1875.] 
AMERICAN agriculturist. 
383 
Growing Crops with Chemical Fertilizers.— 
The annual sale of crops from the farms of Mr. 
Prout and Mr. Middleditcli, of England, have 
-.recently taken place. These farms are worked 
entirely without feeding any stock other than the 
working teams, and without barnyard or stable 
manure, only chemical fertilizers being used when 
thought necessary; the whole of the crops are 
sold, grain and straw together, to be cut and re¬ 
moved by the purchasers, at their own cost. Mr. 
Prout’s crops, the twelfth in succession, realized 
$54 an acre, for wheat, (200 acres). 130 acres of 
barley brought over $45 an acre, forty acres of oats 
brought over $56 an acre, and the clover over $79 
an acre. 427 acres sold for $23,154. Mr. Middle- 
ditch received about the same prices for his crops. 
— ■ ■ ^ “ 
Nursery Agents and Tree Peddlers. 
BY TRUETT'S SONS & MORGAN. 
We notice the remarks in your August number, 
concerning nursery agents and tree peddlers. W e 
fully agree with you that “ the purchaser should 
have some assurance, that the trees, when received, 
did really come from said nursery, and that the 
proprietors of that nursery are responsible for 
their being the trees ordered, and that when they 
left the nursery, they were correctly labelled.” 
You then ask, what provision is made to secure 
the purchaser in this respect. 
We have a system which was adopted by us in 
the beginning of our business, and which we have 
elaborated, as the necessities of the business 
brought the points before us from time to time. 
Taking in view, first: our own relation to the 
purchaser, and our responsibility to him, with a 
firm determination to do an honest, fair, and square 
business, that might be open to the world ; then 
the stand-point of the purchaser, and the possible 
representation of an agent eager to swell his sales. 
Theorizing thus, we originated a system which we 
believe to be unique, and a “new departure,” as 
concerning nursery proprietors. 
You describe how the thing is managed at nur¬ 
series where you have been. How that Smith, the 
peddler, calling himself an agent, gets orders for 
trees from Jones’ nursery. At the digging season 
he goes to Jones and buys certain blocks or odd 
rows of trees ; he has his own men to dig them, he 
takes them to some vacant place, and labels them 
as may be, packs them in lots to suit his orders, 
and all that Jones lias to do with the matter, is the 
trees grew on his ground and he sold them. 
Now our plan is this. No man acts as agent for 
the Rosebank Nurseries, without our printed form 
of orders, and our uniform series of plate-books. 
We allow no man to fill a part of his orders with 
us, and another part of his orders with somebody 
else; we fill all and every part of his orders or 
none. We sell no stock in bulk; that is, we sell 
no “ certain blocks or odd rows of trees ” to any¬ 
body. We have articles of agreement with every 
..agent representing our nurseries, in which it is 
stipulated that he shall sell by our catalogue list, 
our order books and plate-books; no other variety or 
specialty of fruit, to be sold under any circumstan¬ 
ces without our permission. The agent in addition, 
binds himself to send us his order books as fast as 
.filled. Now in order to see if any eager salesman 
has exceeded his authority, or been too enthusiastic 
in his representations to the purchaser, we take 
the order books as fast as they come in from the 
beginning of the season, and dissect them piece¬ 
meal. In this way. We have a set of printed 
abstract sheets or blanks, uniform with the order- 
book, and upon these abstracts or blanks we tally 
every item that every order calls for ; the number, 
: the variety, the size, and description of everything 
sold, is noted. Our blanks for the season’s work, 
become as voluminous as those of a quartermaster 
in an active compaign, and it takes the entire time 
of one first class man to attend to these abstracts. 
From the start, then, we know whether our agents 
are running us too heavily on any particular variety 
of stock, and we are enabled by a prompt notifica¬ 
tion to the men at work taking orders, to regulate 
the sale of varieties, completely and absolutely. 
Care being taken first, to catalogue nothing but the 
best, the agent will not go astray in selling any¬ 
thing in his forms. 
In this dissecting of orders, and the tallying of 
each variety, we arrive at a perfect knowdedge of 
what the agent is doing, the representations or 
promises he makes, and any irregularity is prompt¬ 
ly discovered and corrected, if per chance an agent 
new to the business blunders into an error. After 
the orders have been tallied, and every item 
“ varietized ” upon our abstract sheets, they are 
then “written up;” that is, all the labels and 
address tags are written by one of our own clerks, 
in our own office. The labels and an address tag 
for each order, are then twisted togther into a 
bunch, and strung upon a wire, each delivery by 
itself, ready for the packing shed, in the fall. The 
orders, or bundles of orders, as contained in the 
different bunches of labels, are then taken by our 
own men, and packed under the sepervision of one 
of the proprietors. Our variety schedule or ab¬ 
stract sheet is closely watched and kept posted up, 
and at the end of the season, serves as a digging 
list, by which our stock may be placed in the 
trenches. The digging and placing of stock in 
trenches, is also done by our own men, under the 
supervision of another one of the proprietors. 
There are no agents about our grounds while pack¬ 
ing is going on. They are not forbidden, but they 
prefer to stay in the canvassing field, until just 
before delivery time, then come to the nursery 
office, to stay perhaps a half a day, then return to 
their points of delivery to collect their pay from a 
satisfied set of customers. 
-— * - ->«» -- — - - 
The English Laborers’ Union. —As might 
have been expected, the organization known as the 
English Laborers’ Union, has been split into two 
parties, one headed by Joseph Arch, and one by 
Mr. Vincent, the editor of the Laborers’ Chronicle, 
who claims to have been the author of all the let¬ 
ters and publications that have been issued, bear¬ 
ing the name of Mr. Arch. The rock upon which 
the Union split, was a dispute about the lavishness 
of the expenditure. The necessity for reform in 
the condition of the English agricultural laborers, 
however, is too absolute to permit the purpose for 
which the Union was formed to fail, and if it tem¬ 
porarily suffers from the incompetence or unworth¬ 
iness of its leadears, it will purge itself of them 
and begin afresh. 
Curing Corn-Fodder.—A method of curing 
partly dried corn-fodder, is to cut it with a fodder 
cutter into chaff, and mix it with straw cut in the 
same manner, then pack it away in a mow, tramp¬ 
ling it down closely. A little salt is scattered 
amongst the layers as they are packed in. When 
thus put up, fermentation takes place and a gentle 
heat is produced, which improves the straw, mak¬ 
ing the whole even and equal in flavor, so that it is 
readily eaten by cattle or horses. Those who have 
the material, the leisure, and a horse-power straw 
cutter, might usefully prepare a quantity of fodder 
in this way as an experiment. 
'-0-I m - 
The Eucalyptus in California. 
BY ONE OP OUli STAPP ON HIS TRAVELS. 
The genus Eucalyptus is a very large one, as it 
includes about 150 species of mostly Australian 
trees, which are broad-leaved evergreens, some of 
which exceed in size even the “ big trees ” of Cali¬ 
fornia. Several of these were introduced into Cali¬ 
fornia a few years ago, and one of them, E. globulus, 
the blue-gum, is so much more esteemed than the 
others, that when Eucalyptus is named, it is there 
understood that this is the species referred to. It 
is already widely disseminated in that state, and 
forms a striking feature in the landscape around 
San Francisco Bay. It grows with great rapidity, 
making a tree ten to fifteen feet high the third year 
from planting. It grows readily both from the 
seed and from cuttings, and all the nurseries that 
we visited in suburban districts and in the country 
had large plantations of Eucalyptus. The leaves 
upon young trees have a peculiar bluish-green tint, 
which changes to a darker green as the tree grows 
older. It is planted in almost every conceivable 
position where trees are allowable. It is an admir¬ 
able tree for the side-walk, and for the lawn in 
suburban districts and in country villages, having 
a clean trunk and leaves, and forming a deep shade. 
It grows in compact masses and makes a good 
wind-break in three or four years. It makes wood 
rapidly, and is planted both for fuel and timber. 
It is remarkably tenacious of life, and when well 
started at the beginning of the rainy season, few 
plants fail even in exposed and unpromising locali¬ 
ties. We saw all along the Piedmont district, east 
of Oakland, avenues planted with this tree, and 
hardly a gap in the long rows. The people begin 
to have faith that all that treeless region east of 
the bay, even to the top of the mountain range, 
may be clothed with forest. In visiting the site of 
the old red-wood forest that overlooks the bay, we 
noticed a plantation of Eucalyptus upon the ranch 
of Mr. Low. It was well up the mountain, upon 
a steep acclivity, and in a spot as unpromising as 
any that could have been selected. Almost every 
plant was in flourishing condition. The tree seems 
to be a success everywhere. Its sudden popularity 
is owing in some measure, probably, to its sup¬ 
posed influence in absorbing the malaria of fever- 
and-ague districts. Numerous accounts are pub¬ 
lished, showing an improvement in the health of 
people in malarious districts, where the tree has 
been planted. Dr. N. P. Gibson, of Alameda, a 
very careful observer, attributes this not to any 
peculiar value in the tree, but simply to its more 
rapid growth and greater power of absorbing water, 
lie says : “ In eight years the Eucalyptus will at¬ 
tain a diameter of eighteen inches, and a hight of 
fifty feet. Experiments which I have made deter¬ 
mine these facts. A branch of this tree, which 
contains 105 square inches of leaf surface, will ab¬ 
sorb 3.25 ounces of water in eighteen hours. The 
entire tree will furnish an area of 310,500 square 
inches of leaf surface, and the amount of water 
daily absorbed by the roots would equal 609 lbs. or 
76 gallons. Given a stagnant swamp of 200 acres, 
each acre having 200 trees, and the amount of wa¬ 
ter daily absorbed by the roots would be 3,040,000 
gallons, or 405,333 cubic feet. This would be 
equal to a constant stream of water, running at the 
rate of three miles per hour, of two feet wide and 
six inches deep.”—The. rapid growth of the tree is 
not overestimated. Under favorable circumstances 
a tree has been known to grow twenty feet in a 
year, and to attain the hight of seventy-five feet in 
eight years. Whether it be true or false, the belief 
in the ameliorating influence of the tree upon the 
climate in malarious districts Is general, and the 
planting goes on with enthusiasm. It is doing 
much to change the landscape and to redeem the 
California summer from its sere and desolate aspect. 
It is good to turn from the boundless seas of wheat 
and oat stubble to the long evergreen rows of the 
Eucalyptus. Planters in the eastern 6tates can hope 
little from the Eucalyptus ; we gave last March an 
account of the unfavorable results with the different 
species of Eucalyptus as far south as Georgia, and 
we shall be glad to know how it has done with others. 
—-- 
The use of Dynamite in Clearing Land.— The 
value of this explosive in agricultural operations, 
has been favorably shown in a recent clearing of a 
tract of land in Ireland. The land was so covered 
with boulders, as to be useless on account of the 
cost of removing them, until dynamite was tried. 
Charges of two ounces in a six-inch hole shattered 
immense sunken boulders, so that they could be 
removed with ease, and the pieces used in building 
walls, without dressing. Loose boulders were bro¬ 
ken up by placing charges of dynamite upon them 
and covering these with other boulders. The ex¬ 
plosion broke both the boulders into fragments fit 
for building stone. 
