1876.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
427 
nated by Mr. J. II. Ricketts, of Newburgb, N. Y., 
which has held its foliage aud ripened its fruit for 
the past two years better than most of the older 
hybrids. Tliis is a fine large blaek grape of excel- 
lent quality, aud I think promises to be valuable. 
F:a, a pure Concord seedling, was originated by 
Sam'l Miller, at the same time he produced the 
Martha ; but the original vine seemed unproductive 
while young, aud it was not disseminated, aud was 
for a long time almost lost sight of. It has recent- 
ly been again brought to notice, and found to be 
superior in quality to the JIartha, and is apparent- 
ly not less productive. It is a little later iu ripen- 
ing, more sprightly, aud less foxy than Martha. 
The Lv.dij grape, also a Concord seedling, has re- 
mained healthy in fruit and foliage, aud has ripen- 
ed its fruit perfectly, but some two weeks later 
than last season. It is, to my taste, the best of all 
its class of white hardy grapes, aud better than any 
other renj early ijrape yet introduced, so far as I 
have seen and tested them. Another of Mr. Under- 
hill's hybrid grapes, named 
Bktck Eiirjk, has done veiy well the past season, 
and is worthy of notice. It is a large black grape, 
■with long, rather loose clusters, having much the 
character of Hamburgh grajjes, aud ripening a little 
earlier than Concord — about with Delaware. Its 
foliage is very good, and the fruit showed very 
little indications of rot. 
All the hybrids above meutioned have been bet- 
ter in health of fruit and foliage than the average 
of Kogers' Hybrids ; and the seedlings, Eva and 
Lady, have been entirely healthy, showing neither 
mildew nor rot, notwithstanding the general un- 
favorableness ol the season. 
How to Make Money on Peaches. 
The papers had frequent articles iu September 
and October upon the disastrous results of the 
peach season, stating that many orchards will be 
grubbed up, and that parties largely engaged in the 
business will go out of it and not send a single 
peach to market hereafter. We should not be sur- 
prised if many short-sighted persons did grub up 
their trees ; the operation would be no more foolish 
than sending such absolute trash as was three- 
fourths, if not more, of aU the peaches which came 
to the New York market during the past season. 
If any fairly decent fruit came to market, it was 
put up in such parcels as to preclude the majority 
of persons, who would gladly buy, from taking 
them home, without more expense of money, or 
main strength, than the fruit was worth. But 
there is a more important question than that of 
packages, that of the quality of the fruit itself. 
It comes in our way to see some of the largest 
lots offered for sale, and it has been very rare 
that we have seen any fruit that, according to 
the ordinary standard, would rank as first-class. 
Every fruit-grower, and especially every peach- 
grower, should know that iu fruit, as Webster told 
the young man about the legal profession, there is 
always '• plenty of room at the top." No matter 
how slow Blaek Hamburgh grapes maj' be at 75e. 
or $1 the pound ; let any one bring in a lot of Gros 
Moroe and they will meet a ready sale at §2 per 
lb. Let the market be so glutted with pears that 
Bartletts are hawked about the streets by the pub- 
lic venders, yet P. T. Quinn's selected Bartletts, or 
Mr. Leightou's extra Duchess, packed in their ex- 
cellent style, have a rapid sale at paying prices. 
Our " Walks and Talks " friend can always sell his 
Northern Spy apples at prices which sound large 
compared with what the common run of fruit is 
bringing, and our lamented friend Knox, used to 
get 50c. for about a pint of his Jucunda strawber- 
ries, when the same bulk of other benies were slow 
sale at 10c. Now it is just so with peaches. Grow- 
ers have regarded quantity rather than quality. We 
have been in the most celebrated Peninsular orch- 
ards at picking time, and have seen the branches 
touching the ground with their weight of fruit, 
when they did not break altogether; we heard 
much of the number of baskets this man or that 
man sent to market, but very rarely was the quaUty 
of the fruit mentioned. Let us suppose that a va- 
riety, say Crawford's Late, averages i oz. to the 
peach, (this is for illustration only, and has no ref- 
erence to actual weight), and brings SI the basket ; 
now does any one at all familiar with the fruit mar- 
ket, doubt that Crawford's Late, averaging G oz., 
would bring -Jl.SO, and if it ran to S oz. , would read- 
ily command Si a basket ? Before our friends cut 
flown their peach orchards in disgust, will they not 
try once more, and iu the first place raise good 
fruit ? The first step is to reduce the crop by short- 
ening-in this past season's shoots ; it is likely that 
in this year of overbearing, but poor provision has 
been made for next year's crop ; but if the season's 
growth is weak, so nuich the more need of giving 
it less to do. At least one-half of each of the past 
season's shoots should be cut away, shortening each 
slender branch by so much, and where there is an 
excess of young wood, thinning out altogether ; 
this sliould be done in late winter, or before any 
growth starts. Then next season, after the fruit 
has set, it should be thinned, according to the crop ; 
it is safe to say that iu ordinary years two-thirds 
should be removed, but no rule can be given, aud 
it will no doubt pay to go over the trees more than 
once. Here comes the objection. " It will not 
pay." If all the fmit is left on it must be picked 
at some time, and it is only changing the time of 
the labor, with the very certain chance that the 
fruit which is left will be worth at least twice what 
the whole would be were it left on. An English 
frieud of ours who was here during one of our 
abundant peach seasons, told us that he Iiad not 
seen a decent peach in America. He was in the 
main right. How can it be otherwise when the 
trees are left to bear all they wDl, the peaches often 
in ropes aud crowding one another? In the gar- 
dens at Montrcuil, which supply the Paris market, 
the trees being trained in espalier, are never allowed 
to have more than one peach to 6 or 7 square 
inches, and oftener one to 10 or 13. To be sure 
European practice can be no guide for us, but it 
may often afford us hints. If there is any one 
thing thoroughly settled iu fruit culture, it is that 
good fruit will pay, aud that one of the methods of 
getting good fruit is to thin. Poorly uourished, 
poorly developed, half ripened fruit that never 
should have been sent to market, we have had 
enough of. Now let us have the best peaches that 
can be raised, sent to market in as nearly ripe con- 
dition as possible. Those who are familiar with 
peach-growing as now carried on in Delaware aud 
Maryland, are aware that all the best fruit is either 
made into brandy or given to the pigs. A peach as 
it is sold in the markets was picked while hard, aud 
has softened since it left the tree, aud is vastly in- 
ferior to the same fruit ripened upon the tree. Now 
we are sure that when the attention of growers is 
given, as it inevitably must be, to quality, some 
method will be devised through improved means of 
packing aud transportation, by which peaches may 
be allowed to approach much nearer to full ripe- 
ness upon the tree than they now are, at least for 
the near markets. Having improved the quality of 
the fruit, the next consideration is the improve- 
ment of the packages, which are now so cumber- 
some and awkward to handle as to almost prohibit 
those who would willingly pay a good price, from 
purchasing at all. The inconveniences of the present 
basket and crate was sufficiently shown last month. 
A description of the basket in use in Michigan is 
given in another article. 
The Florida Torp.eta.— Henry Wintbrop Sar- 
gent, Wodcnethe, Fishkill on Hudson, N. Y., fa- 
vors us with the following : " In Dr. Gray's article 
in your issue ol last July, and now republished in 
the Gardeners' Chronicle of Sept. 4th, entitled " A 
Pilgrimage to Torreya," he says " the ultimate fate 
of the plant sent to Mr. A. J. Downing"' is un- 
known to him. I can supply its history ; Mr. 
Downing for many years kept the plant in his 
greenhouse, and when this was broken up, he gave 
it to me. I then subjected to a course of treat- 
ment detailed on pages 47.5-476 of my edition of 
Downing's Landscipe Gardening, until it became 
ten feet high and quite as wide. After several 
years of apparent hardiness, it suddenly turned 
brown iu the course of one night, aud perished in 
a few days in the month of April, after going 
through the winter, and many previous winters 
without flinching. I always supposed that just as 
the sap was starting, it suddenly received a conj) dc 
vent^ as the French would say, i. e., some peculiar 
draft of wind, which gave it its death. 
f iSIE lEKDHJSlEE^ILBo 
{For oHwr Household Items, see "Saskef" pages). 
Childhood in City and Country Compared. 
If all the stages of life were shut out from our 
view except childhood prior to the age of eight, 
enough would remain to constitute a respectably 
sized world, and afford themes for the reflection of 
a few venerable grandfathers who might be per- 
mitted to remain to chronicle the ways and doings 
of the joung folk. The child-world is full of 
mimic pas.sious, hopes, fears, tempers, solicitudes, 
devices, joys, aud griefs, just as real to the child- 
mind as they afterward become in enlarged propor- 
tions iu grown-up people. 
The city child opens its eyes upon whitened or 
papered walls enclosing nursery f umitui'e, which, of 
courec, iucludes crib or cradle, until old enough to 
face the city atmosphere, when it is trandled in lit- 
tle wagons by careless nurses or heedless sisters, up 
and down a single side-walk two hundred feet long. 
Upon the dawn of consciousness it begins to gaze at 
brick or sand-stone houses with high stoops, while 
a panoi'ama of butchers' and slop carts, baker and 
vegetable wagons, lager beer and dry goods' trucks 
pass before its eyes. Beyond these it soon becomes 
accustomed to the shouts and screams, the blas- 
phemy and filth of dirty children. Nowhere but 
the street. The small yard is too full of damp clothes 
for air or exercise. When it is old enough to walk 
and manage its own legs, neither mother nor sister 
can confine it to house or side-walk. It explores 
the world around the corner, climbs stoops, sits on 
the curbstone, plays in the gutter, and runs in the 
street to vex coachmen and teamsters, while mam- 
ma is frantic with fright, and from sheer worriment 
occasionally curses the hour when the child was 
born. Such, in brief, is the life of a city child, 
when parents are not wealthy enough to live adja- 
cent to a park, or to indulge in a carriage-ride, or 
buy a velocipede. 
The child born in the country passes through the 
same experiences as the city child for a few months, 
except that it it be summer it may be rolled on to 
the piazza or out on the green sward to be fanned 
by the pure breath of heaven, without the disturb- 
ance of passers-by. And except too, that when it 
is weaned, the child is not transferred from its 
mother's to watered or condensed mUk. The 
difference between city and country becomes more 
marked as the child grows to consciousness and to 
the use of its limbs. It rolls on the grass, makes 
sand-hills in the road, watches the tumble-bug as 
he pushes the ball bigger than himself, splashes iu 
the running brook, culls the wild flowers, watches 
the bee as it lights on the thistle. How the child- 
miud grows ? It has nothing to unlearn — its whole 
capacity is stretched to learn. Its mind revolves 
and catches impressions from every side. It gath- 
ers in more of the elements of knowledge before 
the age of eight thau iu after-life. We have shown 
how limited is the opportunity for expansion in the 
city, but in the country it is boundless. What docs a 
country child know before the age of eight ? It has 
mastered enough language to tell all its wants ; it 
can name all the members of the family and all the 
regular visitors ; it can designate every article of 
furniture in the house, from garret to kitchen, and 
specify their uses. These acquirements it possesses 
in common with city children, and in these partic- 
ulars has no advantage ; but take the country chUd 
out doors ; it understands the distinction between 
trees, and flowers, and grasses, and can distinguish 
the crops, vegetables, and fruits ; it is familiar with 
fences, rocks, brooks, hills, vales ; it is acquainted 
