took its 

 measurement. At 4| feet from the ground it mea- 

 su:es 14 feet six inches in ci- cumference. About 6 

 feet from the ground it throws out 5 enormous limbs 

 each the size around of a fiour barrel. It is sixty- 

 five feet in height, and its top has a spread of over 

 4 rods. It is a late Black Heart, and bears regu- 

 larly every year. Fifteen bushels of cherries have 

 been picked from it in a day, and the whole yield 

 this season was full 40 bushels, and th-. n enough 

 were left on the extremitie of the limbs, that couhl 

 not be got, to feast the birds for a long time. It 

 shows no sign of decay — is apparently sound and 

 healthy. The growth of the branches this season \ 

 is from 8 to ]2 inches in length. If I ever find a 

 cherry tree that beat:- this, I will let you know. — 

 Lyons Republican. 



