^t gardener's ^m%. 



373 



©oofo, (Jafaogups, %*r. 



The American J ournal of Horticulture. — 

 As our readers know, the new year brought a new 

 contemporary into the family, who signaled its en- 

 trance into the world by a most pugnacious enter- 

 tainment. It was not going to be like the Garde- 

 ner s Monthly^ — whose editor is a nurseryman, and 

 whose publisher sells horticultural books, — "con- 

 nected with any horticultural establishment. " There 

 had not been any "high-toned" intelligent journals, 

 and it was "a-going to supply that want." Then 

 it was to give double the amount of reading for 

 three dollars that others did for two ; and many 

 other things of which we need not here tell. 



With such a tremendous kick in the back, we 

 had to look behind to see what was the matter. 

 We found the youngster with its chief editors or 

 contributors as much connected with horticultural 

 establishments as we were, — we found its pubHsher 

 selling horticultural books to even a greater extent 

 than ours, — the " high-toned" character has been 

 shown by the Nation to consist in copying whole- 

 sale from other f^^ources without credit, — "double 

 the amount" of reading matter simmered down to 

 about the same amount spread over double the 

 number of smaller pages ; and its " intel- 

 ligence has shown itself in the most ludicrous errors 

 in every number issued. 



We hoped at the end of its first year it would 

 grow out of its infantile ways, — but we see its chief 

 nurse deems it necessary that it should wear its pe- 

 culiar baby clothing yet a little longer. He tells us 

 in this number that there is now a " first-class hor- 

 ticultural magazine, though it has been denied 

 that one could be sustained;" and he has also dis- 

 covered that this "first-class one has "more circu- 

 lation than all the rest put together." Verily, 

 there is no stagnation in the air of Boston. There 

 is circulation in it, judging by this first-class speci- 

 men of blowing. 



We are sorry that a paper we would gladly hail 

 as a co-laborer, should think it necessary to its own 

 prosperity to make ugly faces at its neighbors. By 

 puffing out its cheeks in this inordinate way, we 

 fancy it hurts itself more than us. In fact we 

 rather enjoy it. Our sorrow is for its very " high- 

 tone." 



Aside from these weaknesses of childhood. The 

 American Journal has many points of interest 

 which always makes it welcome on our book-tabl«. 

 The present number has two very good ideas. W. 

 C. Flagg shows how much better it would be for 



many poor women to go into small fruit raising, — 

 and Burgess Truesdell makes a good point in favor 

 of the culture, as an ornamental tree, of the Rhus 

 typMna, the stag-horn sumach, — one of the most 

 beautiful of our neglected trees. 



The Grape Vine. A practically scientific treatise 

 on its management, &c. By Frederick Mohr. 

 Translated from the German by Horticola. 

 New York : Orange Judd & Co. 

 " Another Grape book !" "Hew ^nany more?" 

 This at any rate, good reader, you will not find one 

 too many. For our part we have profited by its 

 perusal, and have taken time since its publication 

 to digest well the Author's points. 



We have thought that the best European writers 

 did not understand the vine so well as it is under- 

 stood in the United States, and we have frequently 

 expressed this opinion to our readers. Certainly 

 the English and French have not produced any 

 thing of credit to the advanced state of either prac- 

 tical culture or physiological research. Mohr's 

 is the first European work we think up to the 

 American standard. Perhaps we may be some- 

 what biased in its favor by finding views which the 

 writer has contended for so long, and which have 

 only slowly received the assent of his contemporary 

 Horticulturists, ably elucidated in the work before 

 us. For instance it is now fifteen years since we 

 took a stand against the notion that bleeding was 

 an injury to the grape vine. We were attacked 

 somewhat bitterly by American journals at the 

 time, — but Mohr shows by an interesting experi- 

 ment which he details, that this is undoubtedly the 

 fact. The vine in bleeding " seems simply to" in- 

 dulge an unnatural satisfaction of seeing how high 

 it can raise its sap. ' ' 



Again, we have taught that the roots of a vine 

 never extends beyond the distance its branches are 

 allowed to go — that when we cut away the vine 

 the roots die away in proportion, — that consequent- 

 ly new roots have to push out and go over ground 

 previously exhausted by roots before, — and that 

 the result is a severely pruned vine has all the 

 circumstances favorable 'to exhaui-tion continually 

 about it, and must die in time. Mohr says enough 

 to show that this is true, although he has not got 

 far enough to see the full force of the idea as we 

 have often stated it, and now briefly repeat it here. 

 He also shows what every intelligent American 

 grape-grower knows, — but which De Breuil does 

 not know, as we have recently seen, that it is not 

 sun light which ripens grapes, but healthy leaves, — 

 and further, he shows how easily the fibres of the 



