Part 59

22. YELLOW BELLE FLEUR, OR BELLFLOWER.—Tree spreads and droops more than any tree of the orchard, the Newark pippin, perhaps, excepted; wood very slender and whip-like, healthy, ripens early, not subject to frost-blight, grafts well on the root, but is rather tender during the first winter when so worked; buds well, but from its drooping, sprawling habits, is hard to form into a top. Bears moderately young (not so young as the white); abundantly. Flesh melting and tender and juicy; flavor fine and delicate rather than high; color deep yellow when ripe; ripens from December to March. One of the most deservedly popular of winter apples and always salable in all markets.

23. WHITE BELLE FLEUR.—This apple is cultivated in Ohio under the names of Hollow-cored Pippin, Ohio favorite, and, by the Cincinnati pomologists, of Detroit. It is also the Cumberland Spice and Monstrous Bellflower of Coxe. It was taken to the West by Brunson of Wayne County, Indiana, and thence disseminated in every direction; and it may be called the Bellflower of Indiana, since it and not the yellow, predominates in all orchards. The yellow, however, within five years, has been largely distributed. Tree, medium sized, spreading; wood stronger than the yellow belle fleur, healthy, ripens its wood early, but liable to after-growth in warm falls, and therefore subject to frost-blight. The tree, from its habit of growth, more liable to split and break under a full crop than any tree of the orchard. One of the youngest bearers in the nursery; fruitful to a fault. Grafted on the root it kills off in winter; buds well and forms a top without difficulty. Fruit above medium and sometimes very large; color, greenish white, and, in some seasons with a blush on the sunny side; flesh breaking at first, but when fully ripe, melting and juicy; flavor mild and delicate. It is not apt to cloy, and more can be eaten than of almost any variety. Ripe from December to March.

24. BALDWIN.—Works well in nursery by root or bud, and is fine for nurserymen. Top forms easily. Not upright, as Downing says, but a round, spreading top. We give Downing’s description:

“The Baldwin stands at the head of New England apples, and is unquestionably a first-rate fruit in all respects. It is a native of Massachusetts, and is more largely cultivated for the Boston market than any other sort. It bears most abundantly, and we have had the satisfaction of raising larger, more beautiful, and highly favored specimens here, than we ever saw in its native region. The Baldwin, in flavor and general characteristics, evidently belongs to the same family as Esopus Spitzenburg, and deserves its extensive popularity.

“Fruit large, roundish, and narrowing a little to the eye. Skin yellow in the shade, but nearly covered and striped with crimson, red, and orange, in the sun; dotted with a few large russet dots, and with radiating streaks of russet about the stalk. Calyx closed, set in a rather narrow plaited basin. Stalk half to three fourths of an inch long, rather slender for so large a fruit, planted in an even, moderately deep cavity. Flesh yellowish white, crisp, with that agreeable mingling of the saccharine and acid which constitutes a rich, high flavor. The tree is a vigorous, upright grower, and bears most abundantly. Ripe from November to March, but attains its greatest perfection in January.”

25. MICHAEL HENRY PIPPIN.—Tree upright, with a round-shaped top; wood strong, rather slow grower, ripens its main growth of wood early, but liable to fresh growth in warm, wet falls; bears very young, every other year abundantly and not a single apple in the next year. Should not be grafted on the root; and it is rather troublesome when budded, from a disposition to make dwarf spur-like branches, rather than upright limbs. Fruit medium-sized, long, large about the base, sharpening toward the eye; color green, clouded and black speckled; flesh tender, melting; flavor rich, inclined to sweet, and very fine. Ripens from December to March.

26. RED SWEET PIPPIN.—Tree handsome, round-topped, but rather spreading; wood strong, and vigorous growth, ripens early; tree very healthy, apt to grow with very smooth bark affording little shelter for insects; bears young, every year and abundantly. Works well in the nursery either by grafting on the root, or by budding. Fruit medium size inclining to large; color red with grey stripes on the shaded side; flesh breaking and firm; flavor sweet and rich. It bakes well, is good for pies, eats well, and its kitchen and table qualities combined make it a desirable fruit. Ripe from December to April.

27. PRYOR’S RED.—Tree upright; wood slow growing, slender, and the branches full of small wood, healthy, not subject to frost-blight; comes very late into bearing, requiring ten or twelve years for full bearing; bears only moderate crops; every year. Difficult to work in the nursery, but does better by grafting on the root than by budding. Fruit above medium size; color, red dotted with white specks; the whole surface covered with slight bloom; flesh melting; flavor very rich and high, and by some thought to be even richer than the golden russet. If this apple only grew on the Vanderveer pippin tree, it would require nothing more to render it perfect. Ripens from December to March. Its keeping properties are more in danger from the teeth than from ordinary decay. A very salable and popular apple, which, when once had, none would consent to lose. It is unknown in New England and New York except by description; and is not even described by Downing, and but little more than mentioned by Kenrick.

28. GREEN NEWTOWN PIPPIN.—Tree spreading, wood slender and slow growing; ripens early, making it often troublesome for nurserymen to procure buds fit for late work; not subject to frost-blight. The tree requires vigorous cultivation to redeem it from a feeble growth; the bark is inclined to crack on the branches and scale up, and when once roughened it is difficult ever again to make them smooth. Late coming into bearing, bears abundantly every other year. They should never be grafted on the root; they should be budded on strong healthy stocks and high up in order to do well. Fruit large, green, changing to yellow when dead-ripe; flesh firm, breaking; flavor very rich. Ripe from February to May. This apple is cultivated in extraordinary abundance at the East both for home and foreign markets. They sell in London, at sixpence a piece. The farm of R. L. Pell contains 2,000 bearing trees of this variety; a note descriptive of which we give from Downing:

“One of the finest orchards in America is that of Pellham farm, at Esopus, on the Hudson. It is no less remarkable for the beauty and high flavor of its fruit, than the constant productiveness of trees. The proprietor, R. L. Pell, Esq., has kindly furnished us with some notes of his experiments on fruit-trees, and we subjoin the following highly interesting one on the apple.

“For several years past, I have been experimenting on the apple, having an orchard of 2,000 bearing Newtown Pippin-trees. I found it very unprofitable to wait for what is termed the ‘bearing year,’ and it has been my aim to assist nature, so as to enable the trees to bear every year. I have noticed that from the excessive productiveness of this tree, it requires the intermediate year to recover itself—to extract from the earth and the atmosphere the materials to enable it to produce again. This it is not able to do, unassisted by art, while it is loaded with fruit, and the intervening year is lost; if, however, the tree is supplied with proper food it will bear every year; at least such has been the result of my experiments. Three years ago, in April, I scraped all the rough bark from the stems of several thousand trees in my orchards, and washed all the trunks and limbs within reach with soft soap; trimmed out all the branches that crossed each other early in June, and painted the wounded part with white lead, to exclude moisture and prevent decay. I then, in the latter part of the same month, slit the bark by running a sharp-pointed knife from the ground to the first set of limbs, which prevents the tree from becoming bark-bound, and gives the young wood an opportunity of expanding. In July I placed one peck of oyster-shell lime under each tree, and left it piled about the trunk until November, during which time the drought was excessive. In November the lime was dug in thoroughly. The following year I collected from these trees 1,700 barrels of fruit, part of which was sold in New York for four, and others in London for nine dollars per barrel. The cider made from the refuse, delivered at the mill two days after its manufacture, I sold for three dollars and three-quarters per barrel of thirty-two gallons, exclusive of the barrel. In October I manured these trees with stable manure in which the ammonia had been fixed, and covered this immediately with earth. The succeeding autumn they were literally bending to the ground with the finest fruit I ever saw, while the other trees in my orchard not so treated were quite barren, the last season having been their bearing year. I am now placing round each tree one peck of charcoal dust, and propose in the spring to cover it from the compost heap.

“‘My soil is a strong, deep, sandy loam on a gravelly subsoil. I cultivate my orchard grounds as if there were no trees on them, and raise grain of every kind except rye, which grain is so very injurious that I believe three successive crops of it would destroy any orchard younger than twenty years. I raised last year in an orchard containing twenty acres, trees eighteen years old, a crop of Indian corn which averaged 140 bushels of ears to the acre.’”

29. RAWLE’S JANET, OR JENNETTING.—Tree round topped, a little spreading and handsome. Wood strong, slow growth, short jointed, and the healthiest, perhaps, of all orchard trees. Does not bear young; but when established, a great bearer every year, unless overloaded, when it rests a year. It is the finest of all apples to graft on the root, and should be always so propagated in the nursery; if budded, it being a late starter in spring, the stock will put out its branches before the bud, and make great trouble. Fruit medium sized; color green striped with red; roundish but inclined to sharpen toward the eye; flesh white, melting, very juicy; flavor mild and delicate. Ripens from February to May. This is, and deserves to be, an exceedingly popular apple in all the West. The tree is remarkably healthy; it blooms ten days later than other varieties, and therefore seldom loses a crop by spring frost; but the bloom is very sensitive to frost if overtaken; the fruit is very relishful; keeps as well as the Newtown Pippin, and by many, and by this writer among the number, is much preferred to that noted variety. It has the peculiar excellence of enduring frost without material injury; a property which has enabled cultivators to save thousands of bushels of fruit which by sudden and early cold had been severely frosted.

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The reason that the Cockle-bur, that great pest on farms, cannot be destroyed by being cut off once a year, is that nature has provided for its propagation by bestowing on it seed vessels which ripen at two different times of the year. This will be found to be the case on careful examination.—Western Farmer and Gardener.

ORIGIN OF SOME VARIETIES OF FRUIT.

The history of our fine fruits has many curious points of interest to the zealous pomologist. It is made up of skill, felicitous blunders, discoveries, and profitable accidents.

The Flemish pears, with which so large a portion of the calendar of new pears is filled, were the products of scientific efforts. In like manner, many of the finest fruits originated by Knight, were by a scientific, although a different, process. On the other hand it would be difficult to find fruits superior to those in the making of which only Nature had a hand.

The Duchesse d’Angoulême, a pear without a rival, in its season, was found in 1815, growing wild in a hedge, near Angers, in the department of Maine et Loire, France.

The Washington, one of our finest native pears, was likewise discovered in a thorn hedge, at Naaman’s creek, Delaware, by Gen. Robertson. He was removing a fence on his farm about forty-five years ago; he found the young tree nearly grown.

The Lewis is a native of Massachusetts. Mr. Downer, of Dorchester, a critical judge of fruits, was acquainted with the original tree ten years before he thought it worth a place in his garden. He visited it three times, and was each time disinclined to cultivate it; it was not until he had seen a tree taken from it, growing in cultivated ground, that he adopted it. It now ranks among the finest native pears.

Dearborn’s Seedling was discovered by General Dearborn in a cluster of syringas and rose bushes, forming a part of a border to an avenue. Pears seem to have great fondness for hedges, borders, etc. The discoverer attempted to remove the tree, then, apparently, about five years old, to his nursery for a stock; but digging two feet deep, and finding no root but the tap root, he feared that deplanting might kill it. It was left to grow, and has proved to be one of the first-class pears.

Downer’s late cherry, was a stock in the nursery row, and several times budded with other kinds; the buds always failing, the tree was allowed to fruit, and proved one of the best, if not the best, of late cherries.

Knight’s Black Eagle was raised from the seed of the Bigarreau fertilized by the May Duke. When it bore, the fruit was so inferior that the London Horticultural Society peremptorily rejected it. Mr. Knight determined to head the tree down and graft into it other sorts. But he had given the tree to a daughter, with whom it was a favorite, and she refused to have it sacrificed. Each year, subsequently, showed an improvement in the fruit; and now it stands in the first class of cherries. This is one among many instances, which show that young seedlings do not exhibit the true qualities of the fruit for several years after they come to bearing.

The Red-cheek Melocoton peach was accidentally obtained by the late Wm. Prince, Flushing, Long Island. He had budded the Kennedy’s Caroline upon a stock, and below the point of inoculation a branch of the original stock had shot up into bearing. Sending a servant to gather the budded fruit, he was surprised by his bringing, and, as he declared, from this tree, a free-stone peach. On examining, he found the cause as stated above, and was so much pleased with the new kind that he cultivated it.

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The best stock a man can invest in, is the stock of a farm; the best shares are plow-shares; and the best banks are the fertile banks of the rural stream: the more these are broken the better dividends they pay.

THE QUINCE.