THE WISCONSIN FARMER.                                 
          400


  Next to onions, perhaps before it, is to be might be extended from the
middle of August
placed by the Mexicans chile (red pepper.) to the middle of November. But
it wants men
This is eaten green and ripe, and at nearly who have the will and know how
to develope
every meal. I have seen a man eat a half pint the soil. The mines would then
take care of
of green, full grown peppers at one meal of l themselves.
bread and chile.                               Secondly, it wants seeds and
fruits. You
  But the country has its pests. In early i boast of apples named by the
thousands;
Spring it swarms with black birds, which plums, peaches, cherries and apricots
in large
prey upon almost every herb which springs catalogues; small fruits in almost
countless
out of the ground. To these succeed bugs l varieties. Here there is not a
blackberry nor
and worms. The worst pest of the gardener! a mulberry in all New Mexico,
to my knowl-
is the plant louse, and especially the one edge. There is a small red raspberry
growing
which infests the brassica (cabbage) tribe, on the mountains. No strawberries,
no cur-
and often destroys a whole plantation in a rants, in fact, nothing which
the inhabitants
few days. Next to these is a chinche, an ani- of Yankee land consider, not
luxuries, but
mal when fnll grown three-fourths of an inch necessaries, of life, and every
summer com-
long, and one-third as broad as long. These forts.
infest the vines. By them I lost all my choice  I can think of nothing which
a humanita-
winter squashes, and my cucumbers were nian could do which would conduce
so much
badly injured. They committed their depre- to the comfort and well-being
of New Mexico,
dations in Jnne, and by withholding the seeds as the introduction of American
apples. (no
until after the ground has given a crop of fear of tender vtrieties,) plums,
cherries,



early peas, the vines would escape their dep-
redations, as I see is the case with late plant-
ed vines. The larvae of a red-spotted bug, a
little larger than the half of the largest pea,
does great damage to the bean crop by eating
the leaves and thus destroying the plants.
Early planting is the surest remedy against
these. Wheat has no enemy but the black
bird, which eats off the plants in the Spring,
and if properly watered is a enre crop. It
may be cut in May, in time to plant corn on
the same ground, though it is seldom done.
Corn meets with two difficulties. The first is in
getting up after planting, and the second is
the worm in the ear. The first may be reme-
died by care, and for the second I know of no
remedy, as there are no birds to take the
worms before they enter the ear.
  This country, abounding in mines as rich
as California, wants people-Yankee people in
the valleys, with Yankee tools to make the soil,
rich and inexhaustible as the Nile, produce
what it can. Cotton grows well, and ripens a
full crop. Rice would grow as well, and espe-
cially the upland variety. Sorghum ripens



its seed in August, anu Loe grmuulng De-wu



ipeaches and pears in varieties, with all the
small fruits, blackberries, raspberries, cur-
rants, high bush cranberries and strawber-
ries, all of which I believe would flourish
finely, as they can be supplied with any
amount of water. The locusts, maples, and
white willow would be valuable as timber
trees, and no time should be lost in their in-
troduction; so the walnut, hickory or pecan,
and the butternut, would thrive luxuriently
if introduced. None of these are here. Roses
and flowering shrubs are strangers, and only
the first is ever seen. The Mexican has sel-
dom planted a vine, and a tree, never. There
is a fig tree in Mesilla, of two summers'
growth, which is twelve feet high, and four
inches in diameter two feet from the ground,
yet nobody plants the fig, even for its fruit.
  I have already written to my friends of the
Rook Terrace Nursery to prepare me some-
thing of all their varieties, which I propose
receiving by mail to experiment with.
                            J. G. KNAPP.
 MauLLA, Aug. 14, 18t3.

 The cultivation of fruits is characteristic of
 a..1 niiAse ,neni alone.



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