Chapter 30

Chapter 30
pages 162 - 166

SHADE-TREES, FRUIT-TREES, AND SMALL FRUITS.

     Peoria is not so well supplied with shade-trees as it ought to be. This is mainly owing to two reasons: 1st We have generally been cursed with ignorant engineers, who, in grading the streets, in nearly all cases, took the sidewalks down, when they would have been better as nature made them, and thus many trees were destroyed, after we had waited years for them to grow. 2d. Our first shade-trees were generally the black locust, which had always been a thrifty and healthy tree; and they grew remarkably well a few years, but lately we can not raise them at all. I had on my premises, I suppose, a hundred, all of which were destroyed by worms. Since that several other kinds of trees have been found to succeed well; but I believe the favorite, at this time, is the soft maple. The hard or sugar maple makes a beautiful tree, but where the land is sandy it is a slow grower. The silver poplar is a fast grower, and a handsome tree; but it sprouts as badly as the black locust, and some times the same or a similar worm attacks it. The honey locust is not attacked by the borers, and it is a hardy, thrifty tree.
     Every man of taste desires a small garden and orchard about his house, if he has ground enough for that purpose. Every part of our soil is well adapted for this purpose, but that on the bluff is the best. The top soil is good enough any where, but there is a portion of the city based on clean, dry sand: fruit-trees of no kind do so well here as where the foundation is clay. The trees when young will do well enough where there is sand below, but when the roots have penetrated into the sand, they become sickly, and some times die. Perhaps in this statement I should except pears. I am inclined to think they will do better here than in the black, rich prairie. They are not subject to the blight here as they are there. Some years ago, when the blight was fatal in some neighborhoods, we had but very little of it, and, for twelve or fifteen years, I have not had a case of it. I would therefore say that pears succeed remarkably well in Peoria.
     Apples do well on the bluff, but only tolerably well below. Like other parts of the state, we have a kind of worm, called borers, in the trees, and a different kind that eats into the fruit; yet we raise a considerable quantity of excellent apples.
     Plum-trees do not generally do well. Some do not grow well in our soil, and others are destroyed by the worm called curculio. Often the aphides, or tree-lice, injure the trees, but the borer never does. Perhaps I ought to except out of this general condemnation the greengage plum. It generally grows well, and bears well, but it some times suffers from cold.
     Peaches, apricots and nectarines are not worth raising here. The soil is congenial to them, but the peaches are constantly preyed upon by the borers, and all are liable to be frozen to death, any cold winter; and when the weather is not cold enough to kill the trees, it will some times kill the fruit in the bud, so that, although the trees will live, and grow in the spring, they will not bloom, and some times the late spring frost kills them in the bloom. I have, however, once seen fine apricots and nectarines grow in this city; and I have several times seen fine crops of peaches here. The failures, however, have been so great that all, so far as I know, have quit trying to raise apricots and nectarines. A few peach-trees are still cultivated, and, when they do bear, bear well.
     Quinces have been pronounced a failure here; but I think it is owing to a mistake in bringing them from the North in stead of from the South. An impression prevails that our climate is too cold for them. My opinion is that it is not the cold of winter that injures and some times kills our quince-trees, but the dry, hot weather of August and July. My first quince-trees were from the North, and they grew badly, and bore no fruit. Those I have now are from the South, and, though they do not do well, they do better than the others did. I now get some fruit, and hope we will yet get a kind that will do well,
     Cherries, except the morellos and the early Richmond (called by some early May), have proved a perfect failure, All kinds grow well a while, but some will die before they bear, while others will bear a year or two and then die. The morello is healthy, and leaves very well, and the fruit is generally perfect. The fungus or black smut on the twigs, that has ruined the morello cherries in Maryland and Pennsylvania, is unknown in Illinois. The early Richmond is always healthy, and bears full every year. No one who has a rod of vacant ground should be without a tree of this kind. Any man who has a morello tree can graft it with this kind. There is a prejudice against this, and some nurserymen deny grafting on morellos: but I presume they all do it, for all the trees of this kind, that I have seen, send up morello sprouts. This, in fact, is the greatest objection to them, but it is not insuperable; it only requires to cut them off twice a year—in April with a grubbing-hoe, just under the surface, and in July with a scythe, as low as convenient.
     Grapes, of the American kinds, generally do well in our city. Some times the Isabella and Catawba need protection from the cold, but they generally can bear our winters without covering. When they do not get killed, they bear very fine fruit. They are seldom affected by any disease, such as the mildew or rot. There are several new hardy kinds, that are said never to need covering in this place. I apprehend no European kind would succeed here. I once planted the seeds of a very fine grape from Spain. They grew, but did no good. After looking sickly for two or three years, they all died, without ever have borne a grape.
     The small fruits, such as currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and strawberries, succeed well, in every part of the city and neighborhood; but the currants, in my opinion, do better on the bluff, and the gooseberries on the sandy land below. The mildew, that is so fatal to the latter in the black, rich prairies, has never injured mine, in the sandy land. I have gooseberry bushes that are more than twenty years old, that have borne full every year for twenty years, without having been mildewed once. 1 have been told, however, that cuttings taken from my bushes to richer and moister lands have proved subject to mildew. For some reason, that I can not explain, raspberries formerly did well in my garden, but finally all died out. When mine first began to die, those of my neighbor, Mr. Voris, were healthy; but after a while his died also. Last spring I procured and planted others, and will soon see whether my land has permanently become incapable of bearing that kind of fruit. Blackberries do well in Illinois generally, but not in the sandy parts of the City of Peoria. The above fact with regard to raspberries is not new in the science of vegetation. A species of grass or weed will some times overrun a piece of ground, and keep possession of it for several years, and then, without any seeming cause, disappear.

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