Volume 4, Number 6, Whole Number 157

January 23, 1869

Page 4

FARMERS’ CLUB

Onarga Horticultural Society met in the library room on Monday night. The President stated that the subject was Impure Seeds. The Society asked if the evil was not sufficient to call for some legislative action.

Bliss said the best remedy was to grow your own seed. He had expended a large amount of labor on worthless seed, and he had tried the best seed growers, but they would put in old seed.

Owen was willing to pay four times the amount for seed that he knew would grow; what seed he had raised never failed.

Clark-I have had considerable experience in vegetables, and it does not pay as a general thing to plant seeds bought of persons who have no reputation at stake; they will mix old with new seed; besides, the seed is not always true to name. If he planted early cabbages, he wanted them to head before October.

Congdon-every one that raises vegetables for himself of for sale should raise his own seed; and it is a foolish notion some have of raising cabbage seed from stumps, it requires the whole head to make good seed. A man can raise just as good cabbage as he wants by setting out the best heads for seed. It is so with the parsnip. Wild parsnip, by good cultivation, can be made equal to any that grows in three years. There are few seeds that improve by age. Perhaps the melon and cucumber are the only exceptions; melon seed four years old, if well taken care of, will have much less vine and more fruit. Should be very careful in selecting plants for seed. If you plant onion seed from scullions, you’ll reap scullions.

Clark said it was impossible to raise two kinds of seed on one piece of ground, as the bees would carry the pollen from one plant to another. One of the members should raise but one variety of cabbage at a time; other varieties should be raised in different localities.

Bliss-Will bees mix cabbage?

Clark-They will mix anything that has pollen.

Pinney-Varieties of beets should be raised at some distance apart.

Hall-Always select a perfect, medium-sized beet or turnip for seed.

Owen-Beet seed should not be raised in the same ground that the beets grew on the season previous.

Pinney fully indorsed this position.

Congdon said this was not so with all plants. Those that derived the most of their nutriment from the air could be raised in the same ground for any length of time.

It was proposed that the Society raise their own seed, and, owing to the lateness of the hour, further sicussion on the subject was posponed till Monday night. A resolution was adopted, and a committee appointed to bring in a full report of the doings of the Society for the past year, the report to emrace a description of the soil and advantages this county offers for frut culture.

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ORNAMENTAL EVERGREEN TREES

For ornamenting the ground around your dwelling house you of course want the hardiest and handsomest evergreen trees and shrubs that can be had. And our list of evergreens is now so large on the catalgues of our nurserymen, that many persons are at a loss to know which of them all to choose. But as the result of all my reading and observation, I would prefer, and recommend the following:

1. Junipers - The Junipers are very pretty little trees, and very desirable from their occupying so small a space of ground. There are various Junipers, such as the Chinese, English, Irish and Swedish have the most elegant forms and colors, and are the hardiest for enduring our winters’ cold.
2. Arbor Vitaes - The Arbor Vitae trees are a good deal larger every way than the Juniper trees. And here again we have different varieties, as for example the Chinese arbor vitae, an elegant small tree with light green foliage; the Siberian arbor vitae, a beautiful pyramidal and compact tree that retains its dark green foliage through the winter; our American arbor vitae, the Golden arbor vitae, &c. The Golden-leaved arbor vitae and the Chinese are the handsomest, but the Chinese is rather tender expect in wrd and closely confined yards and gardens.
3. Hemlocks and Spruces - If you have room enough and want still larger evergreen trees to beautify your home-stead grounds, plant out common American Hemlock and our White, Red and Black Spruce trees, as they are very handy and also hadsomer than most if not all of the evergreens trees obtained from foreign climes. And to these you may add if you wish, our American Silver Fir tree with broad silvery foliage, and our American Balsam Fir, with deep green foliage, equally beautiful.

-Northwestern Farmer