754 
November 8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
A A A A 
< Ruralisms 
< 
^ 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
Plant Breeding Conference Re¬ 
tort. —Inquiries about the forthcoming 
report of the late Plant Breeding Con¬ 
ference are coming in. The vast amount 
of practical experience and scientific 
theory thus brought together will ren¬ 
der the coming volume of the greatest 
value to all interested in this important 
subject. Full information concerning 
the report may be had by addressing the 
secretary of the conference, Leonard 
Barron, 136 Liberty St., New York, in¬ 
closing, of course, the usual stamp for 
reply. 
Graceful Public Generosity.—A 
public-spirited citizen of a nearby Sum¬ 
mer resort offered early last Spring $20 
in prizes, respectively of $10, $5, $3, and 
$ 2 , for the best door-yard flower garden 
in the village; the awards to be made 
in September by a disinterested com¬ 
mittee. A spirited and most beneficial 
contest resulted, four women winning 
the prizes in the final judgment So 
many attractive gardens had to be ex¬ 
amined that the committee had no easy 
time, and found it only fair to commend 
several that in some point failed to at¬ 
tain the prize level. The town as a 
whole was rendered more attractive and 
interesting than usual by this competi¬ 
tion. It is not easy to think up a plan 
by which more wholesome beauty and 
public interest can be gained by the out¬ 
lay of the comparatively small amount 
of $20 than the one suggested by the 
promoter of this beneficial contest. 
Compensations of the Ice Storm.— 
The great ice storm mentioned on page 
192, current volume, has not proved an 
unmixed evil. The damage in many 
localities was really appalling on first 
view, but the favorable growing season 
has enabled many partially wrecked 
trees to make a good start toward re¬ 
gaining their original form, and others, 
though permanently distorted, are in a 
fair way to make a tolerable showing in 
the future. The chief compensation lies 
in the great amount of dry wood in the 
forests as the result of these extensive 
breakages. Our locality usually depends 
on hard coal or anthracite for fuel pur¬ 
poses, and wood is normally only cut 
in limited quantities for kindling and 
Summer usages. The actual scarcity and 
the prohibitive theoretical price of coal 
resulting from the mine vvorkers’ strike 
created a brisk and imperative demand 
for wood at the approach of cool weath¬ 
er. The usual supply fit for immediate 
use would be quickly exhausted by 
this extraordinary consumption, but 
the broken limbs and shattered trunks 
left by the ice storm have yielded an 
adequate but not very satisfactory sup¬ 
ply, as it is of irregular quality. An ef¬ 
fort to repair the worst damages was 
made in several young orchards by wir¬ 
ing or nailing together portions of split 
trees and limbs with fair success in cer¬ 
tain instances. Some of these tinkered- 
up trees bore good crops, and others 
made fair progress toward ultimate re¬ 
covery. 
Utilizing Japanese Fruits. —Few of 
the characteristic oriental hardy fruits 
are acceptable to western palates. Hy¬ 
brids of the Chinese pear, Pyrus Sinen¬ 
sis, such as Kieffer, Le Conte and Smith 
develop a tolerable quality when prop¬ 
erly ripened, but the improvement must 
be credited to the influence of the highly 
cultivated forms of the European pear, 
P. communis, with which the oriental 
species was crossed. The Chinese pear 
is strong growing and ornamental in 
leaf, flower and fruit, especially the va- 
liety known as Japan Golden Russet, 
but it is not easy to find a use for the at¬ 
tractive pears when they ripen. The tex¬ 
ture is firm and crisp, but there is so 
little acidity that the taste is almost 
mawkish. Made into perry or pear cider 
the expressed juice is too honey-like to 
be agreeable unless a considerable por¬ 
tion of tart apples is ground with the 
pears. If cooked in syrup or baked sev¬ 
eral hours with sugar they become very 
palatable, and the addition of a little 
green ginger still further improves the 
flavor, but there is not likely to be much 
demand for Japan Russet pears alone 
for culinary purposes. The well-known 
Scarlet-flowering quince, Cydonia Ja- 
ponica, is another example of a highly 
ornamental plant producing fruits of lit¬ 
tle utility. The flowering quince is sel¬ 
dom productive when planted singly, but 
in groups or hedges often bears many 
small irregularly shaped quinces. They 
are very hard when newly ripened, sour 
and acrid to the taste, but cook quite 
tender, and with care may be made into 
palatable preserves or marmalade. Cy¬ 
donia Maulei is a nearly related species 
from Japan, with pleasing orange-red 
flowers. In cultivation it fruits more 
profusely than C. Japonica, and if plant¬ 
ed near the latter, so that cross-pollina¬ 
tion may be carried on by insects, both 
species seem inclined to bear more heav¬ 
ily, and the fruits to grow larger. The 
fruits of Cydonia Maulei commonly aver¬ 
age about iy 2 inch in diameter, but Fig. 
307, page 750, was engraved in natural 
size from an unusually fine specimen 
grown on a bush that interlocks with 
the common scarlet species. Prof. Wm. 
Saunders, of the Canadian Experiment 
Farm, at Ottawa, exhibited some fruits 
grown from hybridized seeds of the 
above parentage at the late Plant Breed¬ 
ers’ Conference which indicated phenom¬ 
enal productiveness. They were of the 
form and size of large butternuts, and 
clustered so thickly along the branches 
that the wood could scarcely be seen. 
There is little difference in quality be¬ 
tween Maulei and the common Japan 
quinces; both are still in the natural un¬ 
improved state and many generations of 
selection or cross-breeding must pass be¬ 
fore their .ztreme acerbity is sufficiently 
amellora ed tc become generally useful, 
but a judicious combination of the sharp 
sour flavor with the over-sweet and in¬ 
sipid quality o:. the Japan Russet and 
other oriental pears is easy, and the re¬ 
sult distinctly palatable. The fruits of 
either species of flowering quince may 
be cookei in proper proportion with 
these peart or with good tart apples, and 
the combination is far better than when 
either ot the three kinds is used alone. 
The proportion may be adjusted after a 
few trials, it being understood the quince 
flavor is very penetrating, and should be 
used in relatively small quantity. If 
there are fruiting Japan quinces on your 
place try the flavor as an addition to 
apple sauce if the oriental pears are not 
cc be had, though the idea is to combine 
two exotic fruits, neither of which is es¬ 
pecially palatable by itself, to get an 
agreeable result. Some progress has 
been made by plant breeders in hybridiz¬ 
ing the flowering quinces with the or¬ 
chard quince, Cydonia vulgaris, and 
useful results may be expected in time. 
We have young seedling pears, on the 
Rural Grounds, from crosses of Japan 
Russet with Lawrence, Bartlett, Sheldon 
and Le Conte. Their fruiting is awaited 
with much interest, as better quality is 
all that is needed to make this type 
widely useful. The United States De¬ 
partment of Agriculture is working up 
the possibilities of Kieffer pear hybrids 
very exhaustively. Many hundred seed¬ 
lings of Kieffer hybridized with the best 
varieties of common or European pears 
may be seen on the Department’s trial 
grounds at Washington, and it will be 
strange indeed if something good does 
not come from them. w. v. f. 
Other “tourists” seldom make the second 
attempt to eat ripe olives from the trees. 
o. h. c. 
In Connecticut.—As the season advanced 
the robins became unusually numerous, 
and as insects were correspondingly scarce 
small fruits, raspberries especially, suffered 
accordingly. The robin is a nice bird to 
have around, but too many are a nuisance. 
Perhaps destroying their eggs and nests 
while breeding would confine them to a 
reasonable number. We should not grudge a 
few of them a little fruit for the good they 
do in destroying harmful insects. In the 
long run Nature strikes a balance. Prob¬ 
ably t'ne scarcity of insects the present sea¬ 
son will cause a bird famine and reduce the 
robins to their normal numbers. Insects 
and worms seem to be the natural food of 
the robin, and it resorts to fruit only to a 
limited extent when the former fails. If 
man was deprived of his staple food, bread 
and meat, his consumption of fruit would 
be vastly augmented, provided nothing else 
was available. h. h. b. 
From North Carolina.— I notice in a 
recent number of The R. N.-Y. something 
about robins taking fruit, etc., changing 
from what was once considered their nat¬ 
ural diet to a different article. In the his¬ 
tory of bird life are there not instances 
where some kinds of birds have taken to 
a different food, and that sometimes de¬ 
cided hurtful to the herdsman, the farmer 
and the fruit grower? Is it because the 
supply of their once supposed natural food 
had been cut off or diminished, or is it be¬ 
cause our civilization has developed a bet¬ 
ter and more palatable article? In seeking 
after something to tickle the palate we are 
constantly harnessing nature and nature’s 
laws to bring us something better. In 
man’s work to-day his great aim seems to 
be to get from nature her choicest secrets, 
not just in the depths of the mine, but in 
the dark cavern of nature's laws. The 
flowers pencil at his bidding beyond the 
glory of Solomon. The nectar that gods 
sip sparkles in the fruit he plucks. We 
may not much wonder that the birds of the 
grove should to some extent change t'heir 
habits. J. b. 
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THE SOUTHS 
bo^Mo: 
During 1903 The Youth’s Companion will give 
its readers, in 52 weekly issues, 
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SERIAL STORIES, each a book in itself, 
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SPECIAL ARTICLES contributed by fa¬ 
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BRIGHT AND AMUSING ANECDOTES, 
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V 
/ 
MORE ABOUT THE ROBIN . 
In California.— Having read more or less 
about the doings of robins, I would L ' to 
tell you a little of their habits here. Robins 
come as tourists, sometimes in large flocks, 
seemingly to enjoy t'he climate. They do 
not seem to be bug-hunting, but make 
themselves at home and freely partake of 
any of the nice ripe fruits which may be 
ready for them. Nice ripe Japan persim¬ 
mons are about their first choice. Loquats 
and berries are not slighted Apples and 
pears are taken in, if nothing better is 
ready. They are social and happy, but sel¬ 
dom give us anything like a song. Some¬ 
times they begin to sing, but stop without 
the chorus. I ‘have lived in California 44 
years but never have seen a robin's nest 
here. They come in the Fall and go away 
in the Spring, so they have but little time 
to devote to music. They are fond of ripe 
olives and eat many bushels, but what they 
eat of them we do not miss. Unlike other 
“tourists” they stay not far from the olive 
trees until the time of t'heir departure. 
Free Illustrated Announcement of the 1903 Volume with 
Sample Copies of the Paper. 
NEW SUBSCRIPTION L 
OFFER. FOR 1903. 
Cut out and send this slip or the name of this paper at 
once with $1.75 and you will receive . 
■C'r> xp -p_All the issues of The Companion for 
xVIl/XL. the remaining weeks of 1902. m 117 
17 ' 1 > 'C''C'_The Thanksgiving, 
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And Tne Companion for the 52 weeks of 1903—a library 
of the best reading for every member of the Family. 
THE YOUTH’S COMPANION, Boston, Mass. 
Christmas and 
"New Year’s Double Numbers. 
The Companion Calendar tor 1903, lith¬ 
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