1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
39 
The Otaheite Orange. —This orange 
is used for stocks upon which the best 
varieties are budded when it is desired 
to dwarf them, just the same as the 
Paradise stock dwarfs the varieties 
grafted upon it. The Paradise thus 
gives us bush apples suitable for garden 
culture. 
But the Otaheite is itself a most desir¬ 
able plant for house culture, and as a 
garden plant as well during the mild 
months of the year. It is a plant, too, 
that will succeed, admirably in any 
sunny room and, indeed, is becoming 
highly popular in the cities. 
We have before us a plant that is but 
10 inches high, and as many in diameter. 
It is bearing five oranges, thi*ee of them 
ripe, and five others have within a few 
weeks been pulled off. They average 
six inches in circumference. The color 
of the skin is a deep or reddish orange ; 
the skin is very thin, with an intense 
orange odor. It peels very readily from 
the flesh. The sections of the flesh 
which are seedless in the fruit of this 
particular tree, also part readily, the 
skin, though thin, being firm enough 
not to break from the handling. The 
flesh is very juicy and sweet, though the 
white skin is rather bitter, but it is 
easily rejected. 
The leaves arc evergreen, nearly two 
inches long, of an elliptical shape and 
of a medium gx’een color. 
The Otaheite is a grand pot plant. It 
is satisfied with a pot, if the soil is what 
it needs, and any good, loamy garden 
soil suffices. Thus cared for, smaller 
plants than the one we have particularly 
alluded to, will produce a marvelous 
quantity of blossoms and fruit. It is a 
treasure for its flowers alone. With 
proper care, the plants are never with¬ 
out fruit or flowers, the latter being 
white, five-petaled, and about an inch 
in diameter, laden with the character¬ 
istic, delicate and delicious odor of 
orange blossoms. Truly one may, with 
little chance of creating an adverse dis¬ 
cussion as to the choiceness of his taste, 
say “ Could I have but one window plant, 
it would be the Otaheite.” Flauts are 
offered by most florists and nurserymen 
for from 25 cents to $2 each, depending 
upon the size, age, vigor and the number 
of oranges borne. The plants in full 
bearing may, with proper care, be 
shipped to any distance, so persistently 
do the oranges hang on In fact, one 
can not pull off an oi'ange, even though 
fully ripe, without leaving a part of the 
peel to the stem. 
We hear, through the Loudon Garden, 
of new kinds of chrysanthemums bear¬ 
ing green or greenish flowers. 
The Garden has a good word to speak 
of bush cherry trees. They are the Mo- 
rello grafted on Malialeb stock, which 
exerts a dwarfing influence, so that the 
trees may be set nine feet apart, or used 
for borders. One advantage is that these 
bush cherry trees may readily be cov¬ 
ered with netting to protect the fruit 
from birds. We are told that the cher¬ 
ries hang in perfection until the end of 
October. 
To our readers who have interested 
themselves in our latest trials as to the 
hardiness of the Rural winter oats and 
Crimson clover, we would now say : The 
oats are all right so far. So are the oats 
and Crimson clover in the plot where 
both are growing together. The Crim¬ 
son clover alone seems to have been in¬ 
jured, if not killed, in places. But we 
are not as yet quite positive about it.... 
We know that seed potatoes left in 
bulk—whether in heaps or in barrels— 
in cellars, dark and damp, will sprout. 
The sprouts will grow from an inch or 
so to several feet. We have assumed 
that this growth of the buds (eyes) 
weakens the mother tuber just in pro¬ 
portion to the growth of the stems—for 
that is just the word. The sprouts in¬ 
duced by moisture and darkness are just 
as much stems or branches, as are the 
green, leafy stems that grow from the 
tuber after it is planted in the open 
ground, the important difference being 
that the latter get food from the soil 
and air and sunlight, while the others 
live wholly upon the mother tuber, 
which, when cut and planted, is so weak¬ 
ened that all further growth of shoots 
must necessarily be slender and weak. 
The plants never become as vigorous as 
do those grown from sound potatoes. 
What happens when potatoes are kept, 
from the very time they are dug until 
the following spring, in a warm, sunny, 
dry room ? The eyes are slow to start. 
When they do start the growth is slow, 
forming coxcombed, wart-like, compact, 
stubby little stems that will remain 
short and strong up to planting time. 
What we have regarded as our best 
seed potatoes are those which, perfectly 
sound when placed in a sunny, dry room, 
have been so left for three months prev¬ 
ious to the planting period. Wouldn’t 
it be an experiment worth trying to 
plant, side by side, under the same con¬ 
ditions, sound potatoes and those ex¬ 
posed as we have described ?. 
Starting the eyes of potatoes by ex¬ 
posing them to warmth and light, may 
prove of service, as we have shown, in 
identifying varieties or, at any rate, 
proving them to be different. Some eyes 
will give light green sprouts, others 
dark green, some pink, some light purple, 
others dark purple, nearly black. Again 
this stubby growth will be more dwarf 
and bushy, so to say, in some kinds than 
in others ; some will be more, some less 
coxcombed than others, each portion or 
knob being the beginning of the growth 
of a stem and indicating by the number 
of them whether the variety has slender, 
upright-growing or large, bushy tops. 
Two potatoes were sent to us six weeks 
ago. They resembled each other closely 
in size, shape, number of eyes, and color 
of skin. The friend said that he had 
bought one lot for Carman No. 1, the 
other for Carman No. 3 ; but he feared 
that both were the same. We placed 
them in a sunny window of a warm 
room. The sprouts are now large enough 
to show that those of the Carman No. 1 
are light green, while those of the Car¬ 
man No. 3 are dark purple, thus proving 
them to be different and, probably, true 
to name. 
Years ago, as our older friends will 
recall, the late Alfred Rose declared that 
our R. N.-Y. No. 2 was his Beauty of 
Beauties. He had, a year or so pre¬ 
viously, sent a lot of the latter to be 
tried at the Rural Grounds. When he saw 
the II. N.-Y. No. 2, and before raising 
them, he sent out printed pamphlets 
which claimed them to be the same as 
his Beauty of Beauties, intimating that, 
through accident or intentionally, the 
latter had been propagated and offered 
under the name of R. N.-Y. No. 2. The 
result was that lots of Beauty of Beau¬ 
ties were sold for the No. 2, and many 
of the No. 2 were sold for Beauty of 
Beauties by seedsmen who believed Mr. 
Rose’s statement. Mr. Rose, at our 
urgent solicitation, sun-sprouted a tuber 
of each kind, the result of which was 
that he fully acknowledged his error 
with due apologies. 
Again, the sun-sprouting method may 
be made of valuable service in deter¬ 
mining the maturity of varieties ; that 
is, whether they are early, intermediate 
or late. Generally, the earliest kinds 
sprout first in the cellar, stored as they 
may be, the intermediates next, and the 
latest last. Stored in barrels or in bins 
or heaps, and, therefore, subjected to 
varying conditions, it is not easy to tell 
the season of the variety’s maturity. 
But when single tubers of about the 
same size and condition are placed in a 
sunny, warm, dry room, it will be found, 
we think, that the season of maturity 
may be fairly well determined. At any 
rate, the best keepers will be found to 
sprout last... 
Seed Bargains — 
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URPEE’S 
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W. ATLEE BURPEE & CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
Warranted 
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JERRftRP’S NORTHERN SEEDS ✓ 
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OUR NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE MAILED FREE. Address 
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Pear, Cherry, Apple, Grapes, Currants, 
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ROGERS NURSERY C0„ 
Box 100. Moorestown, N. J. Crosby & Champion 
PEACHES 
Headquarters 
for Sweet Peas 
Mixed Varieties, per pound 40 cents. • 
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• • • THK ONI.Y Quarter pound 15 cents. 
NEW DOUBLE SWEET PEA, Bride of Niagara, 
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The Pioneer Seed Catalogue. Fuchsias, Roses, Blackberry, The Pearl 
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for any of the above. 
JAMES VICK’S SONS 
Send for our 1896 Catalogue of Northern Grown 
SEED POTATOES. 
Catalogue I Prices Reduced to I AGENTS 
fkek. 1 suit the times. | WANTED. 
HOOKER, GHOVER & C0.,’ , SS35StKl.Wr 
Carman No, I PotatoisTKSUfK 
pounds; liiO pounds to the barrel. Orders booked now 
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J M. MEREDITH, Calcium P. O., Berks Co., Pa. 
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Potato Culture in a Nutshell, both free. Read them 
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HARRY N. HAMMOND, Seedsman, Decatur, Mich. 
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ATHENIA, N. J, 
