THE RURAL 
NEW-YORKER. 
JAN 48 
though the weather be not fair, the seeds soon 
germinate and send up a vigorous growth, 
* which is not diminished until cold weather 
and frost come on. As the sweet pea continues 
in bloom all Summer, and makes a very heavy 
growth, it forms a very good screen for un¬ 
sightly objects, or it may be made to act as a 
protection for tender plants. It grows to a 
bight of six feet, and may therefore prove a 
very ornamental covering for a trellis-work or 
rough fences. 
There is quite a variety or colors of sweet 
peas, — white, rose, red, crimson, purple, 
black, striped, etc. The seeds should be plant- 
Sweet Peas.—F ig. 28, 
ed three or four inches deep, early in the 
Spring. The plants should be grown about au 
inch apart, and support should be furnished 
early. Either trellis, lattice or bush makes 
an admirable support. 
The varieties of sweet peas are numerous. 
Butterfly is a very beautiful one, having a 
pure white ground delicately laced with lav¬ 
ender blue; it is exceedingly fragrant, and is 
desirable for bouquets. Scarlet Invincible is 
remarkably fragrant, and produces a great 
number of crimson flowers. Violet Queen is 
dwarfer in habit than any of the other varie¬ 
ties: the flowers are of a deep violet color. 
Almost all of the varieties advertised in seeds¬ 
men’s catalogues will be found to be very 
beautiful and attractive, and a great addition 
to the flower garden. 
Pflmvtagiml 
PEACH CULTURE. 
GEN. c. m. clay. 
The peach (Amygdalus Persica, Linn.) is a 
native of Persia, and is found growing wild 
in many parts of Asia Minor, but is thought 
to reach its highest perfection under cultiva¬ 
tion between latitude 80 and 40 degrees north 
in the United States. It is regarded by many 
as the finest of all fruits, though I prefer the 
watermelon. 
Seed. —The general impression is that the 
peach sprouts as the apple does, but my ex¬ 
perience has been quite the contrary; though 
I would not venture to assert that it never 
varies from the parent fruit. For practical 
purposes, then, we may select the nuts of the 
best varieties and plant them at once, when 
by Spring, in favorable sites, they will appear 
above ground, and may be set out that or the 
following year. The seedlings have some ad¬ 
vantages over the grafted trees; they are 
more hardy and generally of a higher flavor, 
as the grafted fruit is often injured by the 
stock and the splitting of the stones by which 
the bitter kernel enters the flesh of the peach 
and imparts its ill-flavor to it. The stones of 
the seedling come up better also than those 
of the grafted trees. The advantages of 
the graft are more early bearing, and a more 
sparing fruitage, which is a great advantage, 
as the peach is iucliued to over-bearing, and 
thins its fruit with great difficulty, so that a 
very good tree is of no value unless its fruit is 
thinned by hand. 
Soil.—T he peach should have a dry soil; 
a high and rolling sandy loam is best, as it 
does not do so well in a moist, alluvial soil as 
the apple. But it will grow well in almost 
any site and soil. 
Planting. —The land being well plowed, 
should be checked off so as to allow from 15 to 
20 feet distance between the trees; for the 
peach, being a semi-tropical fruit, is greatly 
improved by much sun. Two-year-old trees 
are the best, set in wide holes as deep as the 
soil will allow without entering the clay or 
hard-pan, which will notallow water drainage; 
but the tree should not, however, be set more 
than a few inches below the general level. 
The roots should be well spread in a dry time 
and the interspaces should be filled with soil 
which should be trodden with the feet so as 
to hold the tree steady. The roots should be 
raised slightly at first to allow them to be well 
covered with earth and put into a proper di¬ 
rection. When the ground is level pour a 
bucket of water into each hole and raise the 
soil a few inches more to prevent water from 
settling in the holes. 
Trimming and Stakes.—I f the trees have 
large limbs it is best to drive a firm stake 
within a few inches of each tree and then 
tie the tree and stake set perpendicularly with 
strips of refuse cloth or twine. But my plau 
is to cut off all branches, leaviug the tree a 
single stem; then "head it in” to a proper 
proportion. Along the whole trunk new 
branches will put out, which must be cut or 
rubbed off to the bight desired to be given the 
trunk, which should be low. On these the 
wind has little effect and they will need uo 
staking. The low truuk allows the limbs to 
protect it against sun, cold and high winds, 
and allows the tree to be easily trimmed and 
the fruit to be easily gathered. 
every year of my life. I never burnt a tree 
infested with the "yellows,” so I can say the 
disease is not contagious. I am of the opinion 
that it is the effect of the borer’s cutting 
away the bark underground, girdling the 
tree and thus killing it. All my trees well 
cleaned from borers are ever vigorous, and 
few of them perish. The "curl” is also very 
rarely seen, and its causes are to me unknown. 
I am of the opinion that the microscopic in¬ 
fusoria? and fungi, when they exist at all, are 
generally the sequences and not the causes of 
disease in plants, as nature uses such means to 
disintegrate all vital organisms and to restore 
the elements to the general production. And 
I think the microscopic bacteria are nothing 
more than the molecules of animal and vege¬ 
table matter in their normal motion, which 
are often mistaken for infusoria? and fungi. Be 
this as it may, the peach with me lives from 
15 to 25 years, and I don’t see why market- 
gardeners are compelled so often to renew 
their peach orchards. 
White Hall, Ky. 
edge of such secrets may be said to constitute 
the fine art of grafting. Mr. J. C. Plumb, of 
Milton, Wisconsin, says that those extra-fine 
apples, the Grimes’s Golden and Jewett’s 
Red, are poor in that trying climate on apple 
roots, but if top-grafted on Siberian stems 
they are admirable. Mr. W. F. Heikes, in the 
very different climate of Huntsville, Ala¬ 
bama, has found, after many trials with dif¬ 
ferent stocks and many failures, that a par¬ 
ticular type of the Chickasaw Plum, to which 
the Wild Goose belongs, has proved a su peri in¬ 
stock for the peach for Northern as well as 
Southern planting, The union is perfect, 
growth is steady, eveu through dry weather, 
and the trees ripen well, being rather more 
stout and branchy, and not so tall as on peach 
roots. Some time ago the Tribune mentioned 
a variety of this strain of Chickasaw—the 
Blackman—which greatly resembles the peach 
iu leaf, bud, bark, aud general habit of 
growth. 
We have become familial- with the great 
improvement which a few pears,—and only 
very few—among them Louis Bonne and 
Duchesse—exhibit when grown upon quince 
stock. This quiuce stock must be of a certain 
select kind too, for all sorts of quince are not 
equally eligible for such base use. In England 
and France they grow certain sorts of plum 
for stocks for peach, others for plum and apri¬ 
cot, and special sorts of apple for grafting the 
finer sorts of garden dessert apples upon. In 
England the orchard apples are all grown 
upon seedlings of the crab, aud there is no 
doubt but that among these there are special 
seedlings more eligible for certain sorts than 
the chance run of seedlings, and these, if their 
fitness is found, can only be propagated sep- 
erately by layering, as the French do to sup¬ 
ply themselves with the select sorts of Para 
dise aud Doucaiu Apple, and Angers Quince. 
Tyrone, Pa. "w.” 
Pxmltri) 
IMPORTED EGGS. 
It is perhaps inexplicable, it is certainly no¬ 
where explained, why in a country like this 
there should be any necessity for the importa¬ 
tion of eggs. We certainly have every facil¬ 
ity for their production that any other coun¬ 
try or people has, and yet every little while 
it is auuouueed that a large shipment of eggs 
has arrived at this or tiiat, port. I had occa¬ 
sion recently to consult the special Consular 
Report of the II. B. Department of State en¬ 
titled "Declared Exports for the United 
States,” for the first and second quarters of 
1888, aud I was struck with the frequency of 
the occurrence of the item " Eggs.” Running 
it through somewhat hastily 1 find that there 
were reported to our Consuls fir export to 
this country from Canada alone iu the quar¬ 
ter uamed, eggs of the value of $409,599. ll» 
This it must be remembered is the export 
value which is probably not- more than three- 
quarters of their market value ou this side. 
At some of the most important points no re¬ 
ports at all were returned by the Consuls or 
consular agents, and a great many exports are 
never reported to the Consuls. Taking all tbe 
circumstances into consideration, it would ap¬ 
pear that the market value of the Canadian 
eggs imported into this country during the 
current year cauuot lie less than a million dol¬ 
lars, In one sense this may be called a small 
item; in another it is a pretty large one. It 
would certainly go a long way in thgimproYe¬ 
men t of the stock and appliances of egg hus¬ 
bandry eveu in this large country. If our 
Canadian neighbors can afford to raise eggs 
for our markets, there cannot be any possible 
reason why we cannot better afford to do it, 
and keep our money at home. I admit thut 
they have a little advantage over us in some 
respects, aud that a good many of our farmers 
iusist that they cannot afford to raise eggs at 
the current market price for them. If it is 
tme, as sometimes asserted, that the Canadian 
competition keeps prices so low that it is uo 
longer au object for American farmers to pro¬ 
duce them, there must be a screw loose 
somewhere that needs a little tinkering. Is 
it enterprise or a protective tariff that we need! 
o. s. B. 
‘JltiscdUtxe0us. 
THE EYE-OPENER. 
T. M. Hayes & Co,, seedsmen, of Cincin¬ 
nati, Ohio, are evidently desirous of free ad¬ 
vertising, as they have failed to pay then- ad¬ 
vertising bills to some papers that were credu¬ 
lous enough to trust them; they ought hardly 
object, therefore, to a little free advertising 
in this department. W e have here five com¬ 
plaints of their mode of doing business, to¬ 
gether with answers to inquiries with regal'd 
"Heading in” and "Back” is the most 
important part iu the peach culture. The 
peach seeking sun and light, runs up at once 
in long branches, which fork and bend with 
the weight of the fruit. By my system of 
trimming you have a single, firm trunk, with 
uo forks. When the limbs are "cut back” 
they stand inclined upwards and stocky, be¬ 
ing able to sustain all the fruit, as in cutting 
back you uot only trim the tree in the proper 
place, but cut off many fruit buds and thin 
the fruit, which is most desirable, as the peach 
will cast its fruit with great difficulty, if at 
all. When the limbs sag the sap concentrates 
in the upward shoots, and the depressed part 
of the limbs and fruit are starved. 
Cultivation. —The plow may be freely 
used ac first, and root crops, but not grain, 
may be grown in tbe orchard; but when the 
trees begin to bear in a few years, I think it 
best to set the grounds with Red Clover, 
which may be eaten on the ground by' sheep 
or small calves and hogs, this being in our 
lands sufficient manure. 
Gathering. —When the fruit is ripe it 
should be pulled carefully by hand and placed 
in baskets not larger than a peck measure. It 
should be eaten at once, or dried for home 
use or market. No fruit undergoes fermen¬ 
tation more quickly after pulling thau the 
peach. 1 regard the cling-stones as the high¬ 
est flavored, but the free-stoues are easily cut 
up and dried, aud for market purposes they 
are to be preferred on that account. When 
the trees are low, as they should be, many are 
gathered by standing on the ground; Ihen 
step-ladders are used and light ladders set up 
against the boughs for the highest fruit are 
necessary. 
Diseases and Defects of the Peach.— 
The peach tree, if allowed to fork, will gen¬ 
erally split at tbe fork and be destroyed. 
The sagging of the limbs will produce poor 
fruit and early decay. The cutting away of 
heavy limbs may destroy the tree, as the 
peach gums and does uot heal readily; hence 
the only trimming, as said before, should be 
"heading hack,” and cutting away dead limbs 
close to the main stem, aud then the wound 
should be covered with paint. The borer 
(ASgeria exitiosa, Say) is the great pest of the 
peach. The fly deposits its eggs on the bark 
near the surface of the soil in early Spring 
[In tliis latitude eggs are deposited till the 
end of August.— Eds]; the eggs hatch into 
small, white worms, which feed on the tender 
bark, and soon enter it, where they grow, at 
times an inch long, with yellowish heads, and 
finally come out in the form of the mother fly 
again. In the eanv Spring the tree, denuded 
of soil down to the roots, should be carefully 
examined, and where the worm has entered, 
gum will exude; then with a strong, narrow- 
bladed knife, the bark can be cut away in the 
track of the worm till the pest is killed. The 
trees must then be white-washed with strong 
lime, roots and stem upwards for a few feet. 
Then the earth should be heaped-up eight or ten 
inches around the trunk to keep the fly from 
laying the eggs so near as to enter the roots. 
In the early Fall the same process is gone 
through, the land being left level for the bark 
to harden till cold weather, when the trees are 
hilled and so left till Winter is past and Spring 
sets in. All the other methods of destroying 
the borer are futile. The exposing of the 
roots to Winter's cold kills the borer and the 
trees also. My father, thinking when the 
borer came in his time with grafted fruit, 
that the decay of the peach tree was owing to 
long tilling of the soil, planted an orchard on 
newly-cleared land. In the meantime he was 
tola of the borer, and that opening tbe soil to 
the roots would kill the pest; he did so and 
lost his whole orchard. 
The "Yellows” and "Curl.”— There 
has been a life-long disputation about these 
diseases. I have had peach trees flourishing 
BAND PEARS. 
Some 40 years ago I purchased a Chinese 
Sand Pear-tree, and it has been au attractive 
and beautiful object. In the Spring its large 
red and purple leaves, with a profusion of 
clusters of blossoms covering the tree as with 
a mantle of snow, render it highly orna¬ 
mental. I consider the fruit valuable, aud 
we carefully pick it in October, and early in 
Winter make it up into the best of spiced 
fruit. It is firm aud close-grained, and re¬ 
tains its shape better than any pear 1 have 
seen. It is also pretty good for canning, as 
with a little spice its flavor is not perceived. 
It is a rapid grower, perfectly hardy and a 
good bearer. 
A few years since I grafted a few cions of 
the Japan Pear, and from the short time I 
have tested the fruit, I think this sort better 
than the Chinese. The fruit is of russet color, 
oblate in shape, rather larger than the Sand 
Pear, and of better flavor. Indeed, when 
ripe it is palatable and quite a good cooking 
or baking pear. The tree has a dark olive 
bark, makes a stout growth, and the fruit 
needs thinning or the limbs will break owing 
to the profusion of it. I inserted the grafts 
into a Lawrence Pear, and also Kieffere, and 
they both grew finely and hore fruit the second 
year. Both had to be thinned out or the 
limbs would have broken from the weight of 
the fruit. My experience with the Kieffer is 
that when grafted ou large trees, as mine 
mostly are, one-half or two-thirds of the fruit 
should be removed, and that left will be all 
the better. At first there was in the Kieffer 
that Sand Pear taste we do not relish; but as 
1 persevered I liked it better; but that it can 
be equal to a prime Bose or Winter Nelis I cau¬ 
uot believe. If properly grown and thinned 
out, I doubt not the Kieffer will be au acquisi¬ 
tion to our late pears, and as 1 cannot find a 
good late pear that is healthy aud a good 
bearer with us, I welcome the Kieffer as it is 
excellent for preserving. 
Although I have been engaged in pear cul¬ 
ture for over 40 years, aud have had over 100 
varieties, I can give but few that succeed well 
on the light soil of Long Island. I find that 
many kinds that succeed at first, bearing 
good fruit for a few years, soon fail. There 
are many varieties that will bear excellent 
fruit abundantly on clay soil or where the 
upper soil is underlaid with clay, that fail aud 
die when on a light, sand}' loam, even where 
the two sorts are only a short distance apart. 
The fruit-grower should understand these 
things; for the nature of the soil as well as 
the climate to which some kinds are adapted, 
should be known. Unless they are in the busi¬ 
ness, few can realize the pleasure of testing 
new varieties of fruit, especially when we 
find our hopes realized, and if the results are 
not as we anticipated, we, "still pursuing, 
learn to labor and to wait.” 
I have found some profitable, hardy and 
good varieties that are not generally in the 
catalogues. The Pratt is a good, thrifty tree; 
fruit large and showy, aud of good flavor. 
Sterling is a beautiful pear, a good grower 
aud bearer. Merriam is with us, next to the 
Bartlett, the most profitable of any. Howell 
is first-class and profitable. ISAAC HICKS. 
Queens Co., L. I. 
CONGENIAL STOCKS. 
Graftiug works wonders, in any case—and 
ifs immediately obvious effects, in change of 
habit aud complexion, are ample reward aud 
inducement for the young experimenter in the 
art to extend his operations in another year. 
Where union is made of specially congenial 
sorts, the ultimate result upon the fruit is 
often in the highest degree striking and valu¬ 
able. Ouly experiment and careful observa¬ 
tion can determine as to this special fitness of 
sorts for each other, aud the intimate kuowl- 
