THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



41 



look much like the common "shrub "of our 

 gardens. There arc several varieties of thi^m. 

 The best variety ripens in the middle of Sep- 

 tember. It then bcfiins to dro)) off, yellow 

 and .soft, very delicious to those who like tliem. 

 There are other varieties rii)eniuR in Octolier, 

 or about the first frosts. Tlieyjare^uot as larjie, 

 nor of as pood a cpialily as the former kind, 

 and for a loiiK time remain (jieen and hard, or 

 turn blackish and become internally afl'eclcd 

 with apparent disease. The flavor of these is 

 inferior, but no doubt they might be improved 

 bj- cultivation. 



The Paw-iiaw, or "Papaw," belongs to the 

 genus yl.sioinui, and to the or(?er Anonack.k. 

 Tout sjiccies are found within the limits of 

 the United States, but there are others within 

 the tropics. — L. S. K., Warwick, Mar. 1, 1!S75. 



^ 



WHEAT AND CHEAT. 



As an Item of interest in tlie furniini; line, we give 

 the foUowinp: of what luislKiiipened tons as a fanner ; 

 Tliree years aj^o we \vm\ t went y aeres in wlieat t liat 

 we seedeil to elover, trettinj; a fair stand of the latter. 

 Last year and tlie year previous we pastured the 

 elover. Unfortiin-ately, last season we were obliged 

 to use our pasture too late, and the eonsequenee was 

 our elover drew out and froze out in the winter, and 

 this spring the erop was entirely gone. We deter- 

 mined, having more ground for plowing than we 

 eould use, to let it lie, grow up to weeds, and what 

 clover might eome, tm-n it under early and re-seed it 

 to wheat and elover, thus losing one year's use of the 

 ground. Instead, however, of growing up to weeds, 

 there eame up as full a erop of cheat as if it had 

 been regularly sown to cheat, and we have just flu- 

 shed mowing and stacking it, and now have in stack 

 over twenty tons of almost entirely pure cheat. We 

 cut it green, and it consequently itiil not shatter out, 

 and made the heaviest hay we have handled for many 

 a year. There is a small quantity of elover with it, 

 hut no weeds, and our ground is as well seeded to 

 clover as we could desire. And now about the cheat. 

 We can readily understand how the seed eould lie in 

 the grouud and germinate under favorable cireum- 

 stauces, but the quantity that thus lay there for three 

 years, and then grew, surprises us. Be it as it may, 

 we have got the eroj), have not lost the year's use of 

 the grovuid and the field is nicely seeded to clover — 

 better, in fact, thiin it was at first. — Pittsfield (III.) 

 Democrat. 



At the hazard of reopening the discussion 

 on this subject, we publish the above, which 

 is going the rounds of the agricultural press 

 again. A simihir case came under our notice 

 about ten years ago. Mr. Thomas Coleman, 

 who then resided on East Orange street, oppo- 

 site "Kramph's Arcade," on one occasion 

 called our attention to a small bed in his back 

 yard which he had sewed in white clover. When 

 we saw it there was little or no white clover 

 visible, but instead thereof a rank crop of 

 cheat. 



From the most relial)le information we have 

 on the subject, we feel pretty confident that 

 neither the wheat nor the white or red clover 

 in the above instances were transformed into 

 clieat, Init rather that their seeds were not 

 clean, and contained a portion of cheat in 

 them. 

 Wheat (2V{(!CT())i), cheat {ISromu.t), and clover 

 (3ViJo/i«)))),arc generieally distinct, too dis- 

 tinct, in our opiition, for any one of them to 

 develop the other. But tliey all have the 

 habit, underfavorable circumstances, of tlirow- 

 ing out a number of stalks from a single seed, 

 and .some interesting experiments have been 

 made in that liiu' within the last year. But 

 we would i>articularly refer the reader to page 

 24, Feb. No. of Tiiic F.vi!MKR^"Stow's E,x- 

 periment " — where 114 plants, producing .r20 

 ears of wheat, were produced, by root division, 

 from a single grain. "We are willing, however, 

 to receive further light upon the subject. 



To PREVENT horses' feet from scaling or 

 cracking in .summer, and enabling the slioes 

 to be carried a longer time witliout injury, 

 the French practice is to coat the hoofs once 

 a week with an ointment composed in equal 

 proportions of soft fat, yellow wax, linseed oil, 

 venous turpentine and Norway tar ; the wax 

 is melted separately before mixing. 



The pe.vches in Frederick county, Md., are said 

 to have sutl'ered some by the severe frosts. Mr. 

 Jackson informs tlie Baltimore Furiiur that of about 

 one hundred buds he examined, thirty were killed. 



OUR LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



Proceedings of the Lancaster County Agri- 

 cultural and Horticultural Society. 



The stated meeting of this as.sociat ion was 

 held in the Orphans' Court lloom, on Monday, 

 the 1st inst. In the abscnec of th(^ President, 

 Ileiny M. Engle was called to the cliair, an<l 

 L)r. P. W. Iliestand (Treasurer) wasappointe<l 

 Secretar)' pro tan. ()wing to the inclemency of 

 the weather, the attendance was not as large 

 as usual. The reading of the minutes being 

 dispensed with, the es.sayi.st aiipointed at last 

 meeting, Casper Ililler, of Conestoga, pro- 

 ceeded to read an essay as follows, on tlie sub- 

 ject of 



OUK ORCHARDS. 



It is a pertinent question to ask. What is the matter 

 with our orchards^ Our aitjiles fail of late years 

 much more in quality than iiKpiantity. Last year if 

 our apples had been fair, we would have had an 

 abundance for honu' consumption, tiut to-day you 

 find hut few of them in market, while their plaee has 

 been filled oy thousands of bushels of line New York 

 8tate apples. 



We have for years past been attributing our fail- 

 ures to climatic changes, brought about by the cut- 

 ting away of the forests; but when we compare 

 weather statistics we cannot jiut our finger on the 

 changes. Another thing that knocks our climatic 

 change theory somewhat wrong, is that we oceasion- 

 ally find an orchard that bears regularly, and brings 

 forth fair fruit. 



The standing rule for planting an orchard is, select 

 a piece or ground that would produce a good crop of 

 corn, and you may hope for success. Then it was 

 expected that the orchard should be cultivated with 

 hoed crops for a series of years — as long as anything 

 would grow. When the ground becomes too much 

 shaded to produce crops, turn to grass, ami, as was 

 too often the case, "let her rip." But, this latter 

 remark I do not desire to enter seriously into the 

 question. Many orchards, cultivated as before said, 

 have regularly received liberal dressings of stable 

 manure and thorough cultivation, and yet they, too, 

 have signally failed. I have mentioned that occasion- 

 ally we find orchards that do well. If such had re- 

 ceived any special treatment we might learn a lesson, 

 and prepare ours in like manner. But we generally 

 find such to have been treated precisel}' like others 

 that have been noted for failures. A very good orchard 

 that I know, is planted on a northeastern exposure, 

 on ground so wet in the spring of the year that it 

 might almost be called a swamp. It never was cul- 

 tivated nor nuinured. Should we therefore plant in a 

 swamp and not cultivate nor manure at all, we 

 would be likely to make sorry looking orchards. 

 These special eases of success are undoubtedly caused 

 by an abundance of natural plant-food in the soil. 

 And might not the question arise, whether by our 

 ordinary course of manuring and erojiping, we do not 

 leave the soil more deficient in the wood and fruit 

 forming elements, than it was at the time of jilantiug ? 



Chemistry has satisfactorily demonstrated, that the 

 alkaline earths found in the ashes of plants and their 

 fruits, must abound in t!iesoil,orgood trees and good 

 fruit cannot be expected. Potash, lime and phosphate 

 of lime, enter largely into the ajiple, pear, jjcaeh and 

 grape, and all virgin soils naturally contain these in a 

 greater or less ttegrec. It is estinuitcd that l^Opouniis 

 of these alkaline earths are taken out of eaeh aere, 

 annually, by a crop of tobacco. Wheat, eorn, pota- 

 toes, trees and fruits all take up a large amimnt of 

 this food, and we need, therefore, not be surpriseil 

 that our apple trees are short lived, and our fruit im- 

 perfect. Stable nuouire, as our own ex))erienee has 

 shown, will not supply in suHicient quantity the alka- 

 line salts of which we robbeil our orehards by injudi- 

 cious erojiping. We ean see eviilenee of this i'rnmthe 

 fact that no orehard ean he sueeessfully raised on tlie 

 site of an olil fine. These losses ean probably be nuide 

 u]> by judicious use of linu' or phosphate of linu', asbes 

 or iiotash, ehareoal, »te. N(\general ride ean be given 

 for the ajtplieation of these sin-eial manures, ^leeause 

 we do not yet know enough about it to lay down a 

 regidar formula. Hut, we might say, as did the dot-- 

 tor, (but. I'll say it in English.) "quantity sultieient." 

 Some soils may want mm-h, others little, and some 

 one kind ami some another. Those who fi-el interested 

 in the quesli<m, should have no diflieulty in solving 

 the proi)lem. 



Our Horticultural periodicals give numerous cases 

 of trees that were made produetive. I will give only 

 a few examples. T\\o pear trei's that hail for years 

 brojight nri good fruit, were made to yield fine fruit, 

 by digging a treneh a few feet from the trees, and 

 filling il with suds mixed with twolmshelsof ehar- 

 cfia! and two |K)unds of potash. A sueeessful grower 

 of the peaeh scrapes the soil from the base of the 

 tree and pounds half a jieck or more of fresh lime 

 around them, old peaeh trees have been renovated 

 by pouring a few quarts of liol lye anmnd them. 



When this im]Kirtant question of nuoiuring is once 

 properly understood, culture f>r no culture beeomes 

 a secondary tpu'stion. 



Then, if a man is situated near a market, he may 



use his orehanl for a garden ; grow vegetables, pota- 

 toes, corn, hiall/nj irooil and fr^iil. Or he may lay 

 down his orehard to grass, as is reeommanded by 

 Thomas .Median, the able editor of the tiiinlnuis' 

 .lloiilhlj/. Kivi' or six years ago he planted an experi- 

 mental orehard of II ft eeii hundred tress — a|ipleR, pears, 

 jieaches, ilierhes and grapes — and from the start put 

 it into grass, and has siiH'C annually taken off over 

 two tons of hay per aere. Those who have seen it 

 pnmouiiee it a niiulel of [lerfeetion. Hut he tells UB 

 lie gives it a lihcral top tlreifiiittff of inamtrf! (umnntly^ 

 anil besides gives his trees a light mulehing of earth 

 taken from dilehes, fenee corners, elc. If trees and 

 plants would generally lloiirish under such a course 

 of Irealmi'iit, we couid adopt it wish profit. Our 

 hillside orchards would no longer \>r subject to have 

 the loose cultivated soil washed away by every heavy 

 shower of rain, and Ihesavingin labor — hoeing, weed- 

 ing, etc., in our grape patches, would be sulliclcni to 

 pay for all needed fertilizers. To 1 lie general farmer, 

 too, the hay crop would he as profilahle as corn or 

 potatoes. When the I rees become tiKi large, the grass 

 could at times he used for pasture, but in general 

 would be more iirolltable to mow and spread over the 

 ground for manure. 



The yellows lu the peach, the blight in the pear, 

 and much of the premature rolling of fruit, are now 

 admitted to be caused by foigi— parasitic plants, in 

 their first stages so small llial they are invisible to 

 the naked eye. Our grand old sniokc-liousc appc of 

 late years rots badly. It is said by those who ought to 

 know, that with a glass sullieienlly jKiwerful, you 

 might noliee a bright colored fungoid plant on tlie 

 skin of the fruit, which in a short time spreads and 

 causes rot. These parasitic plants a|))>ear not to at- 

 tack all varieties of fruit alike. Some are of so robust 

 a constitution as to be able to resist their attacks. 

 But while some varieties are sound in one orchard, 

 they are badly aficcted in another. And this brings 

 the "plant Ibod " question up again. If trees were 

 neither half-starved nor forced into too succulent 

 growth, in short if they were perfectly healthy, would 

 tlu^y not in a great measure be able to resist these 

 enemies ? 



We do not soon find yellows in a wcU-taken-carc-of 

 peaeh orchard, until the trees become exhausted by 

 an excessive erop of fruit. Then these fungoid plants 

 run riot, and in a year or two the orchard will be 

 numbered among the things that are past. This 

 holds the same in the human family. A healthy 

 man man will be apt to live through epidemic and 

 malarious inlluenecs, while the ill-fed, iutem|)erato 

 and weakly will give way. It might be objected to 

 this theory of jilant food, that occasionally in jcars 

 (1873 for instance,) the fruit is unusuallj- fair. But 

 we must bear in mind that fungoid and insect life are 

 sometimes much infiuenced liy certain conditions of 

 the weather. The peculiar dry season of 1872 may 

 have had much to do in preventing the depredatiou 

 of these pests. 



In regard to planting it might be said that in a 

 sandy soil trees eould be planted rather deeper than 

 they stood in the nursery, but in a heavy soil they 

 should be phinled shallow. We have examples of 

 successful orchards in heavy soil, where the trees 

 were planted almost on the surface, the earth being 

 banked uji around them. It must be evident that 

 such an orcliaid would not answer for a market 

 garden; the roots being near the surface, would 

 become fatally injured by deep plowing. Hut, in the 

 sandy soil the roots naturally run deeper, and plowing, 

 at least for a number of years, ean be done without 

 serious injury to the trees. 



In conclusion, I do not flatter myself that I have 

 produced anything new; but if anylhing has been 

 said that will stimulate inquiry, then this rambling 

 essay may not have been written in vain. When we 

 have faithfully done our part of the work, we can 

 console ourselves with the promise that cold and heat 

 summer and winter, seed time and harvest, shall 

 never wholly fail. 



DISCUSSION ON THE OUCII.VRI) QUE.STIOX. 



S. P. EliY, es<i., remarked that the subject 

 of plant-food was certainly an iinportant ele- 

 ment in the growing of (irchard fruits. But 

 from what he had read on the suhjeet there 

 appeared to be agre;it difference of opinion as 

 to whether lime should be put on orchards, 

 and if .so in what manner and ipiantity. It is 

 said by some writers that orchards do not 

 bear because too much lime is used, or that the 

 fruit is not so good as when lime is not used. 

 A friend of his planlcd a peach orchard on 

 entirely new ground, ;ind wasiiuite successful. 

 In the main the hooks agreed with the es.s.ayist. 

 In regard totrenchiiiK some distance from and 

 arouiul the tree, ;uid putting the lime or other 

 fertilizer in, he woiilil suggest that this might 

 hiive an elVeet similar to sliorlening the roots, 

 a plan advocated by some horliculturalists, 

 wliieh, it is claimed, results in furcing out the 

 fruit bud.s and retarding rank growth in the 

 wood and foliage. When we have once dis- 

 covered what plant food is necessary we will 



