persons taking up their residence in a new 
place where there is no fruit. A common 
error in the management of dwarf Apples is 
to let them root above the bud, or graft, when 
they will cease to bear freely, becoming, in 
fact, the same as standard trees. Another 
thing that may be said ii that irresponsible 
parties sell and deliver trees as dwarf Apples 
which are not. 
A Note From J. J. Thomn». 
In reply to your note, I would Bay that my 
impression is not very favorable to Paradise 
stocks for general culture, and I would not 
recommend them widely—but they are inter¬ 
esting and convenient for amateurs who will 
prune and give them proper care. 
PEARS. 
Ellwanger & Barry, of Rochester, N. Y.. 
offer this season for the first time the Iloosic 
Pear, of which No. 3 in the accompanying 
sketches is a profile. It is a seedling of [lacon’s 
Incomparable, and was raised by the Hon. A. 
Foote of Williamstown, Mass. Fruit large, 
obovate, haviug considerable exterior resem¬ 
blance to Beurni Diel; stalk one and a quar¬ 
ter inch long, moderately stout and set 
obliquely in a slight depression. Calyx large, 
open, in a shallow depression. Skin greenish- 
yellow, dotted and marbled with russet. Flesh 
fine-grained, melting, juicy, with a rich almond 
flavor, like that of Edmunds, in quality rank¬ 
ing as best; tree an erect, free grower, very 
hardy, and remarkably prolific. Season Octo¬ 
ber. 
Messrs. E. & B. have fruited it for several 
years, and they think its many good qualities 
justify them in offering It to the public. The 
outline No. 1 is that of Pitmaston Ducbesse. 
It resembles Ducbesse d'Angouleme, which is 
said to be its parent, though of better quality; 
is a free, irregular grower, and, like its sup¬ 
posed parent, does udmirably on Quince. It is 
ripe in tally October, The outline No 2 is 
that of Duhamel de Monceau. This is a French 
pear (Andre Leroy, ’05)—large, long-pyriiorm; 
skin rather rough, nearly covered with brown¬ 
ish russet; flesh melting, juicy, with the flavor 
of Winter Nelis. The tree is a moderate grower. 
In use in November and December. 
prfintltntal. 
ASPARAGUS AND ITS CULTIVATION, 
Were I to cultivate but one square rod of 
land and grow but one kind of vegetables, as¬ 
paragus would be the one. In no other way 
could I get, from so small an area, such an 
abundance of green stuff, or such a variety of 
delicious dishes for my table, and all this with 
comparatively little labor. 
ASrARAGUS PLANTS.—HO. 113. 
Mauy Americans set the plants not over three 
or four inches deep and break the young 
sprouts off close to the ground, when six or 
eight inches high, whilst gardeners in the 
Old World have the crowns of the plauts about 
eight Inches deep and cut the Btoots when 
just appearing above ground. Tie gustibus 
non est disputandum, however, — there's no 
accounting for tastes. Whilst having a per¬ 
sonal preference for the latter method, 1 am 
willing to admit that the lower part of the 
sprouts, when grown slowly and iu unsuitable 
soil, is always stringy and unfit for food, yet I 
claim for the shoots, wheu grown quickly and 
without exposure to the light, a delicious ten¬ 
derness and a flavor lacking iu those broken 
off from above ground. 
BLANCHING THE SHOOTS.—FIG. 114. 
The essential conditions for success are 
warmth, abundance of stimulants and some 
materials eight or ten inches deep above the 
crowns, that will offer the least resistance to 
the growing sprouts, absorb much heat and 
keep out light. 
Have plants in extremely rich, loose soil in 
rows feet or more apart, leaving the crowns 
free, or but slightly covered. See fig. For 
the material to blanch the shoots. 1 am inclined 
to the belief that dry forest leaves, packed 
quite loose, would be the best, provided they 
are kept from being scattered by the wind, 
either by the use of wires or some other device 
—boards will not answer. 
Having last spring, a quantity of fine saw¬ 
dust, which had been thrown in the track of 
the horse-power and mixed by the horse's hoofs 
largely and thoroughly with loam and horse- 
manure. I put this in ridges over the rows, as 
shown in fig. The material kept very light 
and lr 03ft all through the season, and the plant*, 
stimulated by frequent applications of strong 
liquid manure between the ridges, pushed thou - 
shoots vigorously upwards. Mauy were cut 
measuring 13 Inches in length and one Inch In 
largest diameter, blanched to the tips and of a 
delicious tendcrucss and flavor. When asprout 
breaks through the covering, the latter may be 
removed a little, thus laying one side of the 
sprout bare almost to the roots and affording a 
good opportunity for cutting it. the covering 
then is easily put back in it proper position. 
It will be seen by fig. that the roots between 
the ridges, are but a few inches below the Bur- 
face and therefore, more exposed to the in¬ 
fluence of the sun's rays than they would be 
with level cultivation. Iu the fall a heavy 
dressing of flue compost may be applied 
between the ridges and the bed leveled off. 
Whatever market gardeners may think of this 
treatment ol asparagus, I at any rate am highly 
pleased with the results obtained. 
Tuisco Greiner. 
full) Crop. 
HOW AND WHEN TO SOW GRASS SEED. 
H. L. wrsos. 
The following urticle is offered in the hope 
that some of its suggestions may prove of value 
eveu to those whose experience has been long 
and extended, while, it is hoped, it will enable 
the beginner to avoid the errors into which the 
wiiter himself fell. 
It is the general practice of farmers here, 
and perhaps throughout the United States, to 
sow their clover and other grass seeds iu the 
spring among the growing wheat, rye, or oats. 
Ten years or more ago, tae sowing was doue 
from the middle of February to the middle of 
March, when thefmsthad left the ground open 
in cracks and seams, into which the seed fell 
and took root. Now, however, a majority of 
farmers harrow their wheat, and the grass seed 
1b bowu before tbe barrow from the 1st to the 
middle of April in this latitude. Iu this way a 
catch of grass is ueaily alwayB obtained, 
though 1 have never observed that the wheat 
derived any benefit from the harrowing, as is 
frequently claimed. The common, straight- 
tooihed harrow tears up much of the wheat, 
besides covering the remainder with earth, 
which seems for a while to retard its growth. 
The Thomas Smoothing Harrow is the beatiiu- 
plement for this pupose; its teeth, inclining 
backwards at an angle of about 45 degrees, 
cover the seed lightly, but sufficiently, and do 
no injury whatever to the wheat, even if they 
do it no good. At any rate, our graziers would 
much prefer to lose the wheat crop than to 
lose a catch of grass, and therefore care very 
little about any injury that may be doue the 
wheat iu the process of harrowing. 
It is not at all a difficult matter to obtain a 
good set of grass iu stiff clay soils, and this, 
too, when the Boil may be very thin. The 
grass rarely ever perishes, save in seasons of 
long-continued drought. But on saudy and 
gravelly soils, the case is quite different, 
and, with the ordinary methods employed in 
securing it. a good stand of grass is rather the 
exception Ihau the rulo. Such soils, lrom their 
thirsty nature and lose texture, do not com¬ 
pact around the emall’plauts, but allow them 
to perish for want of moisture except in 
unusually wet seasons. Iu my earlier attempts 
at sowing grass, 1 threw away many bushels 
of clover seed before I found this out. On 
land of this description it is always beet to 
harrow iu the seed and follow with the roller. 
I have frequently noticed that where a road 
had been trampled through the field and the 
soil made close and firm, there was a good 
catch of clover, while on either side there was 
an entire failure. 
One of my neighbors, instead of sowing his 
corn field in wheat in the fail, as is usually 
doue, always sows it down in clover after the 
last working of the corn, and he seldom fails 
to secure a good staud. To follow this method, 
it is accessary to keep the corn perfectly clean 
and tree of weeds, aud to cultivate fiat, so as 
to leave the surface smooth. The corn pro¬ 
tects the grass from the heat, aud at the same 
time does not crowd it, as is the case in fields 
of small grain. By fall the clover has com¬ 
plete possession of the ground, aud does not 
have to struggle for a fitful existence with the 
rag-weeds, which spiing up in vast numbers 
in the stubble fields. The farmer, however, 
loses his crop of wheat; it would be better 
therefore, if one wishes to sow grass seed iu 
the corn, to reverse the old rotatiou, and in¬ 
stead of the order, corn, wheat, grass; put 
wheai, corn, grass. I presume that the uncer¬ 
tainty of being able to plow sod laud in the 
summer season, has alone kept farmers from 
doing this. 
It is not an uncommon thing for the summers 
to be bo dry that eveu stubble fields are plowed 
with difficulty. But there are certainly obvious 
advantages in turning over the sod first for 
wheat. In the first place, tbe plowing being 
done in July and August, more weeds aud other 
pests of the fields are destroyed, aud they are 
turned under to rot and enrich the land. In 
fact, this is the only way in which the running 
brier, or dewberry vine, can be killed at all. 
Mauy fields all over the country are literally 
covered with these briers, to say nothing about 
the Blackberry. Now, turning these briers 
under in the spring is the best possible way of 
Betting them out and cultivating them ; for at 
every point they will send up a new sprout to 
be the nucleus of innumerable ruuuers. If the 
plowing must be done iu the spring, they 
should be cut off with tbe scylho before the 
grouud is plowed. Two or three summer 
plowlogs will exterminate them on the worst- 
iufeeted field. Then the corn, being always 
planted on a 6tubb!e, is never trouoled with 
the wire and cut-worms, which always exist in 
6 od land. The grass seed may be sown in the 
corn as above suggested, or the sowing may 
be deferred till tbe succeeding epi iug, wheu the 
corn stubble should be plowed and the grass 
sown by itself. Some men would prefer, iu 
this case, to put the corn stubble iu oats and 
sow the clover along with them ; for my own 
part, I do not think the sowing of grass seed 
with oats advisable, although some good far¬ 
mers advocate it, and seen re good catches in 
that way. In case of drought, however, the 
oats, standing on the ground longer than 
wheat or rye, make heavier draughts on the 
soil, absorb all the moisture, aud thus take 
away all nourishment from the grass, which 
is either entirely killed or loses its vigor for 
the remainder of the season. 
A plan, followed by myself for several years 
past, has been to wait till alter harvest before 
sowing my grass seed ; then to break up my 
stubbie either with the swiug plow or with 
bull-tongues; harrow, and sow down with 
clover and orchard grass, or clover aud Randall 
grass. If one can afford it, especially where 
his fields are thin, it is always best to sow 
grass seed alone. There are very few farmers 
who have failed to notice that iu the spots in 
wheat fields, occupied at seeding time by corn 
shocks but left uaked in the spring, the grass 
is higher aud thriftier than elsewhere. 
Timothy should always be sown iu the fall, 
and may in this climate be sown with safety as 
late as the middle of October. It seldom does 
well wheu sown in the spring. All the other 
grasses must either be sown in the spring or 
not later in the (all than the last of August or 
the first of September. 
The following quantities per acre are sown 
here: (Jlover aud timothy (alone or together) 
one bushel to eight acres ; clover and orchard 
grass (together) one bushel of the former and 
five bushels of the latter to ten acres; orchard 
grass alone, if the seed are peifectly clean, one 
bushel totuc acre, otherwise two bushels to the 
aero. The BAme proportions are observed for 
Randall grass. Glover, one quart per acre ; 
orchard, one peck per acre ; Raudall, one gal¬ 
lon ; Red top, oue gallon, per acre. 
Tulaskl Co, Va. 
-♦♦♦- 
MAXIMUM YIEL ) OF WHEAT. 
The question how large a crop of wheat cau 
possibly be grown upon an acre, is so often 
asked that I have had the curiosity to compute 
the rate per acre of wheat harvested by the 
German chemist, Ilellriegel, iu bis somewhat 
noted experiments (8ee Professor Johnson’s 
u How Crops Feed"), made several years 6iuce 
with the view ol growing a perfect grain crop ; 
that is to say, the largest possible crop ob¬ 
tainable when the plants are provided with all 
the food and air aud water they can make use 
of, as weU as with plenty of light, heat, aud 
standing-room in soil of the best quality. 
The experiments were, of course, made ou a 
scale small cuough to permit absolute control 
of all the conditions of fertility above enumer¬ 
ated, and that the plants might be completely 
protected from injury by frost, wind, rain or 
hall- They were carried to the utmost perfec¬ 
tion with barley to which crop, indeed, most 
of them relate. Only comparatively few ex¬ 
periments were made with wheat, aud iu the 
very brief account of tbe trials, which is acces¬ 
sible to me, no mention is made as to which 
variety of wheat was grown. It is not eveu 
perfectly clear that a somewhat larger yield of 
wheat might not have been got in ease the 
wheat experiments had been carried on fur¬ 
ther, with the same painstakiug elaboration 
aud repetition which were devoted to the bar¬ 
ley trials. Nevertheless, it appears plainly 
enough that Ilellriegel harvested wheat-grain 
at the rate of 125 bushels (of (50 pouuds each) 
to the acre; aud that he harvested barley at 
tliO rate of 105 bushels (of 48 bounds each) to 
the acre. Oup of his barley plauts, apparently 
of exceptional merit, is described as having 
borne 63(5 grains. F. II. Stoker. 
.fault ®opus, 
WESTERN FARMING—IV. 
W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Spring Work* 
I should like to turn aside from the general 
purpose of these articles, viz : ihe comparison 
of modes aud styles of farming, to give a few 
bints on spring work; and wish to make them 
general in cbaiacter, like those on autumn 
work iu these columns Just. fall. 
A General Plan of Work 
is most useful, aud should, I think, bo carefully 
prepared aud written down in the farmer’s 
dairy or elsewhere before the spring work be¬ 
gins to press. Then, us the weeks pass, it is 
well to chock off the finished work and see 
how ueai ly we have come up to our ideal. A 
general estimate of expenses ami earnings 
should be made, too, in advauee. Wo should 
make up our minds what permanent improve¬ 
ments we ought to nrke and pay for, or what 
debt we cau pay up, or wlial iuuiease make in 
number and value of our livestock. Ot course, 
accident, or bickuess, or partial failure of 
some important crop, or death of a valuable 
animal, or like misfortune, may partly thwart 
our plans aud make us fall short of our hopes. 
But we shall do far more if we have a plan, 
PROFILES OF (1) PITMASTON DUCHESSE, (2) DUHAMEL DE MONCEAU, AND (3) HOOSIC.—FIG 115. 
