1884 ] 
ameeioa:n' ageioultueist. 
339 
The Fruit Harvest. 
Notwithstanding considerable damage by frost in 
some localities, the crops in places not visited by 
this disaster, promise to be so large as to make 
this, on the whole, a season of abundance. Many 
new orchards, especially of peaches, will yield their 
first crops this year, and this increased area may 
make up for locai losses. The means taken to im¬ 
prove the quality of the fruit, and to place it on 
the market in the most attractive form, will show 
their value more strikingly in a year of plenty than 
in one of scarcity. As there is always room “higher 
up,” 60 there is aiways a sale for fruit of the very 
first-class. Among the means for improving fruit, 
we have often advocated thinning. While it is too 
late to practice this to obtain the best results, it 
will still pay to go over choice late pears, and 
possibly select late peaches, and instead of assort¬ 
ing the fruit at picking time, do it on the tree, thus 
giving that which remains one or two months or 
more of time in which to benefit by the nourish¬ 
ment that would have gone to the inferior fruit. 
Afterthe peach-grow'erhas brought his trees into 
bearing he is often confronted by an unforeseen 
difficulty, that of picking his crop. His returns 
will depend largely upon the manner in which the 
fruit is picked, and in localities where peach cul¬ 
ture is but recently introduced, skilled pickers are 
not to be had. Pickers cannot be brought from 
the peach districts, for they are in demand at 
home. All that the owner of the orchard can do is 
to engage the most intelligent hands possible, and 
instract them to distinguish between the mature 
and over-ripe fruit. A peach that can be indented 
by a moderate pressure between the thumb and 
two fingers, is too ripe to go to market. The peach 
crate adopted by the Maryland and Delaware grow¬ 
ers is made as follows : Two end pieces seven and 
a half inches wide, fourteen long, and three-quar¬ 
ters thick. The top and bottom are of three-eighths 
stuff, six and a half inches wide, and twenty-three 
and a half long. The sides each require four slats, 
twenty-three and a half inches long and two and a 
half wide. These are also three-eighths-inch thick. 
Early pears and apples often reach market in a 
poor and mealy condition. This is due to delaying 
the picking too long. Early pears as a rule should 
be gathered one or two weeks before they would 
ripen upon the tree. The ready parting of the 
stem of the fruit from the branch should be 
watched for, and as soon as this takes place the 
picking should not be delayed. Early apples of 
first-class are never abundant in the market, though 
early trash may be plenty. The change of color in 
the skin or in the seeds, as well as the ready part¬ 
ing from the tree, are guides to the time for pick¬ 
ing. It will pay with these, as with later kinds, to 
carefully assort into two qualities and send to mar¬ 
ket in attractive form. Bushel crates are better 
than barrels for choice fruit. In gathering both 
these and early pears, take care that the stems are 
not broken, as the beauty of the finest fruit is 
seriously impaired by a lost or mutilated stem. 
Grapes of several kinds are colored before they 
are fit to be eaten, and many are tempted to send 
Fig, 2.-^bqijndart out of sight. 
them to market too early. No fruit is so improved 
by being thoroughly ripened before gathering as 
the grape, and those who would establish a reputa¬ 
tion for quality will heed this. When grapes are 
completely ripe the stem loses its stiffness, and 
the cluster hangs directly down from the vine ; the 
stem also usually becomes colored, or loses its 
green color. Within a few years the manner of 
sending grapes to market has greatly changed. 
Not long ago the flat five and ten-pound wooden 
box was the universal package. At present vast 
quantities are marketed in baskets, holding ten and 
twenty pounds. These are flat, oblong, splint bas¬ 
kets with a handle. The grapes arc laid in carefully 
and covered with cotton cloth, either sewed on or 
provided with a string run in around the edge in 
such a manner as to be drawn tight. Another 
package for grapes that are not to be kept late is a 
paste-board box with a wooden bottom. Grapes to 
he packed in boxes should be exposed to the air in 
shallow trays in a cool and airy fruit room ; the ob¬ 
ject of this is to “ cure ” or toughen the skin of the 
fruit, and this process may require a week or more. 
Plums, except the common kinds, are very rare 
in the markets. Those who undertake the labor of 
saving their fruit from the curculio, find a ready 
sale for it at high prices. Choice varieties are 
packed in fancy boxes and small baskets. The 
great beauty of this fruit depends upon its bloom, 
and extreme care is required in picking and packing 
to prevent the removal of this. The common va¬ 
rieties of plums are marketed in boxes and baskets. 
The Management of Irregular Grounds. 
Those about to layout new places, or to remodel 
old ones, should, in making their plans, take into 
ble wood, set in the ground on the line. On places, 
where it is desirable to keep the home grounds 
safe from intrusion by animals at pasture, a sunken 
fence, like that shown in figure 3, may be often 
employed. We have in mind a place, in which a 
ravine was thus converted into a barrier, separat¬ 
ing the pasture lands from the grounds about the 
house in an invisible, but most effective manner. 
Fig. 1.— TERRACE ADORNED WITH TREES 
account the natural advantages of the ground, so 
far as possible. There is no better time than the 
present, while the trees are still in full leaf, to 
judge of the natural features of a place, and what 
changes may be necessary in improving it. A gar¬ 
den upon a hill-side offers opportunities for embel¬ 
lishment, not presented by a level surface, fciuch 
a garden may be laid out as a succession of ter¬ 
races and siopes, each of which presents oppor¬ 
tunities for ornamentation. Being highly artificial, 
they allow the use of steps, from a higher to a 
lower level. Mr. Elias A. Long, in his “ Ornamental 
Gardening for Americans,” soon to be published, 
gives the following method of treating terraces and 
slopes, which removes much of their ordinary 
formal appearance. In figure 1 the regular out¬ 
lines of the steps are relieved by the trees at the 
top of the slope, and there may be introduced a 
iine of showy plants, to be seen from below. The 
slope, instead of being, as usual, an unbroken sur¬ 
face of grass, may have its ordinary blankness re-: 
lieved by planting here and there some of the 
many oraamental shrubs, suitable for the purpose. 
In laying out grounds, it should be the object of 
the landscape architect, to make the area he has in 
hand appear as large as possible. One method of 
doing this is, to open vistas, through which a 
glimpse may be had of whatever may be beyond, 
whether of mountain, the sea, on rural life. An¬ 
other method of making a place appear larger is, 
by removing all visible boundaries. It frequently 
happens that the boundary wall may be placed 
quite out of sight, as in figure 2. Where neighbors 
agree to dispense with boundary fences, each can 
enjoy the view of the other’s place. If desired to 
mark the houndary between the two places, it may 
be done by means of stones, or low posts of dura¬ 
The Pecan Hnt.—Its Cultivation. 
Mr. J. C. Wilson, Chattanooga, Temi., writes us 
an interesting letter, advocating the culture of the 
Pecan tree. He regards this as the most valuable 
of the nut-bearing trees, those in the woods yielding 
many bushels each of nuts, which always meet 
with a ready sale at“ fancy prices.” As the Pecan 
will grow on almost any soil, even on rocky hills, 
Mr. Wilson thinks that every farmer should have 
his nut-orchard or grove, as a source of profit. 
The Pecan tree belongs to the same genus as the 
hickories (Carya), and on account of the olive-like 
form of its nut, is called O. oliveeformis. Its natural 
range is in the valleys of the Western rivers, from 
Northern Illinois to Texas. How generally it 
would succeed in the Atlantic 
States, is yet to be tested. In 
the Bartram garden, near Philti- 
delphia, is a rem.arkable speci¬ 
men, ninety-one feet high; 
this tree rarely perfected its 
fruit, though a young one in 
the same garden frequently 
did so. Like other hickories, 
the Pecan is difficult to trans¬ 
plant, and rarely succeeds if 
the trees are over one or two 
years old, unless prepared in 
the nurseries by root-pruning, 
and several times transidanb- 
ing. Mr. Wilson prefers plant¬ 
ing the nuts in place to setting 
out young trees, and in his 
advice to “ get fresh seed nuts 
of a good variety for plant¬ 
ing,” he recognizes the fact 
that the nuts from the wild 
trees vary greatly. Some of 
the trees in a grove of Pecans, 
bear nuts twice as large as 
the average of those offered for sale, and with 
very thin shells and sweet kernels. The writer was 
stationed in Texas one autumn, near a fine forest 
of Pecans. The servant kept the mess table sup¬ 
plied with nuts of a size and quality we had not be¬ 
fore met with. Upon investigating the matter, it 
was found that the boy watched the ground squir¬ 
rels, and finding their holes, appropriated the nuts 
which these provident animals laid up for their 
winter stores; these, by “natural selection,” were 
the largest and finest possible. Mr. Arthur Bryant 
says that he never had any success with planting in 
the fall, and strongly advises to do the work in 
spring. Nuts for planting must be kept from be¬ 
coming dry or rancid. Small quantities may be 
mixed with sand, using at least a quantity equal- 
Fig. 3.— A SUNKEN FENCE. 
ling the bulk of the nuts, in a box or barrel, keep¬ 
ing them in a cool place. Several bushels may be 
placed in a heap on the ground, covered with sods 
or leaves, and then with several inches of earth. 
Look out for mice and squirrels. The trees, when 
full-grown, will need to be thirty or forty feet 
apart, but if the nuts can he spared, it will be well 
to plant much thicker, and thin the young trees as 
more space is required. The thinnings will af¬ 
ford poles and small timber, for which there are al¬ 
ways numerous uses on a farm. To guard against 
accidents, it is well to plant two or three nuts near 
together, and pull up all the seedlings but one. 
