But nothing more than a general outline of the course to be pursued can be indicated here; and nothing more is necessary for the intelligent amateur, fruit-grower, or orchardist, who feels the strength of the proof, and accepts the situation.
In these latter days most of the diseases which afflict humanity are believed to be attributable to improper nutrition and faulty hygiene, and are relieved or cured by a more or less radical change in food and habitat.
In the animal world, the truth appears in a still stronger light; while in the vegetable kingdom, nutrition counts for almost everything. Still, in the case of the peach yellows and pear blight, both appear, on first sight, to be distinct diseases, neither yielding to any remedy yet applied to them, and both being attended with the present fashionable bacteria, which are made responsible for many diseases and all epidemics. But has anybody yet made the experiment whether water supplied copiously to the spare and thin roots of the pear will or will not prevent the blight, or tried the same thing with the peach? We all know the gigantic and venerable pear trees of the Wabash and Kaskaskia country were planted on the sandy second bottoms of the rivers named, where in their early youth, if not in their mature age, water was always within easy reach of their roots; and we have seen the item in the agricultural papers telling how one experimenter at least, has saved his pear trees from blight by copious watering. The prairie and timber country both are drying out and losing soil moisture very much faster than we have any conception of. Situations where moisture in the soil was abundant enough for all crop purposes twenty-five years ago, suffered quickly after a brief drought now, and would be benefited by irrigation where it would have been injurious fifty years before. Beside, we have borrowed many of our ideas from the fruit-growing experiences of the East, and they from the cooler and moister countries of Europe. And in that way the amount of right teaching has been too attenuated, until it is in many respects practically worthless.
B. F. J.
[The Model Illinois Nursery.]
We have visited in our time very many nurseries both East and West. We have seen those East where the elaboration of landscape gardening was made to add effect to and set off the nursery stock grown. We have seen West hundreds of acres covered with stock in a single nursery. Yet we have never seen the perfection of details coupled with strict accuracy as to name in the varieties of stock grown, united to evenness and vigor in growth, nor a stricter method displayed in adaptation of varieties suited to the climate of the West, added to the most perfect cultivation and handling of stock, than at the premium nurseries of Spaulding & Co., near Springfield, Ill.
These nurseries, covering 375 acres originally, of first-class land, were thoroughly tile-drained, at heavy expense before anything was planted thereon, the land having been first cleaned and stumped of its timber. Thus, the groundwork having been laid for a great and model nursery, under the management of Mr. J. B. Spaulding, a well-known nurseryman of many years’ standing in Illinois, and whose practical experience from a critical standpoint is perhaps broader than that of any man in the West, it is not strange that whenever entered for premium before the State Board of Agriculture, such should have been unanimously awarded by the committee of examination. This, however, the records of the board will show.
In speaking of the artistic adornment of some old and extensive nurseries East, we find this difference: In the nurseries of Mr. J. B. Spaulding the useful is never lost sight of. Mere ornament is not what strikes the visitor, and yet the nursery is one beautiful picture in its varied and blending colors of fruit, flowers, and foliage; for the orchard and garden are by no means neglected—the visitor can find the fruits themselves, the crucial test. It is worth the journey to see.
The immense stock, the ample building, the splendid drives, the office connected with the Western Union Telegraph lines by telephone, and everything pertaining to the great nursery, is kept in the most perfect condition. Blight and borers are strangers to their 10,000 orchard trees of pear, peach, chestnut, and apples, all of varieties unexcelled, and adapted to the soil and climate of the West. The real gist of the whole, however, lies in the record of sales of this nursery for the fall delivery just closed, which amounts to nearly $120,000.