This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V25", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
A seedling, said to be distinct in shade from all colors under cultivation, was sent to us, but packed in dry cotton, and so shrivelled that we could not determine the character.
Watering by irrigation, even where Nature is profuse in rain, is found to be so useful that in some of the best fruit and market gardens of Europe it is provided for. Revue Horticole says that in the middle regions of France, especially in Provence, artificial irrigation is reduced to a system, and practiced on a vast scale.
One of the best pears is the Rutter, but it has a tendency to be remarkably productive. When allowed to bear all it wants to, it is about as worthless as a pear can well be. This is probably the reason why the Kieffer is so variable in character, as its tendency to fruitfulness is enormous. No fruit requires thinning more earnestly than the pear.
Mr. Achelis sends us in the end of February, some specimens of this large, showy variety, which proves to be one very easily kept over winter. It strikes us as being as profitable an apple as one can grow. The flavor, too, is fully equal to that of the great majority of popular apples.
It has been supposed that as this grows so very strong and healthy it makes exceptionally good stocks for the ordinary pear. Mr. J. B. Garber says they grow amazingly for a year or two, and then suddenly stop and become stunted. He regards the Sand pear as of no value therefore for stocks.
It should be remembered that when these are referred to, the whole race is referred to. There are varieties of these some perhaps better than others. The one being propagated in the Southern States is known under the Chinese name of Peen-to.
Mr. McCarthy, at the Naval Asylum, Philadelphia, says he has a new method of budding peach trees, which is worth thousands of dollars to any peach grower, but as the method is not given in his paper there is no use in our publishing it.
These are the latest kinds offered. It should be remembered by those engaged in silk culture experiments, that all these new names mean nothing more than mere varieties (and often barely that) of the common white mulberry. They are good enough in their way. So long as nothing extra is paid for the new name, people will not go wrong in buying the plants.
 
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