THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
April  23 
278 
Painting  the  Peach  Tree 
White. 
When  the  young  peach  orchard  was  set 
on  the  Virginia  Experiment  Station 
grounds,  three  years  ago  this  spring,  I 
was  aware  that  the  peach  borer  was  ex¬ 
tremely  troublesome  and  that  few  peach 
trees  lived  to  bear  much  fruit  unless 
carefully  “wormed”  twice  a  year.  I  con¬ 
cluded  to  try  something  more  permanent 
than  the  soap,  lime,  soda  and  other 
washes  so  commonly  recommended,  as 
it  was  desirable  to  meet  several  enemies 
with  one  treatment;  hence  I  chose  com¬ 
mon  white  lead  paint.  It  was  mixed 
with  linseed  oil  to  the  consistency  re¬ 
quired  for  a  heavy  outside  coat  in  house 
painting,  and  applied  to  the  young  trees 
just  after  they  had  been  planted.  The 
soil  was  removed  so  as  to  make  the  appli¬ 
cation  reach  an  inch  or  two  below  the 
surface,  and  the  trunk  was  painted  12  to 
18  inches  above  ground.  At  the  end  of 
the  first  summer  careful  examination  re¬ 
vealed  a  few  larvae;  but  no  injury  had 
been  done,  as  they  appeared  to  come 
from  eggs  deposited  late  in  the  season 
and  had  not  fully  entered  the  sap  wood, 
though  they  were  working  inward 
through  cracks  in  the  paint  caused  by 
the  growth  of  the  tree.  A  fresh  coat  of 
paint  was  applied  in  the  autumn,  and 
served  to  entirely  prevent  injury  from 
mice  and  rabbits  during  the  winter,  and 
fully  protected  the  tree  until  the  next 
autumn  when  a  few  borers  were  found 
again,  but  no  injury  had  been  done. 
Thus  the  application  made  in  the  fall 
lasts  a  year  and  protects  from  vermin  and 
borers,  and  the  outlay  for  labor  and  ma¬ 
terial  is  about  one  cent  per  tree  per 
annum.  During  the  three  years  we  have 
taken  I  think  just  30  larvae  from  over  100 
peach  trees  growing  in  the  test  orchards, 
while  on  each  unprotected  tree  very 
commonly  .from  two  to  five  larvae  are 
found  at  work  every  time  they  are 
“  wormed,”  which  must  always  be  done 
twice  a  year  in  this  latitude  if  one  hopes 
to  save  the  trees. 
The  paint  is  perfectly  safe  on  peach, 
apple,  pear  and  plum.  1  am  not  so  well 
pleased  with  its  action  on  cherry  but 
cannot  say  that  it  is  harmful.  Our  entire 
orchards,  containing  several  hundred 
varieties  of  fruits,  are  now  treated  to  an 
annual  painting,  and  one  will  need  to 
travel  a  long  way  to  find  a  finer  example 
of  orchard  culture.  This  method  of 
treating  borers  is  being  adopted  on  a 
large  scale  by  some  of  our  fruit  growers. 
W.  B.  ALWOOD. 
Back  Talk. 
Readers  of  The  Rurai.  should  be 
warned  against  putting  an  untried  horse 
in  the  Sherwood  harness.  I  hitched  in 
a  new  purchase  warranted  “  sound  and 
kind.”  After  kicking  up  several  times 
he  got  a  leg  over  the  draw  chain  and 
never  stopped  until  the  team  were  both 
down  a  five-foot  bank  with  a  man  on  the 
head  of  each.  EDWARD  L.  small. 
R.  N.-Y. — We  never  heard  of  such  a  case 
before. 
That  touching  little  story — page  159 — 
quoted  fi-om  an  indefinite  source  (but 
which  I  remember  appeared  first  in  the 
Detroit  Free  Press)  may  be  taken  to  heart 
by  a  good  many  farmers,  who  are  so 
thoughtless  of  the  comfort  and  welfare  of 
their  wives.  I  have  heard  it  said  as  a 
colloquial  phrase,  that  “  So  and  So,”  were 
“  wearing  their  third,  or  fourth,  wives.’’ 
The  predecessors  were  worn  out !  Not 
long  ago  I  heard  of  three  farmers’  wives 
who  were  insane  in  as  many  contiguous 
places  in  one  county.  We  might  well 
paraphrase  that  old  ditty,  and  say  to  all 
concerned : 
IMty  the  sorrows  of  a  poor  old  wife. 
Whose  trembling  limbs  will  bear  her  to  death’s  door. 
Oh  give  relief  while  yet  she  has  her  life, 
And  do  not  wear  her  out,  to  Increase  your  store! 
H  G. 
There  are  two  things  which  I  think 
the  leading  agricultural  papers  should 
speak  about  more  forcibly  than  they  have 
hitherto  done.  One  is  the  excessive  price 
asked  for  school-books,  the  other  the  ex¬ 
orbitant  express  rates.  What  has  influ¬ 
enced  our  express  companies  of  late  ?  I 
am  suffering  from  chronic  disgust.  I 
have  just  had  to  pay  50  cents  for  a  pack¬ 
age  of  300  “postals”  from  Harrisburg — 
our  acknowledgement  cards.  Uncle  Sam 
would  have  asked  22  or  24  cents  postage. 
Can’t  we  get  the  Post-office  Department 
to  extend  the  parcel  post,  in  other  words, 
do  a  little  express  business  ?  t.  Greiner. 
The  Havana  method  of  delivering  milk 
from  door  to  door  by  driving  the  cow 
along  the  route,  as  noted  on  page  156,  is 
a  common  thing  in  European  countries. 
I  have  seen  the  same  done  in  France  and 
Germany,  and  in  some  parts  of  Wales 
and  the  west  of  Ireland.  The  French 
people  keep  goats  for  this  purpose,  and  a 
flock  of  these  animals  may  be  seen  in  the 
rural  towns  supplying  the  demands  of 
customers.  Even  asses’  milk  is  sold  and 
distributed  in  the  same  way,  these  ani¬ 
mals  being  Dumerously  kept  for  this  use 
at  places  where  invalids  resort.  Not 
many  months  ago  I  saw  the  same  thing 
done  in  a  village  in  a  Southern  State.  It 
is  enough  to  explain  why  these  milkmen 
should  be  poor,  to  consider  the  difficulty 
of  supporting  one  whole  man  by  the 
milk  of  one  very  poor  cow.  It  is  an  in¬ 
stance  of  a  scrub  dairy,  the  scrub  begin¬ 
ning  with  the  man.  h.  stewart. 
Corn  Stalks  for  Paper. — These  have 
been  used  for  this  purpose  in  the  past, 
and,  while  they  have  made  good  paper  of 
its  kind,  their  use  pi-obably  stopped  be¬ 
cause  the  expense  was  too  great,  in  the 
handling,  to  compete  with  wood  and 
wheat  straw.  Paper  making  is  governed 
almost  entirely  by  the  cost  per  ton  of 
fiber  ready  for  the  engines.  A  cord  of 
spruce  wood  will  make  a  ton  of  wood 
pulp,  and,  as  spruce  wood  is  worth  from 
$5  to  $6  per  cord,  and  labor  on  a  ton  of 
pulp  about  as  much  more,  some  idea  can 
be  formed  of  the  cost  of  putting  on  the 
market  another  fiber  as  a  direct  com¬ 
petitor.  TICONDEROGA  PULP  &  PAPER  CO. 
Feeding  Potatoes. — On  page  199  of 
The  Rural,  Alva  Agee  says  he  has  fed 
thousands  of  bushels  of  potatoes  to  his 
milch  cows  at  the  rate  of  half  a  bushel  a 
day.  I  tried  this  with  my  cows.  Their 
yield  of  milk  decreased  ;  if  I  had  kept 
on,  the  result  would  have  been  the  same 
as  that  from  feeding  breeding  ewes  lin¬ 
seed  or  oil  meal.  Feed  potatoes  to  the 
ewes,  hogs  and  other  stock ;  but  don't 
give  them  to  milch  cows  or  horses.  One 
of  my  horses  gets  the  colic  rightaway 
after  eating  two  quarts  of  potatoes.  If 
you  want  to  dry  up  your  cows,  feed  pota¬ 
toes.  There  is  a  mine  of  wealth  in  the 
pages  of  The  Rural,  but  let  us  go 
slow  in  feeding.  “Prove  all  things, 
hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good.”  h.  h.  g. 
[R.  N.-Y. — We  can  only  say  again  that 
we  have  fed  potatoes  to  both  cows  and 
horses  with  excellent  results.  “Prov¬ 
ing  things  ”  is  good  advice,  though.] 
Man,  not  Corn  at  Fault. — I  was  in¬ 
structed  in  reading  Mr.  Crosby’s  article 
“  The  Baby  Corn  Plant  ”  on  page  232. 
He  says,  corn  “as  a  hell-filler— in  the 
shape  of  whisky — stands  'pre-eminent.” 
If  he  will  charge  more  of  wrong  doing  to 
the  accursed  dispositions  of  men  and  less 
to  the  instrumentalities  which  God  has 
given  us  for  the  maintenance  of  life,  I 
think  he  will  be  nearer  right.  Steel  is 
not  the  less  valuable  for  legitimate  use, 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  made  in  the  shape 
of  blades  to  destroy  human  life.  Blades 
of  corn  will  not  cut  except  through  the 
application  of  man’s  energy.  Possibly, 
in  modern  classification,  they  may  belong 
to  terrestrial  devices  for  hell-filling;  but 
the  machinery  which  crushes  and  grinds 
will  not  be  set  in  motion  until  men,  en¬ 
dowed  with  reason,  change  the  reverse 
lever  and  pull  the  throttle.  In  plain 
terms,  charge  the  perversion  to  the  man 
and  not  to  the  corn.  steve. 
Making  a  Lawn. — The  best  seeds  to 
sow  for  permanent  lawns  on  moist  land 
or  on  dry  land  are  Poa  pratensis — various¬ 
ly  known  as  June  Grass,  Kentucky  Blue 
Grass,  or  as  Blue  Grass  at  the  South  ;  or 
( Continued  on  next  page.) 
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NEW  YORK  BY  SUNLIGHT  AND  GAS¬ 
LIGHT.  J.  D.  McCabe,  Jr. 
ROBINSON  CRUSOE.  Daniel  Defoe. 
ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  STANLEY.  A 
complete  account  of  Stanley’s  remark¬ 
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down  the  Congo.  Hon.  J.  T.  Headley. 
LIFE  OF  GEN.  U.  S.  GRANT.  Ben 
Perley  Poore. 
BRITTLE  THREAD  OF  LIFE.  A  Book 
on  Athletics  and  Hygiene.  J.  F.  Ed¬ 
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ROYAL  ROAD  TO  HAPPINESS.  J.  W. 
Barber. 
QUAINT  ALLEGORIES.  J.  W.  Barber. 
WISDOM  ILLUSTRATED.  J.  W.  Barber. 
HOME  MEMORIES.  A  beautiful  collec¬ 
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Clarke. 
INCIDENTS  OF  SHOT  AND  SHELL. 
The  stirring  events  of  the  war,  gathered 
by  the  U.  S.  Christian  Commission. 
Edw.  P.  Smith. 
PARABLES  UNFOLDED.  Wm.  Bacon 
Stevens,  D.  D, 
HEROINES  OF  THE  REBELLION,  or 
Heroic  Women  of  the  War.  Dr.  L.  P. 
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TODD’S  COUNTRY  HOMES,  or  Winning 
Solid  Wealth.  Sereno  Edwards  Todd. 
NIGHT  SCENESINTllE  BIBLE. 
Sacred,  dramatic,  and  immensely  pop¬ 
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PRIVATE  MEMOIRS  OF  WASHING¬ 
TON.  Custis. 
HISTORY  OF  ANIMALS.  500  illustra¬ 
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HISTORY  OF  BIRDS.  500  illustrations. 
Binglev. 
HISTORY  OF  THE  SEA. 
THE  “BEST ”  LIGHT. 
The  Pittsburg  is  the  best  lamp  we  know 
anything  about.  We  did  not  know  that 
any  kerosene  light  could  be  so  beauti¬ 
fully  soft  and  strong — a  powerful  light 
without  glare 
and  flicker,  easy 
and  delightful  for 
tired  eyes.  Now 
we  are  convinced 
and  heartily  in  ■ 
dorse  all  the 
claims  so  far  test¬ 
ed.  The  lamp 
itself  is  a  thing-  of 
beauty.  Here  is  a 
picture  of  perhaps 
the  handsomest  of 
the  series.  We 
would  be  glad  to 
send  one  to  every 
home  in  the  great 
Rural  family,  and  we  have  arranged  to 
furnish  our  subscribers  with  any  of.  these 
lamps  at  special  rates.  Price,  $4  by  ex¬ 
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complete,  with  a  year’s  subscription,  for 
$4.25;  with  a  subscription  from  date  of 
receipt  to  December  31,  for  $3.75. 
PREMIUM  ENGLISH  DINNER  SET. 
(See  Illustration  in  The  R.  N.-Y.  of  December  2(1.) 
This  handsome  premium  we  are  certain 
will  be  welcomed  by  the  feminine  readers 
of  The  R.  N.-Y.  It  is  a  decorated  set  of 
113  pieces  of  English  china  ;  the  soft  gray 
colored  decorations  are  the  flowers  and 
foliage  of  daisies  and  wild  roses.  This 
is  a  strong,  durable  china,  pleasing  to 
the  eye  and  handsome  enough  for  any 
woman’s  table.  The  113  pieces  consist  of 
12  dinner  plates,  12  breakfast  plates,  12 
tea  plates,  12  soup  plates,  12  preserve 
plates,  12  butter  plates,  3  meat  dishes,  1 
soup  tureen  and  cover,  1  gravy  boat,  1 
pickle  dish,  2  vegetable  dishes,  1  sugar 
bowl,  1  creamer,  1  bowl,  1  jug,  12  cups, 
12  saucers,  1  pitcher,  1  tea-pot.  Retail 
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A  CUP  OF  COFFEE 
from  our  premium  coffee  pot  will  brighten 
the  good  wife  and  send  the  husband  to  the 
fields  in  a  cheerful  frame  of  mind. 
It  saves  40  per  cent  over  ordinary 
methods  of  coffee  making. 
It  is  no  more  trouble  than  the  ordinary 
coffee  pot  and  insures  delicious  coffee. 
It  allows  no 
aroma  or 
strength  t  o 
escape. 
It  filters  the 
coffee,  mak¬ 
ing  it  bright 
and  clear, 
and  allows 
no  sediment. 
It  keeps  the 
boiling  water 
in  contact 
■with  the  cof- 
f  e  e  grounds 
the  proper 
time  for  extracting  all  the  aroma  and 
strength  and  none  of  the  bitterness. 
The  coffee  pot  is  handsomely  nickel- 
plated  and  has  a  wooden  handle.  Price 
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