I have just gathered this year's crop of persimmons from the single tree of this species in my garden, and it is astonishing the feeling of satisfaction it given one thus to harvest something of ones own growing. It almost makes me wish I were a farmer, and it certainly helps me to understand the latter's joy when the autumn's crops have been safely Zarnered, and why the early settlers in New England inaugurated Thanksgiving Day. Last year when I gathered the first eatable fruit that my tree had produced, and we tried them at breakfast, my wife and I decided that they were by far the most delicious persimmons we had ever tasted. True, they were not very big, but their flavour could only be described as ft for the gods. My mind goes back to the day, just eight years ago, when the tree in my garden was planted. It was a mere sapling then, with a few leaves at the ends of thin straggling branches. Today it is a tree of some 20 feet in height, with branches sufficiently strong to bear the weight of a man, as testified by the fact that the gardener actually trusted himself to them in reaching for the fruit at the top of the tree. For several years no fruit was produced, and then for two or three more seasons only one or two small hard green things that dropped off before—they were ripe. But last year I noticed to my delight that the tree bore a considerable number of nice-looking persimmons, some of which actually turned a beautiful golden orange colour while still on the branches. T picked one, only to ting that it was quite uneatable. I asked the gardener about it, and he told me that they could ripen properly on the tree, or, rather, that the birds would eat them all up as they ripened if I left them there. They should be picked, placed in a bed of ashes of rice straw, and kept in a warm place, if 1 wanted to enjoy eating them. Orders were given that this should be done, and in due course the cook placed on the breakfast table the first-fruits of my garden. Altogether forty persimmons were gathered, comi in very handy at a time when, as a result of the war that was raging round Shanghai, fruit was not easy to procure. Is there any wonder that they tasted so delicious? This year, not only are the persimmons considerably larger, but there are many more or them. I have gathered fifty-four, while one that had ripened early had already been eaten by the bulbuls and magpies, and another partially devoured. The latter I have placed on the food table for the birds, while three more, which are out of reach at the top of the tree, have been left there, and will no doubt be consumed by my bird pensioners in due course. Two or three fruits dropped from the tree of their own accord. This makes a total yield of over sixty persimmons from my tree this Season, or an increase of fifty per cent. over last year's crop. As yet I cannot say anything about the flavour of the persimmons picked this year, since they must first go through the ripening process in 1 have not the slightest fully up to last year's if not better.—A. DE C. S.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.