146 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Whale oil Soap and Lime vs. the Curculio. 
In a recent conversation with Mr, J. W. Lo¬ 
gan, Morris Co., N. J., lie stated that last year 
he purchased a quantity of whale oil soap for the 
purpose of keeping insects from his rose hushes. 
Having more than was needed for this purpose, 
it occurred to him to use it upon his plum trees, 
and wishing to be certain as to its effects, he se¬ 
lected for trial a tree on which he had been un¬ 
able to ripen any fruit for two or three years pre¬ 
vious. He syringed one half of the tree two or 
three times with the soap dissolved in water, at 
intervals of about ten days, commencing when 
the fruit has just 3et from the flower. The re¬ 
sult was, he gathered an abundance of fine, well- 
ripened fruit from that side of the tree, while on 
the other no fruit ripened. Other trees in the 
immediate vicinity also lost their fruit by the cur¬ 
culio. The soap should be used in the proportion 
of one pound to six or seven gallons of water. 
Capt. A. Davis, Columbia Co., N. Y., who has 
been noted for his skill and success in fruit grow¬ 
ing, informed us, that he had almost despaired of 
his plums for several years, the curculio having 
blighted what would otherwise have been an 
abundant crop. By way of experiment he took 
quicklime, slaked it with water just sufficient to 
reduce it to powder, and applied it to the trees. 
He put the lime in a bag made of cloth of loose 
texture, so that it would sift through freely, tied 
it to the end of a light pole, and thoroughly dust¬ 
ed the trees. This was done several times after 
the fruit had first set, and the result was a very 
large crop of fruit. Others have recommended 
unleached ashe3 to be applied in the same way. 
Any one or all of these experiments will cost 
but little, and if successful, will abundantly repay 
all time and trouble. 
Apples Rotting on Trees 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Noticing some remarks in “our Basket” to 
W. B. Morgan Gibson, of Tennessee, relative to 
apples rotting on the tree, I present a few facts 
from my own experience within the last year or 
two. I have a full-grown apple tree, which has 
borne during three years (not consecutive, as the 
fruit was cut off with frost one intervening year) 
not less then 60 to 65 bushels of apples, but until 
this year I have saved scarcely any. The first 
year, as soon as the fruit began to change color, a 
black spot of rot appeared on each apple, and they 
all fell off.—I began to look about for the cause, 
by digging about the trees, supposing, as is gen¬ 
erally the case in Tennessee, that it was planted 
too deep. I had not dug far, when I discovered 
what must have been the site of an ash hopper. 
I immediately removed about three cart loads of 
ashes, and the tree the next year had not more 
than half of the fruit spotted, and this year I have 
gathered from the said tree 25 bushels of market¬ 
able fruit, leaving three or four bushels on the 
tree that I considered too small and green. Now, 
there may have been too much lye, or the tree may 
have been too deeply planted for the atmosphere 
to penetrate, or both. I have found that when 
trees are not planted too deep, or when they are 
dug about and well drained , the fruit seldom, if 
ever, rots. I have had only one tree out of 150 
which has had rotten fruit this year, and that is, 
I conjecture, from its being situated in a wet 
place, and which I hope to remedy by trenching 
around it or near it. I have no doubt that the 
removal of the ashes and soil cured the tree I 
speak of, but I leave your readers to draw their 
own inference- A. Newberry. 
Sequatcliee Co., Tenn. 
[The facts given in this case are not sufficient 
to warrant the conclusion, that rot in fruit on the 
tree is caused by the soil being too wet. Un¬ 
doubtedly a well-drained orchard will have an in¬ 
creased quantity of fruit and of better quality. In 
the case of the tree which rested over the ashes, 
it may be that injury was received by its being in 
that position, but facts from many sections go to 
prove, that insects are at the bottom of most of 
the mischief done to fruit.—E d.] 
American Fruits—Past and Present- III 
BY LEWIS F. ALLEN, ERIE CO., N. Y. 
(Continued from page 111.) 
THE PLUM. 
This fruit has been more or less cultivated in 
the United States since their first settlement, al¬ 
though not as a general fruit common to all sec¬ 
tions alike. In early boyhood, in the orchard first 
named in my first paper, I knew several trees of 
choice varieties—among them one or two of the 
gage, the damson, and sub-varieties of the com¬ 
mon blue or horse-plum. In Western Pennsyl¬ 
vania, about Pittsburgh, forty years ago they 
abounded in several choice varieties, free from 
disease or insects. In New-England, so far as I 
know, they have for many years been a scarce 
fruit, and in many wide localities their cultivation 
has not of late been attempted at all. Yet they 
have for a long series of years abounded along 
the shores of the Hudson river, from a few miles 
below the city of Hudson to some miles above 
Troy, on both sides of the river, and west to 
Schenectady—which is probably the best plum re¬ 
gion in the United States, where they have always 
flourished free from disease or destructive insects, 
in numerous varieties and of the finest flavor. 
Many of our best new varieties have originated 
thereabouts, and still flourish in high perfection ; 
and they once flourished pretty much all through 
the State ofNew'-Yorlc, westward from Albany to 
Lake Erie. 
Thirty-two years ago, taking up my permanent 
residence at Buffalo, and finding the most of our 
northern fruits growing well, I introduced from the 
nurseries of Mr. Andres Parmentier, then recent¬ 
ly from France, and established at Brooklyn, op¬ 
posite New-York, several hundred of his choice 
varieties, and sold them to several gentlemen in 
the town, who planted them in their gardens, 
many of which are still standing and in good bear¬ 
ing. Among them were several varieties of plums, 
and some of them are yet living. 
The plum, in all its varieties then planted, grew 
and flourished in all this region, no matter what 
the soil if dry, and the best that I ever saw grew 
on a compact, stiff, fertile clay. Removing to my 
present residence, twenty years ago, I found 
many plum trees of different varieties, plant¬ 
ed a dozen or fifteen years previous. They bore 
anually enormous crops of perfect fruit, particu¬ 
larly the red magnum-bonum, the yellow gage, 
damson, and common blue varieties, as high as 
thirty bushels in a season, and the trees were in 
perfect health and vigor, as were those of my 
neighbors. A dozen years ago the curculio made 
its appearance, and my plum crops began to wane. 
Less and less they grew every year, as the insect 
increased, until for a few years past, as accident 
or chance might determine, I have had either 
no plums at all, or but a few quarts, pecks, or 
bushels, as the case might be. And with the pro¬ 
gress of the curculio, and the declension of 
the fruit, many of the trees cankered and died 
out. Some were old, had borne their allotted 
time, and probably ought to die. The young ones 
which I planted—for I still kept planting—did not 
grow as formerly. A general stagnation seemed 
to prevade the whole plum family ; and my neigh¬ 
bors’ trees fared just as mine did. There were 
many of them in the garden, in cultivated ground, 
and they, together with those scattered about the 
lawn, but faithfully dug around every year, seem¬ 
ed to be pretty much alike. Yet some varieties 
of the tree kept on growing, and I have still left 
perhaps twenty apparently healthy trees of bear¬ 
ing size, a dozen years planted but bearing fit¬ 
fully. 
Soon after the curculio attacked my plums, a 
black mold or rot commenced striking them 
when about two-thirds grown, at first not bigger 
than a pin’s head, and near the stem. In a few 
days the rot would cover half or two-thirds of the 
fruit, which would fall from the trees, worthless 
of course. Where the disease came from, I know 
not, but it was evidently contagious, and the 
neighboring trees fared in most cases like my own. 
This rot still continues. But a still worse ca¬ 
lamity has befallen the plums—a disease afflict¬ 
ing the tree itself—the black knot, or wart. Al¬ 
though this disease—apparently incurable, so far 
as any practical treatment has affected it—has 
appeared in different parts of the country east of 
us, for more than twenty years past, it only reach¬ 
ed here three years ago, striking all our trees, 
extending over miles of surface, during the same 
season. What this disease properly is, insect, 
canker, fungus, or blight, is yet a controverted 
question. Yet, for any disease or ailment some 
wise people have always at hand a nostrum. Ac¬ 
cordingly for this, a year or so ago, I heard a 
gentleman, addressing his pomological auditors, 
remark that “ nothing was easier than to cure ” 
this “ wart ” at once : “ lop off the diseased limb 
just below the excrescence, and the cure is effect¬ 
ed !” Did it never occur to this learned doctor, 
that the wart sometimes breaks out in its most 
virulent form on the main branches, close to 
the trunk ; and in young trees frequently on the 
trunk itself, and that near the ground 1 Comment 
on such twaddle is useless. It is enough that in 
the absence of a known remedy for this deadly 
disease, our plum trees are fast going the way of 
all others, which have had it to the east of us— 
into the faggot heap and wood pile. 
It is to be hoped that many localities will escape 
the scourges which have cut off the plum in some 
of the hitherto most favored spots of its produc¬ 
tion, and that these enemies which have for years 
destroyed our plums, and are now likely to de¬ 
stroy the tree itself, may pass over, and permit 
us to again plant and enjoy their luxury ; but how 
that is to be, time can only determine. Provi¬ 
dence seems no sooner to create a good thing for 
our use, than a deadly enemy comes after it, im¬ 
pressing us most profoundly with the truth of the 
original sentence passed upon father Adam : in 
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread ! In 
the month of September last, I saw common blue 
plums for sale at the fruit dealers’shops in Buffalo, 
at four dollars a bushel, brought from the State of 
Delaware ! It is hardly worth while to say, that 
last year our fruits of all kinds were pretty much 
cut off. 
THE CHERRY. 
The common pie or Kentish cherry has long 
been the occupant of the garden, lawn, and road° 
side, near the houses of the farmer and villager 
of the northern States, as the Morello has of the 
same places in the middle States. For a century 
or more, the black-heart English cherry, so called, 
has been cultivated in the neighborhood of New- 
York and Philadelphia. Within the last thirty 
or forty years the other best varieties of the Eng¬ 
lish cherry, worked on Mazzard stocks, have bee°n 
