cause is attributed by some to the sting of an insect-by others to frost; but being involved in uncertainty, the remedy is likewise uncertain.

The pear is also subject to the blight, which assumes a more dangerous form than in the apple. The disease begins with the early summer, and first appears in the extremities of the branches, from which it extends rapidly toward the trunk, causing often the speedy death of the tree. Sometimes its strength is expended before the destruction of the tree is completed, and it may partly recover. It is indicated by a shrivelling of the bark upon the branches, and withering of the leaves which still adhere to the affected branches. Such trees as continue a vigorous growth late in the autumn are most subject to the disease, and, consequently, fertile soils and thorough tillage have a tendency to encourage the malady. The disease is contagious, and young trees in the immediate vicinity are liable to be affected if not attended to in time.

Remedies have been tried, though not always with complete success-such as washing the parts affected with ley; also, Downing recommends a solution of copperas and diluted muriatic acid. But the sure remedy is to cut off the branches at once below the part affected, and burn them. This will be a certain cure, provided the cut is made at a sufficient distance below all external signs of the disease. Sometimes the sap is vitiated below the part in which the effect is apparent, and the disease breaks out again.

Black knot.-Except in a few favored localities, the plum is, of all stone fruit trees, the most liable to disease. Its peculiar malady is the black knot, which is an eruption of the branches, causing an excrescence like great, unsightly warts, and so interferes with the flow of the sap as to cause the death of the branches beyond the place affected. The black knot, like the pear blight, is attributed to various causes, the most probable of which is a disease of the sap imparted from either the soil or atmosphere; as healthy trees, removed to a neighborhood where the disease is unknown, are not affected. The disease seems to pervade every part of the tree, and shows itself as virulent in the young trees which spring from the stump of the affected tree as it was in the parent. Of all the remedies yet recommended, we have not found any one effectual, though we believe a proper application of a solution of salt would preserve the health of the tree, and prevent the destructive attacks of the curculio on the fruit. The difficulty is in the application without injury to the tree.

The cherry is also subject to a disease which shows in the rupture of the bark, though the wartlike excrescences are not formed as on the plum. Like the sap blight of the pear and the black knot of the plum, the certain cause and remedy have not yet been determined. Some varieties, as the Black Morello and the English Morello, are subject to the black knot similar to that on the plum, and, as in regard to the plum, we candidly admit both cause and remedy are to us unknown.

The yellows. In the middle States, where the peach arrives at the highest perfection, it is subject to but a single disease, and that, when fully developed, is of a fatal character. It is known as the yellows, and when young trees are grown from the seeds of diseased fruit, it sometimes shows itself in seedlings one year old. In most cases it is not noticeable until the tree has borne one or two crops of fruit, when it is indicated by slender, erect branches starting up from the larger limbs, a general sickly appearance of the tree, and a dull color of the foliage. The fruit also becomes discolored, and so changes from the natural taste and appearance of the variety as not to be recognizable as the same. When first attacked, a single branch only is sometimes affected; but by the fol lowing season it spreads over the whole tree, which struggles feebly for life for a season or two, producing small, immature, and flavorless fruit. The yellows is a contagious disease, and is imparted to other trees by contact or propinquity, as well as by a knife used in pruning trees affected, from buds taken from infected trees, and from the soil in which such trees have grown.

Remedy. As a remedy, we have known iron filings and scales from around a blacksmith's anvil, placed about the roots, at the rate of a good shovelful or more to the tree, to have a good effect. An application of hot wood-ashes about the roots, so that the ashes come in direct contact with them, will prolong the life of the tree; but the best preventive and cure is an application of Peruvian guano, sowed around the ground and harrowed in. We have seen old orchards, apparently worn out, revived by this application, which have borne fruit for many years after. One of my neighbors has adopted the plan of throwing fell (air-slaked) lime over his trees about the time the curculio deposits its eggs, and of sowing guano in his orchard every spring, with most satisfactory results. His crops are unfailing, and the life of his trees extended to more than double the age of others in his immediate neighborhood.

We believe we have discovered a sovereign remedy for nearly all diseases of our fruit trees, as well as for the destructive insects, which so frequently destroy our fruit after it has given promise of satisfactory crops. It is nothing more than common salt. We have experimented with it on bushes and young trees, with admirable effect in many instances, though sometimes with injury, owing rather to the manner of application than the agent employed. Its application was first suggested to us as an insect destroyer, from the success of an experiment made upon the tree-moth. We found it altogether effectual in preventing injury from this troublesome pest, and so we extended our experiments, with almost equal success, to the fruit-destroying family of pests. The difficulty is in the proper application of the remedy or preventive, as salt is so injurious to tender vegetation that, frequently, we cannot reach the insect without also touching a bud, blossom, or tender leaf. Where the atmosphere is impregnated with saline particles, nearly all our troublesome insects and most of our diseases of fruit trees are unknown. The most perfect fruit of the peach, plum, nectarine, and apricot, and the most enduring trees, are found in the neighborhood of salt water. higher lands, along the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, all stone fruit trees bear plentiful crops, and endure much longer than in the interior. On the islands of the bays where the shores are washed by salt water, we have found peach and plum trees with their loads of fruit in such perfect condition as we have never seen elsewhere. Of the many plum trees we have examined in those localities we have yet seen no trace of black knot, nor any sign of the curculio on the fruit. Peach trees flourish and bear annual crops at the age of fifty, and in some cases seventy years, and on the islands of the Chesapeake the figs produce two or three successive crops of perfect fruit in the same season.

THE NATIVE FRUITS OF THE FAR WEST.

On the

BY R. O. THOMPSON, NURSERY HILL, NEBRASKA.

While producing many varieties of fruits by hybridization of those already in cultivation, and the importation of others that seem suited to our soil and elimate from abroad, the wild fruits of the far west should receive the attention of those who feel an interest in the horticulture of our country. There are many varieties which, when cultivated, will occupy a prominent place in the pomology of North America.

The wild plum, Prunus americana, P. umbellata, P. chicasa, and some twenty-five other varieties, are found upon the banks of the several Nemahas in this Territory. In early spring the eye can wander over hundreds of acres of these plums, one sheen of white flowers covering the entire landscape; and

the air is laden with their sweet fragrance. They are found with leaves pinnate, doubly serrate, smooth, long, round; smooth above, downy beneath. Trees of straight, trim growth, ten to twenty feet high; others three to four feet, mere shrubs, but each year bearing their loads of delicious fruit. Fruit of all colors and all forms that the prune family assumes-deep red, purple, pink, deep yellow, orange, salmon, blue, green, and others almost white; the green and white varieties are almost invariably shaped like Coe's Golden Drop; and some of them are much larger in size. The yellow have more the form of Columbia and Washington; the other colors are formed like Purple Gage. All the varieties, except the red and one or two others, part readily from the stone. Where there are such immense groves of these plum trees, and millions of the young fruit set each spring, it must not be supposed that the eternal enemy of the plum, the curculio, is not to be found; here it is that their numbers may be called legion. Something over four years ago my attention was directed to a thrifty group of these trees, by finding the branches literally loaded with very large fruit, while all others were pretty effectually thinned out by the "little Turk." The fruit of these same trees has each year, since that time, withstood the attacks of this insect, and the bearing has been equal to many of the cultivated varieties. The skin is tough, not very thick, and may be pared like an apple. The flesh is firm unless very ripe, then melting and juicy. The tree, foliage, and fruit, all show a wide difference from the other native plums of Nebraska, Iowa, or Illinois. Pruning and cultivation improve size and flavor. Scions have been sent to several experienced nurserymen in the eastern States to test their qualities. When grafted upon their own stocks they require very close working, as the bark is quite thin.

As a stock, to bud or graft the plum, apricot, or peach upon, there is no better; as is evidenced by the fact that eastern cultivators, who have tested them, have sent here for their stock for the past two years. Their extreme hardihood, and their free union with the cultivated plums, will make them valuable to the fruitgrower. When grafted upon the root of this plum in winter, by setting time there is a perfectly smooth callous formed at the junction, as in apple-root grafting. A tree on my grounds, three years from the seed, bore eight hundred perfect blossoms; the same tree was pruned to an even round head, 31⁄2 feet high from the ground.

A variety with greenish white fruit has never ripened but one year in four, the fruit being green and hard when the severest cold of October came on. When picked in the fall, after the hardest frost, before the ground freezes, and put away like pears, they ripen readily. One tree that bears a round red plum, a little larger than a cherry, has invariably borne double fruit.

There are three varieties of the gooseberry indigenous to Nebraska. One, the Ribes cynosbati, a variety with prickly fruit, is of no value whatever as a fruit for man; when ripe, even birds seldom disturb it. Two other varieties are found. One bears a berry long, large, and of a deep green color, quality not first-rate. The other has been named the Nebraska prolific gooseberry. It stands two to four feet high; canes thickly set with long thin or slim thorns of a purple color; leaf very much resembling the Lancashire varieties; fruit larger than the Houghton, veined, and of a clear transparent green; nearly round, flattened very little at the ends, and possessing a rich, vinous flavor. Single specimens have been found nearly an inch in diameter. In the past four years I have examined thousands of bushes, and never found mildew upon any them.

of

A form of the Rubus occidentalis, called here the Western Black raspberry, grows along our streams and in woodlands; fruit one-third larger than the American Black Cap, where it is cultivated, the canes making a much stronger growth. Specimens sent to Pennsylvania three years ago have borne fruit, and fully sustain its superiority. Rubus strigosus, found in but one locality in northern

Iowa, and called the Elisdale raspberry, is a valuable acquisition; fruit very large, bright red, with light bloom, very sweet and rich; canes grow ten to twenty feet in a season; is quite hardy. This was first introduced to my notice by H. A. Terry, of Crescent City, Iowa.

Ribesia.-There are three varieties of the currant found wild in Nebraska, none of them being of any size or flavor; but I have four varieties, found in Utah, which will compare in quality with any of the kinds in cultivation. The black and red kinds from there have borne fruit with me one inch in diameter. The white or yellow and the blue are not so large or of as good quality as the former. A lot of seedlings are showing some peculiar forms of hybridization. I received cuttings of the Utah currants from some half dozen sources; only one lot was of any value, and they were improved seedlings selected from about ten thousand plants. All of these mountain currants possess the peculiarity of being adapted to very dry soils, and make heavy crops where our cultivated kinds would scarcely fruit at all.

GRAPES.-Vitis labrusca, V. æstivalis, V. cordifolia, and many curious forms of hybridization, are found here in plenty. One or two varieties have been taken from their wild state and cultivated. They possess good wine qualities. The wine, at two years of age, is much the flavor and color of Oporto. All of these grapes are perfectly hardy. There are no varieties here that possess enough good qualities to be called "table grapes." Some seasons many hundred gallons of the above-named wine are made from the native grape growing wild along all the water-courses. Such wine sells readily at from $2 50 to $3 per gallon. The leaf and flower of the various forms of our native grapes are a study for the botanist. A few years ago I received a letter from a gentleman of New York, much interested in fruit-growing, concerning a "tree grape," of which he had been informed by parties who had seen them on the arid plains or in the passes. It would not be out of place to state here that this grape was said to be of enormous size, and to grow upon a small shrub. I have found, by careful search, that no such grape exists there, and that what was probably taken for such, and is equally strange, is a cherry of the size of a well-grown May Duke, very sweet, melting, of rich delicious flavor, nearly oblong, and of a change-able brown purple. This fruit is set in heavy clusters, on long stems, beneath the leaves, and upon a tree never more than one to two feet high! At two. years from seed it produces a most bounteous crop of these rich and luscious cherries. It is so hardy here, in N. latitude 40° 39′ 43", that the tips of the branches were not even killed last winter in our coldest weather. It layers as readily as the grape; will grow from cuttings and single eyes. It ripens in September. The fruit, foliage, and growing shoots, all have a waxy or varnished appearance. I have a number of these miniature cherry trees that bore fruit the past season. Had they no other qualities to recommend them than as ornamental shrubs, there would be few finer ones; but add to this a most rich and luscious cherry, and we have a shrub of rare excellence and beauty. Plants of this dwarf mountain cherry will be sent the Department of Agriculture, to test its quality and adaptability to that soil and climate.

14

AMERICAN FORESTS;

THEIR DESTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION.

BY REV. FREDERICK STARR, JR., ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

THERE are few subjects so closely connected with the wants of society, the general health of the people, the salubrity of our climate, the production of our soils, and the increase of our national wealth, as our forests; and yet no considerable interest of our country has received so little attention at the hands of the people, and enjoyed so little of fostering protection from the government.

It is my intention in this article, by a simple array of important facts and a few passing suggestions, to call the attention especially of our landholders, farmers, and mechanics to an impending national danger, beyond the power of figures to estimate, and beyond the province of words to express. If I can influence these classes but a little; if but a few facts shall be added to the present knowledge possessed by each; and if, therefore, but a slight effort be put forth by every one of them, the aggregate of interest, intelligence, and action thus obtained will be immense. There were in the United States in 1860, 2,044,077 farms under cultivation. Could each farmer, having timber on his own land, be led by the facts presented to so husband his trees, or improve their quality, or replace judiciously and speedily those removed, as to equal one-half acre of common forest each year, and if those whose lands are destitute of timber could be led to plant the equivalent of one-half acre per annum, we should either save or produce, annually, 1,022,038 acres, which would be something towards offsetting the destruction, and warding off the coming desolation.

It is feared it will be long, perhaps a full century, before the results at which we ought to aim as a nation, will be realized by our whole country, to wit: that we shall raise an adequate supply of wood and timber for all our wants. The evils which are anticipated will probably increase upon us for thirty years to come, with tenfold the rapidity with which restoring or ameliorating measures shall be adopted. Every hour, therefore, is precious. We have, as a nation, far too long disregarded this interest. Growth is slow and restoration tedious, while destruction is rapid and injury instantaneous. Delay, therefore, is both cruel and disastrous to ourselves. Attention is, therefore, respectfully invited to the following statements:

EVILS OF PAST DESTRUCTION.

1. A great increase in the cost of fuel.-In all our cities and large towns the consumption of fuel exceeds the production of the neighboring country. It is brought from a distance, and its transportation makes its value enormous and

onerous.

The railroads consume great quantities of wood, and exhaust the supply along their lines. Steam-engines, for manufacturing purposes, are not erected in hun dreds of places, simply because of the high price of fuel. The expenses of every class in the community are thus increased, but it especially oppresses the industrious poor. It diminishes their comforts, gives them imperfect cooking, inju