384 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 20 
Spiraea, pbunifolia. —Among our old¬ 
est hardy shrub favorites is the Double- 
floweriDg Plum-leaved Spiresi—Spiraea 
prunifolia flore pleno. We dare say that 
most of our readers are familiar with 
this hardy and altogether desirable 
shrub; still there are many who may 
never even have heard of it, and it is for 
the benefit of these latter that we are 
writing. Daisy hush would be an appro¬ 
priate familiar name. One season, about 
May 20, we estimated that there were 
fully 10,000 flowers upon a bush at the 
Rural Grounds scarcely three feet high, 
the individual flowers being only one- 
half inch in diameter. The bush often 
begins to bloom in mid-May, and con¬ 
tinues until June. The little white 
flowers have minute splashings of green. 
Resting or sessile upon the branch is an 
involucreof four or five very small leaves, 
and from the middle of these from two 
to five thread-like peduncles an inch in 
length grow, each bearing one of the 
daisy-like flowers we have alluded to. 
When it is considered that these clusters 
of little leaves are scarcely a quarter of 
an inch apart, it will be understood that 
the bush is literally a mass of flowers 
These whorls of leaves sessile upon the 
branches consist of nodes that do not de¬ 
velop until the flowers have disappeared, 
when they lengthen into regular branch¬ 
es, the leaves growing to the usual size. 
A Plum-leaved Spiraei, well taken care 
of, will soon assume a balloon shape, 
the leaves being abundant though small 
and glossy, changing to a rich maroon 
in the Fall. 
What Makes a Garden or Rural 
Grounts Homelike and Lovable?— 
Did you ever visit gardens in which 
everything was so spick and span, the 
paths so straight and tidy, the beds so 
angularly correct, and the plants ar¬ 
ranged with such precision, that you 
found yourself thinking of the immense 
pains which were taken to keep them all 
so artistically unnatural, rather than 
enjoying the delight that one cannot 
help feeling when he sees flowers and 
paths, trees and shrubs, shady and in¬ 
viting nooks, all in accord with a wise 
and tasteful fitness of things to the en¬ 
vironment ? 
The summerhouse shown in Fig. 157 
is one of those simple structures that, 
covered so as to be nearly concealed 
with suitable plants, will never sug¬ 
gest the cost of the making and planting 
rather than a simple and sensible struc¬ 
ture, and an unstudied harmony of plant 
growth. The arbor itself is made of 
White pine, and cost $8 without the 
wooden birdhouse, the prized gift of a 
friend who made it The plants cover¬ 
ing the left portion of the arbor are a 
Concord grape, Crimson, Pink and White 
Rambler roses, the roses partially cov¬ 
ering the apple tree stump which is a 
relic or a heritage of the terrible cyclone 
that devastated our part of the country 
about five years ago. Around the por¬ 
tion of the arbor, or summerhouse as 
some prefer to call it, not seen in the 
engraving, are half a dozen seedling 
Clematises, and the newer Japan Morn¬ 
ing - glories — what glories they are ! 
The inside is filled with native hardy 
ferns, a peep of which we get at the 
head of the little path which leads to 
the entrance. 
Clematis.— It is too bad that we so 
rarely see Clematis vines in variety. 
Surely, as to flower, few vines, if we ex¬ 
cept the Wistaria, bear showier flowers, 
few are less exacting as to soil and situ¬ 
ation. The colors range from white, 
through cream, pink, silvery gray, lilac, 
lavender, scarlet, crimson, claret, light 
and dark purple, violet and almost 
black. Some of them, like Edouard 
Andr6, to which we alluded at length as 
soon after it? introduction as it bloomed 
in the Rural Grounds, bloom all Sum¬ 
mer. An arbor, such as the one we have 
alluded to, would be a striking object 
during their blooming season, if cov¬ 
ered with a well-selected collection of 
Clematises. 
One reason, we fancy, why Clematis 
vines of the improved sorts are rare is 
that the prices are somewhat high. 
Even the old Jaekmanii is listed by lead¬ 
ing florists at from 40 to 60 cents each, 
and that is about the price of all the im¬ 
proved kinds. The reason is, we pre¬ 
sume, that these Clematises are grafted 
plants, as cuttings do not form roots 
readily. But our friends may raise them 
from seeds bought for a small price, or 
collected in the Fall from the vines of 
friends. Here again we meet with an¬ 
other difficulty—the seeds rarely ger¬ 
minate the first year. They should be 
sown as soon as ripe, in drills, assuming 
that the reader has no suitable glass 
structures, and covered during Winter 
with any substance that will protect 
them and, during the growing season, 
the drills should be kept free of weeds. 
T. T. Lyon, of Michigan, who has 
been ill, is now, we are assured, rapidly 
improving. He is not far from 85 years 
of age, according to the writer’s remem- 
brancs, and has done more, probably, 
than any other living American to pro¬ 
mote the true interests of pomology. 
There are few who have a deeper hold 
upon the hearts of those who know him ; 
few who are more thoroughly respected. 
While we may reasonably hope that Mr. 
Lyon may go on with his grand work for 
years, a regret comes over us that such 
men are never fully appreciated while 
they live, and rarely afterwards. 
One of our friends in Washington, D. 
C., alluding to our remarks regarding 
the Trifoliate (Citrus trifoliata) orange, 
says that the fruit is excellent for mar¬ 
malade if made with other oranges in 
the proportion of one to two. This in¬ 
teresting dwarf orange is the hardiest 
of the orange family, and will stand or¬ 
dinary Winters south of New York with¬ 
out protection. At the Rural Grounds, 
it generally needs protection. The 
flowers are conspicuous and agreeably 
scented. The leaves, as the name indi¬ 
cates, are in threes, small and thick. 
Nurserymen charge 25 cents per plant, 
and they may be purchased at any time. 
ably kill themselves in the crush to get 
ahead, but whether they do or not doesn’t 
matter, for when a boy comes along in 
the afternoon and gently strikes the 
trap with a stick on all sides of the tree 
the work is done. As many as 300 motbs 
have been found in a single trap as one 
day’s catch. These are the Tent cater¬ 
pillars, whose fecundity is marvelous, 
and whose ravages for two years past 
throughout this State cost us untold loss 
of fruit. You cannot destroy the foliage 
of a tree for a single year without pay¬ 
ing a heavy forfeit. 
Saves the Trees. —Where these traps 
were applied in March, I discovered not 
a single “worm’s nest,” while on the 
unprotected trees of orchards and for¬ 
ests, including peach, Wild cherry, ash, 
and even some oaks, the evidence of 
what is coming is painfully convincing. 
Daring the next four weeks, our beauti¬ 
ful trees are to be tortured again and 
left as bare and browned as though a fire 
had swept through their top3. What can 
be done to save our trees from utter 
ruin ? To ask every one to destroy the 
nests as fast as they appear, is now out 
of the question. Every one is driven to 
the last extremity by pressing work in 
this belated Spring, and of course, the 
trees will have to wait, A few will 
kill the worms with Paris-green, but 
more will let matters take their course 
and wonder why such things happen. 
J. T. ROBERTS. 
we hope will obviate both of these objec¬ 
tions. As soon as the corn is remove! 
we propose sowing some kind of Winter 
grain to be cut for hay the following 
June Then after caref ally preparing the 
gronnd we would seed with grass alone. 
Washington County, Vt. A. N. bliss. 
FIGHTING APPLE INSECTS. 
Orchards of Apples —One thing ob¬ 
servable in western New York is the 
renewed interest shown in the apple or¬ 
chards. Never were trees more lovingly 
attended than are many of those con¬ 
stituting the great orchards that are 
sustaining the glory of the Empire State. 
I stopped for a closer view of one great 
40-acre orchard which, last year, al¬ 
though yielding but a fractional crop, in 
common with all others in the section, 
gave an income of $500 This year the 
owner is planning for $5,000, and his 
planning has taken shape in many prac¬ 
tical efforts. F»r example, he has pro¬ 
tected every tree with a trap constructed 
from wire netting, wlrch already shows 
interesting results. These traps might 
be called jackets, or rather skirts. Eight- 
inch wire cloth is used, cut in strips long 
enough to encircle the trunk at a point 
a yard from the ground. A belt of the 
trunk is thoroughly cleansed by scrap¬ 
ing, and the upper edge is nailed to the 
clean bark, a tack being driven at every 
depression in the surface. Tne lower 
edge of the skirt is distended by means 
of a coil spring stretched out and en¬ 
circling the trunk. As the moths emerge 
from their Winter burial in the soil, and 
attempt to climb the trunk, they find 
themselves headed off. Instead of going 
back to try it over again they keep forg¬ 
ing ahead till they come into close quar¬ 
ters. They can see up through the 
meshes, and make desperate efforts to 
crowd through. Many of them prob- 
0DD CLOVER SEEDING. 
Tne question of how to reed to clover, 
discussed by The R N.-Y. on page 300, 
i? one of much importance wherever hay 
isaprinc pH crop or where clover en¬ 
ters into the rotation of crops. lathe 
dairy sections, where corn and hay are 
the most important crops, it is very de¬ 
sirable to get a good stand when reseed¬ 
ing. Failure here means a loss for sev¬ 
eral years. The old way was to seed 
down with wheat in the Spring and, if 
more was to be seeded than needed in 
wheat, to use oats. If this method 
failed, as it often did, the seeding was 
patched up as best it could be, and pre¬ 
cisely the same course was taken the 
next Spring. Whatever may have been 
the wisdom of the fathers in this mat¬ 
ter, it didn’t go far towards solving any 
problems. Seeding with corn is one of 
the newer methods which is being prac¬ 
ticed to quite an extent. It gives the 
dairyman a chance to put most of his 
cultivated land into corn and to dispense 
with grain raising. Its disadvantages 
are that the seeding must be done at a 
time when we are quite likely to be 
overtaken by a drought, and that the 
weeds and the rank-growing corn give 
little chance for the tiny clover and Tim¬ 
othy plants. It certainly is not an ideal 
method of reseeding. 
We have tried seeding with oats and 
peas with good success. We used a thin 
seeding of grain—only four bushels of 
oats and two of peas on four acres. A 
large growth of fodder was cured for 
hay, and a good stand of grass was 
secured. The season, however, was 
favorable, and we fear that under less 
favorable circumstances the result would 
not have been satisfactory. Seeding 
without any crop has not been practiced 
much, for the reason that people are re¬ 
luctant to lose the use of the land for a 
year, and moreover the weeds get the 
start of the grass. We have a plan which 
SCRAPS. 
Mr W. F. Taber, Poughkeepsie, N. Y , says 
that the Marlboro raspberries are killed to the 
ground in his section, and that blackberries are 
not much better. This means a serious loss for 
fruit growers in that locality. 
So far as I know, there is no cherry that riper s 
so late as October. English Morello and Wind¬ 
sor are about the latest valuable cherries with 
which I am acquainted, but they ripen in July 
and August over a large part of the country. 
h. e v. D. 
Bulletin No 44, of the Delaware Station (New¬ 
ark). gives an account of experiments with sor¬ 
ghum which were conducted on various Delaware 
farms. In many parts of the South, a small crop 
of sorghum is popular, and not only provides ex¬ 
cellent feed for the stock, but gives a quantity of 
flrst-clas 3 syrup for home use. In Delaware, 
sorghum gives a heavy crop with quite satisfac 
tory molasses or sugar. 
Or the 10 varieties of potatoes grown last s’a- 
Bon, Carman No. 1 has proved most desirable. 
All others succumbed to the midsummer drought, 
while the Carman continued green until the 
Fall rains set in, when it completed its growth, 
and produced a fairly good crop, while some 
other varieties were almost worthless. The same 
was true the previous season. The Carman con¬ 
tinues growth later in the season than any other 
variety I know, rots less, and is not likely to be 
injured by wire-worms as are some other sorts. 
Sir Walter Raleigh is the most promising of the 
new varieties I have tested. I expect much from 
it. o w s. 
Cow Peas and Fire.— Here is an argument in 
favor of cow peas in orchards, that i i novel and 
sound. It is written by R C. Morris, of Olney, 
Ill.: “ I must not neglect to call your attention 
to another very important matter. Peas and 
beans are in their greenest stage of growth 
when we are often losing thousands of trees and 
dollars from fires set by railroad locomotives 
and hunters in August and September. Where 
peas and beans grow, there is no possible danger 
from fire.” Some dry crop like oats or grass will 
take fire like a spark, while green peas or beans 
will escape. For the good of the orchard, also, 
it is better to have the green crop growing late 
in the season. 
Mr V. K. Chesnut, of the United States De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, says that we should 
qualify the statement that smuts on corn will 
not injure the stalks, and that stock may be 
trusted not to eat too much of moldy oats. He 
says that, while corn smut may not be poisonous 
to cattle, too much of it would certainly be in¬ 
jurious. As to moldy grains and food, there are 
some molds capable of doing great mischief. 
The spores are, apparently, the cause of staggers 
in horses, which caused the heavy losses through 
the Missouri Valley last Winter. Experiments 
at Manhattan, Kan , indicate that the spores in 
this mold will grow inside of the living animal, 
if they get in the blood in any way, and death 
is, probably, caused by some poison which ie 
produced with the mold in the body of the animal. 
EVERGREENS 
Largest stock in Amer¬ 
ica, including 
Colorado Blue Spruce 
and Douglas Spruce 
of Colorado 
Also, Ornamental, 
Shade and Forest Trees. 
Tree Seeds, Etc. 
K. DOUGLAS’ SONS 
Waukegan, Ill. 
Pedigree Strawberries 
Recommended to all strawberry growers by Rural 
New-Yorker March 11, ’99, and praised by it July L, 
'97 and July 16, ’98. Weoffer JOE,CARRIE SIL.VER 8 , 
STELLA and REBA in poUgrown plants at25o each, 
$2 per doz., $5 per 100; and ROBBIE and NETTIE, the 
Dest late strawberries yet introduced, at 25c. each, $2 
per doz., $U per 109. Plants to be all pot-grown and to 
be delivered after July 1st. Order quick; stock limited 
JOS. H. BLACK , SON & CO., Hightstown, N. J. 
100 
POTTED NICK OHMER FOR SSI. 
T. C. KEV1TT, Athenia, N. J. 
n 
Business Trees the Best Trees 
ROGERS TREES are BUSINESS TREES. Remember the name and the 
place to buy. THE ROGERS NURSERIES, Uansville, New York. 
HERE’S A 
WINNER 
Excelsior Strawberry is immensely productive and 
earlier than Hoffman. A seedling of Wilson, plant and fruit 
both showing larger and finer than Wilson. Order early. 
70 other varieties in our catalogue, including the 
I Star, Nick Oliuicr, Clyde, Carrie, Margaret, 
Ruby and Darlings’. We are the largest growers of 
’ peach trees. Not one tree in a million affected with scale 
or yellows. Finest peach trees grown. Asparagus roots 
that always give satisfaction. Write for catalogue to-day. 
HARRISON’S NURSERIES, Berlin, Md. 
