60 
the 
AMERICANGARD^ 
and 
A PEAOH-TREE ENEMT. 
TheElm-bark Beetle, P/dceoiHM.s«;»»>««« 
^yhich formerly confined its devastations o 
the Elm principally, to-day ^^ttacks also 
fruit trees, especially Peaches and 
ries, and causes considerably ^ 
than is generally supposed. I noticed la y 
a small Peach orchard, every tree of whicii 
was infested, and the stems thickly covcie 
with gum, while the previous year all were 
healthy and bore a crop of fine fruit. It has 
been stated that these insects attack only 
sickly and dying trees, but I have positive 
proof that this is a mistake, as they have 
killed three-years-old Cherries, Plums and 
Peaches that presented a most luxuriant 
growth and healthy general appearance. 
The full grown insect, a minute cylindri¬ 
cal beetle about one-tenth of an inch long and 
one-thirteenth of an inch in. diameter, issues 
from the bark the latter part of August 
through holes so small as to be nearly im¬ 
perceptible, over which the cuticle closes 
after the insect’s exit. The beetles continue 
to appear on the surface until freezing 
weather. In about four days after their ap¬ 
pearance, they bore a hole back through the 
bark, the full size of the perfect insect. All 
the material they thus remove passes through 
them, their castings being merely the bor¬ 
ings, yet it is not for the purpose of obtain¬ 
ing food that they gnaw these apertures, 
but to provide a place in which to deposit 
their eggs, and also to furnish a receptacle 
for their dead bodies. 
After the female insect has deposited her 
eggs in the bottom of this hole, into which 
she fits so snugly that it is difficult to ex¬ 
tract their bodies, she dies, forming a per¬ 
fect shield for the eggs. As no traces what¬ 
ever of the dead insects are discoverable the 
following season, I am led to the conclusion 
that their bodies serve as the first food for 
the young larvaj. 
On the approach of warm weather the fol¬ 
lowing spring, the eggs hatch; the larvae be¬ 
gin to feed on the alburnum, and radiate in 
jogged lines in all directions from their 
breeding place for about an inch in circum¬ 
ference. They are so numerous under the 
bark that they undermine it completely. 
But the insects and the holes in the bark are 
so small as to escape attention until the mis¬ 
chief is done and the tree dies, yet the jets 
of gum on the surface are plainly visible and 
cannot escape the attention of the observer. 
As a remedy, carbolic soap and diluted 
jpotash, used alternately, have given satis¬ 
factory results. They should be applied to 
the trees in April, and again in August and 
September. A. J. Caywook. 
A VIUEyAED IN THE OALIPOENIA WILDEENESS 
A year ago this winter I cleared and set 
out to vineyard sixty acres from the midst 
of the gj'and, forest-covered top of Howell 
Mountain, ten miles north-east of St. Helena, 
Cal. St. Helena is the center of the Napa 
Valley vineyard region—one of the principal 
regions of the state. The va'lcy is narrow 
here and given over entirely to the Grape; 
in early summer, as ojie rides through it on’ 
the railroad, the scene is something like 
Paradise. 
The price of land in thi.s Paradise is .§ 1,000 
an acre ; which explains sufficiently why’my 
sixty acres were located not in the valley but 
on Howell Mountain, 2,000 feet above it 
I '“"I'",® 0. »I"*.-" S”".? f 
stupendous work, e beautiful, 
Italians. The lay in ^ 
rounded f^est ’ was a forest of 
easy-nsi^ Oaks into stove-wood— 
giants. Weeutth ■ (jroat Yellow 
and ended by hauling the n b 
vineyard, where they lay like the ® 
a faflen temple. Stumps were suinmauly 
dealt with by means of dynmnit® 
Immediately after getting the land deai 
put two four-horse road-plows on it and 
turned the deep virgin soil-a light, recldis^ 
loam of excellent quality. Deep plowiii 
and deep planting were requisite m« 
the dry mountain sumineis. riuis the last 
of March brought us to planting. 
In mountain vineyards it is deemed pre er- 
able to set out rooted vines-cuttings that 
have grown a year, and to make the holes, 
not with a crow-bar, as they do in our valley 
vineyards, but with a spade. I used eanes 
eighteen inches long and planted them their 
full length in the ground, after having 
trimmed the roots back to one and two 
inches. This seems close pruning, but it 
stimulates a fresh and vigorous root growth. 
The vineyard is laid out after the com¬ 
mon Californian plan, in blocks of thirty 
rows one way and thirty-three another, 
making nearly lOOO vines in a block. The 
rows are seven feet apart and fourteen foot 
avenues are made between the blocks, by 
omitting one row. At each vine is driven a 
solid three-foot stake for training; my stakes 
were dipped one-half length in hot coal-tar 
to promote durability. The Californian 
vine-grower dispenses with trellises ; his 
vines by constant pruning back are formed 
into a stocky stump, abiut two feet high, 
which is self-supporting. 
After planting, one portion of my forces 
were turned to cultivating with single horse- 
plows, a work which requires persistent at¬ 
tention, owing to the rank growth of weeds 
and especially of Ferns. With the remain¬ 
ing portion I began my rabbit-proof fence 
built like a picket-fence with stakes set 
very close around the entire vineyard. This 
labor is unavoidable for the woods abound 
in jack-rabbits which have an eye single to 
vineyards, and will kill hundreds of young 
vines in a night. 
,, "’y comprises chielly 
the /infindel (the standby of our winc- 
makers,) Liossling, Chasselas, Black Pino 
tef and s’ S’-^vignon Vert, Musca¬ 
tel and ,Sultana, mostly Euroi.can stocks it 
yardist. I bough an ordinary summer (bn 
growth of the vinos has been excolloiit’- and 
am already seeking a eool plaee for -’I" 
cellar in view of the first vinta-m to 
live years. " ’ 
There are 
I wine- 
como in 
as many as 
clearings on the mountain" whicTiVm 
tensive undulating top nni v n , 
Our enterprise has eviry pr fni 0 T 
We have to plantearefidlV. . ^ »'>«coss. 
an oceasional frost with 
that the vallevs ari. ..... 1 ' ^ 
will certainly extend i'"'* ®nltiiro 
low mountains of the c(!LTrai'"°™ 
HO very well suited for the nn.-,'^'*’’ 
way. Ill ovoi’y 
Ci.akk. 
HTBEID BASPB EE.-R.TB g 
It seems strange that there shouiji p 
fruit-growers who doubt that the dift * 
species of Raspberries can be changed 
improved by hybridization. Having b 
practical experimeuter for thirty yea,. 
tile 
results of some of my experiments in 
direction leave no doubt in my mind * 
will furnish convincing proof to anyone 
will take the trouble to investigate the 
In the year 1843 I planted in my g®', 
what wo tlien called the wild White™*" 
Raspberry, that bore hard yellow frnit^’^'* 
very poor flavor. In the summer of ISlsV**^ 
fore the llowers opened I cut out the stam 
of several of these flowers and removed^']) 
the other flowers from the bush. Atth 
proper time I applied pollen of Franconia t! 
the pistil of Ihese flowers t athadprevlousi 
been deprived of their own pollen. Most of 
the plants raised from the seed of the berries 
thus produced strongly resembled the mother 
both in plant and fruit; rooting from the 
tips of the young canes, and never throwing 
up suckers. But two or three of these seed¬ 
lings boro long, soft red berries, threw up 
abundance of suckers, and could not be in¬ 
duced to root from the tips. Now I ask the 
unbelievers in these mutters, Were these two 
or three red seedfinj/s hybrids, or not? 
If there should still be any doubters, let 
me inform them of what I did with these 
two red varieties above alluded to, and which 
I have ahvays called Hybrids. Believing 
that their natur.al characters had been in a 
measure broken, and that I could again cross 
their flowers, and by so doing I could in 
time combine all the good qualities of Rasp¬ 
berries in one or two varieties. The follow¬ 
ing summer when they came into flower I 
fertilized them with pollen from our best 
varieties, amongst others. White Marvel of 
Four Seasons. The results of this cross were 
some red, some white, and some dark 
orange varieties, and very much improved in 
fruit, but not one rooting from their tips like 
their grandmother. From this generation 
of seedlings the three most promising were 
saved, one light-yellow, one orange, one red. 
But believing the acme of perfection had 
not yet readied, another attempt was made. 
This time the pollen of Belle de,Foutena}', 
Hornet, and Brinckle’s Orange, were used 
upon the pistil of the yellow seedling. The 
result from the seed of these being a gr®**' 
many distinct varieties, four of them being 
very promising. One is considered an >a'‘ 
provcinont on Belle do Fontenay, others rc^ 
scmlflc Hornet, but arc more hardy, an 
another largo delicious yellow is now calk' 
Diadem. I'liis last named lias the p®"®' 
liarity of somotinios sending up canes tu 
produce rod fruit, and some tliat pi'O'1®®'® 
yellow fruit, from the same roots. R ^ 
not prepared to prove this statement 
some of the most intolligont and proniin®®^ 
horticnlliirists in Ontario, I would not ha' 
dared to make it. This is the only 
of this kind I liavo over hoard of, 
niy opinion constitutes proof positive 0 
hybrid diaractor, ami showing at 
time a si.roiig tondonoy to return to 
original typo. Cii.\ui-HH 
I The above was written for Thk AmI'.® 
G.\itiuoM by the late Charles Arnold of 
Ontario, shortly hoforo his ®toalh, aii< 
only shows how oarofully and systoina ■ 
its author uonductod his oxporiinoat®i 
also fiirnishos an important oontributo 
pomologieal suiemse_ Ed. | 
