THE RURAL WEW-YORKER. 
SEPT if 
and on August 5th was in better condition 
than Hartford and Champion usually are 
when sent to early markets, and on August 
15th it was quite ripe. It hangs remarkably 
well to the cluster, and may be left on the 
vine without dropping for weeks after ripen¬ 
ing. Its skiu, though medium thin, is quite 
tenacious, and will not be easily broken by 
handling, which will make it a good shipping 
grape. It is a little pulpy, but the pulp be¬ 
comes quite tender when it is fully ripe, and 
is not very objectionable, as the seeds are very 
small and the pulp is sweet to the center. 
The Jewel has been pronounced by some as 
equal to the Delaware in quality. While I 
cannot give it so high a place, I think it the 
best flavored of any black grape I have seen 
which is nearly as early. Iu size of cluster I 
think it will fully equal the Delaware, with 
somewhat larger berries. Iti flavor I find it, 
to my taste, sweet, rich, sprightly and plea¬ 
sant; good enough for a dessert table grape, 
and very nearly^ worthy to take the place 
among black grapes that the Delaware holds 
among the red ones. The vine seems as hardy 
and as healthy as Concord, but not as strong 
in growth. 
Mr. Burr has in his place a vine which has 
borne a good crop every year since it has come 
into bearing. In 1885 it had about 150 bunch¬ 
es and made 250 feet of wood. In 1886 it had 
100 bunches and made 240 feet of growth. 
This season it shows that it has been over¬ 
cropped, not being so good. 
Delaware, Ohio. 
[R. N.-Y.—Buuches of this grape wore sent to 
this office from Leavenworth, Kansas, and 
received August 6. The berries, as shown at 
Fig. 341 of one of them, are of me¬ 
dium size, black with some bloom. The pulp 
was rather tougher than that of the Concord 
berry. Skiu very firm; flesh sweet, two to 
three-seeded. Its extreme earliness and fine 
carrying qualities will doubtless merit com¬ 
mon aud popular consideration for the Jewel. 
A speciman of this vine, as was supposed, was 
sent to the. Rural Grounds by Mr. Burr in 
1882. But through some mistake it proves to 
be a dark red grape, ripening somewhat af¬ 
ter Moore’s Early. 
which the seed was secured in *1886 from 
Damman & Co., of Italy. 
The old Neapolitan looms up every year 
under a new name. Sibley’s Genesee is the 
latest christening I have met. 
Among early potatoes, the Early Albino 
proved very early, of superior quality, aud 
quite productive, considering the droughty 
May and June in which the plants were ob¬ 
liged to grow. 
Some strawberries appear to succeed better 
the second bearing year than the first. Last 
year the Sharpless came to the front, in pro¬ 
ductiveness and size, in a bed containing about 
SO varieties. The present year Jumbo far 
surpassed it iu productiveness and average 
size. The Cornelia proved to be one of our 
best late varieties. Covill’s Early gave the 
first pickings. The size and quality of the 
fruit would not give it standing later in the 
season, but to begin with, the variety is worth 
having. _ 
Neither the Mammoth nor Bartell’s Dew¬ 
berry seems like’y to prove of any value on 
our grounds. The fruits are sparingly pro¬ 
duced, and very poorly filled out. The 
Lueretia has not yet fruited with us, but will 
tell its^story next year. 
The Early - ; Cluster .blackberry proves de¬ 
cidedly more hardy than the Early Harvest, 
and bore a fine crop this season, while the 
latter was almost a total failure. Stone’s 
Hardy gave the most 'bountiful yield of] any. 
The Snyder ranked about second, " aud 
Stayman’s Early third. But the old Dorches¬ 
ter far surpassed any of them in quality. 
i [Ag’l. Ex. Sta., Geneva N. Y. E. S. Goff. 
From a report in a recent number, I judge 
that the Rural has not tried the Nixon 
spraying nozzle. This was recommended to 
me last winter by Professor A, J. Cook, of 
Michigan. I procured a sample ami find it so 
far superior to the Cyclone that I have aban¬ 
doned the latter entirely. It discharges the 
water very much faster than the Cyclone, and 
in an equally fine spray. 1 have used it the 
past season for spraying both large and small 
fruit trees and many smaller plauts, with en¬ 
tire satisfaction. 
Last season we tried air-slaked lime for the 
cabbage maggot with apparent success. The 
application was made rather late; that is, 
after the appearauce of the plaDt indicated 
the presence of the insects. This season, in or¬ 
der to take time by the forelock, the lime was 
applied at the time of setting the plants, but 
to my surprise it did no good at all. A care¬ 
ful examination and count iu adjoining rows 
treated with the lime, aud not treated, showed 
that the lime destroyed none of the maggots. 
I also made a thorough test of nitrate of pot¬ 
ash (saltpeter),pouring a strong solution about 
the plants several different times with exact¬ 
ly the same result. 
I agree with the Rural as to pot-grown 
strawberry plants. Iu August, 1884, I had a 
bed prepared with unusual care. The ground 
was covered with three inches of well rotted 
manure which was thoroughly mixed through 
the soil. The bed was then set out with pot- 
grown plants of several different varieties, 
ordered of a prominent grower of small fruit 
plauts. Drought followed, and though con¬ 
siderable labor was expended in watering the 
plants, many of them perished. I think that 
ordinary, well-rooted plauts, set with equal 
care, would have prospered nearly or quite as 
well. 
I think at least one of the past season’s 
novelties has come to stay, viz.: the Butter¬ 
cup lettuce. The foliage is of a beautiful 
yellowish-green tint, strongly suggestive of 
butter-color, and is unusually mild and tender. 
It heads well and endures the heat of summer 
as well as any variety I have tested. From a 
bed containing many varieties, two remained 
fit for table use long after all others had run 
to flower. These were Buttercup and Perpig¬ 
nan. A package of .‘seed received from Mr. 
Henderson under the new name, Defiance 
Summer, was identical with the latter, of 
FRUIT-NOTES IN MINNESOTA. 
T. T. LYON. 
Visit to the Excelsior vineyard; grape cul¬ 
ture in Southern Minnesota; hardy trees; 
moribund apple trees ; plums; hardiness 
of native varieties; fruits in Southeastern 
Minnesota . 
While there may be occasion to doubt if 
Mr. Gideon in chosing the crab as the basis 
of his experiments, has not entered upon a 
more arduous and protracted task than would 
have been necessary had he chosen a fruit of 
a different or more advanced type, bis steady 
perseverance has, beyond question, reached 
results of great value to the people of the 
Northwest, results which fairly entitle him to 
gratitude and honor from its people, and 
which ought to have won for him also pecu¬ 
niary returns altogether iu excess of what he 
has so far realized. 
The exhibit of grapes, which, at the New 
Orleans Exposition, received the premium as 
the best exhibit of this fruit from the district 
above latitude 42 g , and which, to the no 
slight surprise of many, contained well- 
ripened specimens of such late varieties as 
Isabella aud Catawba, were grown at Excel¬ 
sior, on the south shore of Lake Minnetonka. 
A hasty visit to this vineyard, shows it to be 
locate! on an easterly and southerly slope 
with a soil of clay loam, apparently in good 
condition. The vines were pruned to a single, 
nearly horizontal cane, with upright fruiting 
canes,trained upon a common three or tour- 
wire trellis,and they are laid down and covered 
with earth in winter to protect them against 
extreme cold which occasionally sinks the 
thermometer as low as 40 s ' below zero, the 
freezing point of mercury. 
We were surprised to find the grape so sue 
cessful, not only here, but wherever we saw it 
throughout Southeastern Minnesota. Although 
covering with earth iu winter is everywhere 
deemed necessary, the vines seemed generally 
in vigorous condition, with no indications of 
either rot or mildew; while the fruit was gen¬ 
erally in as advanced a stage of ripeness as 
that of Southern Michigan. In fuct, while at 
Minneapolis and St. Paul, as early as August 
18th we fouud “ Minnetonka grapes ” already 
on sale in the .markets. 
On the grounds of Mr. Sias, of Rochester, 
Southern Minnesota, we found Mr. Gideon’s 
Wealthy apple planted in considerable quan¬ 
tity, but suffering considerably from the 
severity of the past two winters; many of the 
newly introduced Russian varieties, on trial, 
had also suffered seriously—some of them even 
fatally. 
The Catalpa speciosa was standing quite 
satisfactorily, although the tips of the last 
year’s shoots had been killed back slightly in 
many cases. The hemlock seems to be unin¬ 
jured, when slightly sheltered from the win¬ 
ter winds; although, as is also true in its 
Michigan home, its foliage fails to withstand 
a’full winter exposure. It is not indigenous 
here. 
The Norway Spruce, although not actually 
winter-killed here, is said to brown badly. 
The native spruces, and even those indigenous 
to the Rocky Mountains promise, upon short 
experience, to prove preferable here. 
A hasty look through a very extensive or¬ 
chard, a mile or more from Rochester, where 
the trees were mostly of bearing age, although 
showing some fruit of Oldenburg and a few 
others of the older Eastern varieties, together 
with a few of those imported from Russia, 
showed a sad array of dead or dying trees, 
with comparatively very few iu vigorous 
health. Although cut up into blocks of eight 
or ten acres each by well grown belts, mostly 
of deciduous trees, these had not sufficed to 
secure the desired result. 
At La Crescent, a small town on the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, in Southeastern Minnesota, 
Mr. Harris has for many years been an earn¬ 
est experimenter in the testing of such fruits 
as promised to succeed in this region. Iu 
common with others, he has met with many 
failures so far as apples are concerned, 
either blight or the severe cold of the winters 
proving fatal to them in very many cases. 
He, however, is by no means discouraged, but 
is resolute in the purpose to “try again,’’ iu 
the light of past experience. 
He has also a very considerable collection 
of plums of tbe Americana species, which is 
indigenous and abundant, not here only, but 
even much farther north. A very consider¬ 
able number of superior varieties of this class 
have been brought under cultivation, gath¬ 
ered from various, mostly northwestern, 
localities, some of them, in quality, verj r 
nearly rivaling those of the Domestics class. 
The Chicasa w varieties, which very generally 
prove obstinately unproductive north of lat¬ 
itude 42 degrees, are here also liable to this 
objection, and although hardy, are rarely if 
ever planted. As a partial warrant for the 
claims that the American varieties are 
“curculio-proof”, the mark of the “little Turk'* 
was not by any means wanting upon the 
specimens we saw; but in every such case, so 
far as we examined, the larvm had failed to 
materialize. A trial of the quality of several 
of these varieties convinced us that some of 
them, at least, very nearly approach our older 
and more popular varieties in quality; while 
their abundant hardiness, robust health and 
great productiveness afford a guaranty that, 
so far as this fruit is concerned, the extreme 
north, not even excepting Manitoba, need not 
lack a supply. 
We also found here an extensive, healthy 
and productive vineyard, containing a large 
number of the more popular varieties, includ¬ 
ing several of the Rogers's hybrids,all vigorous 
and productive, with the foliage and fruit free 
from mildew; the fruit, largely Concord aud 
Worden, already going to market. This vine¬ 
yard also occupies ground sloping rapidly 
southward, with still higher ground at »the 
north and west, sheltering it effectually in 
those directions. 
Mr. Harris is also engaged iu market gar¬ 
dening supplying the village market and also 
that of the city of La Crosse directly across 
the river. 
Charles City, Iowa, August 29. 
FRUIT GROWING ON THE “ EAST 
SHORE,’’ OF MICHIGAN. 
Extent of the industry; treatment of straw¬ 
berries; raspberry culture; handliag black¬ 
berries; winter protection; peach, pear , 
apple and grape crops; growers happy. 
Ttie climatic influence upon the east shore 
of Lake Michigan caused by the large body of 
water on the north aud west of us, is well 
known throughout the Northwest whore the 
great variety of semi-tropical fruits grown 
there are distributed and fully appreciated. 
Berrien County was the first to prove-the 
adaptability of the east shore to the extensive 
production of peaches aud of all the varieties 
of small fruits. Being located nearly op¬ 
posite Chicago, with lines of boats running 
from Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, which 
enable us to gather our fruits until evening 
and place them upon the Chicago market iu 
the early morning, we have a practical 
monopoly of the small fruit trade during our 
season. As hundreds of persons make fruit¬ 
growing for market their whole business, our 
experiences iu varieties, modes of culture, pro¬ 
tection from cold, from ravages of insects and 
the numerous fungoid difficulties which prey 
upon and decimate fruit fields everywhere, 
are very large and varied. 
Winter protection of the strawberry is 
not practiced here. Our soil is generally saud 
or sandy loam, and plauts are not drawn from 
the grouud by the action of frost. Fields are 
usually covered with snow during the most 
severe weather; but the plauts are seldom 
injured by frost when the ground is bare. A 
light mulch is sometimes placed under im 
mature fruit, which prevents contact of it 
with the soil, and by giving more light and 
air ripens the Kharplcssand other varieties in¬ 
clined to “green tips” more uniformly. The 
Wilson held first place until the pastfewyears 
when the foliage has blighted, aud Crescent 
and Sharpless are being generally substituted 
for it. 
Many varieties of raspberries have been 
grown here, but the Gregg and Cuthbert are 
now considered the best for market. The 
Brandywine has proved superior to all of the 
old sorts as a market berry, and still holds 
first place with mauy growers. No winter 
protection is given to the raspberry, and it is 
seldom needed; but in consequence of a dry 
midsummer last season, followed by a late 
growth, canes of all varieties were much in¬ 
jured upon the lower grounds, causing a short 
crop this season. The same conditions pre¬ 
vail this summer, and it is evident that the 
wood of Cuthbert and Brandywine must be 
well matured to enable either to withstand a 
low degree of cold. 
With ail the talk about “iron-clad” black¬ 
berries, experience has proved that no variety 
will withstand the rigorous winters which al¬ 
ways prevail through the Middle States and 
over the great region west of Lake Michigan. 
The Lawton blackberry has been successfully 
grown on the high lands near the Lake dur¬ 
ing the past 25 years. It has partially failed 
occasionally in the most favored localities, and 
has failed repeatedly on tbe lower lands back 
from the Lake. Taylor, Snyder, Stone’s Har¬ 
dy and other varieties withstand our winters; 
but, being inferior to mauy wild varieties 
fouud here, have generally been abandoned. 
The Wilson is largely grown, but winter pro¬ 
tection is fouud necessary to insure the crop. 
The willowy, half-ruuuing character of Wil¬ 
son renders covering comparatively easy, and 
it is now universally practiced by our large 
growers. The method of covering practiced 
requires two men, one of whom removes a 
spadeful of earth from one side of the base of 
the canes, while the other grasps, with a pair 
of leather mittens, the top of tbe caues and 
brings tbe tops to the earth, layiug the canes 
as near the grouud as practicable without 
breaking, when a few spades of earth are 
thrown upon tbe tops to keep them iu a hori¬ 
zontal position. The after working is some¬ 
times done by covering the whole of the canes 
with the soil, but. recently a covering of wild 
hay or straw is placed upon the body of the 
canes and held in place by a slight covering 
with earth. This method is found preferable, 
as the heavy covering of earth sometimes ex¬ 
cludes the air, and fermeutation occurs, which 
injures the fruit buds. Many of our growers 
who grow blackberries in unfavorable loca¬ 
tions cover the Lawton in the same 
manner; but covering this variety is more 
difficult, the strong, upright caues being 
very stubborn, and many are broken 
in bending to the ground. It pays to do it, 
however, if a severe winter follows, and cov¬ 
ering the Wilson and Lawton is becoming 
quite general with us. The Kittatiuuy bears a 
fine fruit, but, being peculiarly liable to the 
orange rust, it has been abandoned. The most 
favored spots on our Lake Shore are occupied, 
by continuous fruit gardens in which no grass 
or weeds are allowed to grow. Stock are not 
allowed to run at large aud if fouud iu our 
fruit orchards would soon be hunted out. 
Growing clover iu poach and pear orchards 
was formerly advocated, but experience has 
proved clover sod a great detriment to bear¬ 
ing orchards. Rye is found bcueficial as a fer¬ 
tilizer for peach orchards when sown iu Sep¬ 
tember and plowed under in spring before 
the straw becomes hard aud woody. 
The experience of the past 25 years has 
proved the adaptability of this section for the 
growth of peaches. We never fail to produce 
a fair crop of the semi-hardy fruits iu our 
most favorable localities, and seldom fail to 
grow a full crop of apples, pears and peaches 
on the high lauds in the lake shore counties. 
Competition comes only from the Atlantic 
aud Pacific coasts or from a limited area bor¬ 
dering upon other inland lakes. 
Notwithstanding the dry season, we have a 
fine crop of apples in Western Michigan and a 
very large crop of peaches. Chicago and the 
whole Northwest are hungry and thirsty for 
our peaches, but large quantities are being sent 
east and south. Prices rule very high, fine 
Crawfords selling in Chicago at three to four 
dollars per bushel, with several hundred thou¬ 
sand baskets still on the trees. A good do 
maud for summer and autumn apples has pre¬ 
vailed, which has already absorbed the crop 
two to three weeks iu advance of the usual 
season, and early winter varieties are all 
going forward to supply the demand. 
The Michigan grape crop Is enormous, and 
of good quality, aud with large shipments from 
New York and Ohio prices must rule very low 
u the West. The pear crop is also voi’y largo 
