The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
893 
Garden and Farm Notes 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
June 27.—For a week or more wagon- 
loads of the Mayflower peaches have been 
coming into town. This peach lias for 
years past set. a new record for earliness 
in the South, and has but recently been 
planted here. Another new peach ap¬ 
peared on the market yesterday. This is 
perfectly new to me, and I can say noth¬ 
ing about its Quality. It is a very large 
peach for an early one, white flesh, with 
a very rosy cheek. All I have, seen are 
too hard to eat, but it is evidently a 
rather remarkable early peach, for the 
Greensboro, heretofore among the earli¬ 
est. is not yet ripe. The Mayflower is a 
great advance over the Sneed, the earliest 
peach heretofore, which must now take a 
rear seat. 
The size of the crop is probably larger 
than reported after 'the April freeze, but 
varies with different varieties. Of my 
own few trees the Champion is the only 
variety showing a fair crop. Greensboro 
has a 11 each or two, and Elberta and Kay 
do not show a peach. A heavy wind¬ 
storm covered the ground under the plum 
trees with green plums and leaves, and 
it seemed tha't all was lost. But now 
that the plums are nearly matured the 
trees have too many. The Japanese va¬ 
riety, Abundance, has plums hanging to 
short branches so thick that they look- 
like great bunches of grapes. The hybrid 
and I had to water them repeatedly, 
while the first row, planted with Toots 
dripping wet. never needed watering, 
The Early Irish potato season is near¬ 
ing its end, but the railroad is still carry¬ 
ing an Immense quantity. A solid po¬ 
tato train of 100 box cars passed up our 
road last week from the Virginia coun¬ 
ties. A train of 100 box cars is a sight 
to witness, one big engine pulling. It is 
an illustration of wonderful power. It is 
thought that while the shipments from 
Accomae and Northampton counties. Vir¬ 
ginia, will go a good deal over 2,000 cars, 
it will be short of the crop shipped last 
year. The price dropped for a while to 
.$2.50 a barrel, but since that ha3 recov¬ 
ered. The Produce Exchange handles 00 
per cent of the shipments. 
Here our growers grow comparatively 
few of the early Irish potatoes. Our crop 
is the sweet potato, shipped in late Fall, 
Winter and Spring. Just now all are 
busy with the cantaloupe and cucumber 
crops, and the weather has been very fa¬ 
vorable. The vines are now pretty well 
covering the ground, and the fruits are 
setting. There are little green canta¬ 
loupes on the market from Florida and 
California. T have not tasted them, but 
they are evidently poor eating. They 
have no effect on the market for our can¬ 
taloupes, which have established a repu¬ 
tation for quality second to none grown. 
a country neighborhood where two roads meet 
lie of them. At. the left is a box built to reyre- 
Tliis is a group of rural mail boxes in 
and I lie rural carrier does not follow one 
sent a bird house. An ordinary mail box is put in the upper story, while below it is 
a larger place for papers or parcels mail. There is a little flag at the upper part of 
the house, and the carrier raises it when he delivers the mail. 
plums from California are showing fine 
and are beginning to color. 
The early tomatoes are not yet plenti¬ 
ful, but the plants are carrying a good 
load of large green ones, and the later 
ones are coining on rapidly. 1 sowed 
some Red Head seed on the 22d. the latest 
I have ever sown tomato seed. For sev¬ 
eral seasons I have fa fled to get a full 
supply of well-grown green tomatoes 
when frost came. It is hard to keep them 
from fruiting rather too early in the heat 
of late Summer. If these seeds sown on 
June 22 make only green fruit by frost 
my object will be attained. The area on 
the wire fence occupied by the Telephone 
peas now has a row of late tomatoes be¬ 
ing 'trained on it. We cannot have too 
many tomatoes, for we must have the 
canned supply in Winter and Spring. 
East year at this date we were entering 
into the prolonged drought. This Sum¬ 
mer we are still favored with plenty of 
rain and great atmospheric humidity, and 
some very warm weather, which makes 
growth in the garden wonderful. I have 
two rows of eggplants. One row was set 
with plants given me by a neighbor. 
These were pulled from an exhausted hot¬ 
bed. and were large and fine plants. I 
have heretofore always grown eggplants 
in pots. The second row was planted 
with potted plants somewhat pothound. 
The first row has beaten 'the potted 
plants. I should have crushed the balls 
somewhat, for the balls matted with 
roots did not take the moisture readily, 
Perennial Phlox, Dahlias and Cannas are 
making the garden gay with their bloom, 
and the China asters are gettiug large 
enough to begin to show heads of bloom, 
and the Skinner pipes are not needed. 
\V. F. MASSEY. 
A Talk About Parrots 
How can a parrot be recognized wheth¬ 
er if is young or old? When do they 
start talking? Must they be at a certain 
age? Can anything be done for them in 
order to make them talk? x. n. 
Carteret, N. J. 
It is hard to tell the age of a parrot, 
but in selecting a young bird, pick out 
one that has smooth plumage, looks heal¬ 
thy, is not wild or scary, and be sure to 
examine its feet particularly. Polly (a 
parrot of 21 i ami Nettie ( seven) belonged 
to one family. Polly’s plumage was less 
glossy, rougher, a trifle faded: the older 
bird talked less anil was growing ugly. 
Young parrots frequently begin talking 
before they are feathered out.' They are 
usually received in the Northern markets 
about July 1, and will begin talking with¬ 
in two weeks if the owner will teach 
them, but they require teaching, just as a 
baby does. Some parrots are slower to 
learn, and may not begin for a year or 
more. 
Paroquets (the smaller birds of this 
family) will uoi talk and most, parrots 
will Cutting the tongue does absolutely no 
good. The only thing that can he done is 
to be sure you have a healthy parrot, and 
teach it with patience and feed it right, 
l.arge Mexican paroquets are sometimes 
sold as young Mexican parrots; these 
trapped young parrots are sold cheaper 
than young birds taken from the nest and 
hand-raised. These trapped birds are al¬ 
ways wild and will not talk, E. *. k. 
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Every Ounce 
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At the Roots 
Stjrface._\_ 
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The book that best expresses the senti¬ 
ment and charm of real country living: 
is 
Hope Farm Notes 
cAn order came the other day from the Island of Jamaica for 
one of these books. Copies have been sent to Mexico. South 
Africa, Austria and New Zealand—all over the world. It is 
being read wherever the human heart feels a love for clean 
and wholesome country living. 
"A Civilizing- Ag~ent for Agriculture ” 
That is what one reader calls it—and he has sent five separate 
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farm life. It is one of the best evidences of Good House¬ 
keeping to have this book on your table. Is it in your house ? 
The Hope Farm man will autograph your copy if you desire. 
The book should go wherever the Rural New-Yorker is taken. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 333 West 30th St., New York 
GENTLEMEN—Enclosed find remittance for $1.50, for which send me, postpaid, a 
copy of ‘ Hope Farm Notes." 
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