This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
Dear Sir: The pleasant chatty letter from friend Tallant, in the January number, will recall to many of your readers the delightful reunion at Burlington last September; and few who were there will fail to fancy, as they read, the kind, genial smile of the doctor welcoming them once more to the "beautiful land" of fruits and flowers. No wonder that he is strongly attached to his adopted State, and especially to the lovely, busy, rapidly-prospering and growing city where he dwells. Until we hear further, Burlington can challenge the world for pears, either in beauty, quality, or size; for, although it might have been Supposed, and with reason, that such mammoth specimens would deteriorate in flavor, I do not consider, nor have I even heard it hinted, that such was the case. I think, too, that the doctor's "gourmandize," for such the wonderful shoot must of course have been, would be "hard to beat".
What are the peculiar merits of silex in the soil, in respect to fruit trees, I am unable to state; no doubt, when finely pulverized, it is a powerful manure, as are, also, all the primitive rocks; witness the benefits accruing to old, worn-out soils from the application of the mud from macadamised roads, especially such as have been formed of broken granite in which quartz so strongly predominates. But the soil on which a great portion of Burlington stands, per se, is a red, argillaceous clay, very similar to much of the orchard land of Herefordshire and Devonshire in England, and portions of Normandy and Brittany (take the modern departments of La Manche and Loire Inferieure, for example) in France; and all of these are famous for their apples and pears. Gypsum, marl, all mineral manures, even clay properly applied where it is not originally too abundant in the soil, will be found preferable for orchards, to more powerfully and acutely exciting animal manures.
Another great secret of the eligibility of Burlington as a fruit-growing country, lies (not at the bottom, but) in the Mississippi. The water attracts the late frosts to its surface. This is an operation of nature which has been noticed in other similar localities, but only acts in this manner when the land is, as at Burlington, sufficiently elevated above the water. I opine that, on low lying lands, the vicinity of running water would be objectionable as attracting the frost to its level.
And now, I want the doctor to amend his declaration in regard to "those strawberries," or I shall certainly demur, both generally and specially. I admit, unreservedly, his averment that, at Burlington, the strawberry is "in its prime at the end of May," but the doctor must have been sadly informed as to the time of its ripening "around Chicago." In 1854,1 gathered ripe, early, scarlet strawberries from plants, only set out in April of that year, on the 15th of June, and last year, from the same plants, on the 10th; and the early scarlets were ripe, in quantities, on the 17th of June. My Hudson strawberries have ripened for the last three years, not later than the first of July, and we have always plenty for the Fourth, My garden is made on about the worst description of land in Cook County, but I have always good crops, and Dr. Egan, Hon. M. L. Dunlap, and others, have abundantly proved that as fine strawberries, if not quite as early, can be raised "around Chicago" as anywhere on this continent. The met of the matter is, our climate is from ten days to two weeks later than that at Burlington; but six weeks' difference in two hundred miles, even if we were due north, is rather too much.
The good doctor must have been thinking about Pembina. G. S. T.
 
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