232 



buyers, though offered at 5 cents per quart. They 

 were pronounced a drug, and many were being 

 thrown into the river. At the same time, Knox's 

 glorious Jucunda's, not disgracing our cut of 

 them, were sought after at 35 cents per quart. We 

 note this to show that there are many points in 

 Strawberry growing for profit to be considered be- 

 sides mere earliness in ripening. — Ed.] 



VALUE CP NEW SBEDLimG FRUITS. 



BY A KENTUCKY READER. 



Gardener'^ Moiithly ! The community owes you 

 a debt of gratitude for the able and fearless course 

 you have pursued with regard to the many hum- 

 bugs in the horticultural line, which mere money 

 makers, from time to time, would have the people 

 buy of them. When we reflect on the millions of 

 dollars annually squandered on worthless things with 

 fancy praises, or old things with new names, your 

 eminently conservative course is the proper one to 

 pursue. 



So much, I will concede, is due to you, and yet, 

 methinks, you are too severe on some things. If 

 the new things are no better than the old ones were, 

 still ssedlings are a necessity ; and this I will try to 

 make plain in the following few lines : 



I need not refer yow to Knight's Theory of the 

 wearing out of varieties. You and the reader know 

 all about this. On looking back over your past vol- 

 umes, while I write this, 1 think you are not a be- 

 liever in this natural wearing out of varieties, and 

 yet the experience with new varieties of small fruits 

 seems to bear out the fancy of mine that there is 

 somethin^^ in it. This, I thii k, is the meaning of 

 what you have taught yourself. I find that, par- 

 ticularly in regard to raspberries, you have said of 

 their hardiness, "all seedlings are generally hardy 

 when in their youthful vigor, but after they have 

 been in cultivation a few years, the hardiest often 

 becomes tender like the rest;" and in this you are 

 right. I know very well when Brinckle's Orange, 

 and later, the Allen Antwerp, were particularly re- 

 commended for their hardiness, — and they were 

 hardy with me then, but neither are now. 



It has been so with Grapes, Blackberries, Straw 

 berries, and many other things. They all usually 

 do well when they first come out as new seedlings, 

 but after I have had them a little while I find they 

 do not resist diseases any better than others I have 

 used before. 



Some time since you referred to seedling Peaches, 

 doubting whether ungrafted seedlings were less lia- 

 ble to disease than v/orked ones. I think, from 

 what 1 have seen in j^Virginia and North Carolina, 



that they are certainly less free from disease. They 

 ought not to be, perhaps, according to physiological 

 rules, but I think the experience of orchardists will 

 bear me out in saying that, science or no science, 

 seedling Peach trees are much less free from disease 

 than others are. 



Now, I think, flowers as well as fruit will show 

 that seedlings have much more vigor than plants 

 raised any other way. Before the war I had a small 

 greenhouse near Bichmond, and used to be fond of 

 raising seedling Verbenas, Geraniums, &c. , — and 

 these, invariably, were less liable to mildew than 

 plants from cuttings. The Verbena, particularly, — 

 for this, indeed, I often depended on rather than 

 on cuttings, which frequently were so bad from cut- 

 tings as to be nearly worthless. These seedlings, 

 after a few years' cutting from, became as bad as 

 the others : and it was only by a continual succes- 

 sion of seedlings that I could keep a good stock of 

 Verbenas on hand. 



These, I think, are good arguments in favor of a 

 continual introduction ot new seedlings in the mar- 

 ket. The public must not expect them to be any 

 better than the old ones, but remembering that the 

 old ones degenerate, and that seedlings are neces- 

 sary to keep vp — if not to improve — the grade. 



[This is a very ingeniously contrived article, part- 

 ly right and partly wrong, and hardly to be decided 

 whether written in the interest of science, or in fa- 

 vor of some seedling fruits of wonderful promvie. 

 We are praised for opposing new seedlings which 

 prove to be no better than old ones, and yet new 

 seedlings are a necessity to keep up healthy stock, 

 even if no better than old ones. If this is really so, 

 every one can go to raising their own seedlings, as 

 they do peaches in some places, and there will be no 

 need of buying these wonderful novelities at wonder- 

 ful prices. But we are not altogether satisfied with 

 our Virginia friend's facts. Peaches may be as he 

 says, though we did not suppose the difference was 

 so marked. Dr. Stayman has recently shown that 

 severe pruning, though necessary to achieve partic- 

 ular objects, is yet a severe check to vitality ; and 

 the cutting back to the bud of a young seedling 

 peach may have some influence on its permanent 

 health. This we leave open for future investiga- 

 tion. 



The Verbena seedlings also make a good point; 

 but as to fruits, we find that of Grapes, very old 

 kinds— such as Elsinburg, Clinton, and we may be- 

 gin to add the Concord amongst old ones, — are out- 

 living hosts of newer ones ; and as for Strawberries, 

 in this vicinity, the most popular of all kinds are the 

 Wilson's Albany, Triomphe de Gand, and the very 



