S3o 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
Dec.  17 
S.  S.  B.,  East  Paris,  Mich. — Planting 
young  trees  in  an  old  orchard  in  place 
of  those  missing  is  a  failure  in  almost 
every  case.  The  roots  of  the  surround¬ 
ing  trees  have  already  taken  possession 
of  the  subsoil  and  are  occupying  the 
ground  at  a  greater  depth  than  is  usually 
dug  in  setting  out  new  trees.  An  ex¬ 
amination  of  the  subsoil  will  convince 
any  one  of  this  fact.  If  in  setting  out 
new  trees  great  pains  are  taken  to  dig 
deep  over  a  large  space,  mixing  and 
enriching  the  soil  for  the  new  trees,  the 
failure  in  a  few  years  will  be  the  more 
certain  as  the  roots  of  the  surrounding 
trees  will,  if  within  reasonable  distance, 
very  soon  take  possession  of  the  ground 
thus  mellowed  and  enriched.  It  is  as¬ 
tonishing  how  roots  will  turn  out  of 
their  usual  course  and  seek  food  where 
it  is  in  greatest  abundance.  The  young 
trees  cannct  compete  with  old  ones  in 
occupying  the  soil.  I  know  of  those 
who  have  taken  great  pains  to  most 
thoroughly  prepare  the  ground  for  new 
trees  in  an  old  orchard  before  setting 
and  the  trees  did  well  for  two  or  three 
years  and  afterwards  failed.  The  fact  is 
that  the  old  trees,  unless  on  the  decay, 
will  fight  for  the  possession  of  all  the 
good  soil  and  will  win  every  time. 
THE  BLACK-KNOT  LAW. 
HOW  CAN  IT  HE  ENFORCED? 
II.  Hendricks. — The  provisions  of  the 
“black  knot ’’law  passed  by  the  New 
York  Legislature  last  winter  are  not 
generally  observed,  and  I  am  glad  to  see 
The  Rural,  invite  discussion  of  this  very 
pertinent  mal  ter.  I  do  not  know  of  a 
single  case  where  the  law  has  been  en¬ 
forced  or  where  any  attempt  has  been 
made  to  resort  to  its  provisions.  Nor  do 
I  believe  that  over  one-tenth  of  the 
farmers  and  fruit  growers  of  the  State 
know  of  its  existence.  So  far  as  I  am 
aware,  the  statute  is  a  dead  letter,  and 
right  here  I  might  as  well  own  up  to  a 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  this  state 
of  things.  At  different  times  during  the 
summer  I  remonstrated  with  a  neighbor 
for  keeping  a  group  of  knot-infested 
cherry  trees  standing  in  his  garden  ad¬ 
joining  mine  in  the  city,  reminding  him 
of  the  new  law.  He  kept  right  on 
with  his  black-knot  factory,  and  I  de¬ 
signed  asking  the  Mayor  to  appoint  the 
commissioners  in  accordance  with  the 
statute.  But  in  the  subsequent  crowding 
up  of  other  duties  and  interests,  the  mat¬ 
ter  was  neglected.  All  the  same  the 
dreaded  infection  went  right  on  to  busi¬ 
ness,  and  my  few  plum  trees  were  not 
omitted  in  the  liberal  distribution  of  its 
favors. 
“  Do  the  people  favor  this  law  ?”  Those 
that  know  of  it  I  think  are  inclined  to 
favor  it.  All  fruit  growers  who  have  suf¬ 
fered  from  the  disease  look  upon  this  law 
as  a  move  in  the  right  direction  and 
would  be  g7ad  to  see  it  enforced.  They 
know  that  unless  something  is  done  to 
stay  the  ravages  of  the  black  knot,  or 
stamp  it  out,  plum  growing  in  the  Hudson 
River  region  at  least  must  be  given  up. 
It  seems  to  me  that  in  order  to  make  the 
law  properly  effective  it  should  be  more 
mandatory  in  its  provisions.  How  would 
it  be  for  instance,  instead  of  waiting  for 
the  application  for  the  appointment  of 
commissioners,  to  have  such  appointed 
regularly  without  application  each  year, 
and  make  it  their  duty  to  carry  out  the 
other  provisions  of  the  law  as  it  now  is  ? 
The  primary  trouble  is  that  few  know 
of  this  law  in  spite  of  the  notices  which 
have  been  printed  in  the  rural  press  at 
different  times.  Every  farmer  and  fruit 
grower  should  have  a  copy  of  the  law 
sent  to  him  from  some  official  source. 
The  next  trouble  is  that  comparatively 
few  know  or  understand  the  infectious 
nature  of  black  knot ;  many  even  yet 
believe  the  excrescences  are  produced  by 
an  insect.  Lacking  this  information,  they 
do  not  fully  realize  the  importance  of 
prompt  measures  to  prevent  the  spread 
of  the  disease.  This  must  be  remedied. 
Farmers’  institutes  should  devote  more 
time  to  the  subject  at  every  point.  Man¬ 
ager  Powell  has  lost  heavily  by  the  black 
knot,  he  is  heartily  in  favor  of  the  law, 
knows  all  about  the  disease,  and  can  pre¬ 
sent  the  whole  subject  with  force  and 
clearness.  I  know  he  will  do  this  if 
called  upon.  Let  there  be  a  free  discus¬ 
sion  at  these  and  other  farmers’  meetings, 
that  none  may  remain  ignorant  of  the 
character  and  nature  of  the  disease  or 
the  law  for  its  suppression. 
In  order  to  show  how  little  is  known  of 
this  law,  I  may  say  that  among  the  26 
supervisors  of  the  various  towns  in  Ulster 
County  now  in  session  here,  I  find  very 
few  who  have  ever  heard  of  it  at  all. 
None  of  them  has  received  any  applica¬ 
tion  to  appoint  commissioners  provided 
by  the  statute,  and  one  of  the  most 
intelligent  officials  manifested  surprise 
when  I  informed  him  of  it ;  remarking 
significantly,  “  Well,  I  guess  the  com¬ 
missioners  would  have  to  destroy  all  the 
plum  trees  in  my  town  under  that  law.” 
How  Many  Potato  Eyes  ?— It  is  re¬ 
freshing  to  see  that  one  of  the  stations 
(Purdue  University)  has  been  making 
potato  experiments  of  a  somewhat  orig¬ 
inal  character.  The  problem  selected 
for  solution  was  the  relation  the  num¬ 
ber  of  eyes  of  a  seed  tuber  or  seed  piece 
bears  to  its  weight.  That  an  eye,  as  Bot¬ 
anist  Arthur,  who  conducted  the  ex¬ 
periments,  remarks,  ordinarily  produces 
more  than  one  shoot,  is  a  well  recognized 
fact ;  for  we  all  know  that  if  one-eye 
pieces  are  planted  there  will  be  more 
than  one  stalk  to  the  piece.  Now,  will 
the  number  of  stalks  to  the  eye  be  af¬ 
fected  by  the  number  of  eyes  on  the 
piece  ?  Yes.  But  how  will  the  size  of 
the  piece  modify  the  number  of  stalks  to 
the  eye  ?  We  all  know  that  the  eye  of 
a  potato  is  merely  another  name  for  a 
bud.  We  might,  with  just  as  much  ac¬ 
curacy,  call  the  bud  of  the  stem  which 
grows  in  the  axils  of  the  leaves  of  any 
plant  whatever  an  eye.  The  only  dif¬ 
ference  is  that  the  potato  is  a  fleshy 
stem  while  those  of  woody,  perennial 
plants  are  usually  loDg,  hard  and  slen¬ 
der.  As  in  the  case  of  many  other 
plants,  however,  the  so-called  eye  of  a 
potato  is  not  a  single  bud.  It  is  a  little 
cluster  of  buds,  as  we  find  in  horse-chest¬ 
nuts  and  many  evergreens.  Some  of 
these  are  well  developed,  some  feebly. 
Hence  it  is  that  wrhen  we  plant  a  single 
eye,  one  or  several  buds  develop,  accord¬ 
ing  to  their  potency.  This  potency  dif¬ 
fers  with  different  varieties.  Botanist 
Arthur’s  experiments  seem  to  show  that 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  stalks 
from  seed  pieces  depends  more  upon  the 
increase  in  weight  of  the  seed  pieces  than 
upon  the  increase  in  the  number  of  eyes. 
As  Mr.  Arthur  says,  one-eye  pieces  cut 
from  small  tubers  must  be  smaller  than 
one-eye  pieces  cut  from  large  tubers. 
So,  too,  one-eye  pieces  cut  from  a  given 
tuber  will  be  smaller  than  two  or  three- 
eye  pieces  cut  from  the  same  tuber,  and 
they  will  have  proportionately  less  flesh 
to  support  them  until  the  eyes  push  into 
shoots  or  stems,  and  these  stems  form 
roots  of  their  own  to  gather  nutriment 
from  the  soil  instead  of  from  the  ex¬ 
hausted  seed-piece.  The  experiments 
under  consideration  show  plainly  enovgh 
that  when  the  tubers,  cr  pieces,  are  of 
the  same  variety  and  weight,  the  num¬ 
ber  of  shoots  does  not  increase  with  the 
increase  of  eyes,  but  with  the  increase 
in  weight  of  tuber  or  piece,  the  number 
of  eyes  remaining  the  same.  In  other 
words,  it  requires  a  certain  amount  of 
flesh  to  support  a  given  number  of  eyes. 
If  the  flesh  is  reduced,  the  weaker  eyes 
will  not  push  because  they  haven’t  any¬ 
thing  to  push  them. 
How  does  the  yield  of  potatoes  corres¬ 
pond  to  the  number  of  shoots  to  a  hill? 
Mr.  Arthur  says  that  the  increase  in 
yield  is  absolute  up  to  a  limit  that  is 
likely  to  include  all  requirements  of  the 
cultivator.  But  while  seed  tubers  weigh¬ 
ing  up  to  4%  ounces  give  increasing 
yield  to  correspond  with  the  weight  of 
the  seed  material  used,  above  that  point 
there  is  a  falling  off  in  yield  of  merchant¬ 
able  product.  This  is  doubtless  due  to 
the  crowding  of  the  hills  with  stalks, 
which  prevents  the  proper  development 
of  the  individual  tubers. 
A  tuber  weighing  twice  as  much  as 
another  will  bear  less  than  twice  as  many 
shoots,  and  one  weighing  three  times  as 
much  as  another  will  bear  very  much  less 
than  three  times  as  many  shoots.  That 
is  Mr.  Arthur’s  general  conclusion. 
The  only  varieties  used  in  this  experi¬ 
ment  were  Burbank  and  Beauty  of  Heb¬ 
ron,  both  of  which  are  of  the  Early  Rose 
class.  Had  he  tried  Wall's  Orange,  Dakota 
Red  or  near  relatives  of  the  Garnet  Chili, 
he  would  have  found,  we  fancy,  that  a 
given  number  of  eyes  would  have  given 
more  shoots  regardless  of  the  size  of  the 
pieces.  If,  again,  he  had  tried  the  favor¬ 
ite  sorts  of  smooth  English  potatoes  or 
such  American  kinds  as  the  R.  N.-Y.  No. 
2,  he  would  have  found  that  fewer  shoots 
would  grow  from  a  given  number  of  eyes 
or  a  given  weight.  In  other  words,  we 
may  not  judge  of  the  number  of  shoots 
from  either  the  number  of  eyes  or  weight 
of  pieces  unless  the  variety  is  considered. 
The  R.  N.-Y.  has  therefore  concluded 
that,  as  a  general  rule  with  many  ex¬ 
ceptions,  one  can  do  no  better  than  to 
choose  “large-sized  pieces  containing 
two  or  three  strong  eyes.”  Selecting 
seed  tubers  weighing  five  or  six  ounces, 
we  may  choose  one,  two  or  three-eye 
pieces,  according  to  the  number  of  eyes 
on  the  tuber.  Nearly  all  the  eyes  of  a 
( Continued  on  next  page.) 
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