News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-05-25
FRUIT TREES.
A Few Hints by the Burlington
Hawkeye Jester.


nurseryman got on the train. Why he
should select the Jester as a man
pining awayfor Norwegian stock pear
tree or an assortment of Early Green
Lombardy apple scions, nobody can
tell but he did, and he talked tree to
that patient child of sorrow for fifty-two
miles.
ct have tried this pear" the Jester
said, his sad face lighting up with a
CLEAN of pleasant recognition as the
tree man showed him colored htho-
graph of a pear as big as a football,
with a neck like champagne bottle,
golden yellow on one side, scarlet
streaked on the other. 81 have tried
this pear I planted four of those Hi
bernian Dutch checked Monaghan Tri-
colors ten years ago."
''She's daisy" the tree man said,
"didn't they do splendidly p
Beautifully" said the Jester-''all
died the first year, and never had a
particle of trouble with them"
Then the tree man showed him pic
ture of an Oliver Gilsey open-stone by
Bird peach (Americanus brandifcari-
ous). 1t was larger-in the Autograph
than a turnip, with down on it like
the mustache of a Burlington college
boy in the junior year, and it was rose
tinted like the deep-set heart of a sad
sounding, eurled sea-shell. On the OPP
posite page picture of the tree showed
up like century-old oak, gnarled and
rugged and hardy as the granite cliff
that from the certain side frowned on
the shadowy vale below. Loud cheers
and cries of $50 on !' and "More !"1
ooh, yes" the Jester said, 81 know
that fruit. I have tried that brand of
peach. It WOULD have done well no
doubt, had we not planted the trees in
the onion bed. The onions came up and
choked all the trees out but one. II
come up and bore peaches, two of them.
Not just exactly like that picture. One
of them looked like a wart on gum
log, only it was harder and the hai1
stuck out like bristles and quilts. The
The other would have been peach just
like this, suppose, only the stone grew
on the outside. I don't want any fruit
trees this spring, anyhow.
81 never see q beautiful Autograph
of fruit tree, crowned and gemmed
with luscious fruit" the Jester went
on, "without being reminded of an emf.
nent success a neighbor of mine in
Burlington made with plums. A banker,
Mr.. James Peasely, owned beautiful
house surrouls1ed with charming
grounds, and fruit trees were one of his
pastimes. A tree man came along one
year and sold him plum tree. The
banker had had little success with plum
trees, on account CT the rapacious and
never-satisfed cureulio. But the tree
man assured him the curculio would
never touch this particularly beautiful
variety-the Alonzo du Belvidere, Oh
Light of the Harenl-scarum. The bank.
er bought the tree. It grew as never
plum tree grew before; o great swelling
mass of foliage that wooed the sunbeams
to play with its dancing shadows. And
fruit Everybody that went by the
Peasley homestead swore to himself
there weren't enough dogs in the com
monwealth of Iowa to keep him on the
roadway side of that fence a week
longer.
cit never failed, not one single year.
Season after season it put forth blooms
until it looked like spring time snow.
bank, and then in the season of its fruit
it shone and glorie,i like a royal purple
sunset i'll the baakeFS gaIleu.- One day
[ praised the tree, and the banker gave
me of its fruit. bit piece out of the
plum, and then started home for my
gun. 1t was only few steps down
Barnes street, but twice before I got
there I forgot what I had started after.
I climbed over into the foundations OF
DIR. Virgins house, and tried to die.
Then I stopped in the vacant lot by Mr..
Langley's cottage, and ate the tops of
the gimson weeds to take the taste out
of my mouth. When I got home sent
for George Miller, and told him the
banker had poisoned me to get some
money owed him, and 1 wanted him
to take down my 0nte-naOrtene state
ment. But I lived and forgave the man
who had filed my young life with bit
terness, and one day, standing under
the swaying boughs of this deadly Upas
plum tree, he told me all its woeful his
tory. How at night the long-drawn
bowls and wall of terror-stricken boys,
lying in the dew-besprinkled grass oil
the COW pasture had the night with
a weird, uncanny horror, and scared all
of neighbor Blythe's dogs, or SO many
of them as the walls would go round
under the barn in the tree-bordered hol'
low. How thievish and road-weary
tremps had eaten OF this fruit, and had
gone off down Boundary street shouting
Sire T and had never been seen again.
How one day, sandy pig. three and 6
half feet long had eaten couple of these
plums that somebody had thrown over
the fence, and then satdown in the dus'
of the street and cried and sobbed with
pain and modification until the golden
sun went down in a sea of roseate splen.
dor in the distant west. How visitors
friends of the family and guests of the
home, had plucked and bitten a plum
before they could be warned, and then,
with CHASTITY countenances, tried to look
as though they liked it. The Robin
Stunned that tree. The curculio never
went near it. The wandering crows o.
the air wouldn't look at it. Nothing
ever touched it except the English
sparrows. They liked it and grew fai
upon it. Nothing added the jester,
"nothing that ever grew can kill the
English sparrow
But the passengers knew that if he
wandered off on that topic he could
never be silenced, for he is a more re.
lentless foe of the English sparrow than
even Dalhoff, and so they besough
him to tell the rest about the plum
tree, while the tres man gathered his
Autographs and got off at cross road.
Very Obedient.
The wife of Benjamin r. Davenport
st. Louis lawyer, is suing for a di.
vorce. She alleges cruel tyranny OF
Liz nnrt and renites in her cnmnlnin1