184 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Pepper 

 Plants. ■ 



Com, 

 Early 

 Cultivation. 



Vitality of 



Cabbage 



Seed. 



Onion 



Sets 

 Weights. 



A. The Flint sorts are the quickest to sprout and the most reliable. 

 The softer the variety the greater the possibility of decay. The pop 

 corns may be taken as representative of the hardier sorts. 



1011. Q. I have a one-quarter acre patch of pepper plants, very tall and 

 a mass of foliage, but not a fruit set. Can you explain this? 



A. It is probably due to overmanuring, inducing too luxuriant a. 

 growth, the nourishment necessary to produce flowers and fruit being all 

 taken up in the formation of wood and leaf. Try root pruning by run- 

 ning a plow on one side, so close as to cut quite one-third of the roots of 

 every plant, this check may cause the number of blooms to increase and 

 fruit to set. While flowering and fruit-bearing is an exhaustive process 

 requiring a large amount of nourishment, it does not advance the process 

 to manure too highly, as it is generally the half-starved plants which are 

 most productive. It is very noticeable that vegetable garden plants of an 

 usual number of flowers are always weakest in growth, and conversely, 

 the very vigorous growers produce few flowers. It is just the same in 

 the animal kingdom, the herdsman well knows that a lean cow is the 

 most reliable breeder. 



1012. Q. Did the early American Indians cultivate corn to any extent ? 

 A. The author takes the liberty of answering this query by making 



some extracts from the pamphlet of Dr. E. L. Sturdevant, South Farm- 

 ingham, Massachusetts, " General Sullivan at the time of his expedition 

 against the Indians in 1779, destroyed twenty thousand bushels of corn 

 at Genesee, New York. De Nowville, in 1687, in the same region, des- 

 troyed twelve hundred thousand bushels. Fontienack, in 1697, employed 

 his army for three days destroying corn. In the Pequot War, in 1686, the 

 English destroyed 200 acres on Block Island, and in 1675 they harvested 

 1000 acres of corn in one place. General Wayne, in 1794, wrote of the 

 Delawares in Ohio, 'I never before beheld such immense fields of corn.' 

 In 1498 Columbus reported his brother as having passed through eighteen 

 miles of corn fields on the Isthmus. In 1520, the ships of Magellan were 

 supplied with corn at Rio Janeiro." 



1013. Q. What may be considered an average of vitality of cabbage 

 seed? 



A. In 1887 the New York State Experimental Station made tests of 

 164 packets of cabbage seed procured from fifteen diflferent seed mer- 

 chants, testing 33,800 seeds in samples of 100 each, and found the highest 

 test to be 94 per cent, and the lowest 48 per cent., the general average 

 being 76 per cent. To arrive at the various vitalities of same seed under 

 distinct tests the station authorities next took several distinct samples 

 from each lot and tested them, and found an average variation of 15 per 

 cent, to 20 per cent, between the lots of seed, due to some slight difference 

 in soil or atmospheric conditions. An illustration that little reliance can 

 be placed on tests unless reported at difl"erent intervals and under different 

 circumstances and the average result calculated. 



1014. Q. What is the legal weight for a bushel of Onion Sets? 



