24 
February, 1891. 
£ 
ORCH ARD 
GARDEN \ 
Seasonable Hints. 
This month we can do little in the orchard 
except clean up and get ready for spring 
work. Pruning when necessary may be 
done in mild weather, but the less we do 
the better. If. however, there are any old 
or broken limbs, snags, or suckers, they 
may be pruned off and removed. 
Manure may now be hauled out and 
spread upon the ground if the soil is 
retentive, but if sandy and leachy defer it 
until about the time trees start to grow. 
Cions for grafting may be cut and indoor 
grafting done. This is usually done upon 
one year seedling roots cut to about two or 
three inches in length, and whip-grafted 
with scions cut about five or six inches long: 
then wrapped with No. 9 cotton warp, pre- 
pared by boiling in a mixture of two- 
thirds resin to one of tallow until the 
balls sink : when cool it is fit for use. 
These grafts when made should be 
packed away in damp sawdust, earth 
or sand, and stored away in a cold 
cellar and left there ready to set out 
early in the spring. This is the 
method adopted by nurserymen gen- 
erally, except those who graft on 
whole roots, and they graft only on 
the collar, and make but one graft 
with each root. It will be seen from 
what we have before said that we do 
not advocate the latter method of 
grafting as it is not only a waste of 
material, but is not nearly so good. 
Watch that rabbits do not injure 
young trees; wrap them with tarred 
paper, if not already done. Some 
young trees should be set out every 
year so as to come on in time to take 
the place of the old ones. Study well 
what varieties to plant, and ascertain 
from some orcliardist of experience 
which are the most profitable. Select 
only a few leading varieties, not more 
than eight or ten for profit, and a 
few for family use; let them be most- 
ly winter or late fall kinds, very few 
summer sorts, unless there is a large 
and good market near by. New vari- 
eties that originate a hundred miles 
north of one’s location are generally not 
adapted to such location except as earlier 
maturing apples. Go south for longer keep- 
ers, or within one’s own latitude. — J. Stay- 
man. 
of useful tree fruits as the territory now 
lying immediately to the south of it. What 
will this mean to fruit-growers in that 
southern strip? To me, the instinctive 
alarm of these fruit-growers accounts for 
much of the otherwise unaccountable hos- 
tility towards and depreciation of the 
“iron-clads." But what must be, will be ; 
and hardly anything is now surer than that 
within the next twenty-five years this 
great northern strip along the international 
boundary is to become not only self-sup- 
plying in tl«P matter of apples, pears, plums, 
and cherries, but that it will be seeking a 
market for a very large surplus of such 
products. A year like the past, which has 
sent the fruit merchants of Massachusetts 
scouring through Northern Vermont, Maine, 
credit to the Budd-Gibb expedition in the 
matter of apples, no one has yet had the 
hardihood to deny to these gentlemen the 
full credit of bringing to America these 
other tree fruits. Of them we may now 
say, with confidence, that they endure our 
climate as perfectly as the apples of the 
same region : and as tree after tiee, variety 
after variety, yield samples, more or less 
abundant, of their product, the assurance 
grows that in this region, after twenty five 
years experimenting with tne hardiest of 
the old kinds has given nothing but failure, 
we are now in sight of success. Many of 
the Russian pears are as hardy as our 
maples. The cherries and plums go through 
the toughest winters, and emerge as free 
from scathe as their wild congeners from 
the woods and river banks. And 
these native wildings, of no commer- 
cial value, are yet important witness- 
es that we are not beyond the natural 
range of this class of fruit si Our only 
trouble has been that our wildings 
are unimproved, while their relatives 
of western Europe could not stand up 
against a winter climate so much 
severer than their native habitat. 
Orchard Notings. 
CHANGES IN THE POMOLOGICAL WORLD. 
I am beginning to think that nothing like 
a due degree of weight is being given the 
consequenees which are likely, and which 
in fact are bound to arise, from the exten- 
sion northward of the fruit-growing area 
on this continent, by the introduction and 
production of earlier and more cold-resist- 
ing varieties. Already, we know enough 
to be assured that a strip across the Ameri- 
can continent from 100 miles wfide on the 
Atlantic, to 1000 miles on the Pacific, is 
capable of being made quite as productive 
Quince Tree, Unpruned. Fig. 115. 
and the Provinces tor “stock,” has done 
not a little to introduce and make a demand 
in any year for northern grown Yellow 
Transparents, Oldenburghs, Wealthys, &c., 
&c. Already I hear from these dealers that 
our apples have excited remarkable interest 
among dealers and consumers, and that 
there will henceforth be a ready sale for 
them in any season. 
NOT APPLES ALONE. 
It has been a hard, and until lately a 
seemingly losing fight to attempt more in 
the way of tree fruits in the “Cold North” 
than the growth of a few extra hardy 
apples. But the past six or eight years, 
which have been spent by many of us in 
testing the Pears, Plums and Cherries of 
north-eastern Europe, have been fruitful 
in knowledge of great importance. How- 
ever much critics may cavil, and deny 
IMPROVEMENT OF WILD TREE FRUITS. 
Some timid, conservative minds, 
seem to be troubled with the fear 
that the introduction of Russian 
plums and cherries will have the ef- 
fect to arrest all attempts to im- 
prove our native wild species. I do 
not think such an effect any way 
likely. I look for a contrary one. 
Among our farmers the search for 
wild trees of merit will go on unin- 
terrupted, and from these transplant- 
ed wildings garden seedlings will be 
continually springing up, and, where 
manifestly superior, multiplied. At 
the same time our horticultural ex- 
periment stations will be working 
in the same lines, both directly and 
by crosses ; and not many years will 
pass before the results of this kind 
of work will begin to be favorably ap- 
parent. Europe has no patent on men 
like Van Mons. They may be duplicated here 
in every State. The opportunity and the 
money are already provided, and what is to 
hinder the work from being pushed forward 
with energy to triumphant results? Al- 
ready, in thousands of out-of-the-way 
places, may be found native varieties in 
cultivation, selections from the by-ways, 
hedges and brooksides, which, when sought 
out with the earnestness characteristic of 
our botanists, will give abundant material 
to begin upon. A brief Sunday ride, last 
October, through some of our back towns 
along the Canada line east of Memphrema- 
gogLake, canvinced me that our farmers 
are not at all careless or neglectful in 
securing the best wilding fruits, where 
better are hard to come at. 
CALIFORNIA FRUITS IN EASTERN MARKETS. 
What is likely to be the future of these 
