662 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 19 
tiralisms ; 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
TiiK Hakdy Hydua-Ngiia. —There arc 
several fairly hardy Hydrangeas, but H. 
paniculata is generally understood when 
this term is used. Few flowering shrubs 
have gained such wide popularity, many 
hundreds of thousands having been dis¬ 
tributed over the country within the last 
two decades. These plants have found 
their way to countless dooryards and 
farm gardens, as well as pretentious es¬ 
tates, and seldom fail to develop their 
massive and showy panicles of bloom in 
midsummer. There are several varie¬ 
ties, respectively blooming early and 
late, but the large-flowered kind, H. 
paniculata grandiflora, is far the most 
popular. Every shoot, even on yearling 
plants, terminates in a huge panicle of 
cream-white, sterile blooms, later chang¬ 
ing to pink. These flower masses are so 
heavy that they often droop to the 
ground, and get wofully draggled dur¬ 
ing heavy rains, making about the only 
reasonable objection to this fine shrub. 
As the flowers are only borne on the 
new wood the branches should be cut 
back each Spring to six or eight-inch 
stubs, and the weaker ones well thinned 
cut. By this means the main stems 
grow sturdy and are better able to carry 
their great loads of bloom. 
Tuainin<} in Tukk Form. —The Great- 
flowered Hydrangea may be readily 
grown in tree form, and thus made into 
a handsome specimen. For this pur¬ 
pose a strong young plant is selected, 
planted in a very rich place, and cut to 
the ground, not more than three shoots 
should be allowed to start, tbe strongest 
one selected when about two feet high, 
and the oUiers cut away at the base. 
The single shoot should be looped to a 
stake as growth proceeds. Water and 
soluble fertilizers should be freely ap¬ 
plied when needed to encourage rapid 
development. Four or five feet of growth 
should be secured in a favorable season. 
A protection of straw or reeds tied about 
tbe shoot may be a useful Winter pro¬ 
tection if ripening of the wood is much 
delayed, though this Hydrangea is usual¬ 
ly quite hardy. The following year the 
stem should be allowed to branch at the 
top and all lower growth or shoots kept 
cut away. The stake may be needed for 
an additional season or two until the 
stem is sturdy enough to carry its head 
alone. For bedding purposes Hydrangeas 
are pruned nearly to the ground every 
year. Thus treated they produce enor¬ 
mous panicles, often greatly exceeding 
4 foot in length, but they are quite 
coarse and can seldom be kept from the 
ground without support. The hardy Hy¬ 
drangea should always have good soil 
and generous treatment, or it will appear 
starved in leaf and bloom. It rather 
likes a moist situation, and will endure 
considerable shade, but flowers best in 
sunlight. The present dripping Sum¬ 
mer has just suited it. The gigantic 
blooms on good specimens have seldom 
been purer in coloring or more lasting. 
Plants may be had by mail as low as 15 
to 25 cents each, larger ones that will 
make a fine show soon after planting at 
35 to 50 cents each. 
The Tyre Species. —Although the 
Great-panicled form of the hardy Hy¬ 
drangea is so exclusively grown those 
in search of choice shrubs should not 
overlook the typical H. paniculata, es¬ 
pecially the early flowering form, which 
blooms several weeks before Grandiflora 
and continues until the latter kind 
comes in. In its native Japan H. pani¬ 
culata grows 30 feet high, and over here 
good specimens in time grow 15 to 18 
feet high. The blooms are very white 
and arranged in long conical panicles 
like those of the horse-chestnut. They 
are evenly distributed over the plant, 
well-carried, and make a pleasing and 
graceful appearance. It should be given 
considerable space, and is well suited for 
lawn planting where there is room to 
show its distinct character. This va¬ 
riety is offered by a few nurserymen at 
35 cents each. Hydrangea quercifolia is 
a native species having large oak-like 
leaves and pink-white flowers turning to 
purple. They are not very showy, but 
the plant as a whole makes a good speci¬ 
men. As it is not particularly easy to 
propagate the price of 50 cents each is 
usually asked for it. 
Bui) SEi.EcrnoN for Tree Fruits.— 
The possibility of improving favorite 
orchard fruits, and even of regenerating 
certain valued kinds, as the Early and 
Late Crawford peaches and the New¬ 
town Pippin apple, that have fallen 
from their original high estate, by selec¬ 
tion ot buds and gratis from vigorous 
bearing trees instead of indeterminate 
youngsters from the nursery rows, is 
being rather hotly debated at the meet¬ 
ings of various horticultural and pomo- 
logical associations, and threatens to be¬ 
come a veritable bone of contention at 
forthcoming nurserymens conventions. 
Plant-breeders and experiment station 
men generally, being fully Impressed 
with the great potency of selection as a 
means of modifying plant development, 
favor the theory, while not a few of the 
most successful tree growers and deal¬ 
ers condemn the Idea as unnecessary 
and unpractical. They say it is hardly 
possible to secure enough propagating 
wood from trees and plants ot known 
special excellence to supply the great 
demand for low-priced stock, and that 
such superior individuals are in general 
only so because of especially favorable 
local conditions or treatment, or to the 
possibility of being worked on a particu¬ 
larly congenial or vigorous seedling 
stock, which cannot well be duplicated. 
They say grafts or buds taken from phe¬ 
nomenal trees of a given variety worK- 
ed in the ordinary manner and given the 
average chances of common orchard 
practice will be neither better nor worse 
than trees propagated from wood cut 
from the carefully labeled nursery row, 
in the usual manner, under similar af¬ 
ter-treatment. Plant-breeders and theor¬ 
ists reiterate that the cnances of getting 
a goou lOL of typical fruiting trees by 
carefully selecting the propagating wood 
are enormously increased wnen the an¬ 
alogy between sexual or seed propaga¬ 
tion and vegetative propagation by buds, 
grafts, cuttings or other division is con¬ 
sidered, but thus far do not appear able 
to point to much practical experience in 
improving tree fruits by this method. 
The Gist of the Matter. —From a 
careful examination of discussion re¬ 
ports it does not appear that the disput¬ 
ing factions get together on the idea 
that plant improvement by selection is 
not a matter of one or two but of many 
generations, from each of which only 
the more perfect individuals are set 
aside for further reproduction. It may 
well be granted that the immediate im¬ 
provement noticed in a batch of trees or 
fruit plants propagated from selected 
wood is slight indeed over those grown 
in the ordinary way, but if selection is 
again made from the most perfect indi¬ 
viduals, and thus cai'ried on for a con¬ 
siderable period, it may be possible to 
get very striking results. Variation is 
a constant feature in plant life, it is not 
possible for man to fix the limits within 
which a given variety may vary and yet 
retain its useful and typical characters. 
Each bud on a plant may be regarded as 
an individual having a tendency to differ 
from its associated buds, and when fixed 
in independent vegetative liie by propa¬ 
gation may be better or worse, from the 
grower’s standpoint, than its fellows un¬ 
der similar cultural conditions. We 
conceive of a bud as developing from a 
single cell of protoplasm, while a seed 
arises from the union of two cells from 
Ihe same or separate plants of the neces¬ 
sary structural aflinity. Thus there is 
less general tendency for a plant grown 
from a bud to differ from Its single par¬ 
ent than for a seed-grown plant to vary, 
as in the latter instance tne immediate 
factors of chance are at least doubled, 
and through the increasing ratio of its 
remote ancestors, is indefinitely multi¬ 
plied. Yet buds occasionally vary enor¬ 
mously from the parent plant, and give 
rise to remarkable or useful “sports,” 
such as the nectarine, which has repeat¬ 
edly been found on ordinary peach trees 
from which it has been propagated and 
fixed by budding on peach, plum, almond 
and apricot stocks. A given bud or 
graft of a standard fruit variety may 
give origin, when propagated, to a su¬ 
perior commercial form of its type, and 
retain a strong tendency to perpetuate 
its good qualities if further propagated, 
so that by long continued selection a 
given variety should be greatly improv¬ 
ed, This tendency has been amply 
demonstrated in ornamental plants pro¬ 
pagated by cuttings and division, and in 
fruit plants of quick maturity such as 
the strawberry, but has not been worked 
out with the long-winded orchard fruits. 
Exj^ense Should Not Be Consid¬ 
ered. —Expense should cut no figure in 
this form of experimental work, which 
is a proper subject of State assistance 
through the agricultural stations. It 
may not pay nurserymen largely to go 
into tree-breeding as the outcome is so 
remote, but many planters would not 
hesitate to pay round prices for trees 
thus propagated in good faith. A dollar 
or so would be a moderate price for an 
apple tree which may remain in bearing 
for half a century, if it could be guar- 
ranteed by a responsible grower as of a 
well-established pedigree strain. 
w. V. F. 
ARMSTRONG dk McKELVY 
I’ittsljuryll. 
BEYMER-BAUMAN 
PiM-burijh. 
DAVI8-CHAMBERS 
ria>l>iirfjh. 
FAHNESTOCK 
Pittsburgh. 
ANCHOR ) 
t Cincinnati. 
ECKSTEIN 3 
ATLANTIC 
BRADLEY 
BROOKLYN 
JEWETT 
ULSTER 
UNION 
SOUTHERN 
SHIPMAN 
COLLIER 
MISSOURI 
RED SEAL 
SOUTHERN 
JOHN T. LEWIS * BROS CO 
Philadelphia. 
MORLEY „ , 
Ceveland. 
SALEM 
Salem, Mass. 
CORNELL 
Buffalo. 
KENTUCKY . 
Louisville. 
National 
New York. 
^ Chicasro. 
St. Louis. 
A 
DWELLINCj house in the city 
of Elizabeth, N. J., huilt one 
hundred years ago, has always 
heen painted with Pure White Lead and 
Linseed Oil—nothing else. 
There is not a crack, blister, blemish 
or imperfection of any kind in the paint. 
Makers of mixtures, heat this record if 
you can ! 
Be sure the brand is right. Those in 
margin are genuine, and made by “ bid 
Dutch process.” 
If interested in paint or painting, address 
T pnA C0 rnn IVilliam Street. New York. 
Leg and Body Wash. 
Wlien it comes to stiffness anc' 
soreness of muscles, tendonf- 
etc., nothing equals 
Tuttle’s Elixir 
for restoring normal conditions. 
Apply to the body as a mild 
sponge bath and put on light 
blanket. Sponge the legs and 
on light bandages. 
Used and Endorsed by ytdams 
Express Company. 
Tuttle’s American Condition Powders 
—A Specific for impure blood and all diseases arising therefrom. 
TUTTLE’S FAMILY ELIXIR cures rheumatisme 
sprains, bruises, etc. Kills pain instantly. Our lOO-pajre l>ook(. 
“Veterinary Hx|)criencc,” FKKK. 
Dr. 5. A. TUTTLR, 30 Beverly St., Boston, Mass. 
Rewart' ofso'called Hlixirs—ntnie |:eniiii)f3 but Tuttle*», 
Avoid all blisters; they oiler only temporary relief, if any. 
A RURAL MAIL ROX 
Should be 
simple, neat, 
strong, and 
durable. 
A box may bo 
approved by 
the P. M. Gen¬ 
eral and still 
not bo satisfac¬ 
tory to the pur- 
sbaser. 
Our “ Uncle 
Sam’s Favor¬ 
ite” has official 
ap))roval and 
also the ap-.j 
proval of thou-j 
sands who are ! 
using It and - 
know It’s all right. 
BOND 8TKEI. POST CO., 
Adrian, Mich 
SAN JOSE SCALE. 
And other Insects can be Controlled by Using 
Cood’s Caustic Potash Whale- 
Oil Soap No. 3. 
also prevents Curl I.ieaf. Endorsed by Entomolo 
gists. Tbls Soap Is a Fertilizer as well as Insecticide 
60-lb. Kegs, 12.SO; 100-lb. Kegs, $4.60; Half-Barrel, 
aro lbs., SMic. per lb.; Barrel, 425 lbs., 8Mc. Large 
quantities. Special Hates. Send for Circulars. 
JAMES GOOD, 939 N Front St., Phtladelpbla, Pa 
THE MERIT of YEARS 
attaches to this rooflng. It Is 
known and used in every see 
tion of the whole country. 
FIRE, WIND and 
WATER PROOF, 
jdurable and low In price. Be 
4ng soft and pliable, it la bmf 
_ to fit and lay. Exposure makes 
It as il>ard as slate. Nend for Sample and Circular. 
TUB A. P. SWAN CO., 114 Nassau St.. NEW YORK. 
READY 
ROOFING 
Buy of us Direct auo.4 
Save Money. 
Best goods. Ourprlccjfi 
8uri>riKe. Write ns. 
S. E. MCDONOUGH & Co. 
Dept. C., Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Best for Water 
WRITE 
WRITE 
FOR 
FOR 
RALPH B. CARTER CO. 
26 Cortlandt St., New York, N. Y. 
PRICES 
PRICES 
ARROW BRAND 
Asphalt 
Ready Kooffiig 
can bo very 
advantageouH- 
ly applied on 
SILOS, Fanil 
Bull (tings or 
Sheds by any 
ISPHiLT READY ROOFING CO. S’C* 
1'iiiM Kt... Nmw Vork. samnles. 
THE STANDARD OY WHICH ROOFING 
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Jf^RUBEROID 
ROOFING 
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THE PIONEER WEATHER-PROOF AND ELASTIC ROOFING. 
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WATER-PROOF. ACID-PROOF. FIRE-RESISTING. 
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too WiLUAM STREET. NEW YORK. CHICAGO OFFICE. IBS-190 MADISON ST. 
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