MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 371 



some twelve or fifteen best sorts of apples are needed; for market use, 

 two or three winter kinds alone would result in more profit and bet- 

 ter results than if a larger list were set out. 



A. H. Geiesa, Lawrence, Kas. 



A California Brush Rake. 



Various devices have been used for clearing the trimmings and 

 brush out of the vineyards and orchards after pruning. This is a big 

 job on large fruit plantations, and, sometimes, a costly one for lack 

 of the right tools. Some farmers use a hay rake; others use a culti- 

 vator widened out, and with most of the teeth removed, and others 

 haul a long pole lengthwise of the rows, scratching or pushing the 

 brash together. In California this work of taking out brush is very 

 mostly. The prunings are heavier than in Eastern orchards, and there 

 are vast tracts of ground to be gone over. In a country where the 

 greatest expense is in hand labor, and where every device for utilizing 

 horse-power is adopted, it is not strange that inventors have tried to 

 <solve the brush-raking problem. Mr. W. C. Anderson, of San Jose, 

 has invented a brush rake. It is made of oak or hickory, with teeth 

 18 inches long, and attached directly to the shafts. A slatted fender 

 or guard hangs from the shafts on hinges so that the ends drag on the 

 ground between the teeth. The fender, of course, rises as brush is 

 gathered. It keeps the brush in compact shape, and cleans the rake 

 of brush while dumping. There is a lever on the rake, and, by lifting 

 on ii, the rake is raised, and the fender cleans ofif the brush from the 

 teeth, and then rides over the pile. — Rural ^New Yorker. 



Fertilizing Orchards. 



It is a very general practice to let orchards take care of themselves 

 as soon as they have been brought to the bearing stage, and there is 

 little doubt but that this is the cause of so many profitless acres in 

 fruit, scattered throughout the Central and Western States. It is a 

 very simple matter to understand that orchards must be fertilized for 

 precisely the same reasons that the wheat or corn fields are fertilized. 

 Cropping removes potash, nitrogen, etc., in apples and other fruits just 

 as it does in cereals or root crops. But this is not the only reason. 

 In soils being constantly worked with the plow, harrow or cultivator 

 and other implements the natural store of plant-food in the soil is 

 constantly taking available forms, manures are worked into the soil at 



