8 i6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 9 
cut for seed, and the clover cut first outyielded that 
cut a week later by a half bushel to the acre. The 
salted stack was the first one cut and put up, the 
bloom not being fully out. w. s. 
Winchester, Ky. 
Mule Pumping Water. —The windmill on the top 
of the sheep barn—the end of which is shown in the 
picture—Fig. 259, first page, can usually be depended 
upon to keep a supply of water pumped so that the 
stock may never be without; but there is a bluff 400 
feet high only a few rods to the northwest, and when 
the wind is from that direction the windmill is of no 
use. Last winter for several weeks we had either 
northwest winds or no winds at all, and the cistern 
went dry. Something had to be done. The picture 
shows quite plainly what was done. We took the 
tread power from the barn, and placed it so that we 
could connect it with the pump by using a 16-foot 
plank for a “walking beam,” and there you are ! 
Minnesota. j. m. drew. 
How Is This Wheat? —G. N. D., of Shelbyville, 
Mich , says that he had wheat that yielded more than 
60-fold, and asks if any one can beat it. I claim that 
I have done so. In 1887 I planted one grain of wheat 
in the center between four hills of strawberries, the 
hills being 15 inches apart each way. I mulched with 
corn stalks, and the stools had from 30 to 95 heads to 
a stool. The best stool had 84 heads and 3,540 grains, 
making 125 bushels per acre. s. s. 
Xenia, Ill. 
The “ Chunk of Manure ” has no friends in the re¬ 
cent fertilizer discussion. It doesn’t deserve any. Here 
is another argument for the immediate application of 
manure. The rains carry the “goodness ” down into 
the ground. Once or twice brushing over with the 
brush harrow or some kindred tool leaves the manure 
as fine as does the Kemp manure spreader. Then the 
after plowing, instead of turning the manure down 
six inches, brings up and mixes the fertility which has 
gradually been working down. Mr. C. S. Rice states 
the * ruth in his discussion of the quantity of manure 
to be applied. The grain crops which Prof. Roberts 
takes for example perhaps do not require large appli¬ 
cations of manure, but it is not, I think, a general 
practice to manure those crops directly, but rather to 
bring them in a rotation after some crop which is a 
grosser feeder. _ k. c. b. 
FERTILIZERS AND FRUIT. 
AMONG THE HUDSON RIVER FRUIT GROWERS. 
Part IV. 
Interview With J. F. Wygant Continued. 
“ You speak of giving your peach trees a liberal 
feeding—how much per acre does that mean ?” 
“ Well, on my 3,000 trees I used 15 tons of ashes and 
three of mixed or complete fertilizer. I do not try to 
mix at home ; in fact home mixing is but little prac¬ 
ticed about here. A good many ashes have been used 
in years past, but now farmers are using more of the 
potash salts in place of the ashes. A good deal of 
kainit is used, but not always with the best results.” 
The R. N.-Y. does not believe that the use of kainit 
or muriate on grapes will ever prove fully satisfac¬ 
tory in the long run. 
“ How much fertilizer do you use in the course of a 
year ?” 
“ About $350 worth. You can see from the area I 
have in fruit that this means quite an expense per 
acre, still the returns are very satisfactory.” 
“ One year with another, what fruit pays you best?” 
“ Grapes pay best in the long run. This year, of 
course they are very low because the demand has not 
kept up to former years. In many of our manufac¬ 
turing towns men have been out of work and thus 
unable to buy as much fruit as formerly, but another 
year may tell a different story.” 
“ What varieties of grapes do you raise ?” 
“ Moore’s Early, Delaware, Worden, Pocklington 
and Concord. About two-thirds are Concords and the 
remainder about equally divided between the other 
four varieties. As I have said I use my stable manure 
on the young grape vines to grow wood. After they 
come into bearing, I use fertilizers entirely. We buy 
most of our plants and vines. The nursery business 
is quite another business from that of growing fruit. 
After strawberries begin fruiting we have a regular 
succession of fruits for four months. Strawberries 
begin about June 1, gooseberries and currants about 
June 15 and last about three weeks. Grapes and 
peaches begin about August 20 and run till frost. 
The life of the fruit grower is a lively one while the 
season lasts, and that continues from the earliest 
spring till long after the ground freezes up, with 
trimming, plowing, fertilizing, cultivating and pick¬ 
ing.” 
There are two important things in Mr. Wygant’s 
testimony that are worth thinking over. One is that, 
in common with Mr. Williams, he is positive that fer¬ 
tilizers give the best qioaUtyan fruits—particularly with 
grapes and peaches. Both recognize the value of 
stable manure as a mulching material and as a forcer 
for the growth of wood in young vines and trees, and 
they recognize why the manure acts as it does—viz : 
Because the amount of nitrogen it contains is out of 
proportion to the potash and phosphoric acid. An¬ 
other point peculiar to these fruit farms is the fact 
that no effort is made to grow clover or other crops 
for green manure. On that vineyard that Mr. Wil¬ 
liams spoke of, now 15 years old, where no stable 
manure has ever been used, there must be little or no 
humus left in the soil, and yet neither in quantity nor 
quality do the crops of grapes fail. This brings up a 
curious problem in the use of manures and fertilizers. 
Has the importance of humus or vegetable matter in 
the soil been overestimated? In how far will frequent 
and thorough cultivation of the upper soil take the 
place of the mechanical effect of stable manure or sod? 
This would be an interesting question for our experi¬ 
ment stations to take up. These vineyards certainly 
prove that on the soil of these farms, it is not neces¬ 
sary to consider the application of vegetable matter 
in order to produce large crops of good grapes. It is 
true that some weeds and grass are worked into the 
soil in cultivating these grapes, but no studied effort 
is made to secure a green manure crop or a sod. 
Another Visit to Lake view Farm. 
This is not quite the plan followed by Mr. W. F. 
Taber, of Poughkeepsie, whose place was next visited. 
Readers will remember our account of a visit to this 
farm in June of this year. Strawberries and grapes 
are Mr. T.’s chief crops, with the former as the princi¬ 
pal money earner. We can see from his practice that 
the strawberry grower must have a mulching material 
of some sort, while the grape grower can get on with¬ 
out it. Mr. Taber uses large quantities of stable ma¬ 
nure, because that is the cheapest and best mulching 
material he can get. Like all the rest of these fruit 
men, he says that actual fertility is cheaper in the form 
of chemical fertilizers, but the mulch and vegetable 
matter is cheaper in the form of manure. The differ¬ 
ence between strawberry and grape growing in this 
matter of the necessity of using manure is worth re¬ 
marking. Mr. Taber’s soil is heavier than that of the 
other farms thus far described, and he has found that 
humus or vegetable matter is needed to help lighten 
or loosen it. The grapes, by the way, are on the 
highest and lightest part of the farm, and receive fer¬ 
tilizer only at the rate of 500 pounds per acre. 
Unlike Messrs. Williams and Wygant, Mr. Taber 
makes a great point of securing a heavy green crop 
for his strawberry ground. To illustrate this, we can 
give this season’s history of a part of the bed pictured 
in The R. N.-Y. for July 8,1893. That bed was plowed 
under on July 21 and thoroughly fined. On August 1, 
a mixture of clover and turnip seed was sown. The 
amount per acre was one pound of turnip seed, twelve 
quarts of Medium and four quarts of Alsike clover. At 
the time of my visit, October 24, the turnips were as 
large as one’s fist, while the clover had made a fine 
growth. The turnips wi.l be sold or used to feed 
stock, the tops cut off and left on the ground. The 
clover will be cut twice for hay and then plowed for 
strawberries again. Mr. Taber is greatly pleased with 
the success of this experiment, for the crop of turnips 
will pay all cost of seed and rent of land, besides in¬ 
suring a first-rate catch of clover. On another part of 
the field was a heavy growth of rye, which will be 
turned under in the spring and the ground set to 
strawberries, using 400 pounds of fertilizer besides 
the rye. In fact, you will notice that all these straw¬ 
berry growers, while using large quantities of stable 
manure, also use from a half to a ton per acre of fer¬ 
tilizer, which they call the food of the crop. Mr. Taber 
says that he cannot use too much of a well balanced 
fertilizer on strawberries, though he might use stable 
manure alone at a loss, because in order to get enough 
potash and phosphoric acid for the crop, he would be 
forced to use too much nitrogen. 
Mr. Taber says that there is no doubt that fertilizers 
give fruits of a better quality than those grown with 
stable manure. On his soil, this difference is also very 
evident in potatoes. The fertilizers also hasten ripen¬ 
ing—this, in fact, is the general opinion of those who 
have used fertilizers heavily. One good thing about 
Mr.T.’s farming is that all the fertilizers are distributed 
by machine. There is no hand work about it. He 
uses the McKenny distributor which, with one or two 
changes, which he made himself, will either broad¬ 
cast the fertilizer or drop it in hill or drill as desired. 
For training his grapes, Mr. T. uses a modification 
of the Kniffin system. The two upper arms alone are 
left and trained along the upper wire and then down 
to the lower wire. This gives an umbrella-shaped 
vine, exposing all the fruit to the sun, and giving a 
better chance for spraying and picking. We have be¬ 
fore now told some big stories of Mr. T.’s experience 
with the Gandy strawberry. Here is another. This 
year he sold 19 crates of Gandys for $101! Still he 
says he is not advertising Gandy, or does he advise 
others to plant it. Like Catawba and Delaware 
grapes it requires a certain soil and culture to do 
its best. 
(To be continued.) 
SALT AND GAS LIME ON ASPARAGUS. 
In the account of Mr. A. Donald’s method of grow¬ 
ing asparagus which was given on page 761 mention 
was made of the large quantities of salt and gas lime 
that are used on the crop. It seems that many of our 
readers have written Mr. D to know if he really uses 
so much of these substances. Here is a further state¬ 
ment from him: 
“ It seems that gas lime has a bad name Well, it 
has, and it is a dangerous article to deal with, as some 
have learned. To use gas lime fresh from the gas works 
and put it on any growing crop will certainly do harm, 
and will kill young, growing crops. But if put on 
plowed land one month before planting, it will do no 
harm, as the gas will all work out of it. Or if the 
lime has laid in the pile six or eight months, then no 
harm will result. I receive benefit from gas lime put 
on my asparagus bed in winter; where it comes in 
contact with weed seeds, it will kill some, and the 
lime acts on the soil the same as other lime. 
“Some think that I am extravagant in using so much 
salt. I have bought five tons of salt, and shall use it 
all on about two acres, one acre of asparagus and one 
acre of celery ground. I don’t know what there is in 
salt; but I am not afraid to use the amount named. 
When salt is found to injure a crop, I put it on the 
land one or two months before planting, and I have 
never had a crop injured by it, but, on the contrary, 
have received'much good from it. Too many use it, as 
a friend did a few years ago. She told me that she had 
a plum tree that didn’t hold its fruit until it ripened, 
and asked me what she could do to cause the plums to 
hang on until mature. I said that I had used salt on 
all such trees, and that it had proved beneficial. I told 
her to put one-half bushel of salt on the ground, 
spreading it out four or five feet from the body of the 
tree. She did just as I told her—with this difference 
—she reported the tree dead from using the salt, and 
when asked how she applied it, she said : ‘ I took the 
brine from the pork barrel and poured it all around 
it.’ This case is about as near as most people under¬ 
stand the instructions given. There is one thing I do 
know, and that is that I have good crops each and 
every season, and I know that there cannot be found 
one man in all this part of the country who is ac¬ 
quainted with me but will say ‘ Donald has good crops 
every time 1 ”’ A. donald. 
[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.] 
Two Bad Apple Enemies. 
J. R. N., Royal Oak, Md .—I have an apple orchard 
of 130 trees, two years old, 20 of which are affected 
with little scabs or scales which seem to contain 
animal life. I first noticed the affected trees early in 
September. The scales have increased up to date. I 
also find on the affected trees small flies. What is the 
cause, and a remedy ? 
Ans. —The white scales, scarcely an eighth of an inch 
in diameter, closely adhering to the bark of the trees, 
are what are commonly known as the Scurvy Bark 
Louse. Entomologists label them Chionaspis furfurus. 
They resemble a small white fish scale adhering to the 
bark. At this time most of the scales, or rather the 
insects that made them, are dead. But if the corres¬ 
pondent will carefully lift up a scale with a pin or 
knife and examine the spot closely with a small micro¬ 
scope or pocket lens (an instrument that every fruit 
grower ought to own) he will find many minute pur¬ 
plish eggs just underneath the white scale. The body 
of the female insect which secreted the scale will be 
found all shriveled up at one end of the scale. She 
has fulfilled her destiny, and her scale affords a winter 
home for her progeny. In early spring, usually in 
May, the eggs hatch into minute purplish lice which 
crawl from under the scale and scatter over the tree. 
When a suitable place is found they insert their little 
beaks in the bark and there remain, sucking the juices 
of the tree. They move about but little, if any, after 
once becoming established. The scales soon begin to 
form and by midsummer they render the dnsect quite 
conspicuous. Hundreds of the scales often occur on a 
small branch. All parts of the trunk and branches of 
the trees are affected, and the thousands of little beaks 
pumping out the life-blood of the tree seriously weaken 
and may cause the death of the affected portion. The 
