The Book of Pears and Plums Part 8

Apply by a syringe or sprayer. Where the foliage is young follow the spraying by syringing half-an-hour afterwards" (Castle). Tobacco water made as follows is also a good remedy: "Pour soft boiling water at the rate 1 gallon to 2 ozs. of the strongest s.h.a.g tobacco, allow it to stand till cool. Its efficacy is increased by dissolving 2 ozs. of soft soap in each gallon at the time it is poured on the tobacco" (Wright). This mixture may be applied with some force by the garden engine. The great point is to syringe or paint with one of these remedies as soon as the evil is perceived.

2. RED GRUB is often very injurious. The moth measures about inch across, the caterpillars are pale red, with brown neck and black head. They pierce and drop with the fruit, seek shelter in the bark, where they spin a coc.o.o.n and pa.s.s the winter. If the trees have been sc.r.a.ped, then washed with a mixture of lime and soot, paraffin and grease (see No. III. pears), or sprayed before the buds open with Bordeaux mixture (see No. II.), and also afterwards, they probably will not suffer. Lime and soot scattered over the ground under the trees will also be useful. If the plums are attacked, collect all fallen fruits and shake the trees every morning, burn the fruits affected or give them to the pigs.

3. The PLUM SAWFLY also attacks the fruit, laying an egg in the calyx of each flower. The grub is whitish, with brown head. It enters the fruits, feeds on the stone, and causes them to drop. A spraying of the modified mixture No. II. after the fruit has set would be useful, but as the grub pupates in the soil, lime and soot will again be serviceable. Collect and destroy fallen fruit daily.

4. RED SPIDER, a spinning mite, is a great pest in dry summers.

It must be checked by the free use of the syringe or water engine as soon as seen. Yellow spots on the leaves are a proof of its presence.

Mix 4 gallons of soft soap solution with lb. of flowers of sulphur; apply with syringe. Strong soap-suds, or even clear water forcibly given are better than nothing.

FUNGOID ATTACKS injure the trees. The Bordeaux mixture (No.

II.) is the best preventive and remedy if there are any signs of fungus.

Cut away all diseased twigs, boughs and branches, and burn them. Fungus spores are scattered by the wind and spread the disease. Drench the trunk and bark in winter with this mixture before the buds swell. Care must be taken not to apply the mixture in full strength to tender leaves and buds.

For the fungus mildew, half an ounce of sulphide of pota.s.sium mixed in a gallon of water and applied by a syringe is recommended (Wright).

Finely-powdered quick-lime mixed with sulphur (double the quant.i.ty of the former), and distributed by a special bellows (see before, page 39), is also said to be a good remedy.

ORCHARD HOUSE

For dimensions see under pears. Plums are best in pots or tubs, as they can be taken out when at rest. They are very liable to attacks from aphides, but the insecticide for pears in pots is good also for plums.

The house must be fumigated, and the trees syringed on the least appearance of aphis. Place the pots on bricks (_v._ pears). When growth is being started the temperature should be from 45 at night to 50 by day. Soft or tepid water should be given freely. Fumigate again just before the flowers come out. As the buds increase, raise the temperature 5 to 10 and syringe once or twice a day with tepid water. But a dry atmosphere is important while the trees are in flower. Admit air as well as bees in the forenoon, and pa.s.s a camel-hair or light brush over the flowers about the middle of the day. When the fruit is set, syringe at least once a day; if the weather is hot, twice or even three times a day, and give all the air possible. Thin the fruits (if the crop is large) with scissors; mulch and feed with weak liquid manure (see pears). The shoots must be pinched if the trees are of any age, at the fifth or sixth leaf. Not much heat is needed generally, but when the stoning period is pa.s.sed, the ripening process may be hastened by a higher temperature. The house may be closed at an earlier hour if necessary. Avoid extremes. As the fruits ripen, cease gradually to syringe, but keep the house moist by sprinkling water over the paths, etc. Choose the choicest dessert sorts: Early Transparent, Dennistoun's Superb, July Greengage, Jefferson, Count Althann, Coe's Golden Drop, Guthrie's Late Green, Angelina Burdett, Bryanstone Gage, and Golden Transparent; and if darker colours are desired: Early Prolific, Belgian Purple and Czar. Bryanston Gage was recommended by the R.H.S. in 1892, and is a very richly-flavoured dessert variety, but is not a good cropper in the open, and needs a wall or house.

DAMSONS

are often very valuable, and also make good outside hedges. Bradley's "King of the Damsons" is the best. The fruit is large, the tree "free-cropping, bushy, vigorous, erect." R. September 20. Frogmore Prolific (earlier) is also large and free-bearing. R. September 9. Both these are late. Mirabelle and Rivers' Early Damson are August damsons, small, the former vigorous.

BULLACES

Shepherd's is the best, and hangs late on the tree. A few trees in a large garden are useful. R. September 20.

IMPORTANT POINTS

Good sorts on suitable stocks in good soil and proper aspect; lime in the soil, added or otherwise; winter washing or spraying; thinning fruit; early training; moderate pruning; root-pruning in very strong soils; lifting in shallow soils; liquid and other manures; immediate action if aphides or red spider appear.

DRYING BY EVAPORATION

This important subject cannot be treated here at length. In a hot season with abundant crops, good results may be obtained with some prospect of profit. But the apparatus has been expensive. Mr Udale's Report to the Worcestershire _C.C._ on dried fruits, vegetables and herbs, with the article in _Journal of R.H.S._, vol. xxvi., part ii., should be consulted, and "Fruit Preserving," by R.L.C., in Watson, vol. v.

Thick-skinned plums, _e.g._, Czar, Prince Englebert, Diamond and Monarch are best for the purpose. Plums placed on trays, dried in a very slow oven, and allowed to cool several times, are often equal to French prunes.

BOTTLING

This is a simple and most useful process. Plums well bottled will last for years. Gather clean and dry fruit before it is quite ripe, that the heat may not crack the plums. Remove the stalks and pack closely in bottles not over 11 inches high, without bruising, up to shoulder of bottle. Provide a boiler a foot deep; place hay or canvas at the bottom, then put the bottles in the boiler with hay or canvas around them to prevent fracture. Now fill the boiler up to the necks of the bottles, and place it on a slow fire. Heat very gradually until the water is at boiling point. Then take each bottle out with a cloth, fill with boiling water kept close at hand, and cover _while boiling_ with air-tight stoppers. Another method is to fill the bottles nearly full with cold water or thin syrup, and boil for fifteen minutes. Messrs De Luca have received silver and bronze medals from the R.H.S. for self-closing bottles now sold by Messrs Abbott of Southall, near London. Their method is as follows: "Pour in water or cold thin syrup (one tablespoonful of crystalised cane-sugar to the pint) sufficient to cover the fruit.

Adjust the indiarubber in the groove made for it on neck of the bottle, place the disc on it, and _lightly_ screw down the outer ring. (Steam must be allowed to escape.) Boil as before for twenty minutes; take out each bottle, and at once screw the outer ring as tightly as possible.

Leave bottles until cold. Next day examine by uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the outer ring, and try whether the disc is firmly fastened down. If so, replace the ring, screw down tightly and store away in a cool place, standing them upright. The bottles by having new discs and indiarubber rings may be frequently used."

The Rev. W. Wilks, secretary of the R.H.S., recommends pears, especially Pitmaston D., as suitable for bottling. "Bottled it is delicious." He thinks fifteen minutes from the time the water boils sufficient for plums. Messrs De Luca mention an hour as the time for pears.

Messrs Lee & Co. of 19 Knightrider St., Maidstone, have received medals from the R.H.S. and others for their fruit bottling apparatus and bottled fruit.

They supply a patent economic fruit bottling apparatus at 21s. A thermometer at the side records the temperature of the bottles and of their contents. The following is the method given in the _Journal of the R.H.S._

"The fruit must, of course, be fresh and good and the bottles clean. The fruit is first packed into the bottles, which are then filled up to the neck with cold water, or if preferred, with thin syrup made by dissolving lb. of loaf-sugar in hot water and leaving it to cool.

The bottles are then put into the cooking pot where they must remain for certainly not less than two hours at a temperature of between a minimum of 145 degrees and a maximum of 160 degrees. This low sterilising temperature being maintained for two, three, or four hours will destroy all germs without cooking the fruit, and is the great secret of successful bottling. No actual harm is done by the heat rising above 160 degrees, but if it does the fruit will probably burst, lose its shape, and not look so nice. Vegetables may be preserved in exactly the same way, but they must be done twice over with an interval of twenty-four hours to allow of their becoming quite cold. Jams and fruit jellies can be preserved fresh and good for years in the same way."

Success in bottling and preserving fruit depends chiefly on two points: (1) The destruction of every germ of mildew, etc., by keeping the bottles at a certain temperature for a certain time; (2) the absolute prevention of any possible re-entry of air into the bottles afterwards.

The bottles must be hermetically sealed while in the steam or standing in almost boiling water (see _Journal R.H.S._, vol. xxvi. part iii. p.

365).

BOTTLING OR CANNING IN SYRUP.--This is done by boiling together at the rate of 3 lbs. of cane-sugar to 1 quart of water and the white of 1 egg; pour the fruit whole into the syrup while boiling, and continue to boil together for only a few minutes, then pour into bottles or cans, and stopper or seal air-tight immediately whilst boiling. Pears may be preserved in the same way. Cheal, _Journal of R.H.S._, vol. xxi. 1.

PLUM JAM makes a rich preserve. Take equal quant.i.ties of fruit and cane-sugar; boil quickly half to three-quarters of an hour, then put into hot jars and cover well at once. Exclude the air as much as possible. The colour of the flesh is said to make a difference in the sale. Red jam is usually preferred, but greengage is also popular. Coe's Golden Drop or Autumn Compote (September, hardy, fairly productive, but the fruit often splits) are good for yellow ("Amber"--Dr Hogg) jam; Belle de Septembre (September, "a good late cooking variety," good bearer, but fruit p.r.o.ne to split) for crimson colour. Free-stones are better than cling-stones. The following are free-stones: Bittern, Coe's Late Red ("fruit small, good bearer, a very useful late cooking plum"), Early Orleans, Early Transparent Gage, Old Greengage, Orleans, Oullin's Golden Gage, Red Magnum Bonum, Comte d'Althann, Victoria. The following are nearly so: Early Prolific, Czar, c.o.x's Emperor, Jefferson.

Belle de Septembre is a cling-stone. Damsons make good jam, the colour being a dark rich red.

PLUM JELLY

Plums are rich in "vegetable jelly." 1. Boil alone for half-an-hour, then strain the juice through a fine sieve or cloth; add 2 lbs. of cane-sugar to each quart of juice, boil again for twenty minutes, pour into jars and gla.s.ses, cover at once. A firm, clear and bright jelly should result (Watson).

2. "During the preserving season I generally have a few pots of jelly made from each pan of preserves without spoiling my jams. I make currant, gooseberry, and plum jelly this way.

"For all common preserves I allow of a pound of loaf-sugar to each pound of fruit. The sugar must be broken small. Put the fruit and sugar into your pan, let the sugar melt, then boil quickly for twenty to thirty minutes. Skim carefully, take the pan off the fire, take from it three or four cupfuls of juice, or as much as you think can be spared without making your jam dry. Strain the juice through a small gravy sieve into small jars. This will be found to jelly well. In this way a nice stock of jelly can be procured, and no fruit is wasted." (From Weldon's "Menu Cookery Book," 1s., published by Weldon, 31 Southampton Street, Strand.)

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The dates refer to the time when the fruits were "ready" (ripe, fit for gathering) at the Chiswick Garden of the R.H.S.

[10] From Watson, vol. v. p. 369.

[11] For many useful details see Watson, vol. v.

CHERRIES

It is useless to plant cherries unless the fruit can be protected from the birds. The cost of "keeping" a few trees would absorb all profit. In planting for sale, select two or three varieties only; and these should come in together, if possible, to lessen the cost of "keep." They should be intermingled, for reasons already mentioned (see pears, p. 12).

Cherries like a deep, mellow, and rather sandy soil, but they also thrive on a good loam lying on chalk. Stiff moist soils and dry gravelly soils are not suitable. The trees require much moisture, especially sorts with large leaves, such as the Bigarreau and Heart Cherries. Plant varieties to suit the soil. Inquire carefully what sorts do best in your neighbourhood. Cherries do well in open ground, not shaded nor in a valley. They prefer a south aspect, but Morellos thrive on a north wall.

Kentish and Late Duke might also be tried there. Plant as you would pears or plums. Protect your trees from rabbits by wire, and from cattle by "cradles," 6 feet high at least,[12] or iron guards. Cattle fed on cake are useful in cherry orchards, and improve the produce.

CHERRIES FOR EATING, recommended by R.H.S. in 1892, are:--