1882.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



53 



The best disinfecting agents, according to 

 Mr. W. M. Ilatnlet, are in general those ca- 

 pable of exerting an immediate and powerful 

 oxidizing .action, and that it is active oxygen, 

 whether from the action of chlorine, nitric 

 oxide, or hydrogen peroxide, which must be 

 regarded as the greatest known enemy to 

 bacterial life. 



Gas-fitters have recently made a most use- 

 ful application of photography. They photo- 

 graph the gas llames given by dill'erent burn- 

 ers or jets so that a customer can see if the 

 shape and form of a light will suit him before 

 he gives his order. As the flames are more- 

 over depicted "life-size" the purcliaser can 

 always tell whether his jet is up to the stand- 

 ard. 



It is suggested, with a view of avoiding the 

 bursting of water-pipes by freezing, to make 

 tliem elliptical in section. As the water ex- 

 pands to form ice, it will alter the shape of 

 the pipe, causing it to become circular in sec- 

 tion, and therefore giving more room for tlie 

 ice. It is proposed to sqeeze the pipes into 

 their original shape, when, by a succession of 

 frosts, they have been rounded. 



Lcs Miindcs reports that M. Bufoureet has 

 in the exposed court of his house two bars of 

 iron planted in the earth, to each of which is 

 fixed a conductor of coaled wire terminating 

 in a telephonic receiver. He consults the ap- 

 paratus twice or thrice every day, and it 

 never fails through its indications of earth 

 currents to give notice of the approach of a 

 storm twelve or fifteen hours before it actually 

 arrives. 



In Reiraann's process for rendering cloth 

 water proof the fabric is passed slowly by 

 machinery through a tank divided into three 

 compartments, the fiyst containing a warm 

 solution of alum, the second a warm solution 

 of lead acetate, and the third pure water, 

 which is constantly renewed. The cloth on 

 passing from the latter is brushed and beaten 

 to remove the salt adhering to the surface, 

 and finally hot-pressed and brushed. In this 

 «ase lead sulphate is deposited on the fibres. 



Steel tools should never be heated either 

 for forging or tempering, in a fresh fire, unless 

 dt be charcoal. If coke is not at hand the 

 fire should be allowed to burn until all the 

 gas is burned out of the coal before the steel 

 is introduced. 



Some farmers think that a cow must eat all 

 the time when confined in the stall. It is a 

 poor economy which puts fresh hay into a 

 manger on the top of older hay. A little 

 tossing ol' the hay left in the manger will dry 

 it and make it seem of renewed niceness to 

 cows or horses. 



Occasional sowing of little patches of ground 

 with mustard, green peas, oats, etc., will do 

 much to assist in keeping a cow on a small 

 farm. They grow quickly and the same land 

 will give several crops. A little discretion in 

 tills way will save much expense as to keep as 

 well as furnishing early green feed. 



Green peas are early crops. Most persons 

 prefer the dwarfs, but the tall varieties yield 

 better. A fault with the dwarfs is that they 

 furnish families growing them with such few 

 pickings. This is because they ripen nearly 

 all at once. The better plan is to pnt them 



in the ground at intervals for a succession of 

 crops. 



What a Railroad Car will Hold. 

 Taking 2(5,000 pounds as a fair average 

 load the ordinary railroad freight car will 

 hold: Corn, 4.")0 bushels ; barley, 400 bushels ; 

 oats, H0(» bushels; rye, 400 bushels; wheat, 42.'! 

 bushels; bran, 1,000 bushels; flaxseed, 000 

 bushels; apples, 360 bushels; potatoes, 480 

 whisky, fiO barrels; salt, 70 barrels; Hour, 90 

 barrels; llour, 200 sacks; cattle, KJ liead;hogs, 

 ")(! head; sneep, 30 head; hard wood, G cords; 

 .soft wood, 7 cords ; solid boards, 0,000 feet ; 

 shingles, 40,000; hard lumber, 20,000 feet; 

 green lumber, l.'>,000 feet ; joist, scattering 

 and large lumber, 4,000 feet. 



Essays. 



P'RUIT AND VEGETABLES.- 

 CULTURE.* 



-THEIR 



Mr. President: — As we have met once 

 more to have a friendly talk on fruit, its 

 ([ualities and cultivation, I will give some of 

 my experience. With persons of experience 

 as well as with beginners, it is very dilticult to 

 know what to select, as there are so many 

 kinds ill the market and each person thinks he 

 he has the best varieties. There is also such 

 a quantity of fine fruit brought in for sale as 

 to surprise one into wondering where it all 

 conies from; but, considering the thousands of 

 persons that are in the business the <iuantity 

 of each kind is not so great after all. There 

 is too much tliat is only passable winch spoils 

 the sale of the finest quality, for in twenty 

 years experience I found about only ten per 

 cent of my customers were willing to pay a 

 fair price for fine fruit; they all preferred it, at 

 tlie same time a cheaper fruit sold best. It is 

 tlie common and poor fruit that is the most 

 expensive, but most persons will not believe 

 it. It is the quiuditij they want, not the 

 quality. Now if we did not have to pay so 

 dear, for our experience, we could afford to 

 sell fine fruit cheaper with a profit, but when 

 one must wait years for the trees to bear and 

 then be disappointed with the fruit, it is poor 

 encouragement. Many pers(ms will sell their 

 fruit for just what they can get while others 

 top and graft their trees, which has been my 

 way with most of tlie trees I have bouglit. I 

 was often discouraged and thought I was the 

 only one cheated by ireei agents, but find 

 others were in the same boat as myself. Some 

 years ago a nur.seryman in our town received 

 several hundred trees from a New York firm 

 with most of the laljels lost, he sold them as 

 they were. I bought a dozen and grafted all 

 but one (the finest in the lot) and that turned 

 out to be nothing but the poorest kind nf a 

 seedling. The worst of it was, tliere were 

 others heard that he was selling them cheap, 

 who bought tlieln all just as he sold them, and 

 when persons asked tlieni for certain trees "O 

 yes, they had them in the nursery," they 

 would label them as they wanted tliem for 

 their customers. I have seen at l.;ast fifty of 

 them come into bearing and nearly all worth- 

 less. The trouble is we have too many tree 

 agents; all anxious to sell and not at all con- 

 scientious about what they sell; for, as one 

 told me, "that before the trees came into 

 bearing, the labels would be lost, or the pro- 

 perty cliange owners and no one would know 

 where they came from or what they were 

 bought for. I have bdught more i>oor frees 

 than good, but as I said before when the fruit 

 is not good, I eitlier plant oilier trees or graft 

 them. When I have small fruit that does not 

 suit my soil I drop them out of cultivation and 

 keep up with those that do. (Jut of fifteen or 

 twenty kinds of strawberries I have laid aside 

 all hut three, nanielv: "Charles Uowning," 

 "Wilson's Seedling" and the "Sharpless," 



♦Essay read before tlie Pennsylvania State Hortieiiltii- 

 ral Afisuciation, at Harrisburg, i>y Joint C. liepler, Heatl- 

 ing. Pa. 



which beats all I ever had for size, but not for 

 quantili/. I have also discarded all raspber- 

 ries but the "Philadelphia," "Clarke" and 

 the old "Antwerp." Tlie two last named 

 went back on mo last summer, whether on ac- 

 count of th(! drought or not I c;innot say. In 

 regaid to currants, I have very few beside the 

 (Jherry currant which hear i-xceedingly well 

 and .Sell for two cents a ([uart more than the 

 smaller (uies, to those of my customers who 

 ajiprecnate good fruit. One of them (a gentle- 

 man) was persuaded to buy some grape vines 

 which were to be something extra. I planted 

 with great care and watched them until last 

 summer, when the one that should have been 

 the Lady grape, was one of Rogers' light 

 graiies, and the others were only common 

 dark grapes, not to be compared with the 

 Concord or I'nion Village. The latter in my 

 estimation is a No. I grape as it will remain 

 on the vines longer than the (concord without 

 dropping. Among apples, the Haldwin, 

 Spilzcnberg, Smoke-house Kroiiser, Northern 

 Spy, (rreeniiigaiid Golden Pippin are the best 

 for winter marketing, as they always sell and 

 give entire satisfaction. I would not advise 

 the keeping of too many varieties as they need 

 considcralile attention. As a general rule 

 Unnnt farmers pay too little attention to their 

 fruit. Instead of studying its nature and 

 trying to improve it, they allow it to take its 

 own course, whether from carele&sness or 

 ignorance I know not. I frequently see 

 ai)pl(^s for sale that are quite out of season and 

 would pay the owners much better if they 

 kept them a while longer, even at the risk of 

 .some decaying. In our section hvst year the 

 apple crop was a failure. Jiulging from the 

 display at our County Fair, what few trees 

 did bear, produced fine fruit. I have observ- 

 ed that when we have an extra heavy crop of 

 apples and pears one year, the next is very 

 light, for then the trees do not produce the 

 bearing spurs but reMuire all their strength for 

 the fruit. The "yiTar olf" as we call it, is 

 their rest ; and tlien the bearing spurs are 

 made for the following year. This you will 

 notice holds good in all cases,'unless we have 

 too much heavy rain in the blossom season, 

 which will destroy the crop. 



We had no peaches in our neighborhood. 

 Instead of the blossom being frozen, I 

 think the trees were exhausted from over- 

 bearing the year before. Having two or three 

 trees exposed to the northern winds and 

 storms, which bore a few peaches, iiroves that 

 the blossoms were not frozen. Although we 

 are in the coldest place in the neighborhood, I 

 never saw the peach trees make such a vigor- 

 ous growth, and I think simply because they 

 had rested froin fruit-bearing last year. It is 

 my belief that we will have a plentiful crop 

 this year. If not out of place I would like 

 to recommend our farmer frieiiils to plant 

 trees along the road and at intervals along 

 their line and iiartition fences. Fruit trees 

 have been suggested, but I would not recom- 

 mend them, as our boys, and even men, do 

 not rcsiiect personal rights to such property 

 and a man would be worried more tlian the 

 fruit would be worth. Walnut trees, if 

 planted at a distance of fifty feet and a little 

 attention given them at first to start them 

 straight, in six or eight years they will bear, 

 and the nuts will pay for the gathering. In 

 fifty years the trees will be worth as much as 

 the farm, providing they have been trained to 

 grow straight. 1 am sure, he that can imag- 

 ine a fine row of trees around his farm, will 

 start to planting this winter ; as the nut must 

 be plaiitetl in tin; fall, so that the shell will 

 burst by the action of the frost to give the 

 germ a chance to grow. To him who has low 

 or bottom land I would advise the planting of 

 shellbark hickory, as it is becoming very 

 scarce, and is in good demand. I was told by a 

 man, when in the spoke manufacturing busi- 

 ness, he used on an average two hundred 

 acres of hickory wood a year, and that he 

 bought treep worth ten dollars each ; which 

 proves they are worth the little attention 

 they need in the outset. There is one more 

 tree I would like to bring to the notice of 



