Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-23
GARDEN SASS SCARCE
And the Probabilities of Its Being
Plentier Don't Appear Good.
REASONS WHY FRUIT is DEAR,
As Well as Being Poorer in Quality Than
for Several Years.
GREAT NEED OF A SOAKING RAIN

If "Sairy Camp" were alive she would be
in distress over the outlook. While she
might still have her bottle to put to her lips
when "dispoged, her favorite vegetable, the
"cowcumber," is like to be very short from
this time on, and it will be accompanied in
this respect by the blackberry, the string
bean-and, in short, by all kinds of garden
stuff.
The excessive moisture of two years and
the lack of leavening frost last winter had
left the surface soil like paste, and now il
has baked into the consistency of bricks.
This condition is very extensive, latitudi-
nally and longtitudinally. reaching far be-
yond Cincinnati, in one direction, and many
scores of miles In others, so that should the
weather hold dry a week or ten days longer,
the result will be not only very disastrous
to the agricultusal interest, but to con-
sumers as well. There is a prospect that
homegrown stuff will be dearer than the
southern product has been for some months
past
NO RAIN IN SIGHT.
How soon will it rain? is the question
now asked by the Allegheny county farmers,
especially garden farmers. Above, the
heavens have been as brass for several days,
and the earth below as iron, and Mr.. j. W.
Brown. of Neville Island, stated yesterday that
be could not discover any signs of rain. He
also said that the only certain sign in dry
weather is the Indian one, to see the sky
clouded all around the horizon, and rain pour
ing down in the middle. At present, though
wind blew downstream on Saturday and there
n Ia n SnndaV Monday
ings, yet the moon stands on tp-toe
and is far north, and 1t is very
difticult to get up a steady; soaking
good-under such dry weather influences This
fix of the moon is also what makes the nights
SO cold.
docet stultos" land Mr.. Brown certainly is not
. foo1) we must allow his opinion to have
weight on the subject, for from his youth up
until lately he was mariner, and his father be-
fore him was mariner as far back as the days
of keelboating on the Ohio, and boatmen are
more than amateur meteorologists.
A New York authority who has cast his
optics over all the field and has gotten advices
from all fruit-growing sections states that the
absence of the usual supply of peaches from
Maryland, Delaware and the South has en-
HANGED the price of all other fruits. Good
peaches cannot be had at any price. A Mary
land grower reports one peach on 5000 trees.
Where Pittsburg usually gets her main supply
she VIII fail absolutely this year, as Baltimores
ern New York may produce a few Thousand
baskets for the New York City market but
Connectcuts peach crop will not be rs per
cent, SO there is practically no peach crop this
year.
THE APPLE CROP LIGHT
The early apple crop is less than half what it
was last year, and the prospect for late varieties
is not enchanting.
"Huckleberries'' and blackberries will be
short, even should the rest of their now brief
season be propi1ous.
The raspberry crop has been very DOOR and
many people will be left in their home can
neries, as they refused to pay high prices for
strophied berries. preferring to wait for some
thing else, which will not be here
Pears will make perhaps 25 per cent of a
crop, taking the country over, but not 5 per
cent here. In New York what are alleged to
be California Bartlett pears are on sale. They
are pulled from the trees when about half
grown, and are subjected to sulphur fumes
Ihe process makes them yellow, and they re-
semble the Bartletts in everything but taste
In some places there is an abundance of
muskmelons and tomatoes. but one of these
places is not the vicinity of Pittsburg nor is |
the present outlook favorable to the comfort |
ing conclusion drawn. from a survey of the |
East, VIZ: That the outlook for an abundance |
of all kinds of vegetables, including potatoes
for the fall months, was never better" Rain
within two or three days may work wonders
however. but the average Allegheny county
farmer would not learn wisdom, though brayed
in a mortar. He plows only about four inches
deep, is afraid to tnrn up the yel-
low clay. and is verv sparing in
the use of fertilizer; consequently, his land
will not stand any drouth. to speak of. Some
Of them wouldn't object TO allow Uncle Jerry
Rusk to send up a few of his nitro-glycerine-
ballasted balloons, and by firing them con-
dense the moisture SO that 1t would fall.
Grapes will probably taste as they never
tasted before in the life of this generation.
The crop is supposed to be the largest ever
grown in this country, and if neither growers
nor middlenen develop more than ordinary
hoggishness. one may be able to piece out the
year without getting the scurvy, especially as
there will be fair crop of onions.