pinched off. In a week or ten days, the highest buds will start; and, when another leaf is formed on each, the buds must be again removed; and, later still, the process must be repeated, each time an additional leaf being left. As the effect of these pinchings, the formation of wood to a great extent is arrested, and the energies of the vine are directed to the development of the fruit. After the third pinching, it is best to let the main shoots grow; and, should they overpass the bar or course above them, push them behind it, and leave them to expatiate in the plenteous sunshine. These pinchings of the shoots also cause the older laterals to grow rapidly: they, too, should be pinched in, a fresh leaf being left each time. And the result of it all is the gathering of a clump of greatly enlarged and healthy foliage around the cluster of fruit, protecting it from the intensity of the sunshine, and elaborating its juices to a perfection not otherwise attained.

Let us now glance at the fruit from your ten feet of fencing. At the end of the third year, the four vines will yield about twenty bunches, giving you a foretaste of what is in store, and amply rewarding your patient toil. The next season, you will gather twice the quantity of larger and finer grapes; and in the sixth year, when your vines will have reached their maturity, you should find let us see: eight arms, with ten shoots to each, and the shoots severally garnished with three noble bunches; yes, two hundred and forty bunches of truly delicious fruit. Ye dwellers in cityhomes, be comforted.

But in many yards there are vacant spaces of far greater extent. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet of fence may be appropriated to the grape; and the plan above suggested may be applied to the several sections of the trellis. For an extended line, however, there is a better mode of distributing the vines over the trellis, by which the length of the standards is reduced, and their obliquity greatly lessened. But to every mundane task there is an appointed bound, and the end of this has come.

BALTIMORE, MD.

C. W. Ridgely.

THE CHERRY AS A PROFITABLE FRUIT FOR MARKETPURPOSES.

WITHOUT recurring to the records of profits and products realized from individual cherry-trees, as so much tangible, incontrovertible evidence of the money-profits to be derived from cherries, I will give attention rather to a general assertion, covering a few plain truths known to all who have given attention to the subject of fruit-growing. These are, First, that, as a rule, the cherry in some of its varieties succeeds perfectly, when classed as a tree for general cultivation, in nearly every section of our Northern, Middle, and Western States.

Second, The trees grow rapidly; are usually healthy; can be easily grown from seed, or varieties readily propagated by budding or grafting; and arrive at profitâble mature bearing age in from four to six years.

Third, It is not particular about soil, provided it be one in which water never stands twenty-four hours at a depth nearer the surface than two feet, although it delights in a rather light loam, resting on a gravel subsoil.

The product of the trees varies, according to their age and the variety, at from one-fourth of a bushel to thirty bushels; and the fruit always commands ready sale at prices varying from four to twelve dollars a bushel.

These are some of the generally acknowledged good points taken in connection with the cherry when fruit-growers come to consider the policy and probable profit of planting it as a market-crop; and yet with all these, and the fact, that, yearly, thousands of bushels of cherry-fruits are grown and marketed, there are hundreds of our smaller cities and markettowns where it is rare ever to find an eatable cherry offered for sale.

As a tree combining beauty of form, or delicacy in spray, glossy foliage, and snowy bloom, for ornament, and a delicious healthy fruit for use, none among the whole catalogue deserve or receive the same amount of favor as the cherry. It is planted as shades in the village door-yards; it adorns the home-grounds of the farmer, whether of ten or a thousand acres ; it is often planted by scores as shades decorative and cooling, bordering an avenue or approach-road.

Go where you will, the country over, and where

do

you find a cottage log-house, the remains of an abandoned home, or the fresh paint of a new settler or naturalized foreigner, without finding more or less cherry-trees growing? True, some of them are what we call sour or Kentish fruit; but they are hardy and productive. Orchards by the thousands of trees are growing and being planted in the Western States, while orchards of trees numbering their hundreds are frequent in the Middle and Northern States: but, with all these, our statement, that, in many small cities and market-towns, cherries are never found for sale, holds good; while in the larger cities it is rare that the market is ever fully supplied; and hence many a person passes year after year without ever tasting a cherry, much less enjoying them in abundance.

This ought not to be so ; and from among the crowd who are making, and about to make, their fortunes out of grape, pear, or strawberry growing, let us hope to draw the attention of some to the fact that the people love cherries, the people will buy cherries, the people will pay good remunerative prices for cherries. Cherries are good to eat fresh from the tree, good to can, and as good or better than Zante currants when dried; and there is money-which is the grand point-in growing cherries for market-purposes.

In years gone by, when fruit had to be transported twenty or more miles by wagons, and canning was unknown, there was often much reason for the fruit-grower confining himself to such varieties mainly as were not immediately perishable, and that would bear the rough transportation of that day to market; but now, when railroads cross our country like the threads of a spider's web, the man with land at one hundred miles from the consuming market can grow cherries as profitably as he who resides at a distance of only five to seven miles.

I have said the trees can be easily grown from seed. It is only requisite to gather them when ripe, and keep them until the next spring, never letting them get dry, and planting as soon as the frost is out of the ground, covering about as deep as for Indian corn.

A friend of mine pursues a ready way of supplying his wants from year to year as follows: About the time the trees are in flower, he starts on a rainy morning, with trowel, dibble, and basket, to some tree of a well-known good kind, underneath which he finds from one to fifty young natural seed

lings from pits of the previous year's fallen fruits: these he takes up with his trowel carefully, and transplants to his garden-nursery, where they grow two to three years, and are again transplanted to the permanent orchard, where they are fruited, and such as are proved unprofitable are budded, or ingrafted with some known valuable kind. Where the sweet cherry is a success on its own roots, and the owner has time and enthusiasm to meet the delay, this is a good way; but when the planter wants to realize as soon as possible, or when the trees must be worked on morello-roots to insure their success, it is better to purchase the first plantation of trees from a nurseryman, and afterwards bud and graft as time and inclination serve.

I have said the cherry can be grown successfully nearly everywhere; but, while such is the fact, it is also true that the tree must be worked on the roots of the morello to insure that success. I so said and wrote twentysix years ago; but as it was more difficult to work on morello than mahaleb, as stocks were not as easily obtainable, and trees did not show as large at one year old, the advice was not popular: but, at the recent meeting, that most intelligent body of fruit-growers, the Illinois State Horticultural Society, stated plainly that the morello is the only stock from which to look for success in cherry-growing; and I think the practice will now be popular. Let any one, who has been unsuccessful in cherry-growing, work his varieties on seedling morello-stocks, and grow his trees moderately, not with extra stimulants, and he will be able to gather plenty of fruit in four years from the setting of the bud.

In connection with this assertion, that the cherry can be grown nearly everywhere, the planter for market-purposes should remember, that, as with every thing else, there is always a best side; and that there is more certainty of permanent, steady, profitable returns from an orchard well located as regards altitude and soil, than from one not in the most favorable position. Remember one thing more: which is, let the planter select varieties likely to meet the tastes of the people whose appetites he expects to appease, and whose money he intends to receive.

In some markets, the dark or black cherries command one-eighth to onesixth more price than the light colors; in others, it is the reverse: but, in all cases where the fruit has to be transported miles in reaching its consuming customers, black or dark fruit will be found best, because it can be

picked ere it is fully ripe, and will not show the injury of a bruise as quickly or plainly as that of a light color. To this add that the very earliest fruit and the very latest will command always one-quarter to onethird more price than that of medium seasons, and I have written enough for the present. F. R. Elliott.

CLEVELAND, O.

THE MAGNOLIACEÆ.

THE hardy members of this order are embraced in the genera Magnolia and Liriodendron.

(a.) MAGNOLIA. - - An erroneous opinion prevails that the several species and varieties of this genus can be successfully cultivated only in more southern latitudes. Two are indigenous to northern sections of the Union; and it is evident, that, with suitable management, all of them, whether of American or Asiatic origin, will thrive here, the grandiflora and one or two others excepted.

With the rapid advancement in ornamental gardening, no sufficient reason can therefore be offered why, though at present the most rare, they should not become common ornaments of our grounds. This view is sustained by the experience of a few individuals in Boston, Flushing, Newburg, Rochester, and Cleveland; and that experience has also shown the following kinds to be worthy of cultivation :

1. M. ACUMINATA (Cucumber-tree). — In the original forests of Ohio, this tree was common, but, with their destruction, is rapidly disappearing; and, as its reproduction from seed is now commonly interrupted, it may be exterminated in the course of a few generations.

Its intrinsic merits as an ornamental tree, as well as its great value as a stock for extending the propagation of other kinds, may perhaps avert such a result.

Employed for this latter purpose, it imparts vigor to the weak, hardiness to the more tender, and, by its profuse supply of sap, forces them into abnormal production of flowers, improved in size and perfection as well as in numbers.