Part 26

1. Bauman’s May or Bigarreau de Mai. 2. Black Eagle. 3. Knight’s Early Black. 4. May Duke. 5. Elton. 6. Bigarreau, or Spanish Yellow 7. Belle de Choisy. 8. Black Tartarian. 9. Downer’s Late. 10. Napoleon.

For a collection of two trees, 4, 9; for four trees, add 6 and 10.

VI. PLUMS.

1. Green Gage. 2. Jefferson. 3. Huling’s Superb. 4. Coe’s Golden Drop. 5. Purple Gage. 6. Cruger’s Scarlet. 7. Washington. 8. Red Gage. 9. Smith’s Orleans. 10. Royal de Tours.

For two trees, 1 and 4; for four add 2 and 7. The following are said to be suitable for light sandy soils, on which plums usually drop their fruit: Cruger’s Scarlet, Imperial Gage, Red Gage, Coe’s Golden Drop, Bleeker’s Gage, Blue Gage.

VII. STRAWBERRIES.

Early Virginia. Hovey’s Seedling. Hudson. Ross Phœnix.

No one man can make out a list that will suit all; and those who are acquainted with fruits will reject some from the above list and insert others. But it may be safely said, that he who has in his collection the above varieties, will have a collection comprising the best that are known, and without one inferior sort, although there may be many others _as_ good; which may be added by such as have room for them.

THE NURSERY BUSINESS.

The great interest in the cultivation of fruit which has been excited within a few years, has given rise to many nurseries to supply the demand, and every year we see the number increasing. Or rather, we see new adventurers in this line, for the failure of many and the abandonment of the business, prevents the number from becoming so great as one would suppose.

We are very glad to see the art of fruit culture increasing, and we are very glad to see competent men embarking in the nursery business. But we are sorry to see the impression gaining ground that it is a business which anybody can conduct, and that every man can make money by it who knows how to graft or to bud. Let no man embark in it under such misapprehension.

In the first place, the time, and labor, and patience required for a successful nursery business is much greater than any one suspects beforehand. If a man has a large capital he may begin sales at once upon a purchased stock. But if one is to prepare his own stock for market, and this must be the case with by far the greater number of western nurserymen, it will require several years of expensive labor before he can realize anything. Nor even then will he be apt to receive profits which will at all meet his expectations. During these years of preparation on what is he to live? If he has means, very well; but let no man suppose that he can get along, especially with a family on his hands, during the early years of his nursery, if he has nothing else to depend upon. The mere physical labor of keeping a nursery in proper order is such as to make it no sinecure.

But all this is a less consideration than the special skill and vigilant care required to conduct a nursery in an honorable manner. Nowhere do mistakes occur more easily, and nowhere are they more provoking, both to the buyer and seller. It is rare that assistants can be had upon whom reliance can be placed. There are men enough to plow, and grub, and clean; but to select buds and grafts, to work the various kinds, and plant them safely by themselves, this, usually, must be done by the proprietor. Where a nursery is carried on by assistants, it makes almost no difference how much care is used, mistakes will abound.

The extent to which an error goes is not unworthy of a moment’s attention. We purchased of a very highly respectable nurseryman, the _Royal George_ peach. The first season many buds were distributed from it. An expert nurseryman in the vicinity, among others, got of it. The credit of the original proprietor of the tree was such that it was thought safe to propagate at once, and thousands of trees were worked with these buds; from him, nurserymen from neighboring counties procured scions, and now the Royal George, which has proved to be no Royal George at all, is scattered all over the country. When a nursery contains from fifty to a hundred kinds of apples, thirty or forty kinds of pears, ten to twenty sorts of cherries, thirty or forty kinds of peaches, besides plums, nectarines, apricots, etc., there will be some two or three hundred _separate varieties_ of fruit to be propagated each year, and of each sort from a hundred to a thousand or more trees, according to the business of the nursery. Two things are apparent from this view; first, that such unremitting and sagacious vigilance is required that not every one is fit to be a nurseryman; and, secondly, that not every nurseryman is a scamp who puts upon you trees untrue to their names. No doubt there are roguish nurserymen; no doubt, too, there are culpably careless men in this, as in all other forms of business. But no one will be so charitable to nurserymen as those who understand the difficulties of their business; and a mistake, and many of them, may occur in well-appointed grounds, which no care could well have prevented.

We think this to be a business to which no man should turn, except under two conditions; first, that he will, if he has not already, serve a faithful apprenticeship to it—we do not mean by regular indenture, but by practising for several years in a good nursery until the prominent essential parts of the business have become practically familiar.

The other condition is, that he make up his mind to _see to it himself_.

* * * * *

REMEDY FOR YELLOW BUGS.—A gentleman informs us that he has always saved his vines by planting _poppies_ among them. Those on one side of an alley, without poppies, would be entirely eaten, while those on the other side, with poppies, would not be touched.

THE BREEDING OF FRUITS.

Because, as yet, no certain rules can be laid down for the production of a given result by crossing flower on flower, it does not follow that there are not certain invariable principles which govern the process. It is but a little while since breeding animals had any pretension to scientific rules. But, by careful practice and observation, the most important improvement has been attained in all the animals belonging to the farm. And if careful research and experiment do not result in absolute certainty, they will yet render the production of fine varieties of fruit, by the crossing of the old ones, a matter of much less chance than it now is.

The art of cross-fertilization is being much more practised by florists than by pomologists, and for obvious reasons. What the breeder of annuals can do in a few months requires more than as many years from him that essays to raise new fruits. Many florists’ flowers, however, require as long and even a longer time than apples or pears; and it is a marvel that the phlegmatic patience of the tulip-loving Dutch Jobs should not have found imitators in the orchard. If a man can wait ten years to ascertain that all his seedling bulbs are good for nothing, or at the best, that out of ten thousand, but one or two are worth keeping, surely the patience of an enthusiast in fruit ought not to snap by being drawn through such a space.

Two methods for originating new varieties of fruit have been practised; the _natural_ method of Van Mons, and the _artificial_ method of Knight. Van Mons, born at Brussels in 1765, was a man of fine genius and thorough education. Although he is chiefly known as a pomologist, his labors in the nursery were only incidental to the regular occupation of a public scientific life. M. Poiteau quaintly says of him that he writes “on the gravest subjects, in the midst of noise, in a company of persons who talk loudly on frivolous subjects, and takes part in the conversation without stopping his pen.”

Van Mons’ theory is founded upon two physical facts:

1. _That all seeds in a state of nature can be made by cultivation to vary from their condition, which variations may be fixed, and become permanent._

2. _That all cultivated seeds have a tendency to return toward that natural state from which they originally varied._ We say _toward_, for he supposed that an improved fruit would never return absolutely to the original and natural type.

It was upon this last principle that Van Mons accounted for the fact, that as a general thing, the seeds of fine old varieties of fruit produced only inferior kinds. Recourse could not be had therefore to seeds of improved fruit.

On the other hand, the seed of fruits absolutely wild would produce fruits exactly like their original. If the seed of the wild pear be gotten from the wood and planted in a garden, every seed will yield only the wild pear again. But if a wild pear be transplanted, and put under new influences of soil, climate and cultivation, its fruit will begin to augment and improve. The change is not merely upon the size and appearance of the fruit, it affects also the qualities of the _seed_. For if the seed be now planted, the difference between a wild pear, _in a state of nature_ and the same wild pear-tree _in a state of cultivation_ will at once appear in this, that whereas the seed of the first is _constant_, the seed of the second shows an inclination to _vary_. Here then is a starting. When once the habit of _variation_ is gained, the foundation of improvement is laid. In a short time the enthusiasm of Van Mons had collected into his garden 80,000 trees upon which he was experimenting, nor can the result of his labors be better stated than in the words of M. Poiteau:

“That so long as plants remain in their natural situation, they do not sensibly vary, and their seeds always produce the same; but on changing their climate and territory several among them vary, some more and others less, and when they have once departed from their natural state, they never again return to it, but are removed more and more therefrom, by successive generations, and produce, sufficiently often, distinct races, more or less durable, and that finally if these variations are even carried back to the territory of their ancestors, they will neither represent the character of their parents, or ever return to the species from whence they sprung.”

Accordingly, Van Mons began to sow the seeds of natural and wild fruit which were in a _variable_ state. By all means within his power he hastened his seedlings to show fruit. The first generation showed only poor fruit but decidedly better than the wild. Selecting the seed of the best of these, he sowed again. From the fruit of these he sowed the third generation. From the third, a fourth; and from the fourth, a fifth; as far as the eighth generation.

His experience showed that there was great difference among different species of fruit in the number of generations through which they must pass before they were perfect. The apple yielded good fruit in the fourth generation. Stone fruits produced perfect kinds in the third generation. Some varieties afforded perfect fruit in the fifth generation, while others go on improving to the eighth.

The time required for this renovation diminished at each remove from the normal or wild state. Thus, the trees from the second sowing of the pear-seed fruited in from ten to twelve years; those from their seed, or of the third genetion in from eight to ten years; those of the fourth generation in from six to eight years; those of the fifth generation, in six years, and those in the eight, in four years. These are the _mean_ terms of all his experiments.

To obtain perfect stone fruits, through four successive generations, from parent to son, required from twelve to fifteen years; the apple required twenty years, and the pear, when carried only to the fifth generation, required from thirty to thirty-six years.

HYBRIDIZATION, OR KNIGHT’S METHOD.—Andrew Knight, one of the most original and philosophic horticulturists that ever lived, pursued an entirely different method—that of _cross-fertilization_. He carefully removed the anthers from the blossoms upon which he wished to operate, so that the stigma should not receive a particle of the pollen belonging to its own flower. He then procured from the variety which he wished to cross, a portion of the pollen, and artificially impregnated the prepared blossom with it. When the fruit thus produced had ripened its seeds, they were sown, and by regular process brought into bearing. The progeny were found to combine, in various degrees of excellence, the qualities of both parents.

REMARKS ON THE TWO METHODS.

1. Both Van Mons and Knight believed in a degeneracy of plants; but the degeneracy of the one system is not to be confounded with that of the other.

Knight believed that varieties had a regular period of existence; although, as in animal life, care and skill might make essential difference in the longevity, yet they could in nowise avert the final catastrophe; a time would come, sooner or later, at which the vegetable vitality would be expended, and the variety must perish by exhaustion—by _running out_.

Van Mons believed that an improved variety tended to return to its normal state—to its wild type; and although he did not believe that it could ever be entirely restored to its wild state, it might go so far as to make it worthless for useful purposes.

Knight believed in absolute decay; Van Mons, in retrocession. According to Knight’s theory, varieties of fruit cease by the natural statute of limitation; according to Van Mons, they only fall from grace.

There can be no reasonable doubt that Van Mons held the truth, and as little, that Knight’s speculations were fallacious. Bad cultivation will cause anything to run out; no plant will perfect its tissues or fruit without the soil affords it elementary materials. The so-called exhausted varieties renew their youth when transplanted into soils suitable for them.

2. Against Van Mons’ method it is urged, that it enfeebles the constitution of plants; that, _enfeebling_ is the very key of the process. This Mr. Downing urges with emphasis, saying that, “the Belgian method (Van Mons’) gives us varieties often impaired in their _health_ in their very origin.” It is one thing to restrain the energy of a plant, and another to enfeeble it. It may be enfeebled until it becomes unhealthy, but rampant vigor is as really an unhealthy state as the other extreme. A tree refuses fruit and is liable to death from a coarse, open, rank growth, as much as from a languor which suppresses all growth.

No; that which we imagine Van Mons to have effected was a smaller, but more _compact_ and _fine_ growth. Nor are we aware that, _as a matter of experience_, the Belgian pears prove to be any more tender than the English. Doubtless, there are trees of a delicate and tender habit in the number, but as few, in proportion to the great number originated, as by any other method.

The two main objections to the plan are the _time required_, and the utter _uncertainty of the results_. To imitate the process would require a Van Mons’ patience, in which, probably, he was never surpassed, and his enthusiasm, which was extraordinary even for a horticulturist, a race of beings supposed to be anything but phlegmatic.

The _uncertainty_ is such as to prevent any determinate improvement. We get, not what we may wish, but whatever may happen to come. Nothing that art can do would affect the size, color, hardness, or in any respect, the general character of the fruit.

It is in these aspects that Knight’s method must always be preferred as a practical system. We can obtain a return for our labor in _one-fifth_ the time; and, what is even more important, we can regulate, before-hand, the results within certain limits. The new fruit is to be made up of the qualities of its parents in various proportions. We cannot determine what the proportions shall be, but we can determine what parents shall be selected. Nor is it at all improbable that, when knowledge has become more exact by a longer and larger experience, the breeder of fruit may cross the varieties with nearly the same certainty of result as does the breeder of stock. It is upon this feature, the power which science has over the results to be obtained, that we look with the greatest interest; and we urge upon scientific cultivators the duty of perfecting our fruits by judicious breeding.

PRUNING ORCHARDS.

The habit of early spring pruning has been handed down to us from English customs, and farmers do it because it always has been done. Besides, about this time, men have leisure, and would like to begin the season’s work; and pruning seems quite a natural employment with which to introduce the labors of the year.

It is not possible for America, but more emphatically for western cultivators to do worse than to pattern upon the example of British and Continental authorities in the matter of orchards and vineyards. The summers of England are moist, cool, and deficient in light. Our summers are exactly the reverse—dry, fervid, and brilliant. The stimuli of the elements with them are much below, and with us much above par. In consequence, their trees have but a moderate growth; ours are inclined to excessive growth.

Their whole system of open-culture, and wall-training is founded upon the necessity of _husbanding all their resources_. To avail themselves of every particle of light, they keep open the heads of their trees, so that the parsimonious sunshine shall penetrate every part of the tree. Let this be done with us, and there are many of our trees that would be killed by the force of the sun’s rays upon the naked branches in a single season, or very much enfeebled. For the same general reasons, the English reduce the quantity of bearing-wood, shortening a part or wholly cutting it out, that the residue, having the whole energy of the tree concentrated upon it, may perfect its fruit. Our difficulty being an excess of vitality, this system of shortening and cutting out, would cause the tree to send out suckers from the root and trunk, and would fill the head of the tree with rank water-shoots or _gourmands_. What would be thought of the people of the torrid zone should they borrow their customs of clothing from the practice of Greenland? It would be as rational as it is for orchardists, in a land whose summers are long and of high temperature, to copy the customs of a land whose summers are prodigal of fog and rain, but penurious of heat and light.

Except to remove dead, diseased or interfering branches, do not cut at all.

But if pruning is to be done, wait till after corn-planting. _The best time to prune is the time when healing will the quickest follow cutting._ This is not in early spring, but in early summer. The elements from which new wood is produced are not drawn from the rising sap, but from that which descends between the bark and wood. This sap, called _true sap_, is the upward sap after it has gone through that chemical laboratory, the leaf. Each leaf is a chemical contractor, doing up its part of the work of preparing sap for use, as fast as it is sent up to it from the root through the interior sap-passages. In the leaf, the sap gives off and receives, certain properties; and when thus elaborated, it is charged with all those elements required for the formation and sustentation of every part of vegetable fabric. Descending, it gives out its various qualities, till it reaches the root; and whatever is left then passes out into the soil.

Every man will perceive that if a tree is pruned in spring before it has a leaf out, there is no sap provided to repair the wound. A slight granulation _may_ take place, in certain circumstances, and in some kinds of plants, from the elements with which the tree was stored during the former season; but, in point of fact, a cut usually remains without change until, the progress of spring puts the whole vegetable economy into action.

In young and vigorous trees, this process may not seem to occasion any injury. But trees growing feeble by age will soon manifest the result of this injudicious practice, by blackened stumps, by cankered sores, and by decay.

If one must begin to do something that looks like spring-work, let him go at a more efficient train of operations. With a good spade invert the sod for several feet from the body of the tree. With a good scraper remove all dead bark. Dilute (old) soft soap with urine; take a stiff shoe-brush, and go to scouring the trunk and main branches. This will be labor to some purpose; and before you have gone through a large orchard faithfully, your zeal for spring-work will have become so far tempered with knowledge, that you will be willing to _let pruning alone till after corn-planting_.

Two exceptions or precautions should be mentioned.

1. In the use of the wash; new soap is more _caustic_ than old; and the sediments of a soap barrel much more so than the mass of soap. Sometimes trees have been injured by applying a caustic alkali in too great strength. There is little danger of this when a tree is rough and covered with dead bark or dirt; but when it is smooth and has no scurf it is more liable to suffer. _Trees should not be washed in dry and warm weather._ The best time is just before spring rains, or before any rain.

2. Where fruit-trees are found to have suffered from the winter, pruning cannot be too early, and hardly too severe. If left to grow, the heat of spring days ferments the sap and spreads blight throughout the tree; whereas, by severe cutting, there is a chance, at least, of removing much of the injured wood. We have gone over the pear-trees in our own garden, and wherever the least affection has been discovered, we have cut out every particle of the last summer’s wood; and cut back until we reached sound and healthy wood, pith and bark.

SLITTING THE BARK OF TREES.

This is a practice very much followed by fruit-raisers. Downing gives his sanction to it. Mr. Pell (N. Y.), famous for his orchards, includes it as a part of his system of orchard cultivation. Men talk of trees being _bark-bound_, etc., and let out the bark on the same principle, we suppose, as mothers do the pantaloons of growing boys. We confess a prejudice against this letting out of the tucks in a tree’s clothes. We do not say that there may not be cases of diseased trees in which, as a remedial process, this may be wise; but we should as soon think of slitting the skin on a boy’s legs, or on a calf’s or colt’s, as a regular part of a plan of rearing them, as to slash the bark of sound and healthy trees. _Bark-bound!_ what is that? Does the inside of a tree grow faster than the outside? When bark is slit, is it looser around the whole trunk than before? When granulations have filled up this artificial channel, is not the bark just as tight as it was before? Mark, we do not say that it is _not_ a good practice; but only that we do not yet understand _what_ the benefit is.

“Why, the bark bursts sometimes.”

Yes, disease may thus affect it; and when it does, _cut if necessary_.

“Does it do any harm?” Perhaps not; neither would it to put a weathercock on the top of every tree; or to bury a black cat under the roots, or to mark each tree with talismanic signs. Is it worth while to do a thing just because it does no harm?

“But when a tree is growing too fast, does it not need it?” Yes, if it can be shown that the bark, alburnum, etc., do not increase alike. That excitement which increases the growth of one part of a tree will, as a general fact, increase the growth of every other. In respect to the _fruit and seed_, doubtless, particular manures will develop special properties. But is there evidence that such a thing takes place in respect to the various tissues of the wood, bark, etc?