462 
JUNE 23 
.tor ll )t Doling. 
PROPAGATION BY BUDDING. 
rees and sh rubs are propa¬ 
gated in several ways, but of 
them all none perhaps is more 
employed than that of budding. 
The method is so simple that 
it can easily lie done by the 
young folks, and as the sea¬ 
son for budding is now drawing 
near, Uncle Mark takes this 
opportunity to give the Cousins a lesson upon 
the subject, hoping that many of tbem w ill 
profit by it. The fathers of many of the 
Cousins will soon, no doubt, begin to bud 
their peach, apple, plum and pear trees, so 
that there w ill be a fine opportunity for them 
to help. As most of the Cousins know, the 
young trees grown from the seeds of our com¬ 
mon fruits will not produce varieties the same 
as the stock from w T hich the seeds were pro¬ 
duced. To get this same kind of fruit, or auy 
other that may be desired, it will only be 
necessary to cut the buds from the tree you 
wish, and insert them under the bark of the 
young seedlings. 
Strong seedlings of the apple, pear, cherry 
and plum should be budded when about one 
year old, during the season of the year when 
the bark will slip well, which, as a rale, oc¬ 
curs in the mouths of July and August. To bud 
successfully, first, the buds used must be large, 
healthy and well developed, and second, the 
bark must raise freely from the stocks to be 
budded. The tools needed are a sharp knife 
to remove auy branches that may be in the 
way of putting in the bud, and a budding 
knife (a knife having a round, sharp point) to 
take oil' the buds and make the cuts in the 
trees to be budded. 
Now. having got the tools to go to work 
with, suppose we go to budding. We w ill get 
our buds from some stout young shoot of this 
season’s growth, taking only the plumpest 
ones. The leaves should first be stripped from 
the shoots, leaving part of the leaf stem, for 
a handle to the buds. With the budding knife 
cut off as smootldy its possible, just down to 
the inner wood, l>eing careful not to cut into 
it more than possible, cutting out the bud and 
bark in a shield-like form. 
Then, with a knife, make a clean cross-cut 
through the bark of the young seedling, just 
to the sap wood, being careful not to cut into 
it. Starting from the middle of this cross-cut, 
make another cut downward, funning with 
the first, two right-angles or a letter T. 
Then, with the point of the knife, raise up 
slightly the two edges of the downward cut, 
and slide the bud down in between the bark 
and wood. Having got the bud in its place, it 
must be tied there, so that -it will stay in its 
place, and so that the air will be kept out. 
Foi this purpose we may use yarn or the fiber 
of basswood, which can he taken from bass 
mats. Of the two, the bass filter is the best 
and cheapest. The string should be wound 
around the tree tightly, commencing at the 
bottom of the incision and covering every 
part of it, leaving the bud and leaf stalk un¬ 
covered. The string is fastened above the 
horizontal cut, and the work is dune. In from 
three to four weeks the hands which are tied 
around the buds should be cut off or untied. 
It will take some little practice on the part 
of the young folks to do this work rapidly 
and, as a rule, successfully, but with perse¬ 
verance it will be easily overcome. 
The chief dirticuity to beginners is to prop¬ 
erly remove the bud. When the knife pusses 
exactly lie tween the bark and wood, the bud 
will Ire sure to be good; but this rarely hap¬ 
pens, as more or less wood is usually attached. 
It is a good plan to liegiu budding having for 
a motto, “Practice makes perfect,” 
Uncle Mark. 
NOTES BY UNCLE MARK. 
Now that the Cousins are busily engaged in 
caring for their flower-beds and vegetable 
gardens, I would especially impress upon them 
the importance of always having their tools 
in good condition and keeping the weeds 
down. All of you know that when the hired 
men go out in the field to work each strives to 
get the best tool, some always being better 
than others. As a rule, the rcasoirfor this is 
that the best ones have been better eared for. 
After finishing work, the tools should be 
thoroughly cleaned and dried, and hung tip in 
a place reserved for keeping them, so that 
when wished for use again one may know 
where to go for them. By keeping them in 
good condition the work may be done much 
quicker and the tools will last longer. Many 
are lost or do not serve half their time, on 
account of lack of care. 
With good tools the weeds can easily be 
kept dowu. This should be done by every¬ 
body who pretends to be any kind of a farmer. 
Weeds are not a profitable crop to grow and 
no person ought to try and grow two crops at 
once on the same piece of ground. Cousins, 
keep the weeds out of your gardens. 
The seed distribution has been all sent out, 
and, as Fannie May remarks in her letter in 
the Rural of June 9, “Uncle Mark wishes to 
hear the results of the seed planting, whether 
good or bad.” I hope the Cousins will get a 
great deal of enjoyment from their flowers, as 
I am sura they will if carefully attended to. 
Many interesting letters liave been received 
of late from the members of the Club. As a 
rale they are well written and neat, and show 
much painstaking in their composition. The 
chief trouble seems to be in the way of spell¬ 
ing After writing a letter it is always a good 
plan to read it carefully over and see if any 
mistakes are made or words spelled wrong. 
Then they may easily be corrected. 
A few letters upon the last discussion have 
been received of late. The best ones I will 
publish. Please do uot send in any more on 
that subject, as the topic for the next discus¬ 
sion will be announced in a few weeks, when 
I hope to hear from all. 
STRAWBERRY CULTURE IN LOUIS¬ 
IANA. 
I am deeply interested in the Children’s 
Column of the Rural; you are doing truly 
“mission work” for the young. That was a 
charming strawberry letter from Walter 
Franks, and suggests to me the idea of also 
telling my experience. The soil of my gar¬ 
den is black loam without a stone or pebble, 
but subject to the plague of Coco Grass, which 
comes up early in Spring, and refuses to be 
extirpated. My beds were made 20 feet long 
and four feet wide. In each of these beds 50 
plants were set out in January. They were 
arranged in three rows running lengthwise of 
the bed, and placed about a foot apart each 
way. I bought from Mr. Vick, Rochester, N. 
Y., 100 plants each of Sharpless and Monarch 
of the West, and though they had so far to 
come, they arrived in excellent condition, and 
took root at once. 1 also bought, near home, 
100 plants of Captain Jack strawberries. All 
did well, and in early Mareh I bad the beds 
thickly mulched will) cotton seed; this had the 
effect of keeping down the Coco, which hates 
shade: it also retained the moisture at th 0 
roots of the plants, w hich grew and flourished 
with a speed which I never expected. 
As the plants were so late in being put into 
the ground, I never thought of having frait 
from the first year’s planting aud was quite 
amazed to see then bloom so freely. About 
the last of April I gathered a few, and now 
every morning I liave a soup-platcful picked, 
aud the yield increases steadily. The flavor 
of all three kinds is very fine, hut the Sharp- 
less is, w ithout doubt, “king among them all.” 
The Cette® seed has kept the fruit beautifully 
clean; and the few spikes of Coco that have 
dared to show then- impudent noses ean be 
pulled up by the roots, the ground below being 
kept so loose. I think of keeping the cotton 
seed on the beds till the heat of Hummer has 
passed, and in September having it worked 
into the ground. I am anxious to propagate 
by putting the layers or nmuers in small pots. 
1 have already sown seeds of the “Sharpies*,” 
and acknowledge myself under deep obliga¬ 
tions to that wise article in the Rural of 
March 8, by Dr. Aspinwall, “How to start 
small and delicate seeds.” Mrs. D. C. 
Hermitage Lauding Post-office, La. 
♦ ♦ ♦ - 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Cousins: —I was most agreeably sur¬ 
prised uot. long ago by receiving a packet of 
flower seeds from Uncle Murk. I have uot 
written very regularly to him. aud didn’t 
know but he had forgotten me entirely. Many 
thanks for them, Uncle; I will plant, them 
soon and write you of my success with tbem. 
I do love flowhrs, and delight to take rare of 
them. 1 wonder how many of the Cousins 
have a wild flower garden; they are easily 
made, aim there is u charm about wild flow¬ 
ers, ferns and mosses, I have never lived near 
enough the timber to walk to it aud get plants 
whenever I wanted to, so I have not us great 
a variety as I would like to have, aud mean to 
have some day. I take them up with plenty 
of earth around the roots, briug them home 
carefully and set them in a shady place, and if 
they are in bloom 1 cut off the flowers. 1 do 
not set them in rows, but as irregularly as 1 
can. tu setting out plants of any kind do not 
pour water in, then put iu the plant and cover 
with dirt; but set the plant, in its place, plac¬ 
ing the roots iu their natural position, cover 
them with fine earth, then pour water on it, 
which settles the earth around every little fib¬ 
rous root; then fill up level with the surface of 
the lied with fine dry earth. If you pour water 
on the surface it will make the ground crust' 
Do you know how many flowers and leaves go 
to sleep at night? 1 never knew that clover 
went to sleep until this Spring when one even 
ing I saw- some just shuttiug their eyes. Sup 
pose we all leara all we can about, the habits of 
plants, and when we find something new send 
Uncle Mark word. We would tell him a great 
deal he already knows and might also tell him 
something he didn’t know. Oue of the Cous¬ 
ins wrote some time ago that her favorite au¬ 
thors were Mrs, Holmes and Augusta J. Evans 
1 have read almost all of both these 
authors’ works, but 1 do not care much for 
them. Dr. J. G. Holland is one of my favor¬ 
ites, aud if tin* Cousins have never read his 
lectures called “Plain Talks” I would like to 
have them get the book and read it. The first 
lecture is on Self-help and it has done me 
more good than all of Mrs. Holmes’ books. I 
have to send this to t he post-office now but will 
make you another call some day. 
Your Cousin. Rosebud Thorne. 
[It would give me much pleasure to have the 
Cousins write of their “finds,” and no doubt I 
should learn much that I have never heard of 
before. I hope some of the nieces and neph¬ 
ews wall act upon the suggestion. 1 agree 
with Rosebud that John G. Holland’s works 
are excellent, I know of no better ones for 
young folks to read.— Uncle Mark.] 
Dear Uncle Mark: —It has been such a 
long time since I wrote my last letter to the 
deai* old Rural, I thought I would write 
again. 1 am very much interested iu the 
Children’s Department. I can hardly wait 
for the Rural to come. Pa sent for five 
papers of the Welcome oat. 1 have planted 
nearly all of my flower seeds of which a few 
have made their appearance. Ouly four of my 
watermelon seeds came up but they all died. 1 
did not have many flowers last Summer, but 
hope to havo more this. I would like to corres¬ 
pond with one of the nieces iu California. 
Your niece, 
Watertown, N. Y. Pansy. 
[If any of the Cousins wish to correspond 
with Pansy, please send word to Uncle Mark.] 
Dear Uncle Mark :— I thank you very 
much for the flower seeds you sent me. I 
live on a small farm and have a nice flower 
garden every year. We have seven Cutulpa’s 
and also 22 grape vines that came from the 
Niagara grape seed, but the cut-worms are 
making havoc with them now. Uur Rura] 
Pinks last year were the handsomest pinks I 
ever saw. Your niece, 
Ashawav, R. I. E. B. 
[By placing cabbage or turnip leaves on the 
ground around the vines, you can perhaps 
catch man}* of the cut-worms by gettiug up 
early iu the morning and looking under the 
leaves where the worms will secrete them¬ 
selves. Uncle Mark.] 
Dear Uncle Mark:—I would like you to 
ask some of the Cousins of Virginia to give me 
some hints on sweet potato culture. Some 
time ago some of the Cousins said they would 
send their photograph if auy of the others 
would, so I volunteer to send mine, I hope 
you will accept it. I will see how many of the 
Others send theirs. Yours truly, 
Worcester Co., Mass. O. F. Fuller. 
[Will the Virginia Cousins please accommo¬ 
date thus Cousin, aud send in directions fur 
raising sweet potatoes, so that Uncle Mark 
may publish them. Thanks for the picture. 
Uncle Mark has it on his desk before him as 
lie writes. He looks like the good smart boy 
his letters indicate him to be. Uncle Mark. ] 
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Dear Uncle Mark: — I planted the water¬ 
melon seeds you sent me last Spring, aud they 
grew r very nicely for a while, but the dry 
weather came on so soon, they did not boar 
any. The Hebron Potato Pa planted, and 
last Fall we bud 20 barrels of them and one 
barr<<1 of White Elephant, We think they 
are v ery nice indeed. Uur Pinks were splen¬ 
did. We have two Yuccas living, and they 
have begun to slum the threads already, I 
hope the seeds you sent us this Spring will do 
w’ell. Your niece, Fannie H. 
Johnsons, N. Y. 
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