August 3), 1894. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
201 
- Peppermint in America. — A writer in the “ American 
Agriculturist ” states that from 6000 to 8000 acres of land in Wayne 
County, New York, are devoted to the cultivation of Peppermint. The 
average yield is about a ton of dried plants to the acre, and this will 
produce some 20 lbs. of oil. The yield runs down from this to 10 lbs., 
and even less, and has been known to go as high as 4.5 lbs. of oil to the 
acre, the price of which has varied within a few years from about 4s. 
to £l a pound. The prices received by different growers depend largely 
on the freedom of the Mint from weeds, which are the great enemy to 
success. The habit of the Peppermint is such that its profitable cultiva¬ 
tion is impossible upon foul land. Low, rich land is selected, 
and in April portions of the old plants are strewn in furrows 30 inches 
apart. The ground is kept clean until the plants, by tillering, take 
entire possession of it. After this hand-weeding must be resorted to. 
The land is cropped two and sometimes three years, but it then becomes 
so weedy that the oil will not be good enough to pay for harvesting. Of 
course, the first crop is best. The Mint ripens when about 2^ feet high, 
is cut with cradles in the latter part of August, raked into cocks, dried, 
and then taken to the still which extracts the oil. 
- Insect Pests. — I do not know who W. S. E. (p. 178) may 
be, but at least he should before he criticises carefully read what he 
proposes to comment upon. I referred solely, so far as the Onion is 
concerned, to the maggot, and showed that if Nature has her banes 
she has also her antidotes, for whilst last year we were all terribly 
concerned over our Onion crops because of the Onion maggot, this year 
the pest had been literally drowned out by the rains. That fact—for it 
is a fact—shows us that let things be ever so bad we should never 
despair. Even this year, because of so much wet, we have the Onion 
badly affected with fungus in some places, and the attacks are after all 
but partial ; still the same weather has prevented funguses or moulds 
attacking some other crops. Still further, we have rarely had Onions 
more plentiful or cheaper than we have now, for they are hawked about 
80 cheaply that it is hard to find purchasers, and these good spring-sown 
Onions too. Potatoes are being fast defoliated by the fungus, but in 
spite of that there are few complaints of disease in the tubers, and the 
sample is fine and clean and quality excellent. It is this fact no doubt 
as much as anything which prevents spraying with Bordeaux mixture, 
as I am assured that so plentiful and cheap is the crop, dressings would 
not pay. Perhaps not. I do not know ; but I have always held that 
those who raised the fine disease-resisters of to-day have done more to 
make Potatoes cheap, good, and plentiful than have all the scientists 
and antidotes in creation. Still I do not wish people to refrain from 
using antidotes ; far from that, I point simply to indisputable facts. 
—A. D. 
- The Marking of Foreign Fruit. — The second report of 
the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the above subject has 
just been made public. The commission has evidently been conducted 
w’ith the greatest care ; a large number of searching questions were put 
to expert witnesses ; but that anyone will be the better for the labours 
of the noble lords is, the “ Field” thinks, improbable. Seeing that the 
average amount of fruit other than Apples, Oranges, and Lemons 
imported into England in 1891 and two following years was 3,485,734 
bushels, and the average value was £1,675,753, it is certainly not 
surprising that our native fruit growers and the consumer should cry 
aloud to be relieved of having foreign fruit palmed off upon them as 
English. The commissioners seem to have arrived at the conclusion 
that some at least of those who are in one way and another engaged in 
the fruit trade do not know very much about it, for, in the words of the 
report, “It was stated that a parcel of Black Currants offered to an 
agent was refused by him one day on account of their foreign origin, 
but was sold to him next day as English, having in the meantime been 
transferred into English baskets.” A certain eminent statesman who 
once advocated the making of jam as a means of increasing the shrunken 
fortunes of the farmer would do well to read some of the stories told in 
connection with the jam-making industry. One witness said that, 
owing to Currants and Plums required for jam being picked on the 
Continent, the home crop was not worth picking, and was not picked. 
The market being already overstocked with foreign fruit, it did not yield 
prices sufficient to pay the expense of picking and bringing to market. 
Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell, on the other hand, who buy a good deal 
of berried fruit abroad, thought that the prices were about on a par with 
that of the English ; but the foreign berries came into the market 
earlier, and were of as good quality as the English varieties. The Scotch 
fruit growers complained that the foreign fruit competing with what 
they grew arrived at the jam manufactories in Scotland in a pulpy and 
unsound state, while one witness described it as unfit for human food ; 
but here, again, Mr. Blackwell offered a contradiction, declaring that 
fruit in a pulpy state would be useless for the purpose of jam making. 
None of the manufacturers of jam remembered an instance of any fruit 
being examined at their factories, and most of those interested in the 
fruit trade did not know that it was the duty of any person to inspect 
fruit. 
- Fungicides. —Much is made of the supposed modern discovery 
that copper sulphate is destructive of most kinds of mildews and 
moulds which are so injurious to vegetation, and yet, siys “Meehan’s 
Monthly,” the use of copperas in destroying fungi has been known 
to every intelligent farmer for many years past. Smut of the 
Wheat and other kinds of grain, which is a manifestation of one 
of the lower forms of fungi, has been prevented by simply soaking the 
seed before sowing in a solution of 1 lb. of commercial copper sulphate, 
to 24 lbs. of water, soaking the grain for about twenty-four hours before 
sowing. It is now thoroughly understood that the germs of many of 
these species of minute organisms travel with the seed, and enter the 
system of the plant while the seed is growing, going through the whole 
circulation and germination in the leaves and young branches. Many 
of the California Coniferm carry their special funguses along with them 
in this manner. The mammoth Sequoia, especially, carries a species not 
found on any other, and it is chiefly on account of the presence of this 
fungus that it is impossible, with but a few exceptional cases, to culti¬ 
vate the tree successfully in eastern gardens. It is more than likely if 
the same treatment was applied to it as is applied to grain, by steeping 
the seeds in a copper solution, this great enemy of the grower of 
Coniferm might be eventually conquered. 
- Tomato Prolific Queen. —On page 154 Mr. Witherspoon 
writes about this Tomato, which, as he says, was raised from cross- 
fertilised seed. According to my experience in crossing Tomatoes, 
there is often more vagaries shown in the fruit of the second generation 
from the cross than is exhibited in the cross itself. Last year I selected 
fruit for seed from cross-breds, which to all appearance were desirable 
varieties to cultivate. This year the produce from that seed has been 
rather disappointing—not in crop, but in standard of excellence in 
fruit; and if anyone else had saved the seed I would have said the 
fruits were gathered from the wrong plants. Some of the sorts vary 
much, while others show a marked parental resemblance, but none 
equal to the fruit from which the seed was saved, unless it be one 
variety—the produce of Ham Green x Prelude. This fruit is medium 
in size (a Guernsey lady to whom I showed it said it was the size 
wanted), will average seven fruit to the truss, and have had as many as 
ten trusses set on one stem, conical or egg-shaped, and a good traveller, 
as the fruit is of a firm texture. I should never name any variety until 
it is thoroughly fixed, and is found worthy of distribution.—G. McD. 
[Mr. Witherspoon sends for our inspection a cluster of Prolific Queen 
Tomato, consisting of a dozen fruits weighing exactly 2 lbs. The fruits 
are medium in size and smooth, but some of them exhibit a tendency 
to crack.] 
- Fruit-Growing in Virginia. — Mr. J. C. Townsend writes 
to “The Bristol Times:”—“In the beautiful section of Virginia 
situated almost under the shadow of the ‘ Blue Ilidge Mountains ’ we 
grow most kinds of fruit to perfection—Grapes, Apples, Pears, Cherries, 
and Peaches flourish ; but each and all require some special knowledge 
to bring them to their best, and to secure the best prices for the grower. 
There is not only the necessary pruning, fertilising, and cultivating to 
be considered, but the protection of the fruit from insects and fungoid 
enemies by proper methods of spraying. Even when well-grown and 
handsame fruit rewards the grower’s labour, there is still the question of 
paciing in the most attractive manner, and of choosing the most 
advantageous market for its sale. A young Englishman coming to this 
country to grow fruit would no doubt find out all this for himself—in 
time, but he would have to buy his experience in rather a dear market. 
It would be much cheaper in the end, and far better for him, to take 
twelve or eighteen months on a farm, as a pupil, where the farmer 
works himself, and to pay a fair sum for his board. Like every other 
business, successful fruit culture requires technical knowledge, per¬ 
severance, and industry. There is ro fortune in it; but for a young man 
with no great ambition, a natural inclination for an open-air life, and a 
small capital, there is much to recommend it. In Virginia we have 
many advantages. Labour is cheap, and the coloured man, if justly 
treated, is a first-rate workman. The climate of the Blue Ridge section 
is very healthy, the summers hotter than at home, and the winters much 
the same as in England.” 
