1891 
SPICE— Continued. 
has analyzed a two-year-old apple tree. 
Assuming that a block of apple trees in the 
nursery would produce a growth of five 
tons of dry wood and leaves, they remove 
from the soli, according to the analysis of 
Prof. Snyder, 12 pounds of phosphoric 
acid, 44 pounds of potash, and 89 pounds of 
nitrogen. The trees contain over seven 
times as much nitrogen as they do of phos¬ 
phor! ? acid, while the average commercial 
fertilizers contain seven times as much 
phosphoric acid as they do of nitrogen. 
One hundred pounds of such a commercial 
fertilizer or so called “complete” manure 
would furnish the 12 pounds of phosphoric 
acid, while it would require two or three 
tons to furnish the 89 pounds of nitrogen... 
That may be tiue of the average fertil¬ 
izer, Mr. Harris ; but we find that leading 
fertilizer firms offer brands as follows, 
according to analyses made by the State 
agricultural stations: 
“ Tobacoo brand”.ammonia 7.50 
“ComDlete for heavy soil”. ” 6.00 
“ Cabbage and cauliflower”. 6.'.0 
Will not that answer ?. 
What the grape vires want is a dressing 
of superphosphate in the fall or early spring 
plowed or cultivated in the soil, so as to 
get it down to the roots, and as early in 
the spring as the soil will admit a dressing 
of 200 or 300 pounds of nitrate of soda. It 
is not necessary to plow this in. It will get 
to the roots if applied early enough while 
there is plenty of moisture in the 
soil. In the form of nitrate of soda 
nitrogen is immediately available and 
will be promptly taken up by the roots 
and furnish a sap rich in nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid, and thus force a 
healthy, vigorous growth early in the sea¬ 
son. And in a few weeks there will be no 
nitrate left in the soil to produce an exces¬ 
sive growth of wood or to retard the ripen¬ 
ing of the grapes. 
When the nurseryman applies an ordi¬ 
nary commercial fertilizer containing less 
nitrogen than is found in clover hay, and 
it does little or no good, he ought not to 
be surprised. What he needs is a manure 
containing a little soluble phosphate and a 
good deal of soluble nitrogen ; what he buys 
is a manure containing little or no nitrogen 
and a good deal of phosphate. A chemist 
may report that a fertilizer is what it pre¬ 
tends to be, and is worth the money 
charged for it, but it should be remem¬ 
bered that all these reports on fertilizers 
claim to tell us is, not what they are worth 
to the farmer, gardener, or fruit grower, 
but simply what the ingredients they con¬ 
tain can be bought for at retail in the mar¬ 
ket.,. 
Mr. Harris has several acres of currants 
and sells the fruit to a canning establisn- 
ment. Last year the proprietor said to 
him: “ What can we do, Mr. Harris, to 
induce the farmers to raise more currants 
and raspberries ? ” “ Pay more for them,” 
he replied, and he seemed greatly disgusted. 
Improved agriculture and horticulture will 
not enable us to grow cheaper products, 
but better. The judicious use of fertilizers 
will not enable us to grow apples at 25 
cents a bushel, but it will, combined 
with careful selection of varieties and good 
general management, enable us to raise 
apples better worth $1 per bushel than the 
fruit from a starved and neglected orchard 
is worth 25 cents. 
Great advances are made all the time in 
the introduction of improved varieties of 
fruits and vegetables, and this necessitates 
cleaner and richer land. Thirty or 40 
years ago we thought potatoes must have 
poor land or they would run all to vines. 
Now our improved varieties will stand a 
liberal dressing of superphosphate and 
nitrate of soda, and it is not easy to deter¬ 
mine who exhibits the greater folly, the 
man who fertilizes his land and then plants 
poor varieties, or the man who plants the 
best and most improved varieties and then 
neglects to furnish them with a liberal 
supply of appropriate and available plant 
food... 
The following new varieties of potatoes 
are being tried in a small way this year at 
the Rural Grounds. The season starts out 
most unfavorably, the weather being 
exceedingly dry and the soil alive with the 
cucumber flea beetle: Freeman (Maule); 
Early Wisconsin, Iron-clad and Hotel Fa¬ 
vorite (Salzer); Vaughan (Vaughan); Lem¬ 
on’s Prize (Lemon); Sir William (Burr); 
No Name (Nilson); Early Walton (Van 
Ornam); Cape Breton Black (McDonald); 
Vick’s Perfection (Vick); Rising Sun, 
White Cloud, Bracy’s Superior, Bracy’s 
Winner, and Northern Queen (Bracy); 
Seedling of Burbank (McCann), and Seed¬ 
ling No. 44 (Knapp). Burbank, Mammoth 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
4iQ 
Pearl, Early Rose and Rural Blush are 
planted for comparison. 
As our readers are aware, we endeavoured 
to get s. ed balls of the R. N.-Y. No. 2. 
Several subscribers were kind enough to 
send from one to two or three, but they 
were seedless. 
PROF. F. H. Storer, in his “Agricul¬ 
ture,” says that it is notorious that every 
improvement thus far made in European 
farming has been developed by the large 
farmers, the peasants having simply fol¬ 
lowed where the larger proprietors led. 
The peasant farms have, too, an enor¬ 
mous advantage over the large farms in 
respect to the cost and the quality of labor. 
Farm labor, in order to be applied to the 
best advantage, should not only be exe¬ 
cuted with judgment, but with interest 
and devotion. The peasant takes t^he field 
with his wife and children, and not only 
utilizes much labor that would have no 
merchantable value, but he has always an 
eye to the judicious and constant applica¬ 
tion of the labor. The cost of the labor 
applied to his land is consequently low, 
while the effect produced by it is great. 
Herein the peasant is specially favorably 
circumstanced as compared with the large 
farmer, whose hired laborers have com¬ 
paratively little interest in their work, and 
who cannot be subjected to anything like 
the oversight that is constantly present, 
as a matter of course, upon the peasant 
farm. 
Grape Culture is fast becoming one of 
the leading industries in Florida, Ala¬ 
bama, Georgia, South Carolina and Ten¬ 
nessee, where numbers of vineyards cover 
hill and dale and yield abundant crops of 
fruit. So writes a contributor to the 
American Agriculturist. Florida, especial¬ 
ly, with its semi-tropical winters and pro¬ 
tection from the “tail ends of blizrards,” 
has climatic advantages which enable it 
to grow and place early grapes on the mar¬ 
ket long before Its more northerly neigh¬ 
bors can boast of even a “ rare ripe bunch.” 
Until recently a few choice vines, or an 
arbor in the garden or door yard, and for 
ornamental home use only, filled the meas¬ 
ure of grape culture in the “ Land of Flow¬ 
ers,” although the woods, swamps and hill¬ 
sides teem with native vines. But now 
many persons have gone largely into grow¬ 
ing grapes as a business, and thrifty vine¬ 
yards are to be seen in almost every section 
of the State. 
These vineyards are by no means excep¬ 
tions. Mention is made of Capt. W. I. 
Yason, of Tallahassee, who bought an old 
farm for two dollars and a half an acre 
and planted several acres of it in vines. In 
less than four years he could have sold his 
vineyard for four hundred dollars an acre. 
Although grapes grow so abundantly, 
they find ready sale, being from two weeks 
to a month earlier than those grown farth¬ 
er north; and the readiness with which 
they are put on the market in New York, 
Pniladelphia or Washington inside of 48 
hours fresh from the vine, will make the 
grape crop one of the most impor:ant and 
profitable of that favored section. 
Dairymen are delighted with the prom¬ 
ised provisions for the Dairy Exhibit at the 
Columbia Fair, says Benedict, the agricul¬ 
tural editor of the New York World. The 
board of managers have decided upon the> 
erection of a suitable building, which with 
its outbuildings and yards is to cover five 
acres of ground and cost $75,000 . 
According to the report of the Massa¬ 
chusetts Agricultural Station for 1890 (just 
issued) the best varieties of potatoes, both, 
in the general character of the crop and im 
their comparative freedom from scab, were' 
the Rural New-Yorker No. 2 and White' 
Seedling. 
The report states that red skinned varie¬ 
ties show no greater resistance to scab than 
others. In our experience red skinned 
varieties are the first attacked and the n. o : t 
seriously injured.- 
B. F. Johnson, in the Country Gtntleman,. 
says that his experimental patch of a third 
of an acre of Alfalfa has now completed its 
third and is entering on its fourth year.. 
He cut three small crops the first, four good 1 
ones the second, and four better ones the 
third year. To day, when the season is just 
advanced enough to bring peaches into 
bloom, the average growth of the Alfalfa 
plants is at least seven inches in height and 
there is a full and complete stand over the 
entire patch, holding out a promise of at 
least four heavy crops by or before the 
second week in October. 
This is quite a different account of 
Alfalfa from that found on page 484 of 
Bulletin No. 15 of the Illinois Experiment 
Station, and demonstrates, perhaps, how a 
gratuitous experiment, made by an indi¬ 
vidual of limited means and small oppor¬ 
tunities, may be more successful than one 
scientifically conducted with $15,000 to $25,- 
000 annual money behind it, and a big corps 
of officials and employees to see and have 
the work done 
DIRECT. 
- Dr. T. H. Hoskins : “ We want a little 
more national patriotism in this country, 
North as well as South. We need to quit 
nagging other sections, and to pull all 
together for the national good.” 
-Cor. Country Gentleman: “I will 
admit that to thrash rye by hand is slow 
and expensive, and if the ordinary spiked 
cylinder thrasher is used the straw will be 
broken and its marketable value destroyed ; 
hence I advocate the use of improved ma 
chinery, and in this case I recommend the 
self-binding rye thrasher, which not only 
thrashes without injury to the straw, but 
also chans the straw from dust, and de¬ 
livers it thoroughly thrashed and rebouLd 
ready for marketable purposes.” 
- American Agriculturist: “Ameri¬ 
can wines are infinitely better than a great 
part of the French wines, a fact which is 
readily admitted by the French them¬ 
selves.” 
-Popular Gardening : “A florist never 
hangs himself.” 
- Prof. Wing : “ Poor foods make white 
butter.” 
-Mr. Chapman: “You cannot change 
the color of the shells of eggs by food.” 
-U. S. Statistician J. R. Dodge, in 
Country Gentleman : “ The misrepre¬ 
sentation of politico-rural writers and 
speakers, relative to farm profits and 
farmers’ indebtedness, and their utter 
helplessness and hopelessness, is the most 
monumental exhibition of mendacity of 
the present time. I will allow every jot 
and tittle of existing rural disability and 
misery, and there will be ample warrant 
for this remark in depreciation of the cur 
rent belittling and pauperizing of Ameri¬ 
can manhood in rural life and action. Self- 
respecting agriculturists are disgusted ai d 
mortified at the mendicant condition in 
which they are placed by charlatans and 
cranks.” 
“An indication of the absurdity of the 
view that our production is speedily com¬ 
ing to a dead halt, and that upon such 
an idea rests all our hope of the future 
happiness of the farmers, is seen in the ad¬ 
vance of the (Chicago) price of corn—123 
per cent—within a year, of wheat, 27 per 
cent; of export beef, 10 per cent. It shows 
what I have taught and proved for thirty 
years, that price depends upon supply and 
demand, and agricultural prosperity main¬ 
ly upon a harmonious and proper distribu¬ 
tion of rural labor in agricultural produc¬ 
tion. We have arrived at a point at which 
this law cannot be trifled with, and it 
behooves agricultural editors and writers 
to enlarge their range of vision beyond 
the microscopic views and petty prejudices 
which fill so large a space in the agricul¬ 
tural journalism of to-day.” 
“As a matter of fact, farm production, 
cotton alone excluded, just suffices to sup¬ 
ply 63,000,000 people, the surplus paying 
for the agricultural products imported, 
their sea transportation and charges and 
inland distribution, and very little over; 
and the unsatisfactory prices result from 
failure to produce what we need and buy 
abroad, and from excessive production of a 
few staples instead, from an Insane deter¬ 
mination to follow in the furrows of 
grandfathers, and never learn anything 
new. It is conservatism gone to seed ” 
Readers of The R. N.-Y. will please the 
advertisers and benefit the paper by always 
mentioning it when writing to advertisers. 
insects on Fruit Trees. 
There pests are rapidly multiplying and every 
year their ravages Increase; they destroy the apples, 
plums, cherries and peaches. Yet they can he exter¬ 
minated by judiciously spraying the trees. The Field 
Foree Pump Company, of Lockport, N. Y„ have Just 
published a very instructive treatise on this subject, 
which they will send free on application. 
P.P.Green 
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MENTION THIS PAPER 
MUSHROOMS: 
How To 
Grow Them. 
BY 
Wm. Falconer. 
For home use fresh Mushrooms are a delicious, 
highly nutritious and wholesome delicacy; 
and for market they are less bulky than eggs, 
and. when properly handled no crop is more re¬ 
in unerati ve. A ny one who has an m (Unary house 
cellar, woodshed or barn can grow Mushrooms. This 
is the most practical work on the subject ever 
written, ami the only liouk on growing Mush¬ 
rooms ever published in America. 
The whole subject Is treated in detail, minutely 
and plainly, as only a practical man. actively en¬ 
gaged In tv» ushroom growing can handle if. 
The author describes how lie himself grows 
Mushrooms, ai-o h< w tln-y are grown for profit 
by the leading market gardeners, and for home 
use by the most successful private growers. 
The hook is amply and pointedly Illustrated, with 
engravings drawn from nature expressly for tills 
work. 
Is nicely printed and hound In cloth. 
Price, po-tpaid, 8U.50. 
THE RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
Timex Building, New York, 
