1893 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
557 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of the 
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.] 
A Tennesseean After Potash. 
F. A. R , Tullah'vma, Tenn .—I have 125 acres in 
clover, and desire a fertilizer to be used as a top-dress¬ 
ing, in addition to what barnyard manure I may have. 
I propose at first to put the latter over the thin or 
gullied spots and then put enough complete fertilizer 
over the entire lot of 125 acres, provided it does not 
cost too much; we cannot realize as much for our 
products here as the Northern farmers can for theirs, 
a point which has to be considered as we figure. I 
have been using bone meal on wheat, following with 
clover and wheat again, a very short rotation ; hut 
my place was (and is yet) poor. I desire to increase 
the growth of clover; by that means I think I can re¬ 
deem it, and by putting on barnyard manure and fer¬ 
tilizers. The cost of bone meal (Armour’s) is $27 50 
per ton delivered here in carload lots. I can, in addi¬ 
tion, vet wood ashes from hickory and oak at 50 
cents for a two-horse load ; but rain has fallen on the 
ashes and they have been exposed to the weather, 
and I know that they have leached somewhat, how 
much I do not know. I would have to haul them six 
miles, and two loads a day are as much as I could 
carry. 
Ans. —The value of the more or less leached ashes 
is unknown. Only an analysis couM determine how 
much potash is left. What our friend’s clover needs 
is evidently potash and probably phosphate. Raw 
bone would furnish all the nitrogen needed, if, in¬ 
deed, the clover itself may not furnish a sufficiency. 
Unless we knew just about what the ’ashes contain 
we should use kainit or muriate of potash. Send a 
fair sample of the ashes to your experiment station at 
Knoxville for analysis. With this analysis you 
can easily figure what potash costs per pound and 
compare it with the cost of potash in muriate at the 
ordinary prices charged. See also what cotton-hull 
ashes cost you. 
A New “ Discovery ” in Churning. 
L. L S., Georgetown, 111. —If anything has been said 
in The R N -Y. concerning the “ discovery ” referred 
to in the inclosed clipping, it has escaped my notice. 
Is it a hoax or a real discovery of merit ? 
It te reported that the butter secret has been discovered. Ur. Vaughn 
is the man who is credited with having found It, and it is regarded in 
sc lent l tic circles as peihapstbe greatest of his discoveries. The thing 
that he Is represented to have got at is the alkaloid whlc i, being 
created in milk or cream by cburn'ng, produces butter. Dr. Vaughn, 
It seems, takes a can of fresh milk, drops in seme alkaloid, and pres¬ 
ently dips out u.e lully-developed butter without further ado. It Is 
not oleomargarine, or any lllegal-unless-labeled substitute, but real 
butter. 
Here, says Harper’s Weekly, Is another step taken toward the mil¬ 
lennial period when man will press the button and Nature will do 
the rest. Dr. Vaughn does away with the churn, the next inventor 
may be expected to abolish cows. Give him a pall of rainwater and 
he juggles something into it, and you get back real milk. Then an 
ounce or two of alkaloid, and, lo butter! and all the milkmen and 
dairymaids are In search of new employment. 
Ans. —No, nothing has been said about this famous 
“ discovery ” except what we have said about black 
pepsin and the other bulter frauds. Dr. Vaughn’s 
methods read very much like the circulars of the fraud 
Bain, who sells alum, bicarbonate of soda and rennet 
with the claim that his mixture will increase the yield 
of butter. It does nothing of the sort, but only causes 
a lot of cheesy material to combine with the fat. 
Churning does not create any alkaloid at all. It is a 
mechanical process which causes the globules of fat 
to adhere or stick together in masses until they are 
large enough to be removed bodily from the liquid in 
which they float. 
“ Conservaline,” Another Milk Humbug:. 
J. Q W., Canandaigua, N. T .—I inclose a pamphlet 
which I received addressed ‘ ‘To the most advanced milk 
dealer of Canandaigua,” which was accompanied by a 
confidential letter request ng me to remit $15 for a 
recipe as explained in the accompanying catalogue. 
Not having the necessary funds to spare, I send the 
catalogue to The Rural knowing how much it thinks 
of such frauds. 
Ans —For the benefit of those of our readers who 
have not seen this remarkable pamphlet we propose 
making a few extracts from it. First the author says: 
Any one who receives this pamphlet, and who, after reading It 
carefully, decides not to purchase my recipe, will do me a favor by 
handing this to some brother oalryman who, he thinks, will buy it. 
Tnink quickly and wisely and buy it yourself, for 1 want some reliable 
person in your place to use my preservative this season. I sell my 
recipe to only one dairjman maplace.no matter how large the city 
is. I keep a strict record oi every pampnlet sent out and every recipe 
sold so that no mistakes can occur. 
Certainly there should be no mistakes about it! He 
then goes on to sing the wonderful properties of “Con¬ 
servaline.” “ Absolutely healthy,” “ recommended by 
the Board of Health,” “same ingredients as are used in 
condensed milk,” etc. Then he comes down to the 
following sentimental appeal: 
Brother dairymen, lend me your ears. I thought when I purchased 
my milk preservative recipe, that I must sell it some time, but that 
time had better be after I had made something out of it for myself; 
now that I am getting old and ca ' lo jk back and see what it has saved 
me, I feel as if the time had come when I ought to give to my fellow 
dairymen the benefit of my knowledge. I can think of no occupation 
in which a man can amass a fortune as quickly as in the dairy busi¬ 
ness. I was born and raised witn the cow, so to speak. My father 
milked 50 cows when I was a boy. My mother took special pains to 
teach me everything necessary to run a dairy successfully. She 
taught me to make a pet of every cow we had, and a thousand other 
things, many of which I would never have learned but for her thought¬ 
ful kindness. She taught me to think and work. I am an old man 
now, 1 am not young in the cause, I have grown gray in the service. 
She taught me that "genius is but a capability of laboring Intensely ; 
it is the power of making great and sustained efforts.” She taught 
me to save is one of the main things in life. 
It is surprising since the words “to save” have 
been so carefully rubbed into this man that he does 
not realize that other farmers have reasons for saving 
15 good dollars which he wants to get hold of. Who 
but a fool would give the following as an argument in 
favor of selling his stuff ? 
How could the manufacturers of condensed milk carry on their 
business without a preservative? 
How could the Chicago butchers ship their meat over the country 
in refrigerator cars without the aid of a preservative? 
Does he want to sell heat and ice ? Those are the 
preservative agents used by condensed milk factories 
and meat shippers. To add insult to injury, the scamp 
ends up with this quotation from Robert Burns : 
To catch Dame Fortune’s golden smile, 
Assiduous wait upon her; 
And gather gear by ev’ry wile 
That's justify d by Honor; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge. 
Nor for a train attendant, 
But for the glorious privilege 
Of being Independent. 
He is a humbug and a fraud—not worth even 15 
cents’ worth of your time. 
Some Frnit Questions. 
C. W. H., Waterford , N. J. —1. Does the Abundance 
plum need some other variety near it to fertilize its 
blossoms? 2. If so, whit would be the best varieties 
for the purpose ? 3. How would it do to bud the fer¬ 
tilizing varieties on the Abundance trees of a young 
orchard, where it would not be convenient to set them 
between ? 4. Do Marianna and Wild Goose plums 
bloom at the same time as Abundance ? 5. Does the 
Downing gooseberry usually fail to “ set” a large part 
of its bloom, and do some of the berries usually drop 
before they are half grown ? 6. What is the best 
fertilizer for them under the above circumstances ? 
Ans. — 1 and 2. No. We have a tree laden so that it 
is heavily propped up. There is no other plum near 
it. 3. No objection to doing so occurs to us. 4. We 
have at present neither the Marianna nor the Wild 
Goose. The question is submitted to readers who 
have observed. 5. Not with us. 6. Raw bone flour 
and unleached ashes or muriate of potash. 
Some Facts About Potash. 
E. JR., Rock Glen, Pa .—What does potash K 2 0 
mean as potash K 2 0, 2% to 3% equal to sulphate 
five to seven. Is potash K 2 0 equal to double the 
amount of sulphate of high grade ? 
Ans. —We explained this in full last spring. What 
is known in fertilizers as “ potash ” is a combination 
of potassium and oxygen combined in the proportion 
of two parts of potash and one of oxygen. The letter 
K represents potassium in chemistry, while O repre¬ 
sents oxygen. K s O simply shows that the two sub¬ 
stances are united to form what is called potash—just 
as Pa Os means that two parts of phosphorus and five 
parts of oxygen have been united to make phosphoric 
acid. Sulphate of potash is a form in which the pot¬ 
ash is combined with sulphur. Only one-half of the 
sulphate is pure potash, the rest being sulphur, water, 
etc., which are needed to makj the combination. 
This is why 2% per cent of pure potash is said to be 
equal to five per cent of the sulphate, because the 
sulphate has double the bulk of the pure potash. 
What Proportion of Inferior Pure-Bloods ? 
F . C. L ., Waterbury, Vt. —In reading The R. N.-Y. 
for June 24, I was especially interested in the article, 
“The Making of Shropshire Mutton Makers,” in which 
Mr. Breck says he had “ never sold an animal except 
for breeding purposes—Lever for the butcher.” Are 
we to understand that every animal he produces is per¬ 
fect, or, rather, is it not reasonable to suppose that 
some are inferior, and is not the principle of selling 
every animal produced for breeding purposes alto¬ 
gether wrong ? 
Ans. —I do not believe that in any of the improved 
breeds of live stock it is possible to have all the 
progeny suited for breeding purposes. He would in¬ 
deed be a fortunate breeder who could raise such a 
high class of stock. The Shropshire sheep have been 
brought to their present state of perfection by a close 
selection of the best animals and proper care and 
food, and this selection must continue if we would 
keep them true to type and improve them in the future 
as we have in the past. From the best of animals some 
of the progeny are often disappointing, but such speci¬ 
mens are rare as we approach perfection in both sire 
and dam. But this perfection must relate to both the 
quality of the individual and the pedigree. When I 
speak of the present state of perfection in the Shrop- 
shires, I do not mean that at present they are perfect, 
but refer to the best of the breed in their present 
popularity. 
As to my own practice, I breed only a few choice 
animals. For this purpose I have carefully selected a 
few ewes from each of seven large importations, each 
numbering from 100 to 250 sheep, and my lambs have 
all been excellent individuals and have been bred 
remarkably true to type. The result has been that I 
have had only two ewe lambs which I deemed un¬ 
worthy to be offered for sale for breeding purposes or 
to be used in my own breeding flock, and these were 
sold to another breeder who is using them as grades 
for raising mutton sheep. The few ram lambs I have 
had that were not good representatives of the breed, 
I have made wethers and they have been consumed at 
home, so I was correct in saying “ I had never sold an 
animal except for breeding purposes—never for the 
butcher.” At the same time that statement was mis¬ 
leading to my friend from Waterbury. Again, I say 
I believe it is only by careful and painstaking selec¬ 
tion of the best of any breed that we should be able to 
maintain their high standing and improve them as we 
should. GEO. E. BRKCK. 
Keep Lime Out of the Well. 
IF. IF., North Bellingham, Mass —A well gave excel¬ 
lent water while I used a bucket and windlass to draw 
the water, but now when I have put in a porcelain- 
lined pump and cleaned the well out, it tastes muddy ; 
the pump rests on a stone three inches from the sand 
on the bottom of the well. Would it do any good to 
put some slaked lime in the well, or would it be injur¬ 
ious ? 
Ans. —It will never do to put lime in a well used for 
domestic purposes. The muddy taste of the water is 
no indication of anything unwholesome, but is due to 
the disturbance of the bottom by the cleaning. This 
is the usual result of the cleaning and it will disappear 
in a few weeks. It requires a long time for water 
disturbed and mixed with sediment to clear itself, and 
it is quite probable that the iron of the pump gives the 
taste to the water. That too will disappear in time. 
To put lime in the well would make the water hard 
for years. 
Crimson Clover at the Rural Grounds. 
L. A. P., Glendale, Mass —A late Rural speaks of 
Crimson clover that had been sowed May 10 as being 
in blossom July 16. How much growth had it made ? 
How did it compare with Red clover at the same age ? 
How early can it be sown, and on a fair average toil 
how much can be cut to the acre ? I have been much 
interested in what has been said about Crimson clover 
in The R. N.-Y., but have seen nothing from any one 
as far north as this. 
Ans. —Some seeds of common Red clover were sown 
with the Crimson sort. The plants bloomed at the 
same time. We have no record of the height for July 
16. On August 4, when about one tenth of the plants 
were in bloom the height was about 18 inches. On 
this date one-third of the plot was cut. It cured less 
readily than common clover. This is all the informa¬ 
tion we can give from our own trial at present. 
A Swindle if You Expect Paying Fruit. 
S. J., Pittsboro, lnd.— An agent is going around this 
neighborhood selling an Evergreen blackberry, which 
he says will not sprout from the root, does not shed 
its leaves, and hears ripe and green berries and blos¬ 
soms at the same time. He also asserts that it grows 
40 to 60 feet high ; price $2 50 per plant. Is it a hum¬ 
bug ? It does not die after it has borne fruit. No 
subscriber of The Rural has bit at it yet, but a good 
many others have. 
Ans. —Yes, it is virtually a swindle. It is the old 
Evergreen blackberry, often called the Cut-leaded. 
Some of the claims are true. It is nearly evergreen 
in mild climates, makes a remarkable growth in good 
soil and bears ripe and green berries, and blossoms at 
the same time. It is, however, regarded as an inter¬ 
esting rather than a valuable variety. Where the 
standard sorts will thrive, the Cut-leaved is not valued 
because the berries are smaller and not so good in 
quality. Agricultural editors do not generally know 
about this blackberry, if we may judge by what their 
papers say—or rather do not say—of it. The Rural 
has had plants of it in its trial grounds for many 
years and has had occasion to guard its readers against 
it every season. It is a European variety—Rubus fruti- 
cosus. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
W. F. Walker , Fla. —The specimen sent is Amelan- 
chier Canadensis, var. botryapium, or Snad-berry. 
Black Currant.—EL. B. N , Lima, Ohio.—We recom¬ 
mend the Crandall, though you may have to try more 
than once before you get the true variety. Write to 
Frank Ford & Son., Ravenna, Ohio. 
