Vol. XLI. No. 1668.} 
NEW YOKE, JAN. 14, 1882. 
i PRICE FIVE CENTS 
\ $2.00 PER YEAR 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1882, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the offlee of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
Yes, the dwarf Japan Chestnut fruits very 
early, and this I should have stated. It not 
only fruits early, but the fruit is much larger 
than the native chestnut, and of excellent 
quality. In Japan it begins to bear when 
only a few feet high, and it does not lose this 
character by being transferred. It has been 
proved to be hardy. [It is so at the Rural 
Grounds.—E ds.] 
I should also have stated, when speaking 
of the epiphyUuxn, that it makes an interest¬ 
ing and beautiful plant when grafted on some 
of the Cactaee®, its pendulous habit fitting it 
admirably for this purpose. The Pereskia, how¬ 
ever, makes one of the best stocks for a stand¬ 
ard; but it may be successfully worked on 
almost any cactaceous plant. If worked on a 
climbing plant, such as a cereus, there is no 
necessity for cutting the plant down, unless 
you wish to do so. Grafts may be set on the 
sides or angles, wherever it suits your fancy, 
and pretty effects in this way be produced. In 
this case neither plant is sacrificed to the 
other, but each yields its appropriate bloom. 
The columnar Cereus serpentiuus (say five or 
six feet high) may have half a dozen or more 
varieties of epiphyllum worked on it. It is 
almost as easy to graft on the side as on the 
top of a cereus, and in this way the reader 
may increase the number of his varieties 
without encroaching much on his room. 
I am glad to see Prot. Budd call attention 
(p. 826) to the Honey Locust. 1 am a little 
disappointed, however, to find that, in speak¬ 
ing of its value and usefulness, he omits to 
allude to its beauty as an ornamental tree, to 
which it has decided claims. It is one of the 
very few of our thoroughly hardy trees with 
tropical foliage, and is exceedingly orna¬ 
mental on the lawn. Its foliage is very beau¬ 
tiful, and the large, pendulous pods give an 
additional charm to the light and graceful 
form of the tree. There are some grand 
specimens of it near the old homestead of the 
Cheney Brothers at South Manchester, Conn. 
You can scarcely name a tree that lives 
longer in the memory of most boys who 
know what trees are. 
The Honey Locust, too, is very useful as a 
hedge plant, and has been much used for that 
purpose. It has been thought by some to be 
more difficult to establish than some other 
plants used for hedges; but I doubt whether 
there is any good foundation for this. I have 
found it no more difficult to manage in this 
respect than the Osage Orange or 
most other good hedge plants. Im¬ 
patience is mostly at the bottom of 
the difficulty complained of. Some 
plant may yet he found than will 
make a perfect hedge in a year; 
but we have no such pis nt at pres¬ 
ent. In the mean time, the only safe 
rule in making a hedge is to ‘‘go 
slow.” 
It gives me much pleasure to see 
that Uncle Mark has started or 
founded (or whatever you call it) a 
Horticultural Club for boys and 
girls, and I wish him all man¬ 
ner of success. Properly man¬ 
aged, it may be made produc¬ 
tive of a great deal of good. I wonder if I 
am too old a boy to come in ? At all events, 
it will do no barm if I suggest a subject for 
discussion as an outsider. This much being 
conceded to me, I suggest the subject of 
“Peanuts.” Ob, well, you 
may laugh as much as 
you please, but I am quite 
serious about it. The first 
plant I ever grew -(when I 
was some five or six years 
old) was the peanut, and I 
think I learned more from 
it than I have ever learned 
from any single plant that 
I have since grown. The 
peanut, in fact, is intrin. 
sieally and per se interest¬ 
ing to all boys (and girls, 
too), and you can scarcely 
mention the subject without 
fixing their attention. In 
addition, its manner of 
growth and its proper cul¬ 
tivation are full of instruc¬ 
tion which can be made 
very interesting to the 
young mind. Try the pea 
nut, Uncle Mark. 
Hokticola. 
VINES ON TREES. 
VINES ON TREES— After Robinson’s "Wild Garden. 
Fig. 9. 
Many are the uses to 
w hich vines are put in our 
gai’dens; we use them to 
shade verandas, cover ar¬ 
bors, act as screens to hide 
unsightly objects, drape 
over fences and the like. 
But one of the most char¬ 
ming and appropriate ways 
of using them is to lead 
them up among the branches 
of trees, and there let them 
grow, ramble and blossom 
with unrestricted will. How 
suggestive in this respect 
are the old apple-trees over¬ 
spread and draped with 
grape-vines, that we meet 
with now and again on 
Eastern farms; the vine- 
dad trees that skirt our 
woods and waysides, and 
grow by rivers, creeks and 
ponds. I never saw the 
Trumpet Creeper appear 
so beautiful as in the South¬ 
ern States, where, on the 
outer edge of a river bottom 
timber belt, it almost hid 
from sight the trees it grew 
on. I never saw the wild clematis look so fine as 
in a wood in New Jersey, where Mr. Taplin 
pointed out to me a tree literally covered with 
the vine, which hung in massive drapery to 
the ground, and was then in bloom. 
a gleam of satisfaction he pointed out the 
many trees—big trees now—he had planted 
there, the vines that he had encouraged to 
grow up upon them, and the undergrowth, 
both herbs and shrubs, that he set out there 
It is a common thing to train Jackman’s 
and other kinds of garden clematises up 
among the branches of trees, wrhere, when in 
bloom, they have a fine effect. The Vir¬ 
ginia Creeper is sometimes treated in the 
same fashion for the brilliant effect of its 
foliage in the Fall. The Chinese Wistaria is 
one of the best of vines for this use, and the 
periploca, akebia and honeysuckles may like¬ 
wise be used to good advantage. The Canada 
Moonseed and Climbing Waxwork will enjoy 
themselves exceedingly among the lower 
branches of the trees; and the Dutchman’s 
Pipe, as may be observed in the illustration, 
delights in such liberty, Bare stems of trees 
may be covered with Japanese Ivy—Ampe- 
lopsis tricuspidata. On many a farm is a 
wooded ravine, and this is just the place for 
vine-clad trees. I remember, when visiting 
Robert Douglas, at Waukegan, Illinois, with 
what glowing pride the veteran “Forty- 
niner” brought me in front of a wooded ra¬ 
vine near his house, that I might seethe splen¬ 
did effect of the trees upon the distant bank, 
whose limbs were bending with the load of 
drapery which they supported, and with what 
Yes, he had snatched from desolation an un¬ 
sightly, gloomy chasm, and planted it with 
trees, and shrubs and vines, and thus secured 
what is to day one of the prettiest ravines or 
glens in Illinois. W. Falconer. 
FRANCONIA, NAOMI AND LOST 
RUBIES. 
When the Rural New-Yorker said Lost 
Rubies was distinct from the Naomi sent by 
A. S. Fuller, I wrote to Mr. Fuller inquiring 
where he secured his plants, believing his 
reply would settle this controversy. My 
letter found him not at his home in New 
Jersey, but far up in the mountains of New 
Mexico. He replies as follows : “There 
are no Naomi nor Franconia here, but plenty 
of wild varieties, some of which might prove 
valuable in cultivation. My Naomis were 
from the original stock in Ohio, cost $1 per 
plant, and were brought by Mr. Charles 
Downing, in a satchel I believe. At least he 
obtained them from the garden where the 
variety was supposed to have been raised. 
There is no room to doubt the identity of 
Franconia and Naomi. I spent considerable 
time and money to expose the fraud [i. e., the 
pretension that they were distinct.—C. A. G.] 
as early as 1871 or 1872.” 
Mr. Fuller has told me that he and a dis¬ 
tinguished companion visited Palmyra some 
years ago, and were shown Mr. Purdy’s Fran¬ 
conia, but were not able to recognize it. We 
now get some idea of the thorough methods 
adopted by Mr. Downing and Mr. Fuller be¬ 
fore saying that they are satisfied that 
Naomi and Franconia are identical. Now let 
us see how thorough have been Mr. Purdy’s 
methods. He sent out to Ohio and ordered of 
some unknown person, not mentioned, a few 
hundred so-called Naomis. All his argu¬ 
ments, or rather assertions, are based on the 
supposition that his w'ere genuine. We do 
not hear of his planting the two side by side 
and studying them closely for years, and in¬ 
viting experts to thus compare them. The 
canes of Lost Rubies are a dark, brownish- 
red. at this season almost black , with the 
hardy, firm, ripe appearance of the Doolittle. 
No sane person would mistake such canes for 
Franconia. 
How much has this country lost by the 
assurances, once boldly held out, that Wor¬ 
den’s Seedling Grape was nothing more than 
Concord ? Millions and millions of dollars 1 
We have been in need of just such a grape as 
Worden’s, and the majority are just appre¬ 
ciating it. Let us not denounce too harshly 
or with insufficient observation. 
Monroe &o., N. Y. Chas. A. Green. 
Qrlumcultural. 
FORESTRY. No. 1. 
DR. JOHN A. WARDER. 
Introduction. 
In several parts of our country the warning 
notes have been sounded, from time to time, 
in the hope of arousing the people to take ac¬ 
tion in this very important matter before it 
is too late. It is encouraging to see, not only 
the agricultural papers, but also the metro¬ 
politan press lending their columns to the 
cause. 
One estimable fellow-citizen, the Hon. G. P. 
Marsh, has clearly set forth in his work, 
“The Earth as Modified by Man,” the disas¬ 
trous effects that have everywhere followed 
the destruction of forests in various parts of 
the globe, and he has told us how the intelli¬ 
gent nations of Europe have endeavored by 
replanting the wastes to restore the proper 
balance between the farms and the wood¬ 
lands. Other writers have entered this fruit¬ 
ful field of investigation, and it is with great 
