FLORICULTURE.
Mrs. Mary J. Barnard, of Manteno, from the committee on floriculture, strongly urged the cultivation of house-plants, not only as beautifiers, but to give the most pleasant occupation to every lady of the family. She referred to the earlier flowers of summer especially—the crocus, snow-drop, lily of the valley, tulips. Next to these came the annuals; with little trouble these could be had for months. The wild flowers of the prairies were spoken of, and she suggested that we should obtain seed of the flowers and raise such as we wish. The paper was a good one and was well received. Mr. Baller, a florist of Bloomington, said that of late the demand for plants had fallen off. The reason given was that there was an increased general knowledge among the people. At the present, the chief demands are for hot-house, cut flowers, and monthlies. The reason given for the falling off of the demand for plants was the fact that plants were more easily raised since the introduction of base-burners. This, he thought, could be still further increased by having a double sash, and the building of bay windows on the south and east of the houses. He reported, however, that there was still a good market for hot-house flowers among the rich for decorating purposes, funerals, etc.
The Prairie Farmer will, from time to time, consider other papers and discussions at this meeting, for there was much more of interest said and done than can be condensed into a simple running report. We advise farmers to send one dollar to the Secretary and receive therefor a copy of the Transactions when issued.
A Short Sermon on a Long Text.
The text will be found in Leviticus 16: 21-22-23; but whether its application can be found is uncertain. Horticulturists are prone to find scape-goats to carry their sins of omission and commission; and they load these—a great burden—upon them, and send them off to be lost in the wilderness. Providence is most usually chosen by them for this purpose. Most of their mistakes and failures—sins, let us call them—are ascribed to Providence; and He is expected to carry the burden. But I strongly urge they remain our own after all.
I am led to these conclusions by the fact that among the many failures in fruit culture there are some splendid successes; and that these successes occur with those, as a rule, who are guiltless of these sins; and that just in proportion to the magnitude of the guilt is the success insured. In other words—that almost invariably are our failures to be attributed to our own want of skill and our neglect—most generally the latter. Here and there we note cases of marked success—of heavy crops and large returns for care and labor invested. These are mostly on a small scale; as for instance, one man produces from at the rate of 200 to 300 bushels of strawberries per acre, on a few rods of ground. Another, his neighbor, gets about as many quarts. The conditions of soil and climate are about the same. Now is Providence to be charged with this disparity? Certainly not. The same care, the same intelligent management, and the same amount of labor bestowed, would have produced as favorable results in the one case as in the other.
And so, as to larger tracts. I hold that what my neighbor can do on a dozen square rods, he and I both ought to be equally able to do on five or ten, or twenty times as large a tract. But, you say, these large yields are the results of extraordinary care. True, they are; and that proves my theory—that extraordinary care will produce extraordinary results. What one man can do once, he can do again and all the time; and we all can do the same. Extraordinary care may be defined as the care necessary to produce good results, and if that care were always applied it would cease to be extraordinary.
I myself saw in my neighbor's field a crop of strawberries, on two rows, which at the safest and closest calculation I could make, yielded at the rate of over 300 bushels per acre. He had but the two rows; had given them extraordinary care—had kept them clear of grass and weeds—and the ground mellow—and had mulched them with forest leaves. Those two rows were in a field of several acres in size. The same care in planting, in cultivating, in mulching, and the whole tract would have produced corresponding results. That same year, my crop, on soil equally as good, reached a yield of less than one-fifth in amount. Why this difference? Providence favored him and didn't favor me, I might say, if I felt disposed to make a scape-goat of Providence for my misdeeds. But I do not believe that Providence did anything of the sort. The fault was my own; and I have no right to attempt to shift the responsibility. And it was not want of knowledge either. We, none of us, do as well as we know how. Our failures are mostly the results of sheer neglect. Mistakes, we incline to call them. Let us call them sins, and repent of them; and not endeavor to do as Aaron did, pack them off into the wilderness. When we bring ourselves to thus correct our mistakes, our crops will be increased threefold, and Providence will no longer be made a scape-goat for us.
T.G.
Prunings.
The strawberry was introduced into England from Flanders in 1530.
Gardeners in London, England, are always ready to buy toads. The regular market price for them ranges from $15 to $25 per hundred.
Soap-suds are a valuable fertilizer for all forms of vegetation; especially serviceable for small fruits, and in the fruit garden proper will never be wasted.
An Italian claims to have discovered that by drenching the foliage of grapevines with a solution of soda the filaments of the mildew fungus will be shriveled, while the leaves will remain uninjured. A Wisconsin nurseryman, however, advises the use of flowers of sulphur, which he believes a good remedy, also, when applied to the vines and when added to the soil surrounding them.
A correspondent of the Germantown Telegraph says that he has found salt a valuable remedy for rust on blackberry vines, and concludes: "I have applied two or three handfuls on the surface of the ground, immediately over the roots, when the plants were badly rusted; in two or three weeks the disease had disappeared, and the plants had made a good growth. I believe moderate applications of salt, sown broadcast over a blackberry patch, would be of great benefit as a fertilizer and health renewer."
Gardener's Monthly: In the discussions on forest culture, little is said of the willow, which forms a very interesting department. The white willow, Salix Candida, is often used for coarse work. S. Vinnunatis and S. Russelliana, are the most commonly used in the Eastern United States, under the name of Osier, or basket willow, and S. Forbyana, a variety of S. rubra, or the red willow is often used for fine work. In the Editor's recent visit to the Northwest a number of fine species were noted which would evidently be worth introducing for basket-making purposes.
The Germantown Telegraph says: "To grow good crops of blackberries the soil should be good and especially deep, for the roots run down wonderfully when possible for them to do so; and as the growing fruit requires its greatest nourishment in the usually dry month of August, it is an advantage to have deep soil for the roots to draw a supply from. A deep, sandy soil will generally grow the best crop of berries, while a clay soil tends to produce rust. Good cultivation, good soil, and a judicious use of manure make stout and vigorous canes, with a crop of berries in increased ratio."
Indiana correspondent Orange County Farmer: I have had a good deal of experience in propagating currants. I always plant my currant cuttings in the fall as soon as the leaves fall off. They will make durable roots two to four inches long the same fall, while the buds remain dormant. They will make double the growth the next season if set in the fall, and they should be set in ground that will not heave them out by the effects of frost and should be covered just before winter sets in with coarse litter. Remove the covering early in the spring and examine the cuttings to see if any of them hove, and if so, press them down again. Should they heave up an inch or more, if well pressed down, they will start and make better growth than cuttings set in the spring. In either case, however, the cuttings should always be made in the fall.
A Rural New Yorker correspondent gets down to the real art of grape eating. Hear him tell how to manipulate the fruit: No! the man who holds the grape between his thumb and dexter finger and squeezes or shoots the pulp into his throat, does not know how to enjoy the fruit, and is not likely to appreciate the good qualities of a fine grape. Let the berries follow each other into the mouth in rapid succession until three or four are taken, while with each insertion the teeth are brought together upon the seeds without breaking them. The acid of the pulp is thus freed to mingle with the saccharine juice next the skin, and a slight manipulation by the tongue separates the seeds and skins from the delicious winey juices; after this has tickled the palate, skins and seeds may be ejected together. Close to the skin lies a large part of the good flavor of the grape.
On the subject of protecting trees from mice, R.W. Rogers, in Ohio Farmer says: "As the season is near at hand when farmers will have to look to the protection of their young fruit trees from ground mice, I send you my method if you deem it worthy of publishing. It is as follows: Take old tin fruit cans, put them on the fire until the parts that are soldered have become heated, when they will come apart. Take the body of the can and encircle it around the tree, letting the sides lap each other, and press firmly in the ground before it has become frozen. The mice coming in contact with the tin will turn them in another direction. It is far better than mounding up or tramping snow about them. Most any farmer can gather up enough for a good sized orchard, and make them pay compound interest, which otherwise would be a nuisance or pitched out of the back window."
