HENRY WARD BEECHER. (continued 7)

The kidney dwarf (Phaseolus vulgaris) is a native of India, and was introduced into England about the year 1597.

The pole bean (Phaseolus multifloris) is a native of South America, and was introduced to England in 1633.

Pole beans are not strictly annuals. In a climate where the winter does not destroy them they bear again the second year, and we believe yet longer. Gov. Pinney, of Liberia, on the African coast, stated in a lecture, speaking of the vegetable productions of that region, that the bean was a permanent vine like the grape, bearing its crops from year to year without replanting. The bush bean is strictly an annual. If the pole bean were protected in the ground, or raised and put away like sweet potatoes, dahlias, etc., in the cellar and replanted in the spring it would bear again the second season. Perhaps an earlier crop of beans might thus be secured.

The bean crop, by field culture, is not to be overlooked. Great quantities of dried beans are consumed by families, by the army and in the navy, and they always bear a good price, when they are well grown and well cured. They are excellent for sheep, not from their fattening properties, but for improving their fleece. Analysis has shown them to be rich in those properties which are “wool-gathering.”

FIELD ROOT CROPS.

From mid-winter, and especially just before spring opens, beets, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, ruta baga, and mangel wurtzel are of the highest utility. After months of dry fodder, and of slops thickened with corn-meal, cattle need—their stomach, their blood need—a change of diet; and none can be better than roots. At the East it is no longer a debatable question—root crops are as regularly laid in as grain or grass crops. The chief difficulty at the East, in introducing “new-fangled notions,” arises from the regular routine habits of farmers and their settled aversion to change from old ways. Very little of this spirit exists at the West. There the very essence of life is change. The population have broken up from old homesteads, moved off from old States, abandoned the comforts and settled life of long tilled agricultural districts—to come into a new country, where they have to practise new ways, live differently, and labor by new methods; and, by consequence, the farming community of the West are remarkably free to meet and adopt agricultural improvements. But the difficulty lies in a different direction. The farmers have large farms—are ambitious of large crops, large herds of cattle, large droves of hogs, and of a style of husbandry which brings in a large pile, and all at once; so that the idea of good farming is large farming. Many a sturdy Kentuckian will very patiently plow, two or three times, his fifty or hundred acres of corn, and think nothing of it; but to put in half an acre of carrots, or beets, to weed and work, to harvest and store the vexatious little crop, this seems a piddling business. Our big prairie farmers, our heavy bottom-land farmers, our stock farmers who “hog” one or two hundred acres of corn, of their own planting or of their neighbor’s, they do not love little work. We know a man who lives on thirty acres of land of about a middling quality. He winters seven cows, two horses, and two pigs. He raises corn and grass enough for his own use, and sells none. Every year he puts in about a quarter of an acre of parsnips, or ruta baga, for winter and spring fodder. His garden in summer, and his dairy all the year round, are represented in market. He probably does not receive five dollars at once, on any one sale, through the year. We never looked into that old chest under his bed; but we will venture much, that if the shrewd housewife would keep her eagle eyes off long enough to give us a chance, it would be found that this man has made, and laid up, more money in the last five years from his thirty acres, than any farmer about here from six times the amount. Our farmers have not grown rich on large and careless farming; but many are growing rich on small farms and careful husbandry.

When the dairy shall be more thought of—when wintering stock, and fattening it, shall be more carefully studied—we predict that our farmers will annually raise thousands of bushels of roots, and have capacious cellars under their barns to store them in.

CULTIVATION OF FRUIT-TREES.

We must give up thinking of remedies for blights and diseases of fruit-trees and seek after preventives. Amputation may limit its ravages; but surgery is not a remedy, but a resource after remedies fail. We must, it seems to us, look for a preventive in a wiser system of fruit cultivation. To this subject we shall now speak.

The effect of cultivation in changing the habits of plants is familiar to all. Incident to this artificial condition of the plant, there will be new diseases, vegetable vices, which, as they result from cultivation, must be regarded in every perfect system of cultivation.

Where trees are grown for timber, or shade, or ornament, everything can be sacrificed to the production of wood and foliage. But in fruit-trees wood is nothing and fruit is everything. We push for quantity and quality of fruit; and would not regard the wood or foliage at all, if it were not indispensable as a means of procuring fruit. That is the most skillful treatment of fruit-trees which involves a just compromise between the wants of the tree, and the abundance and excellence of fruit. There is a way of gaining fruit by a rapid consumption of the tree; and there is a method of gaining fruit by invigorating and prolonging the tree. Two systems of cultivation grow out of these different methods—a natural system and an artificial system. All cultivation is artificial, even the rudest. By natural system, then, is only meant a treatment which interferes but little with nature; and by artificial, a system in which skill is applied to every part of the vegetable economy. For conservatories, gardens, and experimental grounds, there is no reason why an artificial system should not exist. Moral considerations restrain us from stimulating a man or a beast to procure a quick or a large return at the expense of life and limb; but in vegetable matters our preference or interest is the only restraint. If any reason exists for forcing a tree to bear young, and enormously, and after ten years’ service for throwing it away, it is proper to do it. For larger show-fruit we ring a limb expecting to sacrifice the branch; we diminish the life of the pear by putting it to a dwarf habit by violent means. If we have any sufficiently desirable object to accomplish, there is no reason why we should not do it. There may be as good reasons for limiting a tree to ten years as a strawberry bed to three.

There is another form of the artificial system in which there is much to censure. When fruit-trees are set in gardens, yards, etc., to be permanent, and long-lived, it is folly to apply to them that high-toned treatment which belongs to an artificial system as I have spoken of it above. Impatient of delay, the cultivator presses his trees forward by stimulating applications, or retards them by violent interference—by prunings at the root or branch, by bending or binding; everything is sacrificed for early and abundant bearing. Fine fruit yards, designed to last a hundred years, are served with a treatment proper only to a conservatory or experimental garden. This high-toned system is still more vicious when applied to orchards and especially to pear orchards; and it seems to us that much is to be learned and much unlearned before we shall have attained a true science of pear culture. Let us consider some facts. It is well known that seedling apple-trees are generally longer lived than grafted varieties, and obnoxious to fewer diseases. The same is true of the pear-tree. It has frequently been said that seedling and wilding pears were not subject to the blight. This is not true if such trees are undergoing the same cultivation as grafted sorts; it is not always true when they exist in an untutored state; but when they are left to themselves, they certainly are less obnoxious to the blight and to disease of any kind, than are grafted and cultivated varieties. A comparison between wild and tame, between cultivated and natural, between seedling and grafted fruit, is certainly to the advantage of seedling uncultivated fruit, in respect to the HEALTH of the tree—of course it is not in respect to quality of fruit. In connection with these facts, consider another, that seedling and wilding fruit is nearly twice as long in coming into bearing as are cultivated varieties. The seedling apple bears at from ten to fourteen years. The pear bears at from fifteen to eighteen years. But upon cultivation the grafted pear and apple bear in from five to eight years. It is noticeable that, although the pear as a wilding is four or five years longer in coming to a bearing state than the apple, yet, upon cultivation, they both bear at about the same age from the bud or graft. In a private letter from Robert Manning (we prize it as among the last he ever wrote; another, received not long after, was dictated; but signed by his tremulous hand in letters which speak of death), he says, “Pears bear as soon as apples of the same age; on the quince much sooner,” etc.

It appears, then, that while cultivation accelerates the period of fruit-bearing and perfects the fruit, it is also accompanied with premature age and liability to diseases. We do not wish to be understood as opposing the habit of cultivating fruit, or as prejudiced against grafted varieties—we are neither opposed to the one nor to the other. But we would deduce from facts, some conclusions which will enable us to perfect our fruits by a more discriminating treatment.

The question will arise, Is it only by accident that liability to disease increases, with increase of cultivation? Is there an inherent objection in all artificial treatment? or is there objection only to particular methods of artificial cultivation?

Although there may be too many exceptions, to allow of our saying, that quickly-growing timber is not durable, it may be said in respect to trees of the same species, that the durability of the timber depends (among other things) on the slowness of its growth. Mountain timber is usually tougher and more lasting than champaign wood; timber growing in the great alluvial valleys of the West, is notoriously more perishable than that grown in the parsimonious soils of the North and East.

The reason does not seem obscure. In a rich soil, and under an ardent sun, not only is the growth of trees greater in any given season, than in a poor soil, but the growth is coarser and the grain coarser. But what is a coarse growth, and what is fine-grained, or coarse-grained timber?—timber in which the vascular system has been greatly distended, in which sap-vessels and air-cells are large and coarse. Where wood is formed with great rapidity and with a super abundance of sap, not only will there be large ducts and vessels, but the sap itself will be but imperfectly elaborated by the leaves. We may suppose that overfeeding in vegetables is, in its effects, analogous to overfeeding in animals. The sap is but imperfectly decomposed in the leaf—it passes into the channels for elaborated sap in a partially undigested state—it deposits imperfect secretions, and the whole tissue resulting from it will partake of the defects of the proper juice.[12]

Thus a too rapid growth not only enlarges the sap passages, but forms their sides and the whole vegetable tissue of imperfect matter. This accounts, not only for the perishableness of quickly-grown timber, but, doubtless, for the short-lived tendency of cultivated fruit in comparison with wildings. For where the tissue is imperfectly formed, general weakness must ensue.

These reasonings do not include plants which, in their original nature, have a system of large sap-vessels, etc., and which naturally are rapid growers, but respects only plants which have been forced to this condition by circumstances.

Has this condition of the vegetable substance nothing to do with the health of a tree? Does it not very much determine its liability to disease?—its excitability? Where are trees liable to diseases of the circulation? In England, in New England, where, by climate and soil, growth is slow?—or in the Western and Middle States, where, by climate, by soil, and by vicious treatment, the growth is excessive? This leads me to review the methods employed in rearing fruit-trees.

The nursery business is a commercial business, and aims at profit. It is the interest of nurserymen to sell largely, and to bring their trees into market in the shortest possible time from the planting of the seed and the setting of the bud, to the sale of the tree. But independently of this, few nurserymen know, accurately, the nature of the plants which they cultivate, and still less the habits of each variety. Why should they, when learned pomologists are content to know as little as they? The trees are highly cultivated and closely side-pruned. The vigor of a tree, i. e. the rapidity with which it will grow, determines its favor. Sorts which take time, and require a longer treatment, are regarded with disfavor. Everything is sacrificed to rapid growth and early maturity.

Next, and proceeding in the same evil direction, comes the orchard cultivation. From what quarter have we, mostly, derived our opinions and practices in fruit cultivation? From French, English, and New England writers. But is the system which they pursue fit for us? There is an opposite extreme to high cultivation; there are evils besetting low-cultivation. In cold, wet, stiff, barren soils, and in a cool, or humid, or cloudy atmosphere, trees require stimulants. The soil needs drying, warming, manuring; and the tree requires pruning. But such a system is ruinous, where the soil is full of fiery activity, bursting out with an irrepressible fertility and a superabundant vegetation; where the long summer days are intensely brilliant, and the air warm enough to ripen fruit even in the densest shade of an unpruned tree.

A traveller in Lapland would require the most bracing and stimulating food; but in New Orleans it would produce fever and death. A region, subject to all the diseases and evils of vegetable plethora, has adopted the practice of regions subject to the opposite evils. While receiving with gratitude, at the hands of eminent foreign physiologists and cultivators, the principles, we must establish the ART of horticulture, by a practice conformable to our own circumstances. A treatment which in England would only produce healthful growth, in this country would pamper a tree to a luxurious fullness. Let us not be deluded by the fallacious appearance of our orchards. The evils which we have to fear are not shown forth in the early history of a tree or an orchard. On the contrary, the appearance will be flattering. The apple is a more hardy tree than the pear, and will endure greater mismanagement; but in the long run we shall have to pay for our greedy cultivation, even in the apple family. Our pear-trees are already evincing the evils of a too luxuriant habit; and if the West is ever to become the pear-region of America, the culture of this tree must be adapted to the peculiarities of western soil and climate.

It will be borne in mind that our remarks upon the cultivation of fruit-trees are not applicable to the processes of art employed in experimental gardens, or in climates requiring a highly artificial culture, but to gardens and open orchards of the pear and apple in the middle and Western States.

Our climate and soil predispose fruit-trees to excessive growth. There is, in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and in the thickly settled portions of Missouri and Kentucky, very little poor soil. Limestone lands, clay lands, sandy barns and alluvions, afford not only variety of soil, but the strongest and most fertile. The forest trees of the West compared with the same species east of the Alleghany ridge, exhibit the difference of soils. Artificial processes may produce better soils, it may be, but there is not probably on earth so large a body of land which is, as uniformly, deep, strong, quick, and rich in all mineral and vegetable substances. It is cultivated under a climate most congenial to vegetation, both in respect to length and temperature. Our spring is early. In 1835 we gathered flowers from the woods, near Cincinnati, on the 22d of February. In 1839 we gathered them at Lawrenceburgh, in the last week of February. We find in our garden journal at Indianapolis, latitude 39°55′ north, March 11, 1840, “rose-bushes, honey-suckles, and willow trees had been in leaf for some days,” and seed-sowing had begun. In 1841, seed was sown in open ground, April 8th. In 1842, pie-plant broke ground March 8th, and all early seed were in the ground by the 21st. In 1843, seeds were in by April 20. In 1844 ground was in a working state Feb. 23d, and seeds put in by March 1. Trees, varying according to the nature of the season, complete the first growth, on an average, about the 1st of September. Their second growth continues, usually, into November. In 1844 we had noisette roses pushing out terminal leaves after Christmas; but this is not a frequent occurrence. Upon an average, the middle of March and the 1st of November, may be taken as the limits of the vegetable year—a period of more than seven months. During this season rains are copious, and frequent. Our midsummer droughts are seldom so severe upon vegetation as they seem to be in New England. During the months of June, July and August, the temperature of mid-day seldom falls below 70° Fahren. and ranges between 70° and 100°.

One other cause of rapid growth is to be mentioned—the nature of our winters. Except when the roots are frozen, they are supposed never to be inactive. During the winter they slowly absorb materials from the soil, and fill the whole system with sap. When the winters are severe, they are usually very long; and the slowness of its winter action is compensated by the length of time afforded to the plant. In the western States, though the winters are short, yet there is scarcely a week in which trees may not accumulate their stores. The spring growth will be vigorous in proportion to the amount of true sap collected in the vegetable system. As the whole winter is mild enough for this process to go on, the growth of trees is rampant in spring. Thus, the quality of the soils, and the nature of the seasons—the mildness of winter—the earliness of spring and length of summer—its heat and great atmospheric brilliancy, all conspire to produce very rapid and strong growth in herb, shrub, and tree; and I repeat, as a fundamental consideration, that our soil and season predispose fruit-trees to excessive growth. From this fact we should take our start in every process of orchard, nursery, and garden cultivation of fruit-trees; and if philosophically employed it will, we will not say revolutionize, but materially modify the processes of cultivation peculiar to colder climates and poorer soils. In respect to esculent vegetables—cabbages, radishes, celery, rhubarb, lettuce, etc., this rank and rapid growth is beneficial, since it is not the fruit but the plant which we eat. The reverse is true in fruit-trees. Observant cultivators have conformed to this indication of nature, in some things; for instance, in the treatment of the grape. The German emigrants who settled in these parts, having been conversant with vine-dressing in Europe, were usually employed to cut and lay in the vines of such as were desirous of the best gardens. But, gradually, their practice has been rejected, and now, instead of reducing our vines to niggardly stumps, the wood is spared and laid in long. If pruning be close, the vine may be said to overflow with excess of new wood, which does not ripen well. Our remarks more especially apply to regions below 40° of north latitude.

Below this line, our efforts need not be directed to the forcing of growth, for that, naturally, will be all-sufficient. Our object must be compact and thoroughly ripened wood. These reasonings may be applied to many practices now generally in vogue.

1. It is the practice of nurserymen to force their trees by cultivation, and by pruning. It is very well known, to those conversant with the nursery business, that great growers and early growers are the favorites (and, so far as an expeditious preparation of stock for sale is concerned, justly), that slow and tedious growers are put upon rampant growing stocks to quicken them. In some cases manures are freely applied to the soil, as directed by all writers who teach how to prepare ground for a nursery. But such writers had their eye upon the soil of England or New England. The still more vicious practice of side trimming and free pruning is followed, which forces the tree to produce a great deal of wood, rather than to ripen well a little. A well-informed nurseryman ought not to look so much at the length of his trees, as to the quality of their wood. The very beau ideal of a fruit-tree for our climate is one that, while it is hardy enough to grow steadily in cool seasons, is not excitable enough to grow rampantly in warm ones, and which completes its work early in the season, ripens its wood thoroughly, and goes to rest before there is danger of severe frost. Such trees may be had, by skillful breeding, as easily, as, by breeding, any desirable quality may be developed in cattle or horses. But of this hereafter.

The subject of pruning will be separately treated; but it is appropriate here to say, that every consideration should incline the nurseryman to grow his trees with side brush from top to bottom, and by shortening these, to multiply leaves to the greatest possible extent all over the tree. In every climate we should idolize the leaf—in which are the sources of health and abiding vigor.

2. The mistakes of the nursery are carried out and developed by the purchaser, in the following respects—by bad selection, pernicious cultivation, and by improper pruning.

First, trees are selected upon a bad principle. Men are very naturally in a hurry to see their orchards in bearing; precocious trees, therefore, and all means of prematurity are sought. In respect to the pear, it is the popular, but incorrect, opinion that it takes a man’s lifetime to bring them into fruit. Hope deferred, very naturally in such cases, makes the heart sick. But certain talismanic words found in catalogues and fruit manuals restore the courage, and you shall find the pencil mark made upon all pears, described as “of a vigorous growth,” “a rampant grower,” “comes early into bearing,” “bears young,” “a great and early bearer.” But such as these—“not of a very vigorous growth,” “does not bear young,” “the growth is slow but healthy,” “grows to a large size before producing fruit,”—are passed by. Many farmers judge of a tree as they would timothy grass. A short-jointed, compact branch, is “stunted;” but a long, plump limb, like a water shoot, or a Lombardy poplar branch, is admired as a first-rate growth. Some pears have but this single virtue: they make wood in capital quantities, but very poor pears. Now our selection must proceed on different principles if our orchards are to be durable and healthy. We should mark for selection pears described as—“of a compact habit,” “growth slow and healthy,” “ripens its wood early and thoroughly.” A tree which runs far into the fall, and makes quantities of wood more than it can thoroughly ripen, must be regarded as unsafe and undesirable.

There is another marked fault in selecting trees—a disposition to get long and handsome trees with smooth stems. This principle of selection would be excellent when one goes after a bean-pole, or a cane. A fruit-tree is not usually cultivated for such uses. In the first place, it is not wise to expose the trunk of a fruit-tree to the full sun of our summers. We have seen peach trees killed by opening the head so much as to expose the main branches to the sun. A low head, a short trunk should be sought. When land is scarce, and orchards cultivated, high trimming is employed for the sake of convenience, not of the tree, but of its owner. And in cool and humid climates, such evils do not attend the practice, as with us. Beside picking long shanked trees, one would suppose that a leaf below the crotch would poison the tree from the assiduity with which they are trimmed off. It ought to be laid down as a fundamental rule with us, that a tree is benefited not by the amount of its wood, but by the extent of its leaf surface. Every effort should be used to make the length of the wood moderate, and the amount of its leaves abundant. The leaf does not depend for its quality on the wood, but the wood takes its nature from the leaf. Young trees ought to be grown with side brush from the roots to the fork. Water shoots from the root are to be removed, but leaves upon the trunk are to be nursed. By cutting in the brush when it tends to a long growth, it will emit side shoots, and still increase the number of leaves.

Secondly. There is great evil in pruning too much. France and England have given us our notions upon pruning. There, their own system is wise, because it conforms to the climate and soil. But their system of pruning is totally uncongenial with our seasons and the habits of our trees. In England, for instance, the peach will not ripen in open grounds, except, perhaps, in the extreme southern counties. In consequence, it is trained upon walls, and its wood thinned, to let light and heat upon every part of it. It is very right to husband light and heat when it is scarce, and by opening the head of a tree to carry them to all parts of the sluggish wood. But we often have more than we want. A peach will ripen, on the lowest limb and inside of the tree, by the mere heat of the atmosphere. Even in New England, the English system of pruning proves too free. Manning says, “From the strong growth of fruit-trees in our country and the dryness of its atmosphere, severe pruning is less necessary here than in England.” We are not giving rules for pruning; but cautions against pruning too freely. There is not a single point in fruit cultivation where more mistakes are committed than in pruning.

Thirdly. Great mistakes are committed in stimulating the growth of trees by enriching the soil. Books direct (and men naturally and innocently obey), the putting of manure to young trees. We have no doubt that the time will come, when manures will be so thoroughly analyzed and classified, that we can employ them just as a carpenter does his tools, or the farmer his implements; if we wish wood, we shall apply certain ingredients to the soil and have it; if we wish fruit, we shall have at hand manures which promote the fruiting properties of the tree; if we want seed, we shall have manures for it. But manures as now employed, are, usually, not beneficial to orchards of young trees. A clay soil, very stiff and adhesive, may require sand and vegetable mold to render it permeable to the root; some very barren soils may require some manure; but the average of our farms are rich enough already, and too rich for the good of the young tree. It would be better for the orchard if it made less wood and made it better.

If these directions make the prospect of fruit so distant as to discourage the planting of orchards, we will add, plant your orchard; and if you cannot wait for its healthful growth, plant also trees for immediate use, and serve them just as you please; manure them, cut them, get fruit at all hazards; only make up your minds that they will be short-lived and liable to blight and disease.

A LIST OF CHOICE FRUITS.

Our readers may desire a list of fruits, which are universally admitted to be of first-rate excellence. We cannot include, of course, all that are first rate; but we put none in that are not so.

I. Apples.

I. SUMMER.

Red or Carolina June.

Summer Queen.

Yellow Hoss.

Sweet Bough.

Prince’s Harvest.

Kirkbridge White.

Sweet June.

Daniel.

II. AUTUMN.

Maiden’s Blush.

Wine.

Holland Pippin.

Rambo.

Fall Harvey.

Gravenstein.

Ashmore.

Porter.

III. WINTER.

Black.

Golden Russet.

Newtown Spitzenberg.

Rhode Island Greening.

Hubbardston Nonsuch.

Vandeveer Pippin.

Yellow Belle Fleur.

White Belle Fleur.

Michael Henry Pippin.

Pryor’s Red.

Green Newtown Pippin.

Jenetan or Rawle’s Janet.

Putnam Russet.

II. Pears.

I. Summer Pears, or such as ripen from the first of July to the last of August.

1. Madeleine, or Citron des Carmes.

2. Bloodgood.

3. Summer Francreal.

4. Dearborn’s Seedling.

5. Julienne.

6. William’s Bon Chretien.

II. Autumn Pears, or such as ripen from September to the last of November.

7. Stevens’ Genesse.

8. Belle Lucrative.

9. Henry the Fourth.

10. Washington.

11. Dunmore.

12. St. Ghislain.

13. Seckel.

14. Beurre Bosc.

15. Andrews.

16. Marie Louise.

17. Doyenne or fall butter.

18. Dix.

19. Petre.

20. Duchesse D’Angouleme.

III. Winter Pears, or those which ripen during the winter and spring months.

21. Beurre Diel.

22. Hacon’s Incomparable.

23. Passe Colmar.

24. Beurre Ranz.

25. Columbia.

26. Beurre D’Aremberg.

27. Van Mons Leon le Clerc.

28. Beurre Easter.

29. Chaumontelle.

30. Glout Morceau.

31. Prince’s St. Germain.

32. Winter Nelis.

Those who wish only four trees, may select Nos. 2, 6, 20, 26. Those who have room for eight, to the above may add 13, 23, 25, 32. Those who wish sixteen trees, to the above may add, 1, 3, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, 28.

III. Peaches.

I. EARLY.

1. Red Magdalen.

2. Early Royal George.

3. Early York.

4. Morris’ Red Rareripe.

5. Crawford’s Early Mclocoton.

II. MEDIUM.

6. Apricot Peach.

7. Baltimore Rose.

8. Swalsh.

9. Noblesse.

10. Coolidge’s Favorite.

11. Malta.

12. Brevoort.

13. Douglass.

14. Grosse Mignoune.

III. LATE.

15. Heath.

16. Crawford’s late Melocoton.

17. Lemon Cling.

18. La Grange.

IV. Apricots.

1. Large Early.

2. Breda.

3. Peach Apricot.

4. Moorpark.

V. Cherries.

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?

“But if a tree be sluggish, and bound, will it not help it?” Whatever excites a more vigorous circulation will be of advantage. Whether any supposed advantage from the knife arises in this way, we do not know. But a good scraping, or a scouring off of the whole body with sand, and then a pungent alkaline wash—(soft soap diluted with urine) would, we think, be better for bark-bound trees than the whole tribe of slits, vertical, horizontal, zig-zag, or waved.

Hovey’s Magazine of Horticulture.—We recommend all who can afford three dollars a year for a sterling monthly, beautifully got up, in the best style of Boston typography, to send to Boston for Hovey’s Magazine. We give it an unqualified recommendation, and those who take it one year will be loth to part with it.

DOWNING’s FRUIT AND FRUIT-TREES OF AMERICA.

When a book is hopelessly weak or incorrect, it should be the object of criticism to exterminate it. But when a work is admitted to be, upon the whole, well done, criticism ought to be an assistance to it, and not a hindrance. Praise by the wholesale is better for the publisher than for the reputation of the author; since, in a work like Downing’s, every pomologist knows that perfection is not attainable, and indiscriminate eulogy inclines the better-read critic to rebut the praise by a full development of the faults. Thus on one side there as general praise and faint blame; and on the other, faint praise and general blame.

We shall, at present, confine our attention to the catalogue of apples and pears, for all other fruits of our zone together are not of importance equal to these; and if an author excels in respect to these, his success will cover a multitude of sins in the treatment of small fruits, and fruits of short duration. Mr. Downing has shown good judgment in making out his list of varieties; his descriptions, for the most part, seem to be from his own senses; he has added many interesting particulars in respect to fruits not recorded before, or else scattered in isolated sentences in magazines and journals.

But are his descriptions thorough and uniform? While he has added materials to pomology, has he advanced the science by reducing such materials to a consistent form? If we compare Mr. Downing’s descriptions with those of Kenrick, or even of Manning, he excels them in fullness. If he be compared with classic European pomologists, he is decidedly inferior, both in the conception of what was to be done, and in a neat, systematic method of execution. Indeed, Mr. Downing does not seem to have settled, beforehand, in his mind, a formula of a description; sometimes only three or four characteristics are given. Downing sins in excellent company. There is not an American pomological writer who appears to have conceived, even, of a systematic, scientific description of fruits. European authors, decidedly more explicit and minute than we are, have never reduced the descriptive part of the science to anything like regularity. We do not suppose that there can be such exact and constant dissimilarities detected between variety and variety of a species, as exists between species and species of a genus. We do not think a description of fruits to be imperfect, therefore, merely because it is less distinctive than a description of plants. But the more variable and obscure the points of difference between two varieties, the more scrupulously careful must we be to seize them. Where differences are broad and uniform, science can afford to be careless, but not where they are vague and illusory. We can approximate a systematic accuracy. But it must be by making up in the number of determining circumstances, that which is wanting in the invariable distinctiveness of a few that are specific.

1. Downing’s descriptions are quite irregular and unequal. Both his pears and apples are imperfect, but not alike imperfect. The descriptions of pears are decidedly in advance of those of the apple. It would seem as if the improvement which he gained by practice was very easily traced in its course on his pages.

Hardly two apples are described in reference to the same particulars. With respect to color of skin, size and form, eye and stem, he approaches the nearest to uniformity. But with respect to every other feature there is an utter want of regularity, which indicates not so much carelessness as the want of any settled plan or conception of a perfect scientific description.

We will, out of a multitude of similar cases, select a few as specimens of what we mean. Of the Pumpkin Russet, he says, “flesh exceedingly rich and sweet;” but he does not speak of its texture, whether coarse or fine; whether brittle or leathery. Pomme de Neige—“flesh remarkably white, very tender, juicy and good, with a slight perfume;” but is it sweet or sour, or subacid, or astringent? No one can tell by reading the joint descriptions of the Red and the Yellow Ingestries what their flavor is, since it is only said that they are “juicy and high flavored”—but whether the high flavored juice is sweet or sour, does not appear. These are not picked instances. They occur on almost every page of his list of apples. The Summer Sweet Paradise is, of course, sweet, since we are three times told of it, once in the title and twice in the text. The Sweet Pearmain also, is a “sweet apple” “of a very saccharine flavor.” Of course it is sweet. Nos. 67, 68, 69, 74, 75, and very many more, are described without information as to their flavor except that, whatever it is, it is “brisk,” or “high,” or “rich”—forlorn adjectives unaffianced to any substantive which they may qualify. Sometimes the health of the tree and its hardiness are given, and as often omitted. Some times its habit of bearing is mentioned, but oftener neglected. The color of the flesh is given in No. 82, but not in 83; in 84, but not in 85; from 86-92 inclusive, but not to the second 92, for the Bedfordshire Foundling and the Dutch Mignonne are both numbered 92. The color of the flesh is not given in 93, 97, 100, 101, 103, 110, although the intermediate numbers have it given. Why should one be minutely described, and another not all? We should regard it an ungrateful requital for all the pleasure and profit which this volume has afforded us to hunt up and display what, to some, may seem to be mere “jots and tittles,” were it not that these, in themselves, unimportant things mark decisively the absence in the author’s plan, of a style of description which pomology always needed, but now begins imperiously to demand. And we are confident that a pomological manual on the right design, is yet to be written. Our hearty wish is, that Mr. Downing’s revised edition may be that manual.

2. We are led, from these remarks, to consider, by itself, the imperfect scale of descriptions adopted by all our American pomological writers, upon which Mr. D. has not materially improved.

The description of the tree is very meagre or totally neglected. Nothing at all is said of it in cases out of the 174 apples numbered and described. The general shape of the tree is given in but thirty-eight instances in the same number.

The color of the wood is, usually, noticed in the account of pears; but in the account of apples in not one case, we should think, in ten.

The peculiar growth of the young wood, in a great majority of cases, is not noticed; but more frequently in the pear than in the apple list. The least practised observer knows how striking is this feature of the face of a tree. We do not remember an instance where the buds have been employed as a characteristic. Are distinctive marks so numerous that such a one as this can be spared? The shape, color, size, prominence, and shoulder of buds, together with their interstitial spaces, form too remarkable a portion of trees to be absolutely overlooked in a book describing the “fruits and fruit-trees of America.”

Equally noticeable is the almost entire neglect of the core and seed, as identifying marks. Once in a while, as in the case of the Belle Fleur, the Roman Stem, the Spitzenberg, and the Pomme Royale, we are told, that the cores are hollow. But neither among pears nor apples, is the core or seed made to be of any importance. This is the more remarkable as being a decided retrocession in the art of description. Prince, wisely following continental authors, is careful in his description of pears, to give, and with some minuteness, the peculiarities of the seed. But Downing injudiciously misled by, in this respect, the decidedly bad example of British authors, has, almost without exception, neglected this noble criterion. There is not another single feature, either of fruit or fruit-trees, which we could not spare better than the core and seed. Not only may varieties be marked by their seeds, but they form, in connection with the core, important elements of diagnosis of qualities. A long-keeper, usually has a very small, compact core, with few seeds. A highly improved and luscious pear, not unfrequently is wholly seedless; while fruits not far removed from the wild state abound in seeds. Whenever a system of description shall have been formed, we venture to predict that the core and seed will be ranked at a higher value in it than any one other element of discrimination and description.

The same neglect or casual notice is bestowed upon the leaf. If anything about it is remarkable it is mentioned, not otherwise: but is there a page of any book that was ever printed, that has more reading on it than is on a leaf, if one is only taught to read it? It, too, is not only a sign of difference but very often of quality. Mr. D. has availed himself of this criterion in describing peaches. Is it a legible sign only in the peach orchard? He that is ignorant of these marks, and only can tell one fruit from another, is yet in the a b c of pomology. Who but a tyro, on importing Coe’s Golden Drop, would not at once perceive the imposition, if there was one, the moment his eye saw a bud, or its shoulder? Van Mons learned to select stocks for his experiments, as well by the wood and bud in winter, as by the leaf and growth of summer. In a large bed of seedlings every experimenter ought to know by wood and leaf what to select as prognosticating good fruit, and what to reject, without waiting to see the fruit. Nurserymen of our acquaintance, without book, label, or stake, can tell every well-known variety on their grounds. One of our acquaintance never had a mark, label, stake, or register, of any kind upon his ground; a culpable reliance on his ability to read tree-faces; for, on his throwing up the business suddenly, his successor fell into innumerable mistakes. It is just as easy for a pomologist to know the face of every variety, as for a shepherd to know the face of every sheep in his flock, or a grazier every animal of his herd.

3. Although the “Fruit and Fruit-trees of America” professes to give the process of management only for the garden and the orchard, it ought to include, and we presume was designed to embrace the essential features of nursery culture. Every cultivator of fruit must be a private nurseryman; he needs the same information, the same directions as if were a commercial gardener. He that designs planting an orchard ought to know the disposition of each variety of fruit-tree, that he may suit the circumstances of his soil, or provide for the peculiarities of a tree, as a farmer needs to know the peculiarities of the different breeds of hogs and cattle. With a large number of persons it would be enough to say of fruits, “superb,” “extra-superb,” “superlatively grand,” “extra magnificent;” for such, a princely catalogue would answer every purpose. But such as have some knowledge, and every year, we are happy to believe, the number of such increases, ask, not the author’s bare eulogy, but a definite statement of all those special qualities on which such eulogy is founded. The exact taste of each variety of fruit should be studied in respect to soil; some, and but few, love strong clays; yet fewer thrive upon wet soils; but some will, as the Sweet or Carolina June, which does well on quite wet soils; some refuse their gifts except upon a warm and rich sand; some, and by far the greatest number, love a deep loam, with a subsoil moist without being wet. The buds of some varieties escape the vernal frosts by their hardiness; some by putting forth later than their orchard brethren. Some varieties thrive admirably by ground or root grafting, while very many, so worked, are killed off during the first winter; some varieties, if budded, grow off with alacrity, others are dull and unwilling; some form their tops with facility and beauty; others, like many men, are rambling, awkward, and averse to any head at all. Some sorts, put upon what stock you will, have singularly massive roots; others have fine and slender ones. Every variety of tree has traits of disposition peculiar to itself; and in respect to traits possessed in common, even these may be classified. In every description there should be, at least, an attempt at giving these various nursery peculiarities. It cannot be done, as yet, with any considerable accuracy. Fruit-trees have not yet been minutely studied. A florist can give you a thousand times more minute and special information in respect to the peculiar habits and wants of his flowers, than an orchardist can of his trees. Doubtless, it is easier to do it in plants which have a short period; whose whole life passes along before the eye every season, than in plants whose very youth outlasts ten generations of Dahlias, Pansies, Balsams, etc. But that only makes it the more important that we should be up and doing. Let no work be regarded as classic which does not take into its design the most thorough enunciation of all the peculiarities of fruits, and pomology will receive more advantage in ten years, than it could by a hundred years of rambling, unregulated, discursive descriptions.

The ability which Mr. D. has shown as a horticultural writer, his industry in collecting materials for this, his last work; the skill which he has shown himself to possess in describing fruits, give the public a right to expect that he will “go on unto perfection;” and if Mr. D. will adopt a higher standard and set out with a design of a more systematic description of fruits, every liberal cultivator in the land will be glad to put at his disposal whatever of minute observation he may possess.

Buckwheat is a corruption rather than a translation of the Saxon word Buckwaizen, the first syllable signifying beech, the tree of that name, whose nut the kernel of the grain so much resembles in shape. The grain, therefore, might be properly called beech-wheat.

LETTER FROM A. J. DOWNING.

We give below a letter from Mr. Downing, long known as an eminent pomologist and more recently yet more distinguished for his writings upon Horticultural matters. Although a private letter, it is of general interest, and he will, we hope, indulge the liberty taken.[13]

“Highland Gardens, Newburgh, New York,

Feb. 29th, 1845.

“My dear Sir: I thank you for the interesting article on horticulture in the West, which appears in the last No. of Hovey’s Magazine.

“My particular object in writing you at this moment is to call your attention to the remarks you make on the ‘Golden Russet,’ which you call ‘the prince of small apples.’ From your description of this fruit it is the ’sheep-nose,’ or ‘Bullock’s Pippin’ of Coxe, well known here, and one of the most melting and delicious of apples. I understand from Professor Kirtland of Cleveland, that this is the apple known by the name of Golden Russet in his region.

“Will you do me the favor, for the sake of settling the synonyms, to send me two or three cuttings of the young wood, by mail? I can then determine in a moment. The Sheep-nose has long shoots of a peculiar drab color. If your apple proves the same, I think I shall cancel the title ’sheep-nose’—(a vile name), known only in New Jersey, and substitute ‘American Golden Russet’[14] —this being its common title in New England and the West. I speak now in relation to my work on fruits, now in press.

“What do you mean by the ‘White Bell-flower of Coxe?’ The Detroit I have carefully examined, and it is quite different from the Yellow Bellflower. The Monstrous Bellflower—the only other one Coxe describes—is a large autumn fruit, while the Detroit keeps till April?

“My work on Fruits has cost me a great deal of labor, but will still contain many imperfections. When it is out of press—in about six weeks—I promise myself the pleasure of sending it with the copy of each of my previous works for the acceptance of your Horticultural Society. And I then hope to be favored with your criticism. Hoping an early answer to my queries herein,

“I am sincerely yours,

“A. J. Downing.

“H. W. Beecher.”

We should have said “Monstrous Bellflower” instead of White.

The Bellflower here mentioned is the White or Green Bellflower of Indiana, the Ohio Favorite of western Ohio about Dayton, etc., the Hollow-cored Pippin of some; and it has been inquired for, at Mr. Alldredge’s nursery, as the Cumberland Spice. Mr. A—— considered, from the description given, that the white Bellflower only could have been meant. But from the following description of Cumberland Spice in Kenrick, from Coxe, I am inclined to think that the true Cumberland Spice may have been inquired for.

“The tree is very productive; a fine dessert fruit, large, rather oblong, contracted toward the summit; the stalk thick and short; of a pale yellow color, clouded near the base; the flesh white, tender, and fine. It ripens in autumn, and keeps till winter, and shrivels in its last stages.”

The fruit was brought to Wayne County, Indiana, by Mr. Brunson. He came from New York to Huron county, Ohio, and thence to Wayne County, Indiana. It is universally diffused through the eastern and central parts of Indiana, and is esteemed a first-rate apple. The tree strikingly resembles the Green Newtown Pippin, but its brush is not so small, and there is less of it, the top being rather more open. The wood is brittle, and, as the tree is a free and constant bearer, it tends to break, and is troublesome to keep in good order. Mr. Ernst and other gentlemen of Cincinnati suppose the variety to be the Detroit. We cannot say one thing or another, except that it is of the Bellflower family. The Detroit of New York is a widely different fruit, of a bright scarlet color, and we never heard of any other Detroit, until the name was applied to this apple.

There is not the least doubt that the Golden Russet of the West is the Bullock Pippin and Sheep-nose of New Jersey, and we hope that the proposed name “American Golden Russet” will deliver us, for ever after, from eating any more sheep-noses. Names are of importance in classifying fruits, and there is a pleasure also in having a decorous name to a good fruit. It is amusing to look through a catalogue of singular names.

The Hoss apple is popularly the Horse apple, and when, on a certain contingency a gentleman promised to eat a hoss it was not so hazardous a threat as some have imagined. The French, in naming their fruits, exercise a freedom with things human and divine, to which we occidentals are not accustomed (as, Ah Mon Dieu! Grosse Cuisse Madame, etc.), and an innocent person, recapitulating his pears, might, if overheard by neighbors understanding French, be thought very profane, or worse. There are other names which have a tendency to make the mouth water, as Onion Pear. One must have pleasing associations while eating the Toad Pear. (See Prince’s Pom. Man. p. 24 and 34.) The French Bon Chrétien (or Good Christian) is called in these parts the Bon Cheat-em. Then, there is the Demoiselle, the Lady’s Flesh, and Love’s Pear (Prince, 58, 34, and 117)—very proper for young lovers. Then, there is the Burnt Cat (Chat Bruslé of the French, Prince 89), which undoubtedly has a musk flavor. We have less objection to the Priest’s Pear (Poire de Prêtre, Prince, 108). Piscatory gentlemen would always angle in our nurseries for the Trout pear (Prince 130), and if they did not get a bite, the pear would, as it is a fine variety. How did those who named pears, Louise Bonne de Jersey, or Van Mons leon le clerc, expect common folks to hold fast to the true name? But he must have a short memory indeed, who forgets the emphatic name of Yat or Yut.

But to return from our digression. We give the description of the Golden Russet from three sources, and indorse their general accuracy:

GOLDEN RUSSET.—(DR. PLUMMER.)

“Size.—2 2-10 inches long; 2 7-10 inches wide.

“Form.—Rather smaller at the summit; moderately flattened at the ends.

“Pulp.—Very tender, juicy, yellowish white.

“Color.—Deep yellow, with brown and russet clouds; or wholly brown and russet.

“Surface.—Nearly dull; ruffled by the confluent lineoles; dots hardly discoverable.

“Flavor.—Sweet and delicious.

“Stem.—Slender; half to one inch long, reaching to a considerable distance beyond the verge.

“Eye.—In rather contracted cavity; closed.

“Ripens in the tenth month

“It is one of our best apples, and keeps well through the winter.”

“Whether the Leathercoat and the Glass apple are the same as are now known under those names, it is impossible to determine. Near Poughkeepsie, in the State of New York, the Leathercoat used to be a favorite fruit; and whether it is the same as the Golden Russet, described above, I am not now able to say; but my recollection of that apple after a lapse of twenty-three years, induces me to think it is no other than the Golden Russet; and, indeed, Trevelyan calls it also the ‘russet appell.’ The Glass apple was described in a former number of ‘The Orchard.’ If the ‘lethercott’ has descended to us under the name of Golden Russet, the fine flavor of this apple would lead us to believe that it had not deteriorated, after a period of more than two centuries and a half.”—West. Farm. and Gard., 1843.

BULLOCK’s PIPPIN, OR SHEEP-NOSE.—(COXE.)

Golden Russet of Cincinnati. Golden Russet of the Eastern nurseries.—(Dr. Kirtland.)

“Neither the size nor appearance of this fruit would attract attention; yet it sells more readily in markets where it is known than any other apple. Its flavor is rich and pleasant, and many people consider it the best fruit of the season. In northern Ohio it matures at New-Year’s, while in Cincinnati it is in perfection in November.”—West. Farm. and Gard., 1841.

GOLDEN RUSSET—BULLOCK PIPPIN, OR SHEEP-NOSE.—(A. HAMPTON.)

“This apple is below medium size; the skin is yellow, inclined to a russet; the flesh yellow, rich, juicy, tender and sprightly. I know of no apple more generally admired for its richness and excellent flavor than this; commanding a high price, and ready sale, in market; it makes very rich cider; a great and constant bearer; and keeps well till spring.”—West. Farm. and Gard. Farm. and Gard., 1841.

We do not know another apple whose flavor and flesh are so admirable. A gentleman in Ohio, on being asked for a list of a hundred trees for an orchard, replied, “set out ninety-nine Golden Russets, the other one you can choose for yourself.”

ATTENTION TO ORCHARDS.

Clean out your orchards. Let no branches lie scattered around. If in crops, let the tillage be thorough and clean. In plowing near the tree be careful not to strike deep enough to lacerate the small roots and fibres. An orchard should be tended with a cultivator rather than a plow, and the space immediately about the tree should be worked with a hoe. Look to the fence corners, and grub out all bushes, briers and weeds. A fine orchard with such a ruffle around it, is like a handsome woman with dirty ears and neck.

Pruning may still be performed. Those who are raising young orchards ought not to prune at any particular time between May and August, but all along the season, as the tree needs it. If a bad branch is forming, take it out while it is small; if too many are starting, rub them out while so tender as to be managed without a knife and by the fingers. If an orchard is rightly educated from the first, there will seldom be a limb to be cut of larger than a little finger, and a pen-knife will be large enough for pruning. In the West there is more danger of pruning too much, than too little. The sun should never be allowed to strike the inside branches of a fruit-tree. Many trees are thus very much weakened and even killed if the sun is violently warm. Over-pruning induces the growth of shoots at the root, along the trunk, and all along the branches.

Grub up suckers, and clear off from large and well established trees all side-shoots. After a tree is three inches in diameter through the stem, it may be kept entirely free of side shoots. But young trees are much assisted in every respect, except appearance, by letting brush grow the whole length of their stem, only pinching off the ends of the whips, if they grow too rampantly. In this way the leaves afford great strength to the trunk, and prevent its being spindling or weak-fibred.

Scour off the dead bark, which, besides being unsightly, is a harbor for a great variety of insects, and affords numerous crevices for water to stand in. We have previously recommended soft soap, thinned with urine to the consistence of paint, as a wash for trees; we have seen nothing better.

Examine grafts if any have been put in. See if the wax excludes the air entirely; rub out all shoots which threaten to overgrow and exhaust the graft; if it is growing too strongly, it must be supported, or it will blow out in some high wind.

Look out for Blight.—All trees that have shown no indications of blight, will be safe for the season. But those which have shown the affection may be expected to continue to break out through the season. It is all important to use the knife freely; for although there is no contagion from tree to tree, yet the diseased sap will, in the same tree, be conveyed from part to part over the whole fabric. But prompt pruning will remove the seat and source of the evil. Where a branch is affected, cut chips out of the bark along down for yards; indeed, examine the limb entirely home to the trunk, and you may easily detect any spots which are depositories of this diseased sap, which, by its color, and whole appearance, will be identified by the most unpractised eye. Cut everything, below and aloft, that has this feculent sap in it, even if you take off the whole head by the trunk, and leave only a stump; for, the stump may send new shoots; but if the tree is spared from false tenderness you will lose it, bough, trunk, and root.

WINE AND HORTICULTURE.

“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.”

Now, the Cincinnati Horticultural Society appointed a committee to do just what Solomon says must not be done. Their report is a very artful document, so drawn up that the unwary would suppose that this was a mere business affair—passing off quite respectably. But we were not to be deceived; we instantly saw through it; and pencil in hand, we noted all places in the report proper to shock a true Washingtonian heart.

Although the array of forty kinds of wine save one, did not intimidate these hitherto respectable gentlemen, it inspired them with prudence; and a German Committee called in, to ferret out any foreign wines which might have been smuggled in to the confusion of the judges.

The committee only darkly intimate their modus operandi; if they had given us a journal of their doings, made out on the spot, by some trusty clerk, what a bacchanal mystery would have been disclosed! but they had discretion enough left to defer this until they were sober again.

But Washingtonianism is abroad, and can detect all the mysteries of ebriety, however graced with authority from a Horticultural Society. We can imagine the impatience with which the bottles were preliminarily eyed—the entire moderation with which each sipped a few first specimens; we can see them gradually warming with their subject—through tasting with alacrity—nodding at each other, squinting the ruddy glass, smacking their too often dewy lips, or wagging their heads with more than ordinary satisfaction as a beaker of great merit made the facilis descensus averni. Laughter interrupts sober attention to business; in vain the chairman thumps the table for order; he gets more jokes than attention. Many a sly story is told; some of them have visited wine countries and now begin long yarns thereof; the clamor of laughing, and anecdote, and criticism—the necessity, in consequence, of re-tasting, and tasting again to arrive at a conclusion, brought them, we doubt not, to a most lamentable conclusion, although the report only obscurely hints of it, as we shall see. Had any of them married into the Caudle connection we might have had a graphic account of their several arrivals at their homes—at what time, by whose help, in what condition, etc.

The tabular report given in has evidently been studiously framed. We suspect that if the opinions had been set down just in the order of their occurrence, they would have afforded an index of the condition of the committee as well as of the wine. But though they have mixed them up, they cannot elude our vigilance—we can pick out the chronological order. At first such opinions as these were given: “Tolerably good,” “Inferior,” “Poor, fermented on skins.” They were critical yet; but warming a little they express more generous sentiments; “Good,” “Very good Cape,” “Very good, resembling old Madeira.” The next step shows the genial advance—some were getting disputatious. “Good, considered by some better than No. 8, by others not so good,”—they evidently had a row about it. They next advanced into the patriotic mood as is seen in the judgment of our foreign wines, “Good dry wine, but supposed to be foreign,” “Inferior, a foreign wine,” “Not American wine.” Here the gradations of contempt are very plain. We have next, melancholy evidence of their progress in the necessity of a stronger body to their wines,—“Not liked, supposed to have been injured in the bottle.” Why not say it right out, that it was a weak, thin wine? Here we have it, “Good strong wine.” The last record made is “Good new, not in a state for judgment.” Does this refer to the wine or to the committee? To the latter we suppose; and at this point, probably perceiving their condition, they laid aside their official character and made it a private, personal, and somewhat miscellaneous affair. We see now the meaning of a sentence which follows the tabular exhibit: “The judgments pronounced and recorded in the foregoing table, were as nearly unanimous as can ever be expected among so many judges.”

The committee state in respect to western wines: “That the pure juice of the grape when judiciously managed will furnish the finest kind of wine, without any addition or mixture whatever; that no saccharine addition is necessary to give it sufficient body to keep for any length of time in this climate.”

We submit that the keeping properties of wine are not altogether intrinsic; but depend much upon the persons having access to them, or, as we were taught in school, “on time, place, and person.” In our cellar American wines would doubtless have great longevity. We wish to call the attention of Mr. Gough to the closing sentence of the report: “A taste for the wines of this region appears to be well established, since all that can be produced finds a ready market at good prices; and the committee are of opinion, that the period is not distant when the wines of the Ohio will enjoy a celebrity equal to those of the Rhine.”

Here’s work on hand for him. In conclusion, we respectfully suggest that the same committee be continued from year to year, as there is no use in spoiling a fresh set every year. If the specimens multiply, perhaps more help will be required—at any rate a by-law should be passed, so that there shall be one committee-man to at least every ten bottles.

DO VARIETIES OF FRUIT RUN OUT?

Is there such similarity between animals and vegetables, in their organic structure, development and functions, as to make it safe to reason upon the properties of the one from the known properties of the other?

It is admitted that the lowest forms of vegetable existence are extremely difficult to be distinguished from a corresponding form of animal existence. As we approach the lower confines of the vegetable kingdom, flowers, and of course, seeds, disappear. The distinction between leaves and stem ceases; and, at last, the stem and root are no longer to be separated, and we find a mere vegetable sheet or lamina whose upper surface is leaf and whose lower surface is root. In a corresponding sphere, animal existence is reduced to its simplest elements. Whatever resemblances there are in the lowest and rudimentary forms of vegetable and animal life, it cannot be doubted that when we rise to a more perfect organization, the two kingdom become distinct and the structure and functions of each are in such a sense peculiar to itself, that he will grossly misconceive the truth who supposes a structure or a function to exist in a vegetable, because such structure or function exists in an animal, and vice versâ. To be sure, they resemble in generals but they differ in specials. Both begin in a seminal point but the seed is not analogous; both develop—but not by an analogous growth; both require food, but the selection, the digestion and the assimilation are different. The mineral kingdom is the lowest. Out of it, by help of the sun and air, the vegetable procures its materials of growth; in turn the vegetable kingdom is the magazine from which the animal kingdom is sustained; to each, thus the soil contains the original elements; the vegetable is the chemical manipulator, and the animal, the final recipient of its products. The habit of reasoning from one to the other, of giving an idea of the one by illustrations drawn from the other, especially in popular writings, will always be fruitful of misconceptions and mistakes.

The next idea set forth in the paragraph which we review, is, the essential dissimilarity of buds and seeds. The writer thinks that a plant from a seed is a new organization, but a plant from a bud or graft (which is but a developed bud) is but a continuation of a previous plant. With the exception of their integuments, a bud and a seed are the same thing. A seed is a bud prepared for one set of circumstances, and a bud is a seed prepared for another set of circumstances—it is the same embryo in different garments. The seed has been called, therefore, a “primary bud,” the difference beng one of condition and not of nature.

It is manifest, then, that the plant which springs from a bud is as really a new plant as that which springs from a seed; and it is equally true, that a seed may convey the weakness and diseases of its parent with as much facility as a bud or a graft does. If the feebleness of a tree is general, its functions languid, its secretions thin, then a bud or graft will be feeble,—and so would be its seed; or if a tree be thoroughly tainted with disease, the buds would not escape, nor the tree springing from them—neither would its seed, or a tree springing from it. A tree from a bud of the Doyenne pear is just as much a new tree as one from its seed.

The idea which we controvert has received encouragement from the fact, that a bud produces a fruit like the parent tree, while, oftentimes, a seed yields only a variety of such fruit. But, it is probable that this is never the case with seeds except when they have been brought into a state of what Van Mons calls variation. In their natural and uncultivated state, seeds will reproduce their parent with as much fidelity as a bud or a graft.

The liability of a variety to run out, when propagated by bud or graft, is not a whit greater than when propagated by seed, in so far as the nature of the vegetable is concerned.

But it is true that the conditions in which a bud grows render it liable to extrinsic ills not incidental to a plant springing from seed. A seed, emitting its roots directly into the earth, is liable only to its own ills; a bud or graft emitting roots, through the alburnum of the stock on which it is established, into the earth, is subject to the infirmities of the stock as well as to its own. Thus a healthy seed produces a healthy plant. A healthy bud may produce a feeble plant, because inoculated upon a diseased branch or stem.

Instead of a limitation in their nature, there is reason to suppose that trees might flourish to an indefinite age were it not for extrinsic difficulties. A tree, unlike an animal, is not a single, simple organization, it is rather a community of plants. Every bud separately is an elementary plant, capable, if disjoined from the branch, of becoming a tree by itself. In fact, each bud emits roots, which, uniting together, go down upon a common support (the trunk) and enter the earth, and are there put in connection with appropriate food. Every fibre of root may be traced upward to its bud from which it issued.

In process of time, the elongation of the trunk exposes it to accidents; the branches are subject to the force of storms; in proportion as the distance from the roots increases, and the longer the passages through which the upper sap, or downward elaborated sap travels, the more liabilities are there to stoppage and injury. The reason of decline in a tree is not to be looked for in any exhaustion of vital force in the organization itself, but it is to be found in the immense surface and substance exposed to the wear and tear of the elements.