1865 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
19 
Uaining of New Fruits. 
Now that new varieties of fruit are rapidly 
coming into notice, it is very desirable that care 
be exercised in giving them names. A pleasant 
Bounding name, of a .single word if possible, is 
much easrer to remember and less likely to get 
corrupted into something else, than long names, 
of several words. We are led to notice this sub¬ 
ject from seeing in a recent English journal a de¬ 
scription of a new pear, which bears the name 
of Pitmaston Duchesse d’ Angouleme. Now 
Duchesse d’ Angouleme is a name already so 
inconveniently long that popular usage has re¬ 
duced it to Duchess; but to prefix a word to 
this, is simply intolerable. It is bad enough for 
the French to send us fruits burdened with such 
labels as “ BeurrS Gris d’ Hiver Nouveau,” and 
the English are following in this polynominal 
style. We hope that American horticulturists 
will not be led to copy their example. Such 
names as Bartlett, Buffum, and Baldwin, are in 
much better taste and more serviceable than 
those we have above quoted. A rhyming cor¬ 
respondent of the Horticulturist, several years 
ago, uttered his protest against long names in 
humorous verse, a portion of which is as follows: 
Beuvre de Kuc.kingheim ! Brown Beurre ' 
Tis a wonderful jargon, yes sir-ree ! 
Fits to utter, cramps to spell, 
Dutch, English and French in a Jargonelle ! 
Doyenne d’ Alencon d’ Hiver Gris ! 
Van Mens Leon le Clerc ! dear me ! 
Bless the branches and save the root. 
If all that talking should turn to fruit! 
Elect me king, and I’ll make a law 
Entitled “An act for your lower jaw;’’ 
Syllables two shall name a tree. 
And the pear shall perish that carries three, 
------ 
Are Surface Roots of Any Use ? 
A correspondent complains that when he digs 
up his garden he finds the soil full of the roots 
of his pear trees, and, as they are very much in 
the way, he is obliged to cut them off, and he 
asks “ If these surface roots are of any use ?” 
The inquirer is, doubtless like many others, un¬ 
der the impression that the deeper the roots go, 
the better the tree will flourish. In a garden 
where the ground is snaded over each year, or 
in an orchard that is annually cropped, these 
surface roots have but little chance, and roots 
must be formed below the reach of injury in 
order that the tree may live at all. The feeding 
iOots will grow where there is the greatest sup¬ 
ply of nourishment, and in a soil annually ma¬ 
nured to no very great depth, they will have a 
tendency to seek the richest portion, and the soil 
near the surface will be filled with fibrous roots. 
Surface manuring, now practised by good culti¬ 
vators, has the efi'ect to cause the roots to grow 
near the surface. Where this is done, coarse 
manure should be used and the litter left on the 
ground during the summer, or a heavy mulch 
of some other material must be supplied, oth¬ 
erwise, the roots being so near the surface, will 
suffer from drouth. Surface manuring and 
mulching must go together.—To come back to 
our correspondent’s case. He can not success¬ 
fully grow fruit trees and other plants in the 
same soil, and it is much better to give up either 
his fruit or his vegetables than to have an indif¬ 
ferent crop of the two together. We have fre¬ 
quently advised having the kitchen and fruit 
garden distinct when there is sufldcient land to 
allow it. Where fruit trees must be grown in 
the general garden or not at all, then they 
ihould b« only dwarf trees, which must be kept 
dwarf by proper pinching; as the root growth 
bears a direct relation to that of the branches, 
we have it in our power to control it in good 
measure. An article on root pruning in another 
place will give some suggestions to those who 
wish to grow fruit trees on a small plot of soil. 
The English horticultural papers have during 
the past year made quite a talk over one of our 
wild plants, the Collinsia verna. They consider 
it valuable for massing, as it comes into flower 
very early, and when planted closely covers the 
bed with a sheet of lively blue. The plant was 
first discovered by Nuttall, on the borders of 
Lake Erie, in 1810; but having lost his speci¬ 
mens he in 1816 made a journey of over a hun¬ 
dred miles for the purpose of procuring it again. 
He was fortunate enough to find the plant, but 
only in seeds. These he secured and raised speci¬ 
mens which he described, dedicating the new 
genus to Zaccheus Collins, Esq., a botanist of 
Philadelphia. The plant grows in rich and 
rather shady places in Western New York, and 
further westward. It is about a foot high, and 
blooms in May. The general appearance of 
the plant is shown in the figure, which, being 
taken from a cultivated specimen, is somewhat 
larger than the plant appears in its wild state. 
It belongs to the Pigwort fiimily and is closely 
related to the Pentstemons, though most persons 
at first sight mistake it for a species of violet. 
The lower lip of the corolla is three-cleft, of a 
bright, beautiful blue, while the upper lip is two- 
cleft and somewhat bent backward, white with 
yellow markings. The capsule produces only 
three or four seeds. The Collinsia verna is no¬ 
ticed in order that those who live in those States 
where it grows may be able to recognise it and 
introduce it into their gardens. The seeds ripen 
in June and must be sown in September; the 
young plants should have a slight protection of 
leaves during winter. Collinsia hicolor, a Califor¬ 
nian species, is a well known and favorite annual. 
----- 
Notes on Grapes and Grape Culture...-I. 
As a few nurserymen who have a large stock 
of some particular grape for sale, have accused 
us of being prejudiced in favor of some fruits 
and against others, we would remind them that 
the writer of these notes, though he has bought 
a good many vines, has never sold one in his life, 
and has no possible motive or interest to give 
anything but his unbiassed opinion. Our views 
on varieties are not expressed for the benefit of 
those who have vines to sell, but for those who 
wish to purchase. Several times, a half dozen 
or so of some new seedling or alleged hybrid 
have been sent for an opinion, in some cases evi¬ 
dently with a hope of getting an approval which 
might be used to help the sale of the variety. 
We shall try not to get caught in this way. No 
fruit can be fully recommended for general 
culture until it has been proved for several 
years and in different locations. 
The Adirondac .—Tliis variet}’’ has fruited in 
several localities this year. While Mr. Brehm, 
of Waterloo, N. Y., unqualifiedly condemns the 
Adirondac, Mr. Rogers of Maryland, gives it un¬ 
reserved praise. This only shows that the grape 
does well near Baltimore, and docs not flourish 
near Seneca Lake. Letting these two reports 
neutralize one another, we add one from a wide¬ 
ly different region. Mr. W. C. Thurlow, of 
Newburyport, Mass., planted several strong 
vines of the Adirondac, in the spring of 1863. 
He says: “ These all grew well, ripened their 
wood early, and appeared free from mildew. 
A branch of one vine I left tied to a stake, un¬ 
protected, last winter; the others were covered 
with the soil. The exposed vine was not injured; 
however, the winter was not severe enough to 
kill peach blossoms. One vine bore five bunches 
of grapes last season. The vine was severely 
taxed—forty good layers having been made from 
it the same s’eason, still the fruit ripened very 
early—at the same time as the Hartford 
Prolific, and was of excellent quality.” 
Mr. Walter Coe, of Washington Co., Iowa, 
finds crushed corn stalks better than earth for 
winter covering. He uses them also to mulch 
his entire vineyard, thus keeping the ground in 
fine condition, and saving much labor in culti¬ 
vation.—A correspondent in Brooklyn, N. Y., 
propagates the Delaware in a small way with¬ 
out the aid of a regular structure for the pur¬ 
pose. He says: “ Over the range in my kitch¬ 
en, the stone supporting the chimney breast pro¬ 
jects and forms a shelf, which is always quite 
warm. On this shelf, last spring, I placed boxes 
of clear sand, and in this I planted cuttings of 
Delaware vines, of one e}^ each, and covered 
over the boxes with a pane of glass. The sand 
was kept damp, and in a short time the vines 
rooted and formed leaves. I then removed the 
vines and planted them in small pots of rich earth 
