Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-11-14

GROWING SEEDING FRUITs.-Some of the
very best of our fruits, both large and small,
are seedlings of recent origin. Instance the
Hovey, Wilson, Hooker, Charlton, Bartlett
and other Strawberries; the Lawton, Dorches-
ter, and ThornlesS blackberries the fFalstaf
and other raspberries the cherry currant the
Delaware, Diana, Anna, Rebecca, and other
grapes; and new pears, apples, and potatoes,
almost without number; all, and more than
we have room to mention, grown from seed
that somebody has planted and nurtured into
life, and tended till producing fruit after its
kind, and until one out of a thousand is found
far exceeding the original; and then it brings
not only fortune to its originator, but it adds
comfort happiness, wealth. and health to many
of the human family. SO we say, plant seeds
and grow new seedlings Now is the time to
prepare the seed, before winter sets in. Do
not be deferred by your old togy neghbors
who will tell you that you will never eat the
fruit of your labor you wont live till your
trees bear" What if you don't? your child
rem will, and so, in all probability, may you.
Don't be deferred from planting seeds because
you don't know how. That we will tell you.
AT our request, Charles +. Erhard, success
full propagation of small fruits at Ravenswood,
l.. l., has prepared the following paper upon
growing seedlings from the cherry currant,
which is in such demand that his, and every
other large stock of plants that we know Of
are already exhausted by orders for actual cul-
tivation all over the country He therefore
recommends planting the seed, and if it does
not produce the true kind, it may produce
something superior. He has already sent
abroad a good deal of seed and the following
are his directions for sowing cherry currant
seed =
'Mx the seed with fine sand, and put in a
fOwpr-pOt ar Mt nt fba
bottom; select some high spot in the garden,
where the water does not stand in winter, dig
small hole and putin the pot so that its sur
face is about even with the surface of the
ground; then raise a hill of earth over the
pot three feet in diameter and one and half feet
high. Leave the seeds buried in this manner,
and without any other protection against the
frost, until spring. When the frost is entirely
cut of the ground, take up the seed and sow it
in drills two feet apart, and cover half an inch
deep. Be sure and not cover the seeds too
much-half an inch is better than more 1t
makes no difference if the seeds have sprouted
before you can SOW them. 1t is the tap root
which grows out first, and if this is broken in
sowing, bundle of roots will Immediately
grow out from the stump. The seedlings will
grow one to one and half feet high the first
year, and bear fruit the third year."
Many persons shrink from the attempt to
raise fruit trees or bushes rom seed from
misconception on their part as to the difficult
ties in making such seeds vegetate, and as to
the time it takes for the seedlings to grow up
to bearing size.
The treatment recommended for currant
seeds is infallible for all other kinds of fruit
seed, and, in fact, for tree and shrubs seeds
generally. There is no difficulty whatever in
making them grow, nor does it take an age, as
many would think, to get the seedlings to
bear.
Apples, pears, etc, want at least six years
before they bear, but the fruit can be seen in
four years by grating from the young seed
ling on branch of some old tree. But small
fruit, such as goeseberries, currants, raspber-
ries, blackberres, etc, will bear on their own
root the third year, and this class of fruit is
particularly inviting to raise from the seed.
The Lawton blackberry, the cherry currant,
the Falstaffraspb are very fine varieties Of
their kind, but who can say they cannot be
further improved None of them seems so
far removed from the common kinds as the
Bartlett, Dutchcs d'Angouleme, from the ORR
ginal wild pear of Europe.
There are many kinds of small fruit which
have, perhaps, never yet been experimental
upon, for instance, the cranberry, whortleber-
ry, and ederberry.
If every farmers boy and girl would raise
fruit trees from seed every year, in the course
of few years millions of young fruit trees
would show their new fruit. What a chance
for new and excellent varieties. And now is
the time to begin, by putting the seeds in the
ground as we have directed.