Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-21
THE COUNTY FARMER
Cheered by the Seed-rime Signs After
Weeks of Weary Waiting.
TIE FRUIT OUTLOOK CHEERFUL.
An English Lady Sees Money for Working
Women in the Soil.
FEMALE GARDENING SCHEME PLANNED

sick waiting Tor spring as were the appll-
cants to sell liquor for license until the
change which set in last week. But few Of
them raised any oats or corn worth speaking
of last year, and nearly all are out of feed,
some even buying hay. The majority OF
these alleged grangers persist in farming
80 or 100 acres when they can only ertilize
four or five, and they rarely plow more than
four inches deep, so that only lichens can
find root sufficient to protect them from the
heat of summer or to hold them in place in
winter, and the situation gets worse year by
year.
Some people have lately, however, been
trying to make the local situation worse than
it really is by reporting from time to time
that the fruit has been destroyed. If any
one who knows anything about fruit culture
will take few moments thought he will
see at once the absurdity of such state
ment In the first plac there was no very
cold weather in this latitude last winter,
the mercury in the thermometer never fall
ing below zero, SO of course the embryo buds
were not injured. Secondly, there was at
no time since the leaves fell, sufficient dura-
tion of warmth to bring the buds forward,
even the lilac bushes only now beginning to
respond freely to springs balmy breath.
Fruit Crop Omens Favorable.
The peach bloom IS not fully out yet nor
the early pear, though it was reported two
weeks ago that they were destroyed. Several
peach buds examined on Sunday showed
that within few days, if the temperature is
maintained, there will be good bloom, and
the only thing that threatens is late frost
Or course we may get that, but there is no
use crossing the stream before one reaches it.
1t goes without saying that if peaches are
still safe, apples are safer. Present indica-
tions are that this section will have great
fruit crop this year and even though it
will not bear expense of carriage
to market it will be worth
great deal to the producers
anyhow, and if they had enough get up in
them to follow Gladstone advice, and make
the surplus into jelly, be honest about 1t
and establish brands that would knock out
the sham jellies made of turnips, chemicals
and the Lord knows what else, they in time
would find the business profitable. ..
Notwithstanding the cheapness of fruit,
ordinarily, consumers pay famine prices
for iellies and apple butter. Since the duty
has been taken off sugar there is no excuse
for these high prices, and one would think
that, with apples at % cents bushel, as
they frequently are in plentiful seasons, a
manufacturer would be honest from policy,
if from no higher motive, and put in real
fruit.
Our local fruit growers have another con-
solatory hope this year, and that is that they
may get q good price for apples. They
were abundant in some sections last year,
and those localities may be barren this
season.
How the Seasons Have Changed.
The recent rains were a setback to the
plowman. After its two years saturation
the earth was about dry enough for sod
plowing, but the rains rendered it again too
wet and some sighed as they thought it pos
sible they might not get oats sown before
May this year. The pleasant weather of the
past week has cheered them up, however.
Forty years ago farmers hereabouts thoughtit
scarce worth while to sow oats if they did
not do it in March, as the hot sun prevents
them from filling, but now the granger
thinks himself fortunate if he can sow in
April. But though the rain stopped the
plow it gave the grass great impetus, be-
ing warm. It was the first thunder shower
of the season.
The plowman in Allegheny county is no
longer cheered by the song of the blackbrd
and thrush, and he must do the whistling
all himself, save such assistance as be can
get from the few robins that still wage an
unequal combat with the pernicious spar
rows. The robin makes better fight against
the intruder than any other song or in
sectiverous bird whose habitat is the
same as that of the sparrow. But
the sparrow is not the only enemy
of the useful songster that once made the
groves vocal. There are hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of people in this county who,
being unable to kill game birds, shoot every
feathered thing they see and call IL sport.
They will fill sack with robins, yellow
hammers, etc., and call it sport, when they
could not get half a dozen quail on the wing
if their lives depended upon it. II this
class could be induced to make war on the
sparrows their number would be greatly
diminished, and they are preferable birds
for pies, as they are grain eaters and Lot in
sectiverous, unless under pressure of hun
ger.
Lady Gardeners In England.
Apropos Of garden farming the writer has
before him the last number OF the Strand
Magazine, of London, which contains a
paper bv Miss Grace Hartman on "a New
Industry for Ladies'" in which she says:
The object o. this New Industry is to open
up a new, profitable, and, 1 hone, pleasant
way out of the present congested state of the
Lady Labor Market. The Ladies' Fruit
and Salad Gardens have been established at
Grange Gardens. Sawley. near Derby, TO
provide pleasant homes and remunera-
tive employment for gentlewomen
who have taste for gardening
work and wish to add to their incomes or to
earn living. It seems to have been seven
or eight years since the idea first came to
me that ladies with taste for gardening
might possibly earn living by it: but so
much needed thinking out, and detail after
detail fitting in, that it Is only five years
since L myself became a practical gardener.
The more 1 inquired into the matter the
more plainly l sew that market gardeners,
as rule, made good thing of it.
After trying two rented gardens that only
proved quicksands, as far as money spend
ing on them went, the soil being worn out,
and the fruit trees that were in them most
uncertain. determined to take new ground
in hand, j. e., break up old pasture and
plant garden after my own idea of obtain
ing the greatest amount of produce with the
least amount of labor. I advocate planting
dwarf hardy fruit trees in the open; and for
this reason, that during nine months OF the
year they need no labor expending on them
after they are once well planted and securely
fenced from rabbits, their winter depreda-
tors, and with reason we may look for
good crop of fruit five years out of seven.
How Work Can Be Divided.
NV own experimental garden was planted
March, 1889. That year we had enormous
crops of vegetables of splendid flavor, and
very fair amount of fruit Last year our
crop of fruit, in addition to the vegetables
was very considerable. Had the product of
this garden been for sale it must have real