VOL. XLIX. NO. 2110. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 16, i 89 o. 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS, 
$ 2.00 PER YEAR. 
ELiE AGNUS LONGIPES. 
P ASSING through the garden to-day, my attention was 
arrested by a big. fat cock-robin straining to swal¬ 
low something larger than he was accustomed to, 
when I found that the red-breasted rascal was helping 
himself to the Elteagnus fruit, which he was devouring 
without even spitting out the seeds. Then I cut a little 
sprig of a branch in fruit to send to The R. N.-Y. to snow 
how beautiful it is, and 
gathered some of the 
fruit to let the editor 
taste how nice a sauce 
can be made from it. 
This shrub is one of 
my special favorites. I 
have grown it for years, 
and the longer I know it 
the better I like it. It is a 
native of Japan, and be¬ 
longs to the Olive family 
of plants, and is a near 
relative to our native 
Buffalo-berry, and is per¬ 
fectly hardy. As a gar¬ 
den shrub it grows to a 
hight of five feet or more, 
is bushy and broad, and 
thrifty plants begin to 
fruit when two to three 
years old. The leaves 
are oval-oblong, green 
above, silvery beneath, 
and last in good con¬ 
dition all summer long 
and are never disfigured 
by insect vermin. The 
flowers are small,silvery- 
yellow, and borne in 
great abundance, and in 
full bloom about the 6th 
or 10th of May. The fruit 
is oval, five-eighths of an 
inch or more long, very 
fleshy and juicy, bright- 
red and drooping o n 
slender pedicels on the 
underside of the twigs, 
and borne in immense 
profusion. It is ripe 
about July 4th to 10th. 
We use the fruit for 
sauce as one would cran¬ 
berries, and a delicious 
sauce it makes, especial¬ 
ly for children. Indeed, I 
like it so well that I have 
planted it in our fruit 
garden as a standard 
crop, as one would cur- 
rants. It is sold in nur¬ 
series under the above 
name of E. longipes, also 
under the names E. 
crispa and E. edulis. 
But no one has ever 
handled it for all it is 
worth, and it is a some¬ 
what scarce plant in nur¬ 
series. I expect, how¬ 
ever, that more plants of 
this Elioagnus will be 
sold in this country next 
year than have been sold 
in all previous years 
combined, or, in other 
words, I expect it to have 
a boom next year. It is easily raised from seed, only the 
seed should be sown in the fall. The seedlings will not ap¬ 
pear till the next spring, when almost every seed will ger¬ 
minate. WM. FALCONER. 
WHAT MULCHING THE BERRIES DID. 
On page 507, J. B. tells of a 30-day drought in Kansas, and 
says: “ Blackberries perished on the withered branches.” 
F. S. W., of Ohio, reports drought also, and a “ large crop 
of berries that got cooked on the bushes.” A letter just 
received from a friend in Butler County, Ohio, tells of 
seven weeks without rain and ‘‘berries a failure.” The 
same report comes from a point in Illinois. We had a 
In spite of thousands of new fruits which have been in¬ 
troduced within the past few years; in spite of innumer¬ 
able “valuableacquisitionstoflllalong felt want;” this still 
exists ; the variety that embodies hardiness, freedom from 
disease, productiveness and quality Isa thing of the future. 
EL/EAGNUS LONGIPES. From Nature. Fig. 205. 
slight shower last night, which is our first to amount to 
anything for a month. We have not had as hot weather 
as they had in Kansas, the thermometer showing only 95 
degrees twice; but it has been very drying weather and 
crops usually have suffered greatly. But we are eating 
large, nice blackberries at every meal, and canning the 
surplus every day. It is doubtful whether I get through 
a day without eating at least two quarts. The drought is 
affecting our blackberries scarcely at all, nor did it the 
raspberries, and these lasted us for over three weeks. The 
ground between the rows was heavily mulched with straw 
last summer (see picture of two rows of Shaffer Raspber¬ 
ries in The Rural last fall). This spring we pushed this 
under the bushes and cultivated between the rows an inch 
or possibly 1% inch deep. This cultivation was kept up 
every few days until about the 10th of June. Then we 
drew in wheat straw and covered all the ground between 
the rows very heavily. I presume when first put on, it 
was a foot deep. At any 
time during this dry 
spell one could open the 
straw and find the sur¬ 
face of the earth moist. 
It was very wet when we 
covered it—just after a 
heavy rain. Most farm¬ 
ers have straw enough, 
and thus used, it has 
made for me a heavy 
crop of berries in spite 
of the drought, and 
saved the trouble of cul¬ 
tivating and hoeing the 
fruit garden during the 
busy season. Any one 
who has noticed where 
the largest, finest berries 
grew in the fields, must 
know that the coolness 
and moisture found un¬ 
der this heavy mulch are 
what berries delight in. 
Why not let them have 
what they want ? Per¬ 
haps it helped somewhat 
that our berries were set 
with an eastern ex¬ 
posure; but the heavy 
mulch was probably the 
main thing. Even the 
wild raspberries, two or 
three weeks ago, mostly 
dried up without ripen¬ 
ing. Ours all did well 
and showed no ill ef¬ 
fects whatever from dry 
weather. Bear in mind 
that there is positively 
no grass or weeds in our 
fruit garden, not even 
under the bushes, and 
the latter are not 
crowded together. Last 
year only about four 
canes were allowed to 
grow in a hill and the 
hills were three feet and 
the rows eight feet apart. 
They were quite close 
enough. I would rather 
pick or eat one large 
berry than two half as 
large. Crowding helps 
to make more berries in 
number, but no more 
quarts. 
In our fruit garden we 
have something over one- 
eighth of an acre of the 
different varieties of 
raspberries, and perhaps 
15 rods of blackberries, 
and I think I may safely 
say the fruit picked will 
be between 30 and 35 
bushels. We will use 
very nearly all of this ourselves. Once or twice we had 
more than we could tend to and sold a few at $3.75 to $4 a 
bushel—this after three weeks of strawberries and cream. 
I am perfectly willing to confess that I made a fool of my¬ 
self the first 18 years of my farm life. During those years 
I knew nothing about what it was to have all the choice 
berries I could eat for two months or more. I never knew 
fully until this year. When I look back I feel as though 
it would be a pleasure for me to kick myself; but as I can¬ 
not do that, I will try to make just as many farmers as 
