378 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
beds, as this will prevent severe freezing, and 
also premature starting in spring. Besides the 
bulbs we have mentioned, the Bulbocodium, 
Crown Imperial, Jonquil, Snow-drop, Snow¬ 
flake, and others, are to be commended. 
Packing and Preserving Grapes. 
Some lime ago we received from a Southern 
correspondent a package of grapes, asking us 
what they would bring in the N. Y: market. 
The grapes were put in a slatted crate, and when 
they reached us the package was about two- 
thirds full of bruised and mangled fruit, which 
was -worth absolutely nothing. Because toma¬ 
toes and cucumbers must be put in open crates, 
it does not follow that grapes should be. No 
worse way could be contrived for sending this 
fruit than in a crate with slats. Grapes come 
best in tight boxes. They should be picked and 
allowed to “ cure ” for a week or more in order 
to toughen their skins before they are packed. 
Whatever box is chosen should be opened at 
the bottom, and good bunches laid in regularly; 
then the box is to be filled up with good bunches 
so full that it will require a slight pressure to 
bring it down to its place. The bottom is then 
to be tacked on and the label put upon the 
opposite side, which will be the top. This plan 
works admirably for Northern grapes; how it 
will answer for those raised at the South remains 
to be seen. At all events they must in some 
way be packed in some manner that will not 
allow them to shake. Another thing. No in¬ 
ferior fruit will sell in the N. Y. market. A 
single green berry will spoil a box. Have the 
bunches carefully looked over, and if there are 
any unripe berries, remove them. Some of our 
largest growers use boxes holding five pounds. 
There are plain boxes with endsof’^-incli stuff, 
and sides, top, and bottom of thinner material. 
There is a veneer box made which has many 
claims to favor as it can be packed in such 
small compass for shipping. Grapes for keep¬ 
ing for winter should be left on the vines as late 
as is safe and then kept at as low and as uniform 
a temperature as possible. Our dealers have 
them in excellent condition long after New 
Years, and we have known them, by observing 
these conditions, to keep until April. 
Raising 1 Potatoes from the Seed. 
Seed potatoes and potato seed are two very 
different things. By seed potatoes is meant the 
tubers or potatoes reserved for propagation. 
These, when planted, almost invariably repro¬ 
duce their kind. "We say “almost,” as they, 
like other plants, will sometimes sport. Potato 
seed is that which is produced in the balls 
which are found upon the vines. From the 
seeds contained in these there is no probability 
of getting potatoes like the parent tuber, and 
each of the many seeds a ball contains may 
produce a widely differing one from that yielded 
by any other seed from the same ball, and in 
this manner new varieties are produced. The 
interest at present felt in potato culture has in¬ 
duced some to ask about raising potatoes from 
seed. It is an interesting but a not very encour¬ 
aging field for experiment. Mr. Goodrich spent 
a lifetime at it, and produced, out of many 
thousands, but few that will have any perma¬ 
nent value. Still he did a good work; he pro¬ 
duced some varieties which were hardy when 
there was a general failure, and he opened the 
way for others to improve upon his labors. We 
have now many fine potatoes, and one who 
raises from the seed must produce something 
better than any we now have to make his labor 
remunerative. Still, we would not discourage 
experiments. We do not think that the quality 
of several of our potatoes can be excelled. We 
must now look in the direction of earliness and 
productiveness. The ball of the potato selected 
for seed should be from the earliest set upon the 
vines; this, when ripened as much as can be 
upon the stem, should be cut with a good por¬ 
tion of the vine, and placed in the sun to 
mature. Some direct, when the ball is shriv¬ 
elled, to soak it in water and wash out the 
seeds, but we believe that they will keep better 
within the ball. In spring the seeds arc to be 
sown and the plants treated precisely like 
tomato plants. Sow in a hot-bed, or in a box 
m the house, and, when large enough, trans¬ 
plant to other boxes, and, -when the weather 
will allow, plant in good soil out of doors. 
The English authorities say that small tubers 
will be produced the first }mar, which are to be 
saved and planted the next year. This may be 
the case in the climate of England, but Mr. 
Bresee, who has had such remarkable success 
in producing new varieties, and to whom we 
are indebted for the Early Rose, Bresee’s Pro¬ 
lific, and King of the Earlies, informs us that he 
gets tubers the first season of sufficient size to 
enable him to judge of their quality. The 
potatoes which we have mentioned were started 
in a box in the house, planted out at the proper 
time, and selected the first season from a large 
number which were rejected. 
Notes from “ The Pines.”—No. 5. 
My text is, “How Not to Do It,” but I shall 
let Friend Harris preach the sermon. The fol¬ 
lowing was sent as a part of “Walks and 
Talks,” but as it was crowded out of that part 
of the paper, I cannot do better than to intro¬ 
duce it here, as it gives a better lesson than 
anything I could write. Our old professor of 
chemistry used to say that an experiment which 
did not succeed w T as quite as instructive as one 
which did. There is one thing I like, about 
“ W. and T.;” he has no hesitation in telling 
his failures, and I think he takes a little more 
pleasure in recording a bad crop than a good 
one. He says: 
I am glad Brother Tlmrber of the “ Pines ” 
is telling his experience. I do not think it will 
be at all necessary for him to tell his men to sit 
under the shed while he is absent at the city. 
They will do that without his telling them. I 
am glad he has got such a large garden, be¬ 
cause nothing is so good for the exercise of that 
rarest of all graces, Patience. If lie will only 
lay it out as I did mine, I will guarantee that he 
will be able to tell us what varieties of fruits are 
the most popular for ordinary tastes. He will 
also be able to tell us which of the many pat¬ 
ented whiffletrees is best to plow with among 
trees. I hope, too, his garden has been neg¬ 
lected as much as mine was, for he will then 
have a fine opportunity to bring out an en¬ 
larged edition of his valuable work on “ Weeds 
and Useful Plants.” 
I laid out my garden with a walk running 
through the center, and also walks across the 
garden, thus cutting up the land into nice 
squares. And along the walks four or five feet 
from the edge, set out some forty or fifty varie¬ 
ties of dwarf apple and pear trees, and two feet 
nearer the walks, between each tree, I planted 
a currant and gooseberry bush, and then along 
the edge of the walk I have a row ot strawber¬ 
ries. Is not that a nice arrangement ? The 
trees are now six or eight feet high, and many 
of them bear half a bushel or so of apples. 
They are the healthiest and pleasantest things 
in the garden. And I would not ask for finer 
gooseberries and currants, or better strawber¬ 
ries. This is one of the features that I want 
Thurber to imitate. One of his objects in hav¬ 
ing such a large garden is to test varieties. And 
if the boys in Bergen County, N. J.,~are as good 
judges of fruit as they are here, he will be able 
to tell us not what he thinks of the varieties, but 
what the boys think of them. When the trees 
grow up, you cannot see into the squares where 
the boys are hoeing, but in some way or other 
they always manage to see you. I will say this 
much for the boys I have to hoe onions, par¬ 
snips, carrots, etc., in the garden, that I never 
yet saw one of them touch an apple or a goose¬ 
berry. And it is equally true that few people 
have ever seen me pick a ripe one—for the sim¬ 
ple reason that there are few left to pick. But 
this is no objection to the arrangement, for by 
walking through the garden you can tell at a 
glance which are the earliest and best varieties. 
The stripped trees of Early Joe, Early Harvest, 
and Primate, afford pleasing confirmation of the 
good opinion which you have always enter¬ 
tained in regard to their excellent qualities, and 
you will be happy to perceive that the taste for 
fine fruits is becoming general. 
But for my part I am getting a little tired 
of this arrangement, and am about to remove 
all the trees along the cross-walks and have no 
walks except those running lengthwise of the 
garden. We shall then be able to plow and cul¬ 
tivate straight through. The truth is, a big 
garden on a farm laid out as mine is, is a great 
nuisance. I have been in the habit of raising a 
good many parsnips, carrots, and oilier roots, 
in the garden, for stock, but they cost three 
times as much as they would if raised in a field 
in rows wide enough to admit the use of the 
. liorse-hoe. And so with potatoes and cabbage. 
It is a waste of time to raise anything more in 
the garden than what you want for daily use in 
summer. The garden proper should be no 
larger than 3 r ou can afford to spade and hoe. I 
would never have a plow or a cultivator in it. 
Then let all the main crops of fruit and vege¬ 
tables be raised on a plot of land devoted ex¬ 
clusively to them, and planted in long rows, 
where a horse can be used to advantage. Farm¬ 
ers will never have good gardens until they 
adopt some such plan. In my garden the cur¬ 
rant bushes were set out along the fences, where 
I must either allow them to be choked out with 
weeds and grass, or fork over the land every 
spring by hand, and afterwards hoe it several 
times. Why not have them in straight rows 
where the land could be kept clean with a cul¬ 
tivator? Then again I had a piece of land, 
well suited to the use of the cultivator, but I 
was foolish enough to set out at one end of 
it an asparagus bed, as a headland for the 
horse to turn upon. It never occurred to me 
that the bed could have been set out lengthwise 
of the garden just as easily as at the bottom of it. 
“ I always thought you would get tired of 
having such a big garden,” remarks one of my 
neighbors. But in truth, I am not at all tired 
of it. It pays me better in pleasure, health, and 
profit, than any other piece of land on the farm. 
All I regret is, that I did not know enough to 
lay it out in such a way that I could cullivate it 
to better advantage. I do not sec how I could 
get along without having a plot of land near 
the house devoted to root crops, where I can 
set the men and boys to work at odd limes—for 
