36 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Jan. 21 
a heavy weight is immense, and if I were in the busi¬ 
ness and had the power, as this man has, I would rig 
up something, if it were only a single stamp, with a 
heavy base, and try crushing the bones, which I am 
confident would grind much more easily after passing 
through such an apparatus. I have often thought of 
the stamp mills of the Pacific coast, and wondered if 
they had never been tried on bones. It would seem 
at which they were sold, but would be willing at this 
time to pay $4 or $5 per ton for ashes equally good, 
delivered in the orchards ; but of course their real 
value depends largely on the percentage of potash 
they might contain. J. h. hale. 
Connecticut. _ 
NOTES OF TRAVEL. 
dissolve it, when it was pumped up into reservoirs, 
and then evaporated in hot vats—and at the end, the 
salt ran out of a huge machine, piping-hot, fine and 
dry. Some of it went into barrels and some into sacks 
of various sizes, which were manipulated by girls, and 
the bags were variously labeled to suit the nomencla¬ 
ture of the merchants ordering the commodity. As 
usual, it was claimed that the salt was the best in the 
Ulilltl 
world ! 
It was in cider time, and I was treated to the bever¬ 
age in many styles. There was the cider that had 
been brought to “ a scald,” and to each quart sealed 
up in a jar were added just two raisins; the raisins 
were the “witches” to keep it from fermenting. A 
second device was to put a teaspoonful of oil of sassa¬ 
fras to a gallon of cider. A third was to mix a quarter 
of an ounce of salycylie of soda with 10 gallons. A 
half pound of sugar to one gallon of scalded cider 
made it taste like champagne ! 
I saw a clever woman mix a tablespoonful of vinegar 
with, perhaps, a half pint or more of mixed plaster-of- 
Paris, for mending holes and cracks in plastered 
walls, to keep the plaster from “setting,” and it kept 
it plastic until she could comfortably use it. Another 
woman amused me by telling me of the poisoning of 
a horse and a calf from eating the leaves of the 
oleander, and she was amazed that I didn’t know the 
tree was poisonous ! Tubs filled with oleander shrubs 
had been for years among my household plants, and I 
had eaten of the leaf assuredly, as I am given 
to tasting leaves. But the first encyclopedia 
I could lay hands on confirmed the woman’s 
statement. An acquaintance had been widowed 
since I had last seen her, her husband having 
died from nursing his horse ill with glanders! 
So we are all ignorant of something ; but 
every one should know that a horse ill 
with glanders should at once be shot, and 
buried deep with quicklime on top. I have 
just read in a little book called “ My Horse, 
My Love,” written by a lady, too, the state- 
’ r- * ment that there is no cure for a man who 
, takes glanders from a horse. [Nor for a dis¬ 
eased horse either.— Eds.] 
P* Before leaving the beautiful lake region, I 
went for an hour or two to Cornell University, 
to delight my soul with a view from the 
campus, which, all in all, is the finest in the 
world—at least the finest I have seen, and I 
have seen many. There were many more 
young women speeding over the walks than 
when I was last there, and they make a 
very creditable showing among the 1,G00 
students. I was sorry not to have time to see 
Prof. Bailey and tell him what delight 1 take 
in his little Nursery Book—How to Propa¬ 
gate Plants. The Cornell students have a 
superb conservatory in which to make experiments, 
and in time to come they may be able to make thistles 
t)63/r figs ! MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
PART III. 
A third objected with all his might and main to 
having certain great trees about the dwelling cut 
down, because he had planted these self-same trees 30 
years before. A certain oak he had brought at that 
time from a distance in a flower pot. If a few rods 
from the house, the trees would have been most desir¬ 
able, but standing where they did, they made the 
dwelling like a charnel-house. Books molded and 
stuck together; shoes were stricken with gangrene, 
and the rooms smelt musty and dead. One day, how¬ 
ever, the father went away for a week’s visit, and dur¬ 
ing his absence, the spirited daughter of the house, 
hired a “ tramp ” (remarkable in that he could be 
hired to work) to cut down those holy trees—and, lo ! 
the house was flooded with sunshine. It was as if the 
inmates had emerged from an arctic night, and the sun 
had risen. What happened when the “ old man ” 
came home can well be imagined, but the daughter, 
who had acted with her mother’s approval, bore the 
brunt of the fray, and nobody perished in the conflict. 
that the experiment is worth trying. G. s. r. 
Winslow, Me. 
Fertilizer Prices. —I would like that The R. N.-Y., 
should give a statement of the prices of fertilizers 
like muriate of potash, nitrate of soda, etc., in the 
market reports. The prices asked in Portland for 
muriate of potash are $70 per ton in one-ton lots; $65 
in three-ton lots. How do these compare with New 
York prices ? thomas paulson. 
Oregon. 
Ans. —The charge is altogether too much. The 
retail quotations in New York now are as follows : 
Muriate of potash $45 per ton ; sulphate of potash $54; 
double manure salt $32 ; sulphate of ammonia 3% cents 
a pound ; nitrate of soda 2% cents a pound ; dissolved 
bone black $28 per ton. 
Charcoal Kiln Refuse. —I noticed the advice in 
The R. N.-Y. some time ago to save all the charcoal 
one can get his hands on because it is a nitrogen trap. 
Now, doesn’t the refuse from large kilns contain potash 
also, and how should it be applied to the 
land ? The coal men here say it will dry 
the land out so it will produce nothing. I can 
get large quantities for drawing it one mile. 
Stanwood, Mich. d. w. 
Ans. —We have no analysis of such refuse 
as you speak of, but suppose it contains more 
or less potash from the ashes used in burning 
the charcoal. You might send a sample for 
analysis to the Experiment Station, Agricul¬ 
tural College P. O., Mich. We would haul 
such refuse and broadcast it on the lighter 
soils—either on grass or spring grains or, '' S s. 
better yet, on land to be used for potatoes 
this spring. _ / 
VALUE OF LEACHED ASHES, 
As compared with city stable manure, what should 
be paid for leached ashes to be hauled one 
mile for use on fruit trees in an orchard or 
elsewhere ? 
I have never had any experience with 
leached ashes on orchards, but have seen good 
results from them on corn. As a dressing 
for an orchard I would prefer manure at the 
same price for a given bulk. I have had 
remarkably good results on strawberries 
from a good top-dressing of air-slaked lime in spring. 
Pennsylvania. E. B. good. 
I would pay five cents per bushel for leached ashes, 
and haul them two miles if necessary. I have for 
years saved all the ashes, leached and unleached, for 
the orchards and fruit garden and deem their use of 
almost incalculable benefit to the fruit grower. For 
good city stable manure I would pay $1 per two-horse 
load and haul it two miles. I would use both on the 
same land conjointly or separately as the conditions 
might require. s. miller. 
Very little ashes are used here. The farmer’s 
cheapest and best way to fertilize is to seed down to 
clover and pasture the land for two or three years. 
Where stable manure is used, it is better to apply it to 
the ground after it is well seeded down and let the 
grass choke out the weeds, than to go to the useless 
expense of fighting them with the hoe and cultivator. 
There is no advantage in getting $100 an acre from 
land yearly when one must pay in manures and culti¬ 
vation $101 to get the smaller sum. I have on a small 
scale applied leached ashes to strawberries and orchard 
trees without any apparent benefit except that the 
mechanical condition of the soil seemed improved. If 
thoroughly leached, I would not pay anything for 
them. Ashes for the orchard here have much value 
in checking the root form of the Wooly Aphis, which 
is a great pest, especially on young apple trees. I do 
not know as to the worth of the leached article for 
this purpose ; but suppose it to be nothing. 
Illinois. BENJ. BUCKMAN 
Of course, the term “leached,” is applied to all ashes 
that have had either a small or a very large portion of 
their potash extracted, and even where an effort has 
been made to get out the greatest possible amount of 
potash a considerable quantity will always remain, 
which, added to the other elements of plant food in 
the ashes, makes them quite valuable as an orchard 
fertilizer. Some years ago large quantities of these 
ashes were brought here from the leacheries of Canada 
and proved to be very valuable in the orchard, on 
mowing and pasturage. I do not now recall the price 
Columbus Gooseberry. Fig. 14. 
writer to Insure attention. Before asking a question please see If It Is 
not answered In our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions 
at one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
What About Fowl Meadow Grass? 
C. S. W., LaPorte, Ind .—Is Fowl Meadow grass as 
good as described in the National Encyclopedia, which 
says: “ Fowl Meadow grass especially has been found 
to take the place of BLue grass in those sections of the 
North where the latter does not succeed; especially 
has this been the case in Wisconsin. Mr. Frank E. 
Hoiet a careful farmer of that State, in relation to 
this grass says he knows of no other in the Northwest 
that will compare with it either for pasturage or the 
production of hay. It has never been winter or 
summer-killed, and he has found one acre of marsh 
