THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
pears received in New York city markets arc infested by 
the San Jose scale, Aspidiotus peniciosus. Should not 
California laws affecting nursery stock be offset by New 
York laws affecting fruit ? 
CONDITION OF FRUIT. 
The statistician of the U. S. Department of Agri¬ 
culture reports that the average condition of apples has 
declined during the past month from 44 to 40.8. The 
conditions are highest in New England, where percent¬ 
ages range from 67 to 89, and in the mountain and 
Pacific states, where the lowest condition, 50, is in 
Nevada, and the highest, above the normal, in Idaho. 
The condition of peaches has fallen a little over i 
point since August ist, and now stands at 21. i. East 
of the mountain states but three states have a condi¬ 
tion of 60 or over, viz. New Hampshire, New Jersey, 
a'nd Michigan. The first of these has no commercial 
weight as a producer of this fruit. Colorado has a 
higher condition than any other state, the percentage 
being 94. California follows with 89. The percent¬ 
ages of Oregon and Washington are much lower. On 
the Atlantic coast, south of Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey, conditions indicate a practical failure of the 
peach crop, and the same may be said of the states 
lying in the Piedmont region and of the western states 
generally. 
The returns show a poorer prospect for grapes than 
at the same date in several years past, though the con¬ 
dition of this fruit is plainly higher than of either apples 
or peaches The grape suffers little from drought, dry 
weather being rather favorable to its development than 
otherwise. The low conditions are generally ascribed 
to the late frosts of spring, which killed the new wood 
on most early varieties. 
NEW YORK STATE FAIR. 
The exhibit of fruit at the New York State fair, 
September 6th to 13th, was marvelous, exceeding any 
ever made at a state fair in this or any other state. In 
round numbers there were shown 400 plates of grapes, 
1,300 of pears, 5,500 of apples, 900 of plums and 250 
of peaches. The earliness of the season no doubt 
materially reduced the size of the grape exhibit, many 
of the largest growers in Central and Western New York 
not showing, as their grapes were not sufficiently ripe. 
The show of plums was the largest and finest ever made 
in this country. Black Diamond, Arch Duke, Monarch, 
Prince of Wales and Field were shown by S. D. Wil¬ 
lard of Geneva. All of these are comparatively new. 
Ellwanger & Barry had about 125 varieties of pears and 
a large exhibit of grapes and plums. E. Smith & Sons 
of Geneva, made a large exhibit of plums. A new 
seedling peach produced by W. G, Richards of Syracuse 
was very handsome. D. S. Marvin showed a new white 
currant as large as the Grape and a week later. 
Ellwanger & Barry won 59 first prizes. 
John Charlton of Rochester won first and secon'd 
prizes on roses. 
The Western New York Horticultural Society won 
the prize of $200 for the best show of fruit. It won 
the same prize last year and took second prize in 1892. 
A. M. Smith of St. Catherines was the judge. 
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? 
If you were asked by a brother nurseryman how much 
you would give with others toward the establishment of a 
journal devoted exclusively to the interests of the nurser)' 
trade, a journal which would furnish you the nursery news 
of the country, to which you could refer at any time for 
information of value to your business, in the columns 
of which you could as in no other way discover your wants 
or advertise your offerings, a journal to which you could 
point with pride and say. That is the nurseryman’s trade 
journal, would your reply be “At least one dollar a year?” 
We think so. Here then is the journal, established and 
offered to you at a price so low that it could not be made 
one cent lower. And yet some are holding off payment of 
that small sum while all the time they are enjoying its 
pages and reaping direct benefit from its advertising columns. 
Every nurseryman should own a file of The Nation.al 
Nur.SERYMAN from its first issue. The horticultural, fiori- 
cultural and agricultural papers do not give you what this 
doe.s—trade topics exclusively. 
The first nurseryman probably to offer Japan ivy for 
sale in America, was Mr. John Charlton, of Rochester, 
N. Y., who spent heavy sums of money in advertising 
it, with very few to respond, says Meehans Monthly. 
Thousands of dollars have since been made on the sales 
of this plant, but very little from this is represented in 
Mr. Charlton’s bank account. That was in 18C8. Few 
plants have achieved so wide a popularity—it is seen e\’cr)^- 
where, in every part of the Union. The writer of this par¬ 
agraph was recently showing the Japanese commissioners 
the sights of the city of Philadelphia, when one of the 
commissioners exclaimed in his newly acquired English, 
and at the same time pointing to the ivy growing over the 
walls of the Academy of Natural Sciences : “ l\le feel very 
much at home.” 
