831 - 
December 13 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
|R 
uralisms 
'v 1 ^ ^ ^ ^ -'v' v 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
Tire Gans Pear.— Fig. 338 represents 
in natural size a Gans seedling pear sub¬ 
mitted for trial by Ellwanger & Barry, 
Rochester, N. Y. It was a handsome 
specimen, rich yellow with brown-red 
flush. The flesh was fine grained, juicy 
and sweet; quality close to best for its 
season, which comes in between Tyson 
and Bartlett. Though fully ripe there 
was no sign of rot at the core. Ell¬ 
wanger & Barry introduce the tree this 
year, and say it is a good, vigorous 
grower and a valuable addition to our 
choice early pears. Appearance and 
quality of fruit are certainly in its 
favor. It is of Ohio origin. 
Bright Autumn Foliage. —One of 
our most brilliant points of color, up to 
the last week of November, was the bur¬ 
nished crimson foliage of the Goose¬ 
berry currant referred to on page 658. 
Other gooseberries, particularly varie¬ 
ties containing foreign blood, shed their 
leaves early and make little pretence of 
autumnal coloring, but this native kind 
holds on until hard frosts and colors up 
as intensely as a Staghorn sumach in 
early October. Late growths on Japan 
maples retained much color, though the 
early foliage ripened and dropped at the 
usual time. The Snyder blackberry and 
Kieffer pear were in season the most 
brilliant of their kind. The rich yellows 
and dark reds of the ripened foliage 
quite equalled woodland effects, and 
could be used to advantage in ornamen¬ 
tal plantings. Rugosa roses and their 
hybrids still make a great show of clean 
bright yellow. A new shrub of great 
beauty at this season is Berberis con- 
cinna. The leaves are very persistent 
and color brilliant scarlet and yellow. It 
seems to be distinct from other hardy 
sorts. Berberis Tbunbergii turns to a 
glowing red in early Autumn, but is 
quite bare of foliage now, though cover¬ 
ed with its brilliant fruits. 
Shortages in Vegetable Seeds.— 
The cold and rainy Summer had a dis¬ 
astrous result in many seed-growing lo¬ 
calities, resulting in serious shortages 
in several important staples. Many va¬ 
rieties of beans, especially the bush 
sorts, sweet corn, both early and late, 
many kinds of peas, turnips and toma¬ 
toes will be scarce and a general failure 
of cucumbers and squashes is reported. 
The most desirable dwarf peas, such as 
American Wonder, Little Gem and 
Nott’s Excelsior, are said to be entirely 
out of the market, and unobtainable at 
any price, but there is little doubt they 
will be found listed as usual in many 
catalogues. The short supply-of cucum¬ 
ber seeds is driving prices very high, 
and it is feared unscrupulous dealers 
will attempt to float all the old seeds 
that can be raked together. It will be 
a good time to confine orders principally 
to seedsmen of known reliability. 
Some Ornamental Sages.— There are 
many species of Salvia apparently well 
worth cultivation, but the dazzling Scar¬ 
let sage, S. splendens, is the only one 
receiving general recognition in Ameri¬ 
can gardens. Scarlet sage is grown to 
an increasing extent each season. There 
are now several splendid varieties that 
may be depended on to produce glowing 
masses of color from early Summer un¬ 
til frost and they are abundantly plant¬ 
ed. The Scarlet sage comes from Brazil 
and is quite tender when young but 
grows vigorously when warm weather 
comes in. Salvia patens in the most 
popular blue-flowered species and is also 
quite tender, as it is native to the moun¬ 
tains of Mexico. The flowers are large 
and showy, with a broad lip. The color 
has always been reckoned as the richest 
and most satisfactory blue among flow¬ 
ers, but now is so closely simulated by 
modern aniline dyes in cheap fabrics 
that it no longer attracts the same at¬ 
tention. The clumps are easily carried 
over in a cool greenhouse, cellar or 
plant pit, if free from frost and make a 
fine appearance the second year as it is 
a profuse and constant bloomer. It is 
easily grown from seeds and soon comes 
into bloom. S. farinacea has light pur¬ 
plish blue flowers produced with re¬ 
markable freedom, it grows rapidly and 
makes an unusually neat bush about 
three feet high. The calyx tube is cov¬ 
ered with a peculiar light blue mealy 
secretion, from whence the specific name 
of the plant is taken. The mealy Salvia 
is a native of Texas and therefore is 
not quite hardy in the north. It is 
usually grown as a half-hardy annual 
though plants often winter over in shel¬ 
tered situations. ,It is well worth grow¬ 
ing as a border plant. Salvia Pitcheri 
is a very hardy species from Colorado 
with narrow foliage. It produces a 
great profusion of deep intense blue 
flowers in early Fall, on slender stems 
about three feet high. These flower 
heads are massive and showy; effective 
both in the garden and for cutting. This 
species seems closely allied to S. azurea, 
widely distributed throughout the 
Southwest. Our specimen of S. Pitcheri 
was secured from D. M. Andrews, Boul¬ 
der, Col., who also offers S. azurea 
grandifiora as a reliable hardy plant 
producing quantities of clear azure blue 
flowers on long stems, coming in earlier 
than Pitcheri. Several other Salvia spe¬ 
cies were grown on the Rural Grounds 
the past season such as S. argentea with 
silvery foliage and early white flowers, 
S. coccinea and S. Roemeriana. The 
plants of Coccinea resembled dull Scar¬ 
let sages and were probably not true to 
name. Roemeriana has large purplish- 
red flowers but is not particularly bril¬ 
liant. 
No Good Hardy Orange Yet. —The 
city papers have again been exploiting 
the National Department of Agricul¬ 
ture’s attempts to breed a useful hardy 
orange by crossing commercial varieties 
on the well-known Citrus trifoliata, 
which thrives vigorously in the North 
without protection and fruits regularly 
up to the latitude of New York. The 
papers say an orange of good quality 
has been produced that can be grown 200 
miles north of the present limit of cul¬ 
ture, but investigation shows that while 
some gain has been made in the direc¬ 
tion of hardiness other qualities are 
still lacking in all the hybrids tested so 
far. The most encouraging account of 
this interesting phase of plant-breeding 
was given by G. Marti, Houston, Tex., 
on page 546, current volume of The R. 
N.-Y. Mr. Marti crossed the Trifoliate 
orange with Satsuma, a quite hardy va¬ 
riety of Mandarin orange of excellent 
flavor. The result is an orange of fair 
quality but ripening too late to be of 
much prospective value in the North, 
even if it should prove really hardy. 
w. v. F. 
A FRIEND OF ELBERTA PEACH. 
On page 770 S. B. R., Massachusetts, 
compares the Elberta peach to the Kieffer 
pear. The Elberta peach has been a 
money maker with me. Six years ago 1 
purchased 8% acres of land on the east 
bank of the Hudson River, the land lying 
about 00 feet above tidewater. On about 
V/s acre I planted peach trees, the land 
having a west slope towards the river; 
soil very stony and rough. I was advised 
by my father, an old fruit grower, to 
plant all Elbertas, but by listening to the 
advice of my nurseryman, who furnish'd 
the trees, I was influenced to divide the 
orchard into different varieties, and plant- 
. ed as follows: Hynes Surprise, Late Craw¬ 
ford, Red Cheek Melocoton, Salway, 
Mountain Rose, Stevens Late Rareripe. 
Being partial to Elberta I planted 75 El¬ 
bertas, remainder of orchard about equally 
divided between the other named varieties, 
planting 270 trees in all. For fertilizer I 
use wood ashes in abundance, little bone. 
My experience with these varieties has 
been as follows, all having exactly the 
same treatment, trees having been planted 
six years, have had three crops in succes¬ 
sion as follows: Hynes Surprise, fruit 
ripe, highly colored first and second year; 
all decayed before they were ripe. This 
year picked about one-half of the crop, 
shipped to market; no returns, decayed on 
stand. Next Mountain Rose, nice looking, 
good flavor, three crops, poor sell ng peach 
in market; bad to drop. Red Cheek Mel¬ 
ocoton, hardy, rather small, good qual¬ 
ity, sells for about half price of Elberta; 
yield about one-half. Salway, good yie’.d- 
er, rather too late for fancy prices. Stev¬ 
ens Late Rareripe sells equal to Eiber.a, 
yields nearly as well; better peach to eat 
from the hand. In my three years’ experi¬ 
ence I have this to say for the Elberta: 
With me it will produce more fruit by 
half than any peach I have, and outsell 
all others in about the following propor¬ 
tion: The first year, from my Elberta 
trees, 75 in all, against 190 of other varie¬ 
ties, I sold from the whole orchard $330; 
Elbertas sold just about $200 of this. The 
second bearing year I sold from this or¬ 
chard $600 worth, the Elbertas sold for 
nearly $400 of this. This year, being the 
third bearing year, I sold $720 worth with 
Elberta selling over $500 by considerable. 
I packed the Elbertas in Georgia carriers 
and they each contained a gross of peaches 
for which I received from $2 to $2.20 per 
crate. So you see I have substantial rea¬ 
sons for being partial to the Elberta. I am 
setting more trees this Fall and Elberta 
will be the principal variety. I have sold 
nearly $1,700 worth from this little orchard 
of six years’ growth on not over V/s acre 
of land in three bearing years. The trees 
are looking fine and filled with blow buds. 
If we have a fairly mild Winter I shall 
be good for another crop the coming yea.r. 
I have spent about $80 for wood ashes 
to feed this orchard, and consider it well 
invested. The Elberta may not suit the 
epicure’s taste as well as some variet es, 
but it is a money maker for the grower. 
It does not overload with a whole lot of 
small worthless fruit, it is hardy, a fine 
grower, with me extremely high color, d. 
When 75 Elberta trees in three years will 
grow enough fruit to sell for $1,100, when 
195 trees of other varieties sell only a lit¬ 
tle over $600, there cannot be so very much 
wrong about the quality of the fruit. You 
can clearly see why I am taking the pait 
of the Elberta, as J have substantial rea¬ 
sons for it, and I notice that when a new- 
peach puts in an appearance they like to 
tell how closely it resembles the Elberta, 
by this admitting the merits of the El¬ 
berta. o. 3. 
North Germantown, N. Y. 
Handling Sweet Corn and Pumpkins. 
If the Graft has to husk the corn daily 
for the large family at Hope Farm, and 
they like it as well as we do, he can ab¬ 
breviate his labors in this way: With 
a sharp knife or better still a hatchet, 
cut the husks off at the base of the ear, 
often at a single blow, when the ear 
drops out with a very little persuasion. 
This Fall our corn was late, and long in 
maturing. I had a lot of Stowell’s Ever¬ 
green at the very last, which was in 
prime condition, but as we seldom eat 
it I expected to feed it all, when I hit 
upon a new method of treating it, and 
it became equal to the best. The kernels 
have a tough skin, about as palatable as 
the skin of the grape. I simply shaved 
off the tips of the kernels with a sharp 
knife, an easy thing to do, when the 
corn was ready for the table, and even 
poor teeth were now good enough to 
get the soft meat from the cob. Fur¬ 
ther, owing to more or less domestic 
friction, when pumpkins are boiled over 
the kitchen stove, I have taken to bak¬ 
ing them for the hens, with great suc¬ 
cess indoors and out. They seem to be 
regarded as a great delicacy and are 
cleaned from the shell in quick time. 
Potatoes can be treated the same way, 
but pumpkins are particularly good. 
G. S. PAINE. 
—M 
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