Practical Hints on Growing Fruit.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1848, 10 May 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Practical Hints on Growing Fruit.

If you want large crops of the finest strawberries, plough or spade the ground deep. Keep them well worked with cultivator or I hoe, and mulch heavily with straw, hay, leaves, or pine " neediea " through the winter and through fruiting season, over the entire surface. If you want more than one crop of fruit from your strawberries, plough or spade up ! ground between the row immediately after last picking is made, cut off tops, and work among the plants in the row with a fork potato digger, and then scatter thickly among the vines hen manure, superphosphate, or well decomposed barn yard manure, or water I them with night slops, or wash water, and keep them well cultivated or hoed until winter sets in. Eemember, to yield well next year, the fruit must make its growth and form its 11 fruit germs " the season before. To grow small fruit from seed lay the fruit out on thick soft paper and wash it gently and let it dry, and then rub it over, and sow seed ( in boxes half to two-thirds filled with rich earth and an inch of clear sand on top, and in this sow seed, and keep moistened with water. To grow strawberries under glass, have plants set near the glass and air well on warm days. Don't leave an old strawberry bed that is one mass of matted_plants, to bear fruit, but, as early in the spring as possible, spade under strips of plants Id inches wide, and leave strips to fruit 9 to 12 inches wide. Work these out nicely wita a fork potato digger, and scatter over the raround and among the plants well rotted compost. You will get doable the crop of f rui\ ofLthgße rows than yon would if left in &31§t§§|bed; and too, much finer fruit. j iraKlU

If you want to secure a, good orop of raspberries or blackberries from a few plants in your garden in time of drouth, sink close to the root, fruit or oyster cans, with a very small holo in the bottom and fill with water occasionally. If the hole is email a can filled will last a day. The same can be done with a few strawberries, and increase crop and size wonderfully — especially if wash water is used. If you want to grow fair fruit and good crops of peaches, cherries and plums, get a few gallons of gas tar, take a long pole, rub the end in tar and then set it on fire and hold it under and among the limbs of the tree, just as the blossoms are falling, when dew or rain is on the tree, and follow it up for four ior six weeks. Another plan is to mix a spoonful of carbolic acid and one spoonful of soap in a pail of water and throw through the tree just as blossoms are falling, and once or twice after until fruit gets one-fourth size. Still another plan is to use same amount of kerosene oil in the same way.

Stock of All Hinds. First, see that the working horses and oxen are in good order and well fed, groomed, have a plentiful supply of pure water, are decently housed and bedded, that they may be better prepared to endnre the hard labour they .will be daily called on to perform now, when the crops are being put in, and afterwards, in cultivating the same during the intensely hot and exhausting weather.

Blinkers. The Lancet stoutly opposes the practice of putting blinkers on horses. It says : "It seems to us that they are useless, ugly, and, to some extent, injurious to the eyesight. The most beautiful feature of the horse is the eye. If it were not " hid from our gaze ' it would serve to denote sickness, pain, or pleasure. Many a time would the driver spare the whip on seeing the animal's eye.