L.H. Bailey on Pruning

Of all the operations connected with horticulture, pruning, shaping, and training bring the person into closest contact and sympathy with the plant. One directs and cares for the plant tenderly and thoughtfully, working out his ideas as he would in the training and guiding of a child. There are some persons, to be sure, who cannot feel this sympathetic contact with a plant: they are the ones who, if they prune at all, use an axe or machete or a corn-knife. If a person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion. It is a pleasure to till the soil and to smell the fresh crumbly earth, but the earth does not grow; it is still a clod. The plant responds to every affectionate touch. - L.H. Bailey, The Pruning Manual

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Storing and Saving Seeds

    To keep seeds is to prevent germination and at the same time to preserve the life of the seed.

    Seeds should be thoroughly ripe and dry before they are stored. Those of pulpy fruits are removed and cleaned. If the seed-vessels are dry and hard, seeds may be left in them till sowing time, but usually they are removed.

    Hard seeds, as of trees and nuts, may be buried. Most seeds, however, are stored dry in paper bags or boxes in a cool dry room. The receptacles should be tight to keep out weevils; if there are any signs of bug work, a little bisulfide of carbon may be poured in the receptacle, and the vapor of it will destroy animal life. This material is inflammable, and it should be kept away from flames.

If seeds at storing time are moist and the weather is damp, they may be lightly kiln-dried before put away for winter. Rarely are dry seeds injured by freezing. Seedsmen sometimes keep large and more or less fleshy seeds, as musas, in fine dry sawdust, chaff or other material that will insure equable conditions and prevent too great desiccation. -L.H. Bailey, The Nursery Manual, 1920

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Pumpkins and Squashes-What's the Difference?

Image via Wikipedia    G. W. C. B., Baltimore, Maryland, writes: "In some sections of country pumpkins, or at least such as are recognized as such in other sections are called squashes and then again in other sections this order of recognition is exactly reversed. Will you please define the difference between pumpkins and squashes, so we novices can make the distinction also."

    We submitted your inquiry to Prof. L. H. Bailey of Cornell University, who kindly replies as follows:

It is impossible to give any distinctions between pumpkins and squashes because the vernacular names are used very indiscriminately. Ordinarily, what people in Europe call pumpkins are what we call squashes. Perhaps I can best answer by saying that there are three types of pumpkin-like plants which we grow. One type is characterized by a soft, round stem to the fruit, and to this type belong the true squashes, like the Hubbard, Boston Marrow, Turban, Mammoth Chili, and the like. This species is Cucurbita maxima. Another type is characterized by a very hard and deep-five-cornered stem, and this includes the true field pumpkins which are used so much for stock and for pies. To this type also belong the summer bush squashes like the Crookneck, and scallop varieties. This type is Cucurbita Pepo. This third type is characterized by a rather firm, cylindrical stem which has a large expansion where it joins the fruit and it includes the Cushaw, Canada Crookneck and Japan Crookneck types. This type is Cucurbita moschata. -L. H. Bailey (From "Gardening, Vol. IV, 1896)

The Garden Guru: Give crotons a place in the sun

The Garden Guru: Give crotons a place in the sun

Almost 80 years ago, in his revered Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, Liberty Hyde Bailey referred to crotons as coming in an "almost endless variety." They were popular conservatory plants way back then, but now we grow them on patios and balconies, in soil in our landscape beds, and indoors in pots, just as our great-grandmas did. We're surrounded by crotons, and the list of varieties has grown exponentially. They're everywhere.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/08/3348049/the-garden-guru-give-crotons-a.html#tvg#ixzz1YyqmDrpj

Ten Things to Learn From An Apple

I like to go into the cellar at night with a lantern and pick apples from this box and that — plump and big and round — and eat them where I stand. They are crisp and cool, and the flesh snaps when I bite it and the juice is as fresh as the water from a spring. There are many kinds of them, each kind known by its own name, and some are red and some are green, some are round and some are long some are good and some are poor.

1. How much of the apple is occupied by the core?

2. How many parts or compartments are there in the core ?

3. How many seeds are there in each part ?

4. Which way do the seeds point ?

5. Are the seeds attached or joined to any part of the core? Explain.

     6. What do you see in the blossom end of the apple?

     7. What do you see in the opposite end?

8. Is there any connection between the blossom end and the core?

9. Find a wormy apple and see if you can make out where the worm left the apple. Perhaps you can make a drawing. To do this, cut the apple in two. Press the cut surface on a piece of paper. When the apple is removed you can trace out the marks.

10. When you hold an apple in your hand, see which way it looks to be bigger—lengthwise or crosswise. Then cut it in two lengthwise, measure it each way, and see which diameter is the greater.
-L.H. Bailey, An Apple Twig and An Apple, 1904

THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE

Image via Wikipedia   Finally the apple is ripe, a fair goodly object joyous in the sun, inviting to every sense. Hanging amidst its foliage, bending the twig with its weight, it is at once a pattern in good shape, perfect in configuration, in sheen beyond imitation, in fragrance the very affluence of all choice clean growth, its surface spread with a bloom often so delicate that the unsympathetic see it not; and yet the rains do not spoil it.

The apple must be picked. Do not let it fall. Probably it is over-ripe when it falls; the hold is loosened; its time is up. Wormy apples may fall before they are ripe; the worm injury, if it begins early, causes them to ripen prematurely. A premature apple is not a good apple, albeit the small boy relishes it but only because he may get his apple earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are abundant, the boy does not choose the wormy one.

Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. It is ever so much better than to pick it from a box on the market or out of a quart-can in the ice-chest. You will feel some sense of responsibility when you pick it, some reaction of relationship to its origin. We know that we understand folks better when we see them at home. L.H. Bailey- The Apple Tree, 1922