Arboriculture 
great value. We ibank liitn ror leaves, etc., 
but decline any further remarks until we 
see fruit, which lie promises us in Sept.— e. 
I’l'nv. in Iowa. 
Suel Foster, Muscatine, Iowa, writes 
the Ioiv a Homestead :—“ My dwarfs set 
fourteen years ago arc good for nothing 
now; they were a little more profitable for 
a few years, hilt their time is short, while 
standards planted at the same time arc most 
of them yet healthy and pro¬ 
ductive. My Bart Jetts have proved 
the moat profitable. The tree is 
not as healthy nor as hardy as 
some others, hut it hears while 
young, hems abundantly, and ihe 
fruit large, good and marketable. 
The Flemish Beauty next; tree 
very hardy and healthy, not hear¬ 
ing as young as the Bartlett, nor 
does it overload with fruit as 
much, therefore 1 think the trees 
will he longer lived. Benin; de 
Anjou is a good, healthy tree; 
good fruit for late fall and early 
winter. The Secke] should be set. 
for its most excellent, fruit; a small \ 
russet pear; tree healthy, and of \ 
slow growth; may lie set closer in \\_ 
the orchard than others. .1 want a 
good summer pear; but my expc- V"'"- 
rience has not been favorable with \, / 
anv of them. 1 have tried some / / 
HIGH vs. LOW HEADS, 
FRUITS RECEIVED 
I have been looking through my orchards 
of pear, apple, peach, and cherry trees, num¬ 
bering over four thousand, and cogitating in 
my mind the height from the ground at 
BY F. II. ELLIOTT. 
color of the surface. It is somewhat akin 
to Rawlcs’ Janet, and is most probably a 
seedling ol that variety. According to Mr. 
Woodson, it originated in Hart Co., Ky. 
The Red Crab, Mr. Woodson says, is a sup¬ 
posed seedling of Howes’ Crab, originally 
grown near Central Kentucky. In size it is 
about the same as Howes’, but more flattened 
in form, the surface almost covered with 
rich, deep red, and with many pretty large, 
light dots; the stem is set in a deep, open 
cavity, with dirty, greenish russet at base; 
calyx nearly closed; basin semi-aculc, and 
very slightly furrowed; flesh yellowish, a 
little tough, mild subacid, pretty rich ; core 
small; seeds full, short, obovate pyriform. 
Ricketts’ HecilliiiK drapes. 
James II. Ricketts, Newburgh, N. Y., 
sent me, Dec. 8, 180!), samples of two of his 
new seedling grapes. Of his No. 1, or 
“ Ricketts,” J have written before in giving 
an account of the weight of the must, it 
weighing 10(R-£ of Oksoiti.k’s scale. The 
hunch received before the above date was 
in form and size much like Walter; hut the 
berries very much darker in color. The 
skin is thick, but there is no hard center 
pulp; all is rich, delicate, juicy sweet; only 
the seed is in the way, and that is small. 
(Why did not Mr. Ricketts leave that out 
in this new production V) 
Mr. Ricketts* No- 2, or Clinton Muscat, 
is larger in the berry than Clinton, a round 
fruit, black, richer than Senasqua, hut not as 
large; and although it ripens early, came to 
me in good condition at the date named. 
Of Mr. Ric'KKTT’s labors in the way of 
producing new varieties of the grape, per¬ 
haps a short extract from his own account 
maybe of interest to the public, inasmuch 
as it exhibits not only a system of practice 
Do Soils I ii II no nee ili« KecpfiHr ol 
Frulti ? 
At a discussion of the Farmers’ 
and Gardeners’ Club, J vansilig, 
Mich., Mr. Pinckney called atten¬ 
tion to the fact that soil has mueli 
to do with the character of fruits, 
he had learned that the Northern 
Spy was a better keeper when 
grown on clay soil than on sand ; 
so with the Greening. Mr. Pot¬ 
ter. said Ills winter fruit, was 
grown on sandy soil, and did not 
keep well. Mr. Jones said North¬ 
ern Spy apples grown on sandy 
soil, on his farm, kept better than 
those on clay soil in his garden. 
ARBORICULTURAL NOTES 
Illnck and Whitt Walnut Grove. 
J. A. Kuntz, Iowa, lias five acres in black 
and white walnuts three years old ; says they 
need trimming, and asks when he should do 
it. Now. “ Would you cultivate them?” 
Yes. “ Have planted corn among them, 
and I fear it will smother them.” Then, 
when the corn gets so high as to affect their 
growth, cut it, and feed it to stock. 
While Thorn Seed 
requires two years to be made to vegetate, 
unless it he gathered in early fall and rotted 
with all the pulp around it, and so kept all 
winter. It is sometimes possible to start it 
by pouring boiling water upon it, time and 
again, and soaking it; hut it is then unwise 
to plant it until there is evidence of the gum 
starting.— e. 
Palms for Ihe South. 
A correspondent of the Scientific Ameri¬ 
can proposes the introduction to the South¬ 
ern States of the date palm, the sugar palm 
and the cocoanut palm—those palms lurn- 
isliing fruit, sugar, oil, fiber, etc. He argues 
in favor of trying at least the experiment of 
introducing these Indian palms; and he 
holds that, if properly planted and cared for, 
they will flourish and become profitable to 
the South. 
Not ihe Early Joe. 
Were it not that friend Down¬ 
ing is an amiable and pleasant-tempercd 
man, l should hesitate to tell him ot what 
lie knows, hut has probably forgotten, viz.: 
that all the record we have ever been able 
to obtain of Ihe history of Luce’s Early Joe 
was iriveil years .since in a number of the 
Prairie Farmer by good old Dr. Kennhiott, 
and amounted to about this:—That he, Dr. 
Kknnicott, with others, were in practice of 
selling apple trees grown by Col. Benjamin 
Hodge of Buffalo; that of these trees there 
came to Kknnicott and other of Mr. 
Hodge’s agents throughout the West, some 
labeled “Early Joe;” that, when the trees 
first sold and so labeled came into fruit, the 
Old Doctor thought, he discovered an error. 
He sent F. R. EiJJOTTl.be fruit, which, of 
course, was not the true Early Joe; that in¬ 
quiry of Mr. IIodGE produced the reply 
that he obtained the grafts from the orchard 
of a Mr. Luce, near Buffalo, and that Mr, 
Luce called it Early Joe. The variety has 
been pretty widely disseminated. The tree 
is a far better grower than the true Early 
Joe, and it is a more profitable, hut, not near 
as good an apple in quality. I have received 
the same apple under other, but only local, 
names.— Addi. 
WHEN TO PRUNE GRAPES. 
We find the following in an exchange, 
credited to A. Kelley, Kelley’s Island, O.: 
“ At first I supposed that it was improper to 
trim in the spring, when they bleed the 
worst, the Germans, whom I mostly em¬ 
ployed, having a prejudice against it. But 
sometimes some parts of the vineyard were 
trimmed at this supposed improper time. 
“ The closest observation I was able to 
make discovered no bad result, and I have 
never seen that it made any difference when 
the vines were trimmed, from the time the 
leaves were ripe in the fall, tp as late as Hie 
twentieth of June. I seldom get all my 
vines trimmed before the first ot June. 
“ Since we have had the rot, 1 have in 
some vineyards tried leaving the three cams 
the full length until August, when, it no rot 
appeared, 1 cut off the surplus wood ; but it 
the rot sats in, I have left the whole vine, 
and got a larger yield tliun from vines short 
pruned. But where there was little or no 
rot, the shortest pruned vines have uniform- 
lv home the best crops. 1 am clearly ot the 
Apples in Minnesota. 
L. M. Ford, the Agricultural Editor of the 
St. Paul Press, discussing the future of ap¬ 
ple culture in Minnesota, says he lias studied 
the question for twenty years, and lias tried 
over one hundred varieties of the common 
apple, and has serious doubts about our be¬ 
ing able to find anything, even in Russia, 
that will stand in all places and during the 
most severe winters. The chief dependence 
must, he thinks, be placed on the Siberians. 
The Transcendent and Uislop, for tall um- 
aud some of the new sorts tor winter, will 
furnish a good variety for general use. He 
looks for greater improvement among them, 
and thinks Bihnh.n apples will yet become 
popular with all. The Duchess of Olden¬ 
burg has died badly in different parts of the 
State, anil the Totofsky was killed to Ihe 
snow line* in 18G7~’68.‘ In some, localities 
these apples do well, and will, in most parts 
of the State, in ordinary seasons, hut lie 
thinks a very severe winter would destroy 
many of them._ 
The Cornucopia Grape. 
The accompanying engraving of Cornu¬ 
copia or Arnold’s No. 2 grape, is from a 
drawing made by our artist from a hunch ol 
last season’s fruit. It is one of Charles 
A unoi.d’s (Paris, Ontario) hybrids. I t was 
POMOLOGICAL GOSSIP 
A DWARF APRICOT TN tll.OOM. — FIRST YEAR'S 
GROWTH. 
The interesting question arises, how came ( 
this germ of the I’runiix Annenicaca, L., the 1 
Apricot, (which is rather a subgenus ot 
Primus,) to form a blossom so early—like an 
annual, and like an annual pfirish? When 
in its normal state it does not produce flow¬ 
ers till after three years at least—rarely, if 
ever, sooner, usually later. What chemi¬ 
cal changes had taken place during the 
process of germination ? so as to drive the 
vital action of the plant, in a continuous ac¬ 
tivity, to its ultimatum, without the ordi¬ 
nary season of rest usually necessary for 
( building up their woody structure of per¬ 
ennial duration, in preparing the branches 
for the fruit they are destined to hear. 
In physiology, the word vegetal is used 
to denote that class of vital phenomena 
common to plants and animals, viz.: di¬ 
gestion and nutritive assimilation, growth, 
absorption, secretion, excretion, circulation, 
respiration, generation, as contradistin¬ 
guished from a second class ol vital phe¬ 
nomena, viz. *. sensation and volition pe¬ 
culiar to animals; but this definition is ques¬ 
tionable, as to sensation at least. The vege¬ 
table functions have at least a property to 
manifest “ irritability." Plants are not only 
A PRECOCIOUS APRICOT SEED 
I am not aware that I ever published a 
fact which was brought to my notice by my 
friend, John B. Kevinski, a member of the 
THE RED CRAB APPLE. 
Limuoan Society, and quite a mineralogist. 
1 accompanied him to the garden, where I 
saw in vigorous growth a diminutive apricot 
tree, (herb rather,) about three inches high, 
