92 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



by no means of such modern origin as many are 

 disposed to believe. So Ion? ago as the twelfth cen- 

 tury the Arabian Reographer Edresi called attention 

 to the existence of clifls covered with the excrement 

 of birds in the Persian Gulf, not far from the famous 

 pearl fisheries of the Bahrein Island, and relates how 

 this duns was collected, sent to Bassora and up the 

 Euphrates to be used for the orchards, vine vards 

 and d-te groves, &c., on its banks. So, too,"from 

 the earlier ages, the semi-civilized Peruvians made 

 use ofthedcpn.Mts of guano ou their coasts for the 

 improvement of their husbandry, and so well was its 

 value in tins respect recognized that their white 

 Incas decreed severe punishment for any one killing 

 the birds that produced it. According to our author 

 It was Humboldt who first drew the attention of 

 Europe to the rich deposits of the Chinca Islands in 

 the early part of the present century, but his voice 

 remained long unheeded. It was not until the year 

 1S40 that a shipload of guano was despatched from 

 feru to England at the risk of the enterprising firm 

 of Quiros, Allick & Co., of Lima. Experiments 

 were instituted as to its eflects on wheat, potatoes 

 and oat crops, on fruit trees and on flowers, with 

 such wonderfully favorable results that a general 

 demand for the new miinure soon arose in EnMand 

 France, Belgium and Germany. Hundreds of ships 

 set sail for the Chinca, in search of guano, and for 

 many years the Peruvian Government derived an 

 annual income of ?16,000,000 from its sale. 



The Future of American Farming. 

 It is probable that in the near future the approach 

 ofstormsof rain or wind will be announced bv our 

 Signal Service everywhere throughout. the country 

 A forewarning of this kind would serve, even with 

 our present conveniences, to greatly diminish the 

 heavy losses entailed on the farming community by 

 theunexpected adventofslormy weather. Approach- 

 ing discoveries in science and the useful arts will 

 doubtless enable farmers to turn such warnings to 

 still greater advantage. The use of the field electric 

 light shows one method by which the farmers of the 

 future can hurry up farming operations on the 

 approach of unfavorable weather. Nor will this be 

 the only benefit derived from such a convenience ■ 

 for whenever it shall be widely introduced, many 

 labors in the fields, which are now wearily performed 

 during the torrid heat of our midsummer days, can 

 then be pleasantly done in the cool summer nights. 

 Then, again, svtch heavy and expensive machinery 

 as threshers, etc., can be utilize* all the time in the 

 busy season, by means of relays of men ; and thus a 

 considerably larger profit will be realized from the 

 capital invested in them. Favorable spells of weather 

 too, can be utilized to tlie utmost, and the evil conse- 

 quences of paucity of labor will be reduced to a 

 minimum. There is no class for whom the future 

 holds so much social and intellectual advancement • 

 so much assured prosperity, and to much rational 

 happiness, as for those engaged in the various de- 

 partments of agriculture, and in no country in the 

 world are the farmers so well prepared as in this, by 

 intelligence, energy, enterprise and political, as well 

 as natural conditions, to pluck the earliest benefits 

 from the treasures of the iulure.—Mnral New Yorker 



[ June, 



need of rain, the remainder reporting the weather as 

 cool, moist, cloudy, and favorable. North Pacific 

 points report a large increase of acreage, especiallv 

 m Dakota, and a large amount of new land-breaking 

 IS in preparation for seeding to wheat next year 

 Gram (June let) is from 8 to 1.5 inches high, of good 

 color, and vigorous. Reports from the great Dal- 

 rymple farms in Cass county, Dakota, say that 

 wheat could not look better. Hermann, on St Paul 

 and Pacific, reports the acreage doubled. Other 

 points say the weather is favorable, and wheat 

 making the best progress possible, except Edna 

 w_lach needs rain. On the St. Paul and Sioux Citv 

 there have been abundant rains, and the weather is 

 now clear and warm, with the crop making rapid 



Waste in New England Farming. 



A writer in the Cotmtry Gentleman says ■ "A 

 great waste in New England farming is waste in 

 fencing. We have too many small fields which it is 

 impossible to cultivate as they ought to be There 

 are too many fence-corners in which brush and 

 weeds are allowed to grow, as they cannot be got at 

 to advantage unless the fences are moved. It is 

 much cheaper to remove the inside fences than to 

 keep the farm divided into small fields." 



A friend who has a farm below Lancaster on 

 which was a weedy fence row, allowed his farmer to 

 remove the fence and cultivated the ground it occu- 

 pied, allowing him the proceeds for his services A 

 crop of tobacco was raised on it which brought the 

 farmer upwards of $80.00. The fence row could not 

 have been long, as the farm contains only about 

 sixty acres.— /?e>-aM. 



Horticulture. 



^, in discus- 

 sing 



Home-Made Fertilizers 

 A correspondent of the Maine Farme 

 sing the question of fertilizers, makes the folic 

 valuable suggestions : 



"It is but fair to add a word respecting bone meal 

 slate and plaster. For the decomposition of the first 

 considerable lime is required, so that its good effect 

 is not all immediately apparent ; providing that it 

 can be obtained at a fair cost the use of it for certain 

 kinds of soil, pcrhap.s p.ivs tolerably well. The 

 ground slate is of bandit in a dry season to put 

 around plants, as it dr;,Hs and holds the moisture. 

 The third profits nothing ou many farms; upon 

 others it temporarily iinpioves the crops. In con- 

 clusion, I would suggest to my brother farmers that 

 we save all the bones abont our premises, puttino- 

 them into old water-tight casks, mixed with good 

 ashes. Let the barrels or casks, with the upper head 

 out, stand in the open air ; the mixture usually will 

 be fit for application to the land in a year. A barrel 

 of phosphate will cost here ten dollars ; for that sum 

 you can hire a man with a horse and cart ten days 

 Set him at work to clear out ditches, corners of fields 

 or into the woods gathering leaves and scurf, or at 

 the muck bed, if you have one, or by the sides of the 

 highways; direct him to dump into the barnyard 

 barncellar, hogyard, and to the barn, to be used 

 during the winter to litter the cattle and horses, and 

 just see what piles he would make in ten days ■ you 

 would not sell this the next spring for four casks of 

 phosphate, for it will help the crops for years." 



The Wheat C.-op— Favorable Reports of the 

 Prospects in the Northwest. 

 It is stated that despatches received at St. Paul. 

 Minn., from points along the line of three principal 

 railroads in that State, the Northern Pacific, St. 

 Paul and Pacific, and St. Paul and Sioux Cit' 



About Potatoes. 

 From all we can learn, we have come to the con- 

 clusion that farmers, generally, are going to plant 

 more potatoes than usual this spring. This is a 

 natural result of the high prices that have ruled for 

 potatoes since the last crop was harvested. But it 

 should be kept in mind that a heavy crop makes 

 low prices and a light crop high prices— the yield 

 governing the price very largely. We have always 

 found It to pay to take special pains with any crop 

 and raise as large a yield as possible to the acre. 

 This pays better than enlarging the area if the same 

 care cannot be bestowed upon the cultivation One 

 man, last year, made $000 from five acres of pota- 

 toes, while the crop was a failure in all that section 

 besides. We are assured that he did this by careful 

 thorough work. Another man reported a large crop 

 of potatoes, and attributed it to a liberal dressing of 

 bone-dust which the land had received the year 

 before. We once published an account of an excel- 

 lent crop of potatoes raised by means of a species of 

 irrigation— turning the water of a spring run over 

 the ground occasionally during a drouth that ruined 

 the potato crop generally in all that section. 



Such experiments, conducted with a view to learn 

 what methods and treatment k\\\ secure the best 

 crops under difl'erent unfavorable conditions, are 

 always worth what they cost and often a hundred- 

 fold more. If a man, during a season of general 

 failure of any crop, succeeds in finding out a plan 

 that will counteract, to any extent, the bad influences 

 which aflTect the crop under ordinary culture, he will 

 be well paid for his experiment, perhaps in a single 

 crop. It is our privilege to command all the forces 

 of nature to our aid in the production of crops, and 

 he who does this most efiectually is always most 

 successful. The skill of the farmer is only exhibited 

 in unfavorable seasons.— Practical Farmer. 



Fruit-Growing in England 

 Now that the export of American apples is be- 

 comingan important business for fruit-growers in 

 this country, everything connected with the subject 

 becomes a matter of interest to them. A discussion 

 on the growing of fruit for market in England has 

 recently taken place in the columns of the London 

 Garden, from which we gather the following state- 

 ments, which naturally have some bearing on the 

 character of the foreign market. 



A correspondent of that journal says that the de- 

 mand tor fruit in England has increased during the 

 past few years "to an enormous extent." It always 

 flnds a ready sale. Notwithstanding the cheap and 

 quick transit Irom the continent, and the excellence 

 of the apples from America, the extension of fruit 

 culture is on the increase. We are told by one writer 

 that 830,000,000 are annually paid to other countries 

 lor imported fruits. Another correspondent of the 

 same journal says that $.50,000,000 were expended 

 ast year for fruits and vegetables imported into that 

 kingdom. It is supposed that the city of London 

 consumes about a million and a half. We are in- 

 formed that England receives fifty times as much as 

 fifty years_ago, the prices varying but little at the 

 It appears that the same trouble occurs 



:rr;;;r.'irs;r'tif..a-2S°„"src;^^^^^^^^^ 



abundant seasons, and large 



quantities rot when the market is overstocked, and 

 the prices do not pay for gathering. The mode of 

 preserving by canning, so extensively adopted here 

 IS recommended in that country in such cases ' 



One of these correspondents states that in Kent 

 first-class Keswick codlings brought only fifty cents 

 per bushel, and of this sum one-half was naid for 

 conveyance to market and expenses. Another cor- 

 respondent says that many of the market gardeners 

 near London left tons of plums to fall and rot on the 

 ground in 1875, the market being overstocked with 

 fruit from the continent. The same writer mistakenly 

 InoT'h ,"'^f' American fruit-grower, who obtains 

 400 bushels of apples every year from his rich, cheap 

 soil, without manure, and with a minimum of labor 

 and cost, can easily compete with the English o-rower 

 who pays an annual rent equal to thi whole pur- 

 chase money of his competitor's land, and has to 

 spend fully as much more in manure and labor; but 

 if the yyestern grower should, by fertilizing his land, 

 double its yield, the extra 40i. would not be grown at 

 a prolit." American orchardists who have adopted 

 the same opinion as this writer are the very men who 

 make growing a failure. Their second rate, scrubby 

 knotty apples find a slow sale at a low price. Those 

 who with good culture, manuring, thinning, assort- 

 ing and careful packing, place the finest specimens 

 before purchasers, obtain good prices and ready sales 

 and as soon as their products become known they are 

 eagerly sought on account of their excellent quality 

 even in abundant seasons. In looking toward a 

 European market, it would be extreme folly to at- 

 tempt to send bad fruit that long distance, with the 

 expectation that it would pay expenses, and the 

 damage to the reputation of American fruit, caused 

 by such shabby attempts to thrust poor fruit on pur- 

 chasers, would be many times greater than any pos- 

 sible gain.— Co«?rfr^ (?CTiHe»ia«. 



Treatment of Spring-Planted Trees. 



In dry springs the orchard and garden usually 

 exhibit a distressing mortality among the new intro- 

 ductions of the past-pUnting time. Yet there is no 

 reason why many should die. A few simple sugges- 

 tions may save the lives of many trees, as well as 

 save a year of time to our own already short enouo-h 

 hves. Of course the ultimate reasyns why trans- 

 planted trees die is the want of water. The roots 

 are somewhat injured even by the best planting; 

 and with much evaporation, these weakened roots 

 are unable to supply the moisture required. If the 

 season be dry, this trouble is heightened by the 

 actual absence of moisture for the weakened roots to 

 use. Under these circumstances many water the 

 trees. Kut where there are many trees to water 

 this is no mean task, and besides watering has this 

 disadvantage, that it solidifies the soil, and every 

 farmer's boy knows that a hard, cloddy piece of 

 ground dries out faster than the soil in a well-pul- 

 verized condition. 



Pruning is one of the simplest ways of saving or 

 weakening a tree's life. We do not, of course, add 

 aLy more moisture to the soil, or give any new 

 capacity to the damaged roots to take up more 

 moisture ; but we cut off the demand for moisture 

 with every branch cut away. When a tree does not 

 push freely into leaves after transplanting, it is in 

 most cases from this cause. If half the branches 

 are cut away, it is astonishing how soon and how 

 strong the balance will push. 



The other point— the pulverization of the soil— is 

 often misunderstood. A loose soil is not a well- 

 pulverized soil. Simply hoeing or raking the surface 

 is not what is required. If the ground is baked hard, 

 as many clayey soils will do, tins loosening is a little 

 gain ; but as a general thing a strong soil merely 

 loosened will evaporate moisture largely. These 

 soils require crushing, not only loosening ; and the 

 same principle which the Telegraph has so often ex- 

 plained as following the use of the roller in our 

 grain-fields is to be carried out on a smaller scale 

 around the transplanted tree. The more we hammer 

 and beat a clod the firmer it becomes ; and the 

 firmer it is made the more able it is to absorb mois- 

 ture from the atmosphere, and indeed from the 

 harder surrounding soil. Thus in many cases the 

 half-dried, cakey earth around a tree may be pul- 

 verized by merely bearing it with a rammer, and 

 very often this will serve the tree to much better 

 purpose than even the most careful watering would 

 do. — Oermantown Telegraph. 



Origin of the Apple. 

 There is evidence that the apple was employed as 

 food in icertain parts of Europe at a very ancient 

 period, perhaps even before the period of written t 

 history. The carbonized seeds and fragments of 

 apples and other fruits are found in the mud of cer- 

 tain lakes in Switzerland, where the pile builders 

 or lake dwellers had their habitations. It might be 

 supposed that these vestiges were wild or crab 

 apples, the native product of the country, and such 

 is probably the fact. But, according to Prof. Karl 

 Koch, there are no species of apples truly indigenous 

 in Europe ; those which are found growing without 

 cultivation, are the result of accidental sowings of 

 common apple seeds. If this statement is correct, 



