832 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 16 
as from the spring pig. But he does not feed a short 
ration for a few months, to have them ready for push¬ 
ing for a few weeks at the wind-up before going to 
market. It is my custom to grow two litters of pigs 
each year, or as nearly so as may be possible. The 
spring pigs farrowed in February or March must goto 
market by the time the fall pigs. September or early 
October, need care to start them to eating I want 
one lot out of the way by the time the other is one 
month old. By this nlan my hogs go to market at 
seven to eight months old. I do not want any hogs 
on clover. What I mean by this is that I do not want 
to earry a pig over winter to pasture him as a hog on 
clover the next summer. I believe that this idea of 
pasturing hogs on clover to clean their systems to pre¬ 
pare them for fall fattening makes a debt instead of a 
credit column for too many hog growers. 
This pasturing hogs on clover to clean out their sys¬ 
tems, without gain in weight, is in the same line of 
unprofitable work as feeding a maintenance ration. 
The fall pig, weighing 100 to 110 pounds, at six months 
old, has cost too much. The pig has not done his best, 
hence a loss somewhere. Much better would it be for 
the farmer to make his pigs do their best all the time 
they are in his hands, if he cannot bring them to a 
finish and thinks he cannot afford to purchase feed. 
He would better sell when the feed runs out, and let 
some one else put on the finish. If there be a profit 
in getting the spring pig to market as early as pos¬ 
sible, and if the greatest profit lie in that direction, 
the rule will also apply to the fall pigs. 
Another point that many lose sight of is, that it is 
not advisable to have too many pigs on the farm at 
the same time; with increased numbers comes increased 
risk. I aim to get the fall pigs off in April, not later 
than May 1. For a few years past the June market 
has been a poor one to feed for. Summer packing has 
commenced, and the market usually rules as low as 
during the winter packing season. I prefer to put the 
fall pigs on the market when the packers are trying 
to unload their stocks, even though they go at a 
lighter weight than most farmers think profitable. 
With us the light weights quickly made, are the most 
profitable. john m. jamison. 
Ross County, Ohio. 
FERTILIZERS AND FRUIT. 
AMONG THE HUDSON RIVER FKUIT GROWERS. 
Part V. 
The Double Crop System. 
Everybody along the Hudson River knows W. D. 
Barns, of Middle Hope. Mr. Barns is a fruit grower 
of many years’ experience, and as a member of the 
Board of Control of the New York Experiment Station 
is well known throughout the State. His place was 
next visited, and here we found several peculiarly 
characteristic features. Mr. Barns has 86 af’res. His 
son is in the fruit business with him, having left a 
business in the town to enter it. The peculiar features 
of this farming are the heavy use of stable manure and 
the system of double cropping. For example, there 
are 28 acres of grapes, with a row of strawberries 
between each two rows of grapes, and a currant bush 
between each two vines in the rows and at the stakes. 
In the peach orchards, pear and apple trees are set, so 
that when the peaches are done bearing, there is still 
a fruit orchard left. The peach trees are set 15x15 
feet, and the apples and pears 40x40. The peach trees 
last—with Mr. Barns’s cultivation—about 10 years. 
Every third year they set out from five to eight acres 
of*p eac h es —thus working the entire farm into fruits. 
Of course this double cropping system demands an 
immense amount of manure. As the strawberries are 
among the grapes, of course a good deal of the stable 
manure goes there. This practice differs from Mr. 
Wygant’s, for example. She stable manure is needed 
on the berries however and, in this double system, 
probably the manure is not so objectionable as it 
would be if put directly on the grapes. Mr. Barns 
was not prepared to say whether he thought the stable 
manure induced too great a growth of wood. We 
understood him to say that he rather thought it did. 
In fact, he spoke of one vineyard near the barn that 
made an immense wood growth, but bore few grapes 
and finally stopped. By the heavy use of wood ashes 
the vines were brought to bear. On peaches, he 
believes, with the others quoted in these articles, that 
fertilizers give the best flavored fruits. He uses stable 
manure only on young trees, always putting tbe fertil¬ 
izers on the bearing crop. 
Mr. Barns uses every year about 500 tons of stable 
manure and five tons of mixed fertilizer. lie also 
uses some kainit. Where does he get this great 
quantity of manure ? He has a contract with the 
horse car company of Newburgh to keep the manure 
hauled from their stables. He pays $3.60 per year for 
each horse, and considers it a good bargain at this 
price, for this manure from horses heavily fed on grain 
is very strong. Professor Watson, of the Cornell Ex¬ 
periment Station, found that the average voidings'of 
a 1.000-pound horse weighed 48 4-5 pounds per day, 
worth at prices now paid for fertilizers, 7 3-5 cents, or 
$27.74 a year. Of course a large part of the valuable 
liquid manure is lost, but, at the same time, one can see 
that the value of the manure from a horse for a year, 
is considerable, I asked Mr. Barns if he expected to 
use more fertilizers in the future, and he said “ Yes,” 
as he may not be able to obtain manure at his present 
favorable rates. In the case of an electric horse road 
in Newburgh, for example, unless a supply of manure 
from the brickyards were available, he would use 
more fertilizer with some green crop. A neighbor, he 
said, had had fair success with plowing under a good 
crop of rye and using fertilizer with it. As to the 
double cropping system, Mr. B. said it gave him more 
fruit per acre and made the cultivation cheaper in one 
seme and dearer in another. For instance, it was 
easy to work both berries and grapes by running the 
cultivator up and down, but it needed more hand hoe¬ 
ing because one cannot work so close to the rows 
among the currants. 
The Business on a Fruit Farm. 
“How many hands do you employ?” I asked Mr. 
Barns. 
“ Five men for eight months and needed pickers and 
packers.” 
“ What live stock do you keep ?” 
“ Five horses, five cows and poultry.” 
“ What do you call an average crop of grapes and 
peaches ? ” 
“ Four tons per acre is a large crop of Concords, 
three tons a fairer average. Of peaches, the yield, of 
course, varies. I have picked five baskets per tree 
from this orchard. I thin out the peaches one-half to 
two-thirds. This year it was done in July—too late.” 
“ About how much fruit do you dispose of per year?” 
“ We expect to send at least a load of fruit every 
day from June 10 till frost. We have sent 3% tons of 
grapes in one day. We sell some blackcaps and straw¬ 
berries in Newburgh, but all the rest of the fruit in 
New York. We have 60 varieties of grapes in all— 
some of coarse merely for testing. Two-thirds are 
Concords, with the remainder divided amoDg Moore’s 
Early, Worden, Delaware, Champion, Brighton and 
Martha. The average crop from a good Concord vine 
is from 23 to 28 pounds. We never have two heavy 
crops of Concords in succession. Still that variety is 
about as valuable as any. We have sold Champions so 
that they brought $1 per vine, but we would not grow 
any more of them. All our peaches are late varieties— 
nothing earlier than Crawford’s Early. 
“ About how much can you sell from such a farm ?” 
“ We sold 55 tons of grapes from 18 acres, and 
ton of cherries from half an acre. In 1892 we sold 
1,936 quarts of strawberries and this year 9,352 quarts. 
Of currants, we sold 6,000 quarts this year, blackcaps 
4,500 quarts and of peaches 1,475 baskets for $1,300. 
Last year we sold 1,180 baskets of peaches for $1,100. 
Our sales as a whole are a little less this year than 
last. We have built a cold storage house which is very 
handy and profitab 1 e for holding fruit a few days 
when our commission-man telegraphs us that the 
market is full. We sell all our fruit through a com¬ 
mission house.” 
“ Do you feed your peach orchards heavily ?” 
“ Yes, when they bear a crop. I do not use potash 
on peaches unless they bear. Hereafter I shall use 
some bone and potash on young trees in addition to 
the stable manure. It will not do to crowd a peach 
tree.” 
“ What about pruning ?” 
“ We prune only the currants in fall, the grapes in 
December and the rest in spring. We believe that if 
peaches are pruned in the fall they are more likely to 
die back—they seem to be hurt by the cold.” 
Mr. Barns has his farm arranged in a very method¬ 
ical way. Each field is named and a careful record is 
kept to show the number and variety of vines or trees 
in each with the yield from year to year. Mr. Barns 
can thus see just what has been done since the first 
800 vines were set in 1880. 
(To be Continued.) 
A Great Little Potato. —A few years since I re¬ 
ceived from The R. N.-Y. one small tuber of the R. 
N.-Y. No. 2 potato. There are several features that 
characterize this remarkable potato that should be 
more fully understood. Its healthy and vigorous 
growth of vine; the compact and close position the 
tubers occupy in the hill; its general smoothness and 
unusual freedom from scab; large marketable size 
attained by nearly the entire crop ; its prolific ten¬ 
dencies and favorable qualities as a table potato. 
Last fall several hundred bushels of this variety were 
picked clean from the field and drawn unsorted to mar¬ 
ket, with no dissatisfaction manifested by the pur¬ 
chaser, and with no culls to be otherwise disposed of. 
It was one of the most satisfactory deals ever made 
in the cultivation of this important product. I. d. c. 
[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.] 
WHAT CAUSES HOLLOW-HEART IN POTATOES? 
A LARGE PERCENTAGE OP “I DON’T KNOW.” 
Wbat. In your Judgement, causes what is known as “hollow-heart’ 
In potatoes? Can it be “bred out” by planting sound seed and noth 
lngelse? Is Ha peculiar characteristic of certain seed? Why are 
large potatoes oftener hollow-hearted ihan small ones or those of 
medium size? 
Due Mostly to Overgrowth. 
I have had no direct experience wRh hollow pota¬ 
toes, and hence can g : ve no conclusive opinion. I 
have always supposed “hollow heart” to be due mostly 
to overgrowth, although some varieties are more sub¬ 
ject to it than others. I would say that firm fleshed 
varieties of medium size, grown on soil only moder¬ 
ately rich in nitrogen, would be most free from the 
trouble. L, h. bailey. 
Due to the Potato Rot Fungus. 
I would say that the almost universal cause of 
“hollow-heart” in potatoes is the potato rot fungus, 
Pnjtophthora infestans. The surest way to spread 
the disease is by planting unsound “ seed,” Nothing 
but absolutely sound seed should ever be used. It is 
not a peculiar characteristic of certain varieties, 
though, as a rule, early varieties are less liable to 
attack. I rather doubt the fact of the greater fre¬ 
quency of “hollow-heart” in large than in small pota¬ 
toes. There is no reason why it should be so, though 
of course it would be more noticeable in the larger 
tubers. dr. w. c stukgis. 
Connecticut Station. 
Informal Opinion “Not Written for Publication.” 
I do not know what is the cause of “ hollow heart ” 
in potatoes. I do not know that it can he “bred out” 
by planting sound seed. I do not know that it is 
peculiar to any varieties. I do not know why large 
potatoes are oftener hollow hearted than small ones. 
You see that you have asked four very hard questions, 
as far as I am concerned, and I answered each by 
“I do not know.” Now, I want to know and wish I 
could tell you the cause. It is something very old, 
and it is a well-known fact, of course, that large po¬ 
tatoes are more often hollow than small ones, prob¬ 
ably because they are large; that is, the excess in 
size permits all this absence of tissue at the center, 
not altogether for the same reason that a large tree is 
often hollow, while a small one of the same kind has 
a sound center. 
As to a half-way answer in the matter, it may be 
suggested that the central portion of a potato is the 
most non-living portion, it being the storehouse for 
material to be used by the young buds when they un¬ 
fold, these buds and the vital parts associ ited with 
them lying somewhat midway between the surface of 
the potato and its center. In the development of a 
potato we can see that there might be a cavity devel¬ 
oped in the center by the failure of the sufficient de¬ 
velopment of storage tissue to o cupy all the space. 
As to the breeding out, it would seem probable that it 
could be done to some extent, because anything like 
hollow heart is likely to be somewhat a matter of in 
heritance, call it a weakness if you please, and there¬ 
fore one should use strong instead of weak seed. 
DR. BYRON D. HALSTED. 
A “Guess” that Potash Would Cure It. 
As to the cause of “hollow heart,” I must confess 
that I don’t know, and not having studied it, I ought 
not to give an opinion. But if you will take a guess, 
I would say an excess of nitrogenous food in a moist 
soil. There may be some fungous growth connected 
with it, but I cannot think there is any fungous cause 
for it. The potato tuber is the plant’s reservoir for 
the storing of starch for the food of the plant another 
season. If the excess of nitrogeB stimulates the vital 
principle of the plant to an activity in cell formation 
in advance of the supply of mineral food needed for 
building materials, there is sure to be a gap some¬ 
where, and usually where there is greatest activity. 
I do not believe there is any heredity about it. With 
an abundant supply of potash I think there would be 
little of it. With plenty of nitrogen and a deficiency 
of potash there will be hollow hearts usually. 
_ w. F. MASSEY. 
Some Facts About Southern Dairying;. 
0. IF. N., Mt. Vernon, S. D. —I would like to get some 
information as to butter dairying in the mountain re¬ 
gion of eastern Tennessee or western North Carolina. 
Does the woodland afford sufficient pasturage ? Can 
The R. N.-Y. give any information as to the price of 
