: Pleasant Talk About Fruits Flowers and Farming by Beecher Henry Ward - Agriculture; Gardening; Flowers

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Political Economy of the Apple 1 A few Flowers easily raised 16 Flower-Farming 21 A Letter from the Farm 25 The Cost of Flowers 28 Haying 31 The Value of Robins 34 Sounds of Trees 39 Unveiled Nonsense 43 Natural Order of Flowers 46 Roses 49 Chestnuts 51 Green Peas 55 Hens 58 Farming 60 Gardening under Difficulties 63 Corn 66 Dandelions 69 How to beautify Homes 72 Birch and Aspen 75 Autumn 78 Plant Trees! 81 Farewell to "Summer Rest" 84 Preliminary 87 Our Creed 88 Almanac for the Year 89 Educated Farmers 98 An Acre of Words about Aker 101 Farmer's Library 105 Nine Mistakes 107 Agricultural Societies 108 Shiftless Tricks 111 Electro Culture 114 Single-Crop Farming 117 Improved Breeds of Hogs and Cattle 119 Absorbent Qualities of Flour 122 Portrait of an Anti-Book Farmer 124 Good Breeds of Cows 128 Cutting and curing Grass 131 Country and City 133 Lime upon Wheat 134 Culture of Hops 136 White Clover 138 Plowing Corn 139 Clean out your Cellars 142 When is Haying over? 144 Laying down Land to Grass 145 Theory of Manure 149 Fodder for Cattle 151 The Science of Bad Butter 153 Cincinnati, the Queen City 157 Care of Animals in Winter 161, 243 Winter Nights for Reading 163 Feathers 163 Nail up your Bugs 165 Ashes and their Use 168 Hard Times 170 Gypsum 171 Acclimating a Plow 171 Scour your Plows bright 173 Plow till it is Dry and plow till it is Wet 174 Stirring the Soil 175 Subsoil Plowing 176 Fire-Blight and Winter Killing 177 Winter Talk 179 "Shut your Mouth" 181 Spring Work on the Farm 182 Spring Work in the Garden 185, 292 Fall Work in the Garden 190 Guarding Cherry-trees from Cold 191 Shade Trees 192, 252 A Plea for Health and Floriculture 195 Keeping Young Pigs in Winter 198 Sweet Potatoes 199 Management of Bottom Lands 199 Cultivation of Wheat 202 Pleasures of Horticulture 214 Practical Use of Leaves 215 Spring Work for Public-spirited Men 218 Farmers and Farm Scenes in the West 220 Ornamental Shrubs 224 Gooseberries 227 Pulling off Potato Blossoms 229 Blading and topping Corn 230 Maple-Sugar 231 Lettuce 237 Geological Definitions 238 Draining Wet Lands 240 O dear! shall we ever be done Lying? 242 Deep Planting 245 Corn and Millet for Fodder 245 Seed Saving 246 Rhubarb 248, 286 Peas 250 Hot-beds 253 Original Recipes 254 Cooking Vegetables 256 Farmers, take a Hint 260 Mixing Paint and laying it on 262 Garden Weeds 267 Lucerne 269 Family Government 270 List of Flowers, Seeds, and Fruits 271 Garden Seeds 274 Farmers' Gardens 277 Early Days of Spring 279 Parlor Flowers 280 A Salt Recipe 281 Culture of Celery 282 Sun-flower Seed 290 Rich and Poor Land 294 Getting ready for Winter 295 Esculent Vegetables 297 Field Root Crops 303 Cultivation of Fruit-trees 304 A List of Choice Fruits 316 The Nursery Business 319 The Breeding of Fruits 322 Pruning Orchards 327 Slitting the Bark of Trees 330 Downing's Fruits of America 332 Letter from A. J. Downing 339 Attention to Orchards 344 Wine and Horticulture 346 Do Varieties of Fruit run out? 349 Strawberries 353, 359, 364 Raspberries, Gooseberries, Currants 364 Spring Work in the Orchard 367 Grapes and Grape Vines 372, 373 Autumnal Management of Fruit-trees 374 Pears grafted upon the Apple Stock 376 Seedlings from Budded Peaches 378 Care of Peach-trees 381 Renovating Peach-trees 382 An Apologue or Apple-logue 384 Select List of Apples 385 Origin of some Varieties of Fruit 401 The Quince 403 Cutting and keeping Grafts 404 Frost Blight 405 Seedling Fruits 407 Time for Pruning 410 Plums and their Enemies 413 Root Grafting 417 Blight and Insects 419 Apples for Hogs 424 The Flower Garden 425 Preparation of Seed for Sowing 429 Sowing Flower Seeds--Transplanting 431 Parlor Plants and Flowers in Winter 432 Protecting Plants in Winter 439 To preserve Dahlia Roots 440 Hedges 441 Watering Trees, etc. 443 Labels for Trees 444 Transplanting Evergreens 445 Flowers, Ladies, and Angels 446 Horticultural Curiosities 447 The Corn Crop 451 Potato Crop 460 Potting Garden Plants for Winter Use 468 Mary Howitt's Use of Flowers 469 What are Flowers good for? 470 The Blight in the Pear-tree 471 Progress of Horticulture in Indiana 489 Browne's Poultry Yard 495 Close of the Year 497

LATE PAPERS.

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE APPLE.

THE ADDRESS.

I am to discourse of the apple to an audience, many of whom know much more about it than I do, and all of them full as much. It does not, on that account, follow that I should not speak. What a terrible blow would fall upon all professions if a teacher should be forbidden to speak upon things of which he knew nothing, and to an audience who knew more about them than he! One large part of the duty of a teacher is to remind his hearers of how much they know, and tempt them to a better use of their knowledge. Instruction is one thing, and important in its place; but the inspiration of men to a good use of the things that they already know is far more needed.

First, as to the tree. It is so easy of propagation, that any man who is capable of learning how to raise a crop of corn can learn how to plant, graft or bud, transplant, and prune an apple-tree,--and then eat the apples. It is a thoroughly healthy and hardy tree; and that under more conditions and under greater varieties of stress than perhaps any other tree. It is neither dainty nor dyspeptic. It can bear high feeding and put up with low feeding. It is not subject to gout and scrofula, as plums are; to eruptions and ruptures, as the cherry is; or to apoplexy, as the pear is. The apple-tree may be pampered, and may be rendered effeminate in a degree; but this is by artificial perversion. It is naturally tough as an Indian, patient as an ox, and fruitful as the Jewish Rachel. The apple-tree is among trees what the cow is among domestic animals in northern zones, or what the camel of the Bedouin is.

I have said, with some digressions, that the apple-tree is homely; but it is also hardy, and not only in respect to climate. It is almost indifferent to soil and exposure. We should as soon think of coddling an oak-tree or a chestnut; we should as soon think of shielding from the winter white pine or hemlock, as an apple-tree. If there is a lot too steep for the plow or two rocky for tools, the farmer dedicates it to an apple orchard. Nor do the trees betray his trust. Yet, the apple loves the meadows. It will thrive in sandy loams, and adapt itself to the toughest clay. It will bear as much dryness as a mullein stalk, and as much wet, almost, as a willow. In short, it is a genuine democrat. It can be poor, while it loves to be rich; it can be plain, although it prefers to be ornate; it can be neglected, notwithstanding it welcomes attention. But, whether neglected, abused, or abandoned, it is able to take care of itself, and to be fruitful of excellences. That is what I call being democratic.

The apple-tree is the common people's tree, moreover, because it is the child of every latitude and every longitude on this continent. It will grow in Canada and Maine. It will thrive in Florida and Mexico. It does well on the Atlantic slope; and on the Pacific the apple is portentous. Newton sat in an orchard, and an apple, plumping down on his head, started a train of thought which opened the heavens to us. Had it been in California, the size of the apples there would have saved him the trouble of much thinking thereafter, perhaps, opening the heavens to him, and not to us. Wherever Indian corn will grow, the apple will thrive; and wherever timothy-grass will ripen its seed, the apple will exist fruitfully.

Nor is the tree unworthy of special mention on account of health and longevity. It is subject to fewer diseases than almost any tree of our country. The worms that infest it are more easily destroyed than those upon the currant or the rose. The leaf is subject to blight in so small a degree, that not one farmer in a hundred ever thinks of it. The trunk is seldom winter-killed. It never cracks. It has no trouble, as the cherry does, in unbuckling the old bark and getting rid of it. The borer is the only important enemy; and even this is a trifle, if you compare the labor required to destroy it with the pains which men willingly take to secure a crop of potatoes. Acre for acre, an apple orchard will, on an average of years, produce more than half as many bushels of fruit as a potato-field,--will it not? And yet, in plowing and planting and after-plowing and hoeing and digging, the potato requires at least five times the annual labor which is needed by the apple. An acre of apple-trees can be kept clean of all enemies and diseases with half the labor of once hoeing a crop of potatoes. And if you have borers it is your own fault, and you ought to be bored!

I ought not to omit the good properties of the apple-tree for fuel and cabinet-work. I have for five autumns kept up the bright fire required by the weather in an old-fashioned Franklin fireplace, using apple-wood, procured from old trees pruned or cut up wholly; and, when it is seasoned, I esteem it nearly as good as hickory, fully as good as maple, and far better than seasoned beech. I have also for my best bureau one of apple-wood. It might be mistaken for cherry. It is fine-grained, very hard, solid as mahogany, and grows richer with every year of age.

In Europe, the streets and roads are often shaded by fruit trees, the mulberry and the cherry being preferred. In some parts, the public are allowed to help themselves freely. When the fruit of any tree is to be reserved, a wisp of straw is placed around it, which suffices. Upright-growing apple-trees might be employed, with pears and cherries, in our streets and roads, and by their very number, and their abundance of fruit, might be taken away one motive of pilfering from juvenile hands. He must be a preordained thief who will go miles to steal that which he can get in broad daylight, without reproach, by his door. One way to stop stealing is to give folks enough without it.

The apple comes nearer to universal uses than any other fruit of the world. Is there another that has such a range of season? It begins in July, and a good cellar brings the apple round into July again, yet unshrunk, and in good flavor. It belts the year. What other fruit, except in the tropics, where there is no winter, and where there are successive growths, can do that?

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