Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1876-08-10
Western Farm Journal


Will you allow little space in
your columns for note of warni ing
to the farming community? The
warning is intended especially for
the counties of Central Iowa, but in
all probability IL will not come amiss
in some other places.
Some INSCRIPTIONS fellows are go
ing about taking contracts of farm
ers for "extra choice" fruit trees.
shrubs, etc, claimed to possess most
wonderful and hitherto unheard of
virtues. The fellows l am after
claim to represent the firm of Peters
& Son, New Carlisle, Ohio. They
sell small apple trees three to four
feet high-about equal to ordinary
two-year-old trees raised here-at
thirty-five cents each, and warrant
them to be exempt forever from all
attacks of apple tree borers, and
from blight. They say the reason
their trees will not suffer from
borers, is that they are grated on
certain bitter stock imported Mt
heavy expense from France. This
stock Is TO render the tree from the
heart outward so very bitter in wood
and sap, that even hungry borer
will leave in disgust.
These wise, vegetable physiolo-
gists explain to their customers, also,
that blight is caused by the tap root
of the ordinary tree going down and
striking the hard pan, after which
the tree blights. Their trees on the
bitter French stock neuer hare tap
roots, and therefore never can go
down to hard pan, and never can
blight. They do not explain to their
victims what would be the effect on
tho fruit IL tree should be made so
bitter In wood and juice as to turn
the stomach OF a tree borer. Nor
do the buyers stop 10 think till after
the order Is signed, and the man
gone, that, since the fruit must be
elaborated out OF the bitter juices OF
the bitter tree, il must of necessity
be itself bitter, III the tree could live
and produce fruit In such condi-
ton. Neither do they reflect till too
late to be of use, that In Central
Iowa hard pan Is about rs scarce as
money In these hard times. They
sign the order for tho new and won
derful sort of trees, and must pay
$50 per 100 for trees which, at best,
can be no better than any respectable
home nurseryman would sell at s.
per 100, or less. For, OF course, all
this wholesale lying about the i'm
ported bitter French root goes for
nothing. There Is no such thing
known. Ask any nurserynan, and
he will tell you he never heard OF
such thing.
These gentry also profess TO sell
sweet gooseberries, very precious and
costly. The price IL half dollar
each. The customers never stop to
think that almost any gooseberry
will be sweet when dead ripe. and
not before. So they pay fifty cents
for what they could buy for from six
10 twenty-five cents OF nurscrymen
whom they know.
These men also sell utah hybrid
cherry trees at $I.O0 each, recon-
mending them TO be- most wonderful
for the amount and quality Of their
fruit. The hybrid, they say, Is only
a wild mountain cherry, budded ON
our common stock, which Is no
hybrid at all, but only the wild tree
reproduced.
None OF these wild fruits have,
thus far, proven themselves worthy
OF any attention whatever In this
vicinity. The writer Of this has one
which is absolutely worthless, prob
ably the others are not any better.