Part 12

Having waited for some time in order to try the effects of several remedies to kill or stop the ravages of the grape vine bug, I beg leave to state that I applied hellebore thoroughly, in both liquid and dry state, without any effect. I then mixed two table-spoonfuls of carbolic acid to one bucket of rain-water, (a strong dose,) and sprinkled the vines well, but this had no effect. I then put two table-spoonfuls of white hellebore to one bucket full of soap suds, producing no effect. I also caught the bug and covered him with hellebore, putting him under a glass, after two days he was as lively as ever. I now find the only plan to exterminate them is hand-picking in the morning when the dew is on the leaf; by doing so I have nearly got rid of them. I now find a small brown slug on the leaves, eating holes in them, this is evidently the offspring of the bug; I also pick them off, thus preventing the breeding for next year. My vines, from being mere bare poles, are now bringing forth buds and leaves, but of course no fruit this year. I should much wish to hear if any remedy has been found. I find the wild ones in the woods are also infested with the slug. The slug when full grown is about one-eighth of an inch long, brown, and when crushed, full of a yellow liquid; they are on the inside and outside of leaves.

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TREE ROSES AND WEEPING ROSES.

Since the remarks in our article on Roses, on the impossibility of growing these in this climate, were written, the following notes on this subject by one who evidently speaks from personal experience have attracted our attention, and we give them a place here because it is desirable that the public should be made acquainted with the fact that they have been tried many years ago, and found to be a failure in such a climate as ours. In a picture, the tree-rose laden with roses of several colors, or gracefully drooping, like a weeping tree, under its burden of pink, and scarlet, and yellow blooms, looks beautiful, and the expenditure of from three to five dollars to possess such an ornament to one’s grounds seems reasonable, but it is well to know that at best in a year or two it will fail. Our writer says, much as I admire those beautiful things, standard or tree-roses, I am afraid they will never become really established in our gardens, or do us much good in the long run. I have had in my garden and on my lawn about fifty specimens. They were all, but ten, imported plants, got out by a neighbor of mine at different times within five years. Little by little they have all died off. At first they thrived and bloomed very well. Afterwards they were gradually affected by the winters, and one after another I lost them. Then again, I fancy that our summers are too hot for the tall naked stems. They seem to get dry and shrivelled, and thereby they affect the growth and health of the top. I am all the more convinced of this since I have seen some specimens grown by a neighbor. He covers the stem with moss bound around them. This he leaves on all the year. It undeniably gives more health and vigor to the head, but it also gives the whole tree-rose, so unsightly, bandaged, a look that I cannot endure it in a neat place. On the whole, therefore, I shall feel obliged to return to the old, and in the main more satisfactory mode of growing roses. Farther south, say at Baltimore or Cincinnati, where the weather is not so cold in winter, no doubt standard roses will do better.

=VOL. I.]= =AUGUST, 1878.= =[NO. 8.=

A NEW RASPBERRY.

The work of raising new varieties of raspberries goes on with considerable vigor. If we do not get one to suit everybody, we are likely to get so many that each one may find a variety that suits him. Since the days when Mr. Arnold began to try his skill on the production of new sorts of raspberries, and gave us his Yellow Canada and Orange King, the number of new sorts of raspberries that have been brought out is something wonderful. Since then we have had the Clark, which continues to be grown by many for market purposes on account of its bright color; the Herstine, which has a peculiar flavor, but is too soft to carry any distance; Mammoth Cluster, one of the most productive of the black-cap family; Brandywine, a rather small, firm berry that will carry well, but the plant suckers awfully; Highland Hardy, valuable because of its earliness; Turner, a vigorous western variety; Ganargua, a firm fruit that will carry well, but of a dull maroon color, and deficient in flavor; Saunders, a large and valuable fruit for the amateur, but the canes are too tender to endure this climate; Golden Thornless, a yellow variety of the black-cap family, very productive, and very lacking in flavor; Pride of the Hudson, too recently sent out to speak of its qualities; Philadelphia, very hardy, very productive, but not bright enough in color, nor firm enough, nor sufficiently high-flavored to give entire satisfaction; Diadem, another of Mr. Arnold’s seedlings which has been very widely distributed throughout Ontario, and of which we expect to hear very favorable accounts; Henrietta, claimed to be the largest, best, and most productive sort in the world, but as yet is in very few hands, and held at one dollar per plant; and others there is not space to name.

But it is not of these that we now propose to speak. We wish merely to make mention of a seedling raspberry growing on the grounds of A. M. Smith, of Drummondville. It cannot claim to be the largest in the world, but only somewhat larger than the Philadelphia, firmer in texture, and therefore likely to carry better, of nearly the same color, and somewhat better in flavor; the canes are very strong, the foliage broad and thick, and the plant apparently as hardy as the Philadelphia. With us hardiness is a very important quality, and we call the attention of our fruit growers to this new seedling, that they may watch its behaviour, and when opportunity offers give it a trial. Should it prove to have all the good qualities of the Philadelphia, with the addition of better flavor, larger size, and ability to endure carriage better, it will prove to be a valuable sort in our climate.

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LATE SPRING FROSTS.

An esteemed member of the Association, resident in the County of Carleton, writes: “I too am in trouble with my grape vines. Vegetation being very forward this spring, on the fifteenth of April, the day on which I received the Burnet grape vine, I uncovered my vines; by the fifteenth of May they had made much progress, when a severe frost cut them down. They were in some measure recovering from this when on the sixth of June another frost has again blackened them. The Salem, Delaware, and Canada appear to have suffered more than the Concord. I would ask, in a locality where such things are liable to occur, is it at all probable that any of the early flowering shrubs mentioned at page 52 would succeed?”

It is probable that the frosts were more severe in the County of Carleton than in the County of Lincoln, but the effect of the frost in the middle of May in these parts was much the same upon the grape vines here as described by our correspondent; the Delaware and the Rogers Hybrid suffering more than the Concord, but the Japan Quince, Plum-leaved Spirea, and Chinese Double-flowering Plum did not suffer at all, though the young shoots of the chestnut trees, and some of the maples and evergreens suffered severely. The young shoots of grape vines are very tender, and therefore very sensitive to frost, yet if the Concord in some degree escaped, we think that these shrubs would endure late frosts much better than any grape vine, and therefore we should not be by any means discouraged from giving them a trial on account of the danger of late spring frosts. It is however quite possible that they might suffer some from the very severe winter frosts, and would therefore advise that for a few winters they should be protected by driving into the ground branches of evergreens, so as to form a circular screen around each of the shrubs, sufficiently dense to afford them some shelter from the wind and sun until the starting of vegetation in the spring. After they have become firmly established they may be found to be sufficiently hardy to endure the winter of that section without any shelter.

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SUMMER PRUNING OF THE GRAPE.

It has been the fashion among vine growers to prune their vines severely in the month of July, taking off cart-loads of leaves and branches. The reason given for this barbarous practice is that the grapes need exposure to the sun and air in order to ripen, and that this stripping off of the leaves and cutting away of the branches is necessary in order to let the sun-light fall upon the fruit and the air circulate freely among the clusters.

It is true that a grape vine may be allowed to produce too many branches and leaves for the fullest development of the fruit, and the proper time to guard against this is when the buds are starting into growth, by rubbing out all superfluous eyes or buds as they begin to push forth. But it is not true that the clusters of grapes require to be exposed to the sun’s rays in order that the fruit may be ripened. The following remarks by Dr. Lindley have a very direct bearing on this subject. He says, “If all the leaves which a tree will naturally form are exposed to favorable influences, and receive the light of a brilliant sun, all the fruit which such a plant may produce will ripen perfectly in a summer that is long enough. But if all the fruit which a healthy tree will show is allowed to set, and a large part of the leaves is abstracted, such fruit, be the summer what it may, will never ripen. The period of ripening in fruit will be accelerated by an abundant foliage, and retarded by a scanty foliage.” These general propositions he considered applicable to all cases, and particularly to the vine. If correct, then the severe summer pruning of the grape vine is wrong. “It is a mistake,” he adds, “to imagine that the sun must shine on the bunches of grapes in order to ripen them. Nature intended no such thing. On the contrary, it is evident that vines naturally bear their fruit in such a way as to _screen it from the sun_; and man is most unwise when he rashly interferes with this intention. What is wanted is the full exposure of the _leaves_ to the sun; they will prepare the nutriment for the grape; they will feed it, and nurse it, and eventually rear it up into succulence and lusciousness.”

The truth is this, that the leaves prepare the nourishment for the grapes, without which they will never ripen, and unless there are sufficient leaves so situated as to their exposure to the sun and air that they can properly and abundantly supply this nourishment to the fruit, it will never perfectly ripen. What is required then is not to cut away the leaves and branches to let the sun-light in upon the grapes, but to so thin out the shoots in the spring that the foliage shall be well exposed to the full light of the sun, and if the whole crop of leaves is allowed to remain that is thus exposed to the sun, the preparation of the matter for the nutrition of the fruit will be more rapid, and hence the ripening of the fruit accelerated. Hence if the winter and spring pruning has been properly done there will be no necessity for any summer pruning whatever.

But there is a pruning or rather stopping of the shoots in September that is of benefit. On this subject Doctor Lindley says, “When, however, in autumn the branches are beginning to slacken in their power of lengthening, it is then right to stop the shoots by pinching off their ends, because after that season newly formed leaves have little time to do more than organize themselves, which must take place at the expense of matter forming in the other leaves. Autumn-stopping of the vine shoots is therefore not only unobjectionable, but advantageous, for the leaves which remain after that operation will then direct all their energy to the perfection of the grapes.”

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THE TYSON PEAR.

This is a favorite pear, of medium size, but of great excellence, ripening early in September. The tree is certainly as hardy as the Bartlett, and may be grown wherever that variety succeeds. It has an upright habit of growth, and is thrifty and healthy. It does not begin to bear fruit while young, but when it has reached maturity it bears large crops. The pears are hardly of medium size, of a rich deep-yellow color, with a very handsome crimson cheek, the flesh is melting, juicy, very sweet, with a very agreeable aromatic flavor, ranking in quality almost if not quite “best.” It is grown in the counties of Brant, Lambton, Lincoln, Middlesex, Ontario, Oxford, Waterloo, Wellington, Wentworth, and York, and very probably in some other counties that have not named it in their lists of pears.

This fruit is of American origin, having grown up in a hedge on the grounds of Jonathan Tyson, of Jenkintown, near Philadelphia, Penn. In 1794 Mr. Tyson removed it from the hedge and set it out, at which time it was about an inch in diameter. His son proposed to graft the tree with a variety known by the name of Catharine, but the father suggested that it might be a better kind, and in compliance with his wishes the tree remained untouched until it bore fruit, which proved to be so fine that in 1800 a number of trees were grafted with scions taken from this tree. The original tree was still standing within the village of Jenkintown in 1847, and then measured, at two feet from the ground, fully six feet in circumference.

We commend this variety to the attention of our readers, believing they will be pleased with its flavor, and find that anything that may be lacking in the size of the fruit is fully made up in the quality and flavor. We have noticed that the fruit does not drop easily from the tree, but will often hang until it decays on the branches, hence it will do to plant it in situations exposed to the sweep of strong winds. It is not sufficiently large and showy to be planted for market, it is for the grower’s own use, for those who value quality above size that it is recommended.

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THE BALDWIN APPLE.

This popular market apple has been in cultivation for at least a century. It originated in what was then known as Wilmington, in the county of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts, on the farm of Mr. Butters, who gave it the name of the Woodpecker apple, because it seemed to be a favorite with those birds, who used to frequent the tree and peck the fruit. From this tree grafts were taken, and the variety became known in that vicinity by the name given it by Mr. Butters, which, however, soon became shortened into Pecker Apple, under which name it was planted by the Vice President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, B. V. French, at Braintree, Mass., in 1818. At an early period of its history, about 1771, it came to the notice of Col. Baldwin, of Woburn, Mass., who introduced it to public attention, whence it received its present name of Baldwin. From this it has been extensively cultivated and widely diffused, so that to-day it is probably better known and more sought after by dealers in apples than any other variety. In the report of the American Pomological Society for 1877, it is double starred in more States than any other, and within the zone, where its profitable cultivation is possible, there are probably more trees planted of the Baldwin than of any two other kinds.

It cannot be successfully grown in all parts of Ontario, the severe cold of our higher latitudes being too great for the health of the tree. It is reported as doing well in the counties of Brant, Elgin, Haldimand, Halton, Lambton, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxford, Peel, Waterloo, Welland, Wentworth, and York, and in parts of Grey, Huron, and Wellington.

The tree is naturally vigorous and productive, coming soon into bearing, and yielding every alternate year large crops of good sized, well-shaped, high colored fruit, which keeps well, and bears handling and carriage in a remarkable degree. In most markets, and especially in the European, high colored apples sell best, hence this variety has a preference over light colored sorts. It is ranked as “very good” in quality, and in this climate is in use from January to May.

We are credibly informed that the part of the farm belonging to Mr. Butters upon which the original Baldwin apple tree grew, subsequently passed into the hands of a gentleman eminent as an agriculturist and horticulturist, who took the pains to erect a suitable monument to the memory of this tree, upon the spot where it stood. And surely it is well thus to mark, that coming generations may remember the birth-place of an apple that has had such a history, that having stood the test of a century, is still a most popular and valuable fruit, that is sought after in the markets of the old world as well as the new, that has contributed so much to the comfort of the human race in so many lands and in so many climes, and that promises to continue its beneficent mission for centuries yet to come, gladdening alike the eye and heart of childhood and age.

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GREEN PEAS.

Good green peas are among the blessings of life to be enjoyed with thankfulness, thankfulness to the Giver of all good, and thankfulness to the man who invented them. From the bottom of the heart they are to be pitied whose only green peas are gathered from the field crop sown by the farmer for his swine, or such as are usually to be found in our markets and on our hotel tables. And he is a benefactor of his race who places it within the power of every owner of a town lot to grow nice, sweet, green peas. In the days when the world was young, and plenty of pea-brush was to be had for the asking, it was matter of little consequence whether our choice marrowfat peas climbed five or fifty feet, but as the world has grown older pea-brush has become scarce, and brushing the peas an operation that requires considerable outlay of time and ingenuity. Indeed so inconvenient has it become that tall growing peas have gone out of cultivation in many places, and men have wished that some good angel of mercy would bring us a wrinkled pea as sweet and rich as the Champion of England, whose aspirations did not reach so far skyward. And because the wish has been gratified, and we have seen with our eyes and tasted with our lips, and the heart has risen up to bless the inventor, we give to our readers the information that a man has been found, not an angel, but what is far better, a man, who by the use of the powers God has given him, has produced a pea which may be grown in any garden without any bushing, fully equalling in its sweetness and richness of flavor any of the tall growing Marrowfats. Not only may we rejoice in the fact that a man, by the exercise of his faculties, has been able to undertake to produce such a pea and succeed, but we have further occasion for rejoicing in the fact that he is one of ourselves, a citizen of our own land, and that this is but one of many benefits that he has conferred upon us and upon his race.

Bliss’ American Wonder is the name of this new pea, which was raised by Mr. Charles Arnold, of Paris, Ontario. With characteristic modesty the raiser allows the achievement to be ushered into the world by a name that gives no clue to the possessor of the genius and skill which produced this result; content, in quiet retirement, to bless mankind with the fruits of his toil, asking from them no meed of praise. We have found this new pea to be very dwarf in its habit of growth, a very abundant cropper, and possessing a sweetness and richness of flavor that we have not found in any other dwarf pea. Blue Peter, considered a very promising sort, is so much inferior to this in quality as to make comparison impossible. In point of height and productiveness there is not much difference. With such a pea to be had, there is no need of giving up their cultivation because it is too troublesome to bush the tall growing sorts, or because the dwarf varieties are deficient in flavor. If our readers will give this variety a trial, we feel confident that they will not willingly be without it ever after.

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NOTES ON STRAWBERRIES.

BY A. M. SMITH, DRUMMONDVILLE.

The past season has been a very unfavorable one for judging the comparative merits of strawberries, the earlier varieties having been much injured by the frost, and the later ones not entirely escaped. The following is a list of varieties I have fruited this summer, and the time of ripening:

Smith’s Early, (a seedling of my own,) ripened June 1st. Specimens of this variety were nearly half grown when the frost came, which were of course destroyed, and only a few berries that were protected by the foliage escaped and ripened, consequently there was not half a crop. Nicanor, ripe June 3rd, very much injured, about half a crop. Wilson’s Albany ripened June 6th, about half a crop. Cumberland Triumph; this is a variety with very dense, heavy foliage, which protected the blossoms from frost, ripening with Wilson, and was the most productive berry I had; it is a large scarlet fruit, much resembling the New Dominion, only a little lighter in color, of fair quality, though a little too soft for shipping a great distance. Arnold’s No. 40 ripened about with the Wilson, a good sized, light colored, cocks-comb shaped berry, very good flavored, but soft. Charles Downing ripened 8th of June, a very light crop. Green Prolific ripened 10th of June; this being a variety of heavy foliage, it escaped the frost more than some others, was a fair crop. Lennig’s White ripened 10th June, a light crop of soft white berries, of very delicate flavor. Sterling ripened June 10th; this is a new, fair sized, dark, rich looking berry, very fine flavored, but few of them. Monarch of the West was ripe on the 12th of June; this is a large, productive berry, of very good flavor, and would be valuable but for the peculiarity of not ripening, or rather not perfecting its fruit, the tips of the berries being green. Great American ripened about the 12th of June; this I should regard as a very promising variety, berries large, of a dark-red color, good flavored, and productive. Col. Cheney ripened June 12th; this berry on my ground is a failure, it sets full, and I get a few large berries, but the majority are small, ragged things. Jucunda was ripe June 12th, very light crop. Triomph de Gand ripened June 12th, and was about half a crop. Late Cone ripe June 13; this is a beautiful, dark, cone-shaped berry, very fine flavored, and yielded a fair crop. The New Dominion ripened about the 14th of June, and though the blossoms were not apparently much injured by the frost, my crop was not up to its former productiveness on account of a kind of rust which affected both the foliage and fruit, though some parties within a few miles of me had magnificent crops of fine large berries. Kentucky ripened June 15th, as usual with me a light crop, of very good, late berries.

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CULTIVATION OF THE QUINCE.