204 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



June. 



ton seed meal was sprinkled quite freely in 

 rows and directly upon this I set my plants 

 one foot apart. We worked on that one and 

 a half acre job from November till March, 

 working all the sunshiny days, and nsing 

 the splendid plants of my own raising 

 freshly dug, and when it was finished, well, 

 I wish you could have seen it! After plant- 

 ing I had the ground between the rows and 

 around the plants well mulched so it was 

 really not surprising that every one of these 

 plants lived. I did not lose one. In spring 

 1888, the plants averaged twenty-five 

 large berries each. 



From April 20th I supplied the LaGrange 

 market with all they used, about 100 quarts 

 daily, and shipped to Atlanta every morning 

 and to Montgomery, Ala., every afternoon. 

 I sold thousands of quarts and gave away 

 quantities. My pickers were in- 

 structed to assort the berries in 

 picking. The small ones I gave 

 away or fed to the pigs, only selling ^ 



the finest. 



Two acres of ground is not a large 

 place, but the labor and care I be- 

 stowed upon it were such that my 

 chOdren said I was killing myself 

 working, and persuaded me to sell 

 out. I had never been offered more 

 than SI, 500 for my little farm before, 

 but having made such a success of 

 fruit growing I soon began to re- 

 ceive better offers for It, and iwhen 

 a purchaser was ready to pay 5^,500 

 cash I sold and am sorry I did. 



I am B2 years old. If I were 35 years 

 younger I would show what can be done 

 here in small fruits. No business, I am 

 convinced, is more remunerative than 

 small fruit culture in the south. 



The Commission Merchants Stand- 

 point. 



C. W. IDELL, NEW YOKK. 



The reporting of the names of the pur- 

 chasers of fruits and produce by the com- 

 mission merchants is a new fad gotten up 

 by farmers who live in fear of being cheated. 

 So they have hit upon this plan for the de- 

 tection of dishonest dealers. Let us see how 

 the plant will work. 



Suppose that at the close of the week a 

 farmer ^ets his bill with purchasers' names 

 on it (and there may be from ten to fifty 

 in number), does he propose to write to each 

 or some of them ? If only to a few of them 

 he will not get all the facts, and if all, see 

 what a task this correspondence involves, 

 besides the expense, for the farmer would 

 have to enclose a two-cent stamp for an an- 

 swer. And of what interest would it be to 

 answer hundreds of enquiries and to devote 

 the time and labor required without re- 

 muneration ? It would be a great annoy- 

 ance to the purchaser, and probably he 

 would say to the dealer: " If I am to be an- 

 noyed in this way by your shippers I will 

 not deal with you." Now just try to rea- 

 lize what a task you are imposing upon all 

 merchants just to gratify this new notion. 

 Are not the men who served you honestly 

 deserving of a better treatment at your 

 hands ? It is true that not all merchants 

 are honest, and that all are liable to make 

 blunders, and I know by experience that 

 not all farmers are saints. 



Twice, if not oftener in my experience, 

 have farmers taken letters from the post- 

 office addressed to another person with sim- 

 ilar name, taken out and endorsed the 

 check and drawn the money, when they had 

 sent me nothing; and had they not been 

 threatened with prosecution would have 

 kept the money. Yet these men were not 

 fair samples of farmers, and a dealer would 

 not think of branding all farmers as rascals. 

 It is also very common for farmers to bor- 

 row money from dealers until fruit can be 



shipped, but often they do not send their 

 fruit products to pay the loan. I mention 

 these cases simply to show that there are 

 unprincipled farmers as well as bad dealers. 

 There is no difficulty for a farmer to pro- 

 cure an honest commission merchant if he 

 wants one, but some do not wish that kind 

 for they never send a package containing 

 honest measure. What they do want is a 

 dealer who vrill cheat the purchaser of 

 these packages, charging him the same price 

 as they get for honest packages, and then 

 give the shippers the whole benefit of the 

 transaction. After all, perhaps those who 

 urge the enactment of this bill, do not care 

 so much about getting the names of pur- 

 chasers for the purpose of contradicting the 

 dealer's action, as to find customers with 

 whom they can trade directly and without 



i&iwilaffi^ 



SAVING CROPS FROM FROST. 



paying commission. This is scarcely hono- 

 rable. 



Saving Crops from Frost. 

 Smoke produced from burning rubbish- 

 heaps has been employed by French and 

 German vineyardists for many years as a 

 means of preventing injury from both early 

 frosts in autumn and late frosts in spring. 

 A Florida Orange grower uses the device 

 shown in our illustration for the same pur- 

 pose. The pan on top is kept supplied with 

 coal tar which is allowed to drip down 

 through numerous holes into the fire below. 

 The machines (Fig. 1.) are stationed a few 

 rods apart on windward side of the patch, 

 while No. 2 may be wheeled back and forth 

 over the area to be protected. Mr. Benedict 

 the patentee of this device also uses bi-sul- 

 phide of carbon mixed with the tar, to kill 

 or drive off injurious insects. 



Healthfulness of a Fruit Diet. 



A. P. REED, CUMBERLAND CO., ME. 



Those whose diet consists of meat and 

 bread would find it greatly to their advan- 

 tage to consume more fruit. These persons, 

 in consequence of drinking large quantities 

 of water, are particularly liable to kidney 

 and bladder troubles. Calcareous deposits 

 in the system come mostly by means of the 

 water we drink and he who drinks water to 

 excess is the most liable to such deposits. 

 Human life begins in a gelatinous state and 

 ends in a bony condition. With age the 

 bones grow harder by earthy deposits of 

 phosphates and lime. Imperfect circulation 

 sometimes exists as a result of this harden- 

 ing process, which extends in later life 

 even to the arteries. 



Fruit, through its juices and acids, is a 

 protection from this condition and despite 

 the fear ot some people is not half so liable 

 to engender diarrhoea and bowel troubles as 

 meats. Fruit that is ripe will harm no one. 

 The accumulation of mineral matters in the 

 system to excess can in no way be better 

 prevented than by a liberal use of ripe 

 fruits. These statements are founded on 

 physiological research and appear reasona- 

 ble on the surface regardless of their back- 

 ings. Let us use more fruit rather than 

 less. Give it a large place in the garden. 



A Michigan Grower on Combating 

 two Destructive Insects. 



The Codling Moth. After much triliu- 

 lation and many failures to capture this 

 most destructive of all insect enemies to our 

 Apples and Pears we are now coming down 

 to work on practical and effective princi- 

 ples. The moth is a night insect and on 

 this account eludes our grasp, thus all we 

 do is to look after her progeny. 



As soon as the Apple has passed out of 

 bloom the moth deposits an egg in the blos- 

 som end of the plant. How many eggs each 

 insect deposits in different specimens no one 

 knows. In a few days these eggs hatch into 

 a larva and the work of destruction begins 

 and goes to the heart of the fruit. For the 

 purpose of destroying the larva before any 

 real damage is done the spraying system 

 has been adopted by progressive 

 growers with satisfactory results. 



With a force pump and a fine 

 spraying nozzle one pound of Lon- 

 don purple or Paris green (I prefer 

 the former) to 100 gallons of water 

 is amply strong, in fact sometimes 

 too strong in the hands of inexperi- 

 enced workmen, in which case the 

 foliage is liable to be partly de- 

 stroyed. I shall use this year one 

 pound to 125 gallons of water. To 

 mix the material use one to two 

 quarts of soft soap to the pound of 

 poison. This, well mixed in the 

 form of paste and then added to the 

 water, will aid in the mixture. One 

 or two kerosene barrels, the pump fastened 

 upon one, will make a good outfit for a lim- 

 ited amount of work. The fluid in the bar- 

 rel must be stirred while the spraying 

 is being done. 



The first spraying should be done as soon 

 as the tree is out of bloom and the fruit 

 sets, the second three or four weeks later, 

 when the second crop of larvae make their 

 appearance. In case of rain showers soon 

 after spraying the poison is abortive, so far 

 as the fruit is concerned, but not so with the 

 foliage. With good weather, free from rain 

 for four or five days after applying the 

 poison, one good spraying when the fruit is 

 about as large as pigeons' eggs, will be siif- 

 ficient for early summer Apples; late fruit, 

 to be clean and sound, must have the 

 second application. 



The Curculio. I wiU now describe a 

 cheap, easily made and readily handled 

 trap tor this pest. The curculio is well 

 known by the crescent mark it makes on 

 the Plum, Peach, Cherry, and other stone 

 fruits, and is familiarly known as the "little 

 turk." How the "Little turk" can be caught 

 with the least amount of labor I will state. 

 As soon as the weather becomes warm 

 and the trees begin to bud out they prepare 

 for their work,and before the foliage comes 

 out and shades the branches and ground is 

 the time to set our traps. After the trees 

 are in full leaf the insects will remain mostly 

 among the branches where they are well 

 shaded; before this time they will seek any 

 hiding place among the clods, grass, weeds, 

 or any refuse material about the trees. 



First clear away all refuse from the base 

 or around the crown of the tree for 

 the space of two or three feet in 

 diameter. Smooth and compact the soil, 

 then place two, three or more small chips or 

 clean white Corn cobs, cut from one to two 

 inches in length, around the base of the 

 hill. During the warm part of the day the 

 insects we are after will take shelter under 

 these traps and can be collected at leisure. 

 Now offer the children so much a hundred 

 or a thousand for collecting them once a 

 day and see the result. They can be put 

 into glass jars or bottles for safe keeping if - 

 desired. After the trees are in full leaf the 

 trap becomes useless and the jarring process 



