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QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Radish — 

 Poor Crop, 



Fungicide. 



Agrricultural 

 Discovery. 



A. All beans will rust under conditions of damp atmosphere. The 

 disease, as it is called, is a fungous growth, which may be partially routed 

 by the application of Bordeaux mixture, but it must not be applied to 

 marketable beans 



761. Q. I have a patch of radish growing from a remnant of your seed 

 left over from last year, when the style of the roots were perfect, but this 

 year the same lot of seed produces roots of all shapes. 



A. This will sometimes happen, and is a consequence of field conditions 

 or local influence ; each case has its own explanation. We cannot be held 

 responsible for these variabilities. 



762. Q. What is the best fungicide? 

 A, Bordeaux mixture, by all odds. Any one can make it and apply it. 



When a pump or syringe cannot be had, it can be dashed on the plants 

 with a broom dipped repeatedly in a bucket. 



763. Q. What is the latest agricultural discovery? 

 A. That the roots of the leguminous family develop corpuscles which 



absorb nitrogen from the air and thus enrich the soil for the feeding of 

 succeeding crops. The eflFect of leguminous plants is not new, but the 

 manner of their storage of nitrogen is a new discovery, first announced in 

 1886 by Professor Hollriegel. 

 Green Crops. 764. Q. Where I came from, in Germany, the soil of whole districts 

 has been raised from poverty to fertility by plowing under green crops of 

 lupines. Why is it not done in parts of Virginia? 



A. Because the lupine will not thrive in Virginia for want of sufficient 

 moisture in the air and soil. Try cow peas, which will do perfectly well. 



765. Q. Is not cauliflower an uncertain crop ? 

 A. Sometimes, but not always ; for localities are known where it is 



uniformly a success — so much so that three and four fine crops can be 

 successively grown on the same field, while, curious to say, other fields 

 not far distant and apparently of same character and quality prove to be 

 not adapted to the crop. A salt atmosphere is particularly favorable to 

 the perfection of cauliflower, but in itself is no assurance of success ; 

 favorable soil is an equal necessity. These two are not all, for supple- 

 mental to them must be a moist, cool atmosphere during the heading sea- 

 son. It is easy to grow cauliflower leaves — they will grow on any cab- 

 bage soil — but to produce good heads of cauliflowers more is required than 

 pertains to the most famous cabbage-growing sections. 



766. Q. Why are more sports found in a poor crop of cantaloupes or 

 watermelons than in a good crop, both good and poor patches grown from 

 seed out of the same package ? 



A. The seed being the same, the unfavorable circumstances producing 

 the poor crop, which circumstances may have been too early or too late 

 planting, want of moisture, want of fertility, insect attack or fungous 

 growth, are the causes of a variation of uneven growth of vine, unequal 

 development of fruit, all resulting in a variation of shape, flavor, or other 

 usual or normal qualities. 



Cauliflower. 



Cantaloupes. 



