1894 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
423 
itself. The tomatoes can be picked from staked plants 
for about one-third of what it costs to pick them from 
unstaked plants. It seems to me that the plan offers 
very decided advantages to the market gardener, but 
probably not to those who grow on contract for can¬ 
ning. On the experttnent station grounds, a well-kept 
tomato trellis adds an attractive and instructive fea¬ 
ture that is worth many times its cost. w. J gkken. 
Ohio Station. 
KEEPING SMALL FRUIT CLEAN. 
CAKE AND TOOLS NEEDED. 
The low prices of all small fruits make it imperative 
that the grower should practice every economy in their 
production. Hand labor is always expensive, and 
should be employed sparingly. Leaving the weeds to 
grow undisturbed among strawberries or raspberries, 
is probably the most expensive method that could be 
adopted by the grower. Many implements in use for 
subduing weeds among small fruits, do good work, if 
properly adjusted and skillfully managed. Hut after 
all, much hand work has to be done. If in this Had- 
son River Valley region, “ five-sixths of the work of 
keeping weeds under had to be done with hoe and 
knife,” as the Michigan correspondent, F. M , claims, 
the profits of fruit growing would be most seriously 
reduced. 
Perhaps a statement of our method of growing small 
fruits would be more instructive and satisfactory to 
most readers than explicit directions. Proper prepara¬ 
tion of the soil before setting is always most economi¬ 
cal. Still, there are frec^uently unfavorable and un¬ 
avoidable circumstances that will necessitate some 
changes of any plan. The aim of every grower is, or 
should be, to grow the finest quality and the most 
fruit at the cheapest rate. To do this, the ground 
must be brought to a high degree of fertility, and to 
a perfectly clean and mellow condition. Most of our 
small fruits are grown among peach trees or grape 
vines. Occasionally strawberries are set where the 
ground has been recently cleared of some other crop. 
In the winter of 1892 and 1893, an old peach orchard 
was taken out, and the ground, after heavy manuring 
and three plowings, was planted with potatoes. These 
were kept clean of weeds during the season. After 
two thorough plowings last spring, the ground was 
set with plum trees and strawberries. As a special 
preparation, each row for strawberries was opened by 
turning apart two deep furrows in which well-rotted 
manure was thickly strewn. This was covered by 
throwing the furrows back, and well mixed with the 
soil by running a cultivator over the soil several times. 
As soon as the strawberry plants had begun to root, 
frequent and shallow cultivation was resorted to, fol¬ 
lowed by light hoeing. In this way, the ground has 
been kept clean, and but little time was taken for 
each hoeing. By the time the runners start, nearly 
all the weed seeds in the ground will have germinated 
and been destroyed. Should weeds make their appear¬ 
ance after a rain while the ground is soft, they will 
be pulled. When a strawberry field is a year old, it 
should be clean, and not require weeding or hoeing 
till the crop is gathered. Then a thorough mellowing 
of the surface and cleaning of the bed should be done. 
For cultivating fruits or corn, we find half a spring- 
tooth harrow an excellent implement. The depth of 
culture can be so readily and perfectly regulated, that 
we consider it of great value in our work. Almost 
precisely the same method is followed by us where 
strawberries are set in a young peach orchard or vine¬ 
yard. 
The second season, the bed is not disturbed, and gen¬ 
erally gets quite weedy. As soon as the crop is gath¬ 
ered, the bed is plowed up and potatoes planted in the 
dead furrows. Every few days, the spring-tooth cul¬ 
tivator, or a section of a Thomas smoothing harrow, is 
run over the ground, potatoes and all. This, if the 
weather be dry, will reduce all to fine tilth, add vege¬ 
table matter to the soil, and generally secure a good 
crop of potatoes. The next season the ground is clean 
and ready for strawberry planting. 
Raspberries and blackcaps may be kept free from 
weeds with less hand labor. The method depends on 
the way they are set; whether in hills or in rows. If 
in hills, so that they may be worked both ways with 
the plow and cultivator, simply pulling the weeds 
from the hills, and with the improved Morgan horse 
grape hoe, throwing a light furrow toward the plants, 
will cover the very small weeds so that but very few 
will gfct large. As a hand labor saver in the cultiva¬ 
tion of grapes, raspberries and currants, it has no 
equal. Where the hills or rows are less than five feet 
apart, the hoe should be narrowed by putting in 
shorter braces which will be supplied as extras by the 
manufacturers. 
As my raspberries and blackcaps are grown between 
rows' of grape vines or peach trees, they are set in 
rows and can be worked but one way. The grapa hoe 
here comes in play as it leaves so little ground undis¬ 
turbed between the bushes, vines or trees, that the 
hoeing is reduced to a minimum. If the weeds that 
make a rapid growth early in the season among the 
bushes be pulled, a judicious use of the horse grape 
hoe and the cultivator will keep the ground in good 
clean condition during the season, with but very little 
hand labor. Here the blackcap bushes are subject to 
rust, and we find it advisable to set out a plantation 
every second year. If properly set and cared for, a 
fair crop may be gathe^d from bushes set the previous 
year; or as soon as a crop of strawberries. After 
yielding three crops, the rows have become so thinned 
by this disease that the vines are taken out and the 
ground prepared for some other crop. Daring this 
time, the rows are sufficiently open to allow the grape 
hoe to work advantageously. All implements used in 
the cultivation of fruit should be so regulated or set as 
to accomplish the desired work as perfectly as they 
are capable of doing. The owner or some competent 
person should see that plow, cultivator and horse hoe 
are properly adjusted, and that the man working them 
pays strict attention to his business all the time. A 
little carelessness in working with any implement 
among fruit may cause great in j ary and will be sure 
to leave lots of weeds to be pulled or hoed out. 
Orange County, N. Y. w. d. uaknh. 
PLEASURE IN THE GARDEN. 
now TO MAKE HANDSOME F I{ U I T. 
The most enjoyable of all the pleasures of garden 
work, is the successful growing of rich, handsome 
fruits. It is very much easier, cleaner and less ex¬ 
pensive than the growing of vegetables. The require¬ 
ments for soil, for manure and for heavy labor are 
less ; while, with wise selection to suit the place, the 
crop, at least in the case of small fruits, is on the 
whole equally certain. 
Next to shelter from injury, judicious thinning is 
the main requisite for full success. The most common 
The Marshall Strawberry. Fia. 108. 
(See Page -<34.) 
^causes of injury are unseasonabe or ill-managed plant¬ 
ing ; want of such hoeing or mulching as will keep 
the soil open to the air, cool and damp ; and racking 
or breaking by wind, or cattle, or want of support. 
Thinning includes due annual pruning of the wood as 
well as direct reducing of an over amount of fruit set. 
Just now—June 1, in the latitude of New York—we 
are going over the grape vines, taking off the weak 
cymes, especially from the weak shoots or strong ones 
which bear more than two large bunches, unless the 
shoots are few and very strong, when, in rare cases, 
three are allowed. The result from this is, as proved 
by many years’ practice, that the fruit left on ripeus 
completely, is more juicy and finer in flavor, and all 
the bunches are at maturity large, handsome, and glow¬ 
ing with color, plumpness and fragrance. The opera¬ 
tion is easier than the thinning of tree fruits, even when 
the vine is on an overhead horizontal trellis, which 
we now prefer to all others, even in the case of vines* 
which require to be laid flat on the ground during 
winter to prevent them from being injured by cold, 
drying winds. The main stem is trained sloping so as 
to bend readily upward or downward; and, after the 
pruning in November, the canes are laid flat and, if 
necessary, weighted down so as to lie under the snow. 
They are raised and tied up in March or early April 
before the buds begin to swell. Later, there would 
be danger of losing some of the most fruitful of them. 
Less thinning is needed on the Concord and its seed- 
ings than on some of the hybrid sorts, as they rarely 
set more than three bunches on one shoot; and, as 
the canes are well varnished and hardy, we seldom 
lay them down. But some other fine sorts pay well 
for the slight trouble of sheltering in that way. 
Under the head of thinning may be included, too, 
the necessary care to tie the bearing canes on a trellis 
so as to be well separated. Also in the case of trees. 
to prune and train, and where needful, brace or tie 
apart all branches, so that all may have full exposure 
to the open light, and the top be everywhere evenly 
full, open and well balanced. Corresponding to this 
is the tying of the tall canes of vigorous raspberries 
well apart to their sustaining wires, and the guiding 
of strawberry runners—if we do not pinch them off 
for the sake of getting fruit on the parent plant next 
season in lieu of a progeny of young plants—to where 
they can root with plenty of room to develop. By 
such gentle guidance of the generous and luxuriant 
natural growth, instead of ever doing any opposing 
violence to it, we get our baskets filled at the season 
of ripeness with bounteous and beautiful returns. 
The domestic plums—Damsons, Prunes and Gages— 
are grown but little here now, chiefly because of their 
liability to rot. They are likely to rot worse where 
they hang in clusters, touching each other. They are 
by no means so easily thinned as the distinct and dis¬ 
tant grape thyrses are, and what complicates the case 
is that, if we retain any with curculio crescent cuts 
upon them, they, too, will fall before maturity. But, 
from some cause—perhaps because there are fewer 
plums—curculios are less numerous than formerly. 
Most persons now prefer to plant the Chickasaw plums, 
as Miner and Wild Goose or the Japanese sorts, and 
in these the larvm of the curculio mostly perish. 
Pennsylvania. w. 
SHALL IT BE “EX” FARM HAND? 
A DARK VIEW OF THE LABOR QUESTION. 
We hear and read of strikes, lockouts and financial 
distress on every hand; the cities and large towns are 
full of angry, idle men, and the country lanes with 
hungry tramps and Coxeyites, while almost all kinds 
of farm products are selling lower than ever before. 
Over and above the wail of tribulation that fills the 
air, we hear the piping voice of the average newspaper 
editor singing of the great scarcity of farm hands, the 
high wages being paid, and advising everybody to fly 
to the green fields and assist in raising and caring for 
the bounteous crops with which the husbandman is 
struggling single-handed and alone. The idea seems 
to possess these “intellectual giants” that the farmer 
is calling for help of any sort, skilled or unskilled, 
native or foreign—anything that can shoulder a shovel 
or drink from a jug. When a manufacturer wants 
men, they must be skilled—must know exactly how to 
do the work expected of them, and he will not employ 
any other ; but when the farmer wants men any kind 
of dolts will do, because “ anybody can farm !” This 
is the idea that prevails generally among the “autuori- 
ties” and philanthropic pen-pushers in cities, and they 
never tire of advising the penniless workingman to go 
to the country and “ help the agriculturist until times 
become better.” 
But the penniless workingman doesn’t go. A few 
stray out and learn that it is skilled help the farmer 
wants, not raw greenhorns, and they soon return to 
their old haunts. Occasionally one whose family is suf¬ 
fering for. the necessaries of life, goes out determined 
to do his utmost to earn something. After long and 
weary tramping, he obtains employment and valiantly 
tries to do his part. Most of us have seen him. tie 
has been accustomed to working eight or ten hours a 
day, and 10 bewilder him. He does not understand 
the use of farm tools and implements, and this makes 
the work doubly hard. He is willing enough, but 
unskilled, and unless he happens to fall into the hands 
of a very kind and indulgent employer, who can and 
will spare the time to follow him about and teach him, 
he soon wipes the sweat from his brow, shakes the 
soil from his feet, and goes back to the city weary and 
discouraged. 
What sense is there in advisipg these men to go to 
the country to seek work when they don’t know wheat 
from corn, or which end of a plow goes first. When a 
farmer hires a man, he wants one who knows how to 
farm, one he can send out to work and know that he 
will do it right, one he can leave alone a whole week I 
Certainly farmers are paying high wages, considering 
the prices they are receiving for their products, but 
only for men who understand farming. 
And this reminds me. Last winter a strapping 
young fellow, who was reared on a farm and thor¬ 
oughly understands the art, told me that he had over¬ 
worked himself one hot day last summer and had been 
suffering the consequences ever since. He asked if I 
thought a change of climate would be beneficial to 
him. I thought it would, and advised him to go to 
northern or northwestern Iowa and try it a season. 
He obtained the address of a farmer living in Hum¬ 
boldt County in that State, and made some inquiries 
about wages, openings, etc., giving references. The 
farmer wanted a hand himself, and he at once wrote 
offering him $22 per month. The young man accepted 
the offer and went out. After he had been there 
about two months he wxote me a letter, a portion of 
which I copy: 
“ When I first came here, I got along finely, build- 
