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. On the 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.

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 climate 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, 34 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. 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 of them.

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 sus tain 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 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 Lad 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 of enormous size, and to grow upon a small shrub. I have found, by careal search, that no such grape exists there, and that what was probably taken r 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 changele 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 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 lascious 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.

the

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 consid erable 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 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 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

put

forth

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 of setting 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. 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 hundreds 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 indus trious poor. It diminishes their comforts, gives them imperfect cooking, inju

riously exposes their health, holds them back from a competence, and, in mere defence of life, consumes a large fraction of their earnings which else could have been used for education, purchasing personal effects, or securing for their families a home.

When the proprietors of mines will sell coal only to certain favored dealers in cities and towns, and when great railroad companies refuse to carry coal for any persons except these same dealers, their monopoly reigns supreme, and then only the presence of wood in considerable quantities can save the people from extortion, or from absolute suffering.

In any region, hamlet, or city where fuel is dear, the scarcity proves itself a detriment to happiness and an injury to business.

2. A great increase in the price of lumber and timber.-This hinders the erection of dwellings. A poor man now labors years longer to obtain the means to build a house than he did ten years ago to erect one equally convenient, valuable, and spacious. Years of his life and toil are thrown away simply to meet the enhanced price of lumber. The growth of our cities is retarded by it; small and often uncomfortable tenements are built where larger, more substantial and costly ones would have been erected. Landlords not only charge high rents, but make the expensiveness of building an excuse for unjustifiable exactions. Tens of thousands are thus discouraged from becoming freeholders. The costliness of lumber also makes furniture very expensive, so that our countrymen must purchase poorer and less elegant articles than the same money would otherwise provide, or consume means they need for other permanent uses.

3. High rates of fares and freight charges on our lines of travel and transportation result from the increased cost of building and equipping steamboats and railroads. Ships now cost, as regards their main material, fully double the xpense a few years since. The increased price of lumber used in the superstructure of a railroad for its depots and for freight and passenger cars has added much to the capital upon which they must make dividends, or the bonds upon which they pay interest. The enhanced value of fuel also increases the expenses of running the road, while, worse than any of these, the force and time required to move coal for the consumption of the people along the line of the road, and to convey fuel for the use of the road itself, diminishes the capacity of the road for other business, consumes machinery and labor, and interferes with more legitimate commerce. In the winter of 1864 and 1865, on the line of some of the New York railroads, the people in the villages and cities were without fre in their houses awaiting the transportation of coal, while the perishable products of farms by hundreds of car loads were lying in the depots for weeks and months awaiting transportation, and shut out from market at the most eventful times. On all the great carrying lines of our country, whether by steam-car or steamboat, this question of fuel has become one most important and vexatious as regards quantity, ease of obtainment, and price.

Among the things which are most fundamental to a nation's material growth and prosperity, we name these four-cheap bread, cheap houses, cheap fuel and cheap transportation for passengers and freights. A nation which produces the raw material for every species of manufactures and commerce, and that at low cost-whose people provide their own houses, and raise all they consume-which can move its people, its products and manufactures, quickly and cheaply, is in accudition to establish the most complete division of labor, and to give to every

the results of his abilities, energy, and skill. Such a nation must prosper. Its people will save and accumulate immense sums from their respective earnings; and this question of wood enters largely and constantly into each one of these four great departments of industry and living.