THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
8i9 
1891 
THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE FUTURE. 
( Continued .) 
the same kind were cultivated by a skillful 
gardener in the rich soil of a garden close 
by, and grew to a height of about four feet, 
while those In the sand with the water and 
the minute quantities of chemical salts 
reached a height of eight feet. 
This is an old story. For that matter, 
plants will thrive without even the sand. 
Experimenters have devised the means of 
water-culture, by which plants are grown, 
not in soil at all, but with their roots im¬ 
mersed in water in which are dissolved the 
ingredients of their food, which the roots 
ordinarily gather from the soil. The stems 
and branches are upheld by appropriate 
supports. Thus cultivated, they are in 
every way healthy, and attain a more than 
tropical luxuriance, a development rarely 
equaled in field culture. 
Professor Nobbe now has some trees 
produced by water-culture from seeds of 
others which also had never been in soil at 
all, but had grown with their roots Im¬ 
mersed in water. The requisites for such 
plant growth are proper temperature, 
water, and certain elements of plant food, 
of which very minute quantities suffice. 
Given these, and the air will supply the 
rest, and, if other conditions are right, 
abundant yield Is sure. 
The experimenters have found just 
what are the chemical elements that plants 
take up by their roots. The list includes 
phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, chlorine, 
iron, lime, magnesia, potash, and, for many 
plants, at any rate, some compound of ni¬ 
trogen. It happens that the most of these 
substances exist in abundance In even the 
most barren soils. Iron and chlorine never, 
magnesia rarely, and sulphuric acid and 
lime seldom, fail to be supplied in abund¬ 
ance. The elements most frequently lack¬ 
ing in our ordinary soils are phosphorus, 
which is contained in phosphoric acid, 
potassium, the basis of potash, and nitro¬ 
gen. These soil-elements are quickest ex¬ 
hausted in our ordinary farming. They, 
more than any others, are wanting in poor 
and worn-out land, and they are the most 
precious constituents of manure. With 
plenty of these, and proper water supply, 
we need have no fear for the agriculture or 
the world’s food-3upply of the future. 
Although it has been reserved for the 
science of the present to show that warmth, 
water, and plant-food are the prime factors 
of successful crop-growing, the principle 
has been acted upon from time immemorial. 
It is at the basis of the irrigation that has 
been practiced since the most ancient times. 
It is as actually applied in market gar¬ 
dens about Paris, where such surprising 
results are obtained; on the sands of Bel¬ 
gium and Holland, that yield food for a 
dense population, and on the soils of North 
Germany, which, though they are natur¬ 
ally poor, and have been in cultivation for 
many centuries, excel to day the rich soils 
of our new West in their produce. Not the 
natural fertility of the soil but its rational 
culture is what brings the largest, the sur¬ 
est, the most enduring harvests. 
Instead of the yield of a dozen bushels 
of wheat from the poor or exhausted soil 
of an acre, which was, a comparatively few 
years ago, a common average in England, 
and is to-day in a large portion of the 
United States, 80 bushels of wheat per 
acre has come to be an average with better 
culture in England, and will come with us 
when the demand calls for it. It is not to 
such increase as this, however, that we 
must look for the food supply of the future, 
but to such yields as come with sand and 
water-culture. We are not restricted to 
the thirty or sixty or one hundred fold of 
the New Testament parable, but may look 
for the thousand fold that is realized with 
abundant supply of plant food and water 
without any regard to soil. 
Nor is there anything abnormal in such 
vegetable production. That a single plant 
should produce 1,000 seeds, as Professor 
Nobbe’s buckwheat plant did, when 50 
would be a large yield in ordinary prac¬ 
tice; that the produce of a given area 
should be scores or even hundreds of times 
what we ordinarily see; that half a dozen 
crops should be grown on the same area 
every year instead of one, is not what we 
are accustomed to, but is not at all un¬ 
natural. What we call natural growth is 
really stunted growth. Our plants are 
subject to fluctuations of temperature; 
they have too much or too little moisture ; 
their food supply is scant or one sided; and 
these very hindrances to their growth have 
had the further effect of preventing the de¬ 
velopment of varieties capable of produc¬ 
ing the largest amount of the most val¬ 
uable material. Let plants be trained by 
selection and cultivation to do their best, 
let them have the opportunity which comes 
with proper regulation of temperature and 
moisture and food, then perhaps we shall 
see what nature can and will do for us. As 
well say that the philanthropist is the ab¬ 
normal, and the untutored child of nature 
the normal man, as that there is anything 
abnormal in such large vegetable produc¬ 
tion. 
The doctrine, as above maintained is, 
Prof. Atwater confesses, optimistic. But 
what was the earth made for ? Is It gov¬ 
erned by a beneficial power, or is it not ? 
Are mankind the creatures of Almighty 
malevolence, or are we the children of a 
loving as well as omnipotent Father 1 Are 
we placed here in a world which is bad and 
ever growing worse, or is there a continual 
evolution toward higher and better and 
happier things ? Faith has always had 
Its reply to Malthusian pessimism, though 
that reply has been vague. The Science 
cf to-day makes It clear. So Faith and 
Science rightly joined ever lead us to the 
light. _ 
POINTERS. 
Isaac Hicks, the veteran nurseryman 
of Queens County, Long Island, writes as 
follows : “ I have been anxiously waiting 
for the fruit of Prunus Simonli. This year 
the trees bore abundantly of most beauti¬ 
ful and worthless fruit of a peculiar flavor 
that even the small boy did not relish. The 
Bhotan Is most excellent; Ogon not so 
good. The Wonderful Peach is not equal to 
Smock, Susquehanna or Wheatland.”. 
During the past 10 days it has been no¬ 
ticed that many of the hybrid wheat plants 
in The R. N.-Y. plots were dying. A care¬ 
ful examination revealed that the cause 
was the Hessian fly—the first time this 
wheat pest has been troublesome in 20 
years in this locality. Probably the warm, 
dry fall has favored its Increase. Beneath 
one or more of the sheaths of the wilting 
plants the “ flax seed ” was found. One 
plot of richer soil than the others was not 
attacked. The plants, though the seed was 
sown a week prior to the others, are all 
beautifully vigorous. A rich soil is per¬ 
haps the best protection against the Hes¬ 
sian fly, unless it be late sowing. 
The value of the potato crop depends 
chiefly upon the yield per acre, size of the 
tuber and its evenness of contour. These 
are the factors that determine the market 
price at any rate, until the public is enabled 
to connect an inferior quality with a given 
variety. But the public is very slow to do 
this, be the things to be judged vegetables 
or fruits. The first value of a potato (as of 
fruit) should depend upon its quality re¬ 
gardless of size, contour or yield. It ap¬ 
pears from recent investigations that the 
quality of a potato depends upon its per 
cent of dry matter, which varies from 15 
to 25 per cent. 
The Report of the Director of the Cen¬ 
tral Experiment Farm, of Ottawa, Canada, 
for 1890, gives a list of 80 different kinds of 
potatoes grown there of which an estimate 
of the dry matter and starch has been 
made. We are pleased, but not surprised 
to find that the Rural Blush stands first, 
since we have always held this variety up 
as of the best quality. It is not a shapely 
potato; it *' straggles in the hills,” as the 
phrase goes. But when nuttiness, dryness 
and mealiness are taken into the account, 
it has no superior. While, therefore, It is 
not excelled by any other potato for home 
use, it will never, perhaps, become popular 
in the market. 
The specific gravity of the Rural Blush 
was found to be 1,099; the per cent of 
starch 18.56; the per cent of dry matter, 
23.25. For purposes of comparison we give 
the dry contents of other leading kinds: 
Specific Starch. Dry 
Kinds Gravlly. Matter. 
Per cent. Per cent. 
White Star.1,091 17.05 21 53 
Burpee’s Superior.l.oSti 16.22 20 51 
Beauty of Hebron.1,086 16.22 20 54 
Empire State. 1,0j6 16.22 20 51 
Early Ohio. 1,084 lb 07 20 25 
Pearl of Savoy. 1,079 14.21 19.80 
Stray Beauty.i ,069 14.29 17.80 
Telephone.1,059 13.59 16.87 
We have at length succeeded in securing 
seed balls of The R. N.-Y. No. 2 Potato. 
Our thanks are due to Mr. James Woolley, 
of Dover, Ill. 
“We can well afford to devote half our 
time to creating an interest,” says Horace 
Mann, “and the other half to satisfying 
it.” Indeed, if civilization had not largely 
done this for U3, we would be at the zero 
point of our existence. For without at 
least some interest in life there can be no 
life. Anything that increases this interest 
in life increases life itself. 
My Lady’s Wash Bowl, Meehan’s 
Monthly says, is the common name in the 
South for the Saponaria officinalis. In this 
part of the world its common name is 
“ Bouncing Betsy.”. 
Magnolia stellata. —As this very beau¬ 
tiful magnolia fljwers so young a general 
Impression prevails that it is very much of 
a dwarf. On Mr. Saul’s grounds, at Wash¬ 
ington, Mr. Meehan saw a magnificent 
specimen probably six feet high, and 10 or 
more in diameter. 
Mr. W. C. Barry attributes the rapid 
growth and sudden death of certain rose 
bushes to the free use of nitrate of soda ... 
Many a neglected corner would send up 
a thrifty Concord or Brighton. 
WORD FOR WORD. 
-N. Y. Herald: “Cruel Fashion.— 
Some years ago a gentleman took me over 
a warehouse in the city to show me the 
dead birds that were imported from abroad, 
to be worn in ladies’ hats, etc. It was then, 
for the first time, that I understood what 
this horrible fashion of wearing birds really 
means, There were not hundreds, and not 
thousands, but hundreds of thousands of 
dead birds in that big warehouse. Every 
drawer and cupboard in all the rooms was 
crowded with them. They came from 
South America mostly, from the countries 
of eternal summer, where everything in na¬ 
ture is richer and more gorgeous than in 
our colder climate. The coloring of the 
dead birds, even before they were ‘ prepared 
for the market,’ was magnificent; but what 
a tale the limp, dead bodies told as they lay 
in their stuffy catacombs I ” 
-Shirley Dare : “ The staple meat of 
the laboring class is salt pork, corned beef, 
salt fish—a diet they manage to work off, 
being much in the open air. I have sur¬ 
veyed the contents of such tin dinner pails 
as came under my eye, curious to know 
just what our street menders and hodcar- 
riers live on. Judging from the almost 
universal diet of the greater class of our 
people, the hog ought to be the national 
emblem. Now, there is nothing to be said 
against what our Southern friends call hog 
meat, except that where it is the staple 
tuberculosis and scrofula prevail, with 
eczemas, erysipelas and inflammatory dis¬ 
eases generally, besides the ever-dreaded 
trichinosis and the certain periodic sick 
headaches and attacks of biliousness which 
follow its use. Smoked ham, well cured, 
protected from flies and well cooked In thin 
rashers is least objectionable from the anti¬ 
septic effects of the creosote absorbed in 
smoke. But in no case of meat or fish can 
smokery take the place of cookery. To be 
at all safe, ham and bacon should be cooked 
after the epicure’s direction—cut thin and 
fried or broiled quickly till crisp enough to 
break under the knife.” 
“ What we really find are innumerable 
devices for refining the appearance and 
heightening the price of food, excuses for 
asking six cents a pound for cereals, dear 
at three, or selling the condensed wash of 
coarse meats at half a dollar an ounce as 
extract of beef, preserved fruits which cost 
the price of a day’s labor for what a family 
would eat at supper, canned soups cried up 
in advertisements to the echo, but which 
those who have seen the manufacture 
privately warn you against tasting and, 
being warned, you never wish to taste.” 
-Christian Intelligencer : “Now why 
doesn’t the Board of Health go into the 
8,000 saloons in the city, and see how much 
poison can be found in what is called wine? 
Give the poor grapes a rest, and tackle the 
poison in the decanters and bottles, that is 
known to be killing all the time. Poisoned 
grapes, forsooth 1 What of bottles and 
barrels of drugged liquors 1 ” 
-Dr. Chamberlain in The Ohio 
Farmer : “ I have been personally and in¬ 
timately acquainted with eight farmers 
who quit their farms and engaged in other 
business with the expectation of obtaining 
easier and more profitable work ; but all of 
them did so to the detriment of their pecun¬ 
iary interests, and three of them, at least, 
to the injury of their health and the short¬ 
ening of their lives.” 
-Weekly Press: “The man who 
while growing good crops increases the fer¬ 
tility of his acres, works on the lines of 
true science. No matter where he ac¬ 
quired the necessary learning, whether 
trom books, or observation, or experiment, 
as long as he works intelligently he is 
aided by science and Is helping to advance 
science, although he may call it a different 
name.” 
-Life: “A Matter of Duty: The 
tariff issue.” 
^tijsircUaueaujsi 
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for 
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Warranted to _ cut green 
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®y-NAJLE THIS PAPER (very tim, JOU writ*. 
