472 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 28 
criticised by town friends, when visiting me, for grow¬ 
ing one variety of a vegetable for shipment and sale 
to city people, and another variety of better flavor for 
my own table. The rule is, with some exceptions, 
that appearance rather than eating quality, sells fruits 
and vegetables. A long, white, smooth and soggy 
potato will be eagerly nabbed up by merchants and 
market people, while a fine flavored potato with 
rougher, netted skin will go begging for buyers. 
There is no use of arguing the matter with the people— 
they will not believe a stranger—and the proper thing 
to do is to send to market what the people want. For 
a local market, one can place quality first; but when 
shipping, appearance is the first essential. Regular 
shippers understand this, and if a farmer proposes to 
consign goods to a city commission house, he should 
send what the people think they want, and not what 
he thinks they should want. 
The device, “ Car lots a specialty,” has an imposing 
appearance on business cards, and costs only the 
printing. In Western cities, at least, many without 
capital go into the commission business, and I observe 
that they incline much to the use of this phrase. 
They often have no business room, getting desk room 
in some upstairs oflise, and their business is confined 
to sales to hucksters. They prefer “car lots” because 
they want the box car to do business in. When a con¬ 
signed car arrives, they open it in the freight yard of 
the railroad, call up the huckster wagons and sell at 
whatever price they can get. They have no building 
to which they can remove the stock, and must stand 
in with the hucksters by giving big measure and 
never pushing up the price on them. This accounts 
in some cases for the shortage. I have stood by the 
hour watching the hucksters bully the seller into 
giving them extra weight or measure, the latter 
knowing full well that if he did not let them have 
their way, the string of wagons would drive off to 
another car where a competitor would favor them at 
the expense of the consignor. Large houses may use 
the words, “Car lots a specialty,” but so do others. 
I do not say that the farmer should not consign his 
produce, and I make a practice of consigning my own 
because it pays me ; but a farmer who proposes to 
send his own produce to city markets, should visit 
these markets, learn all he can about their demands, 
and especially should he have personal acquaintance 
with the man whom he entrusts with his goods. The 
last is important. He should beware of the man who 
wants his business on a smaller commission than the 
average, as an honest man should have good pay, and 
a dishonest one will have it, and when a fair-dealing 
man is found, he should have one’s exclusive patron¬ 
age. _ ALVA AGKE. 
HOW TO GRAFF AT THE SOUTH. 
THE QUESTIONS. 
Will The U. N.-Y. or some of Its readers give the best manner of 
propagating apple, pear and plum trees ? Some nurserymen advocate 
grafting the apple on pieces of roots; others on whole root seedlings. 
Some advocate budding the pear and plum, others say It Is best to 
raise from cuttings. What hinds are best raised from cuttings, If any? 
1 have tried propagating the apple on pieces of roots, and for me, they 
do not give satisfaction; usually die In a few years under cultivation. 
On whole seedling roots, they do well. 1 want to know which is best. 
Georgia. w. b. s. 
• Summer Budding or Crown Grafting. 
The best way to propagate the apple, pear and plum 
in the South, is by summer budding on good, thrifty 
seedlings, or crown graftings of these in winter. Some 
of the Oriental pears and plums may be grown from 
cuttings, but as a rule not so good trees are made as 
by budding or grafting on thrifty seedling stocks. The 
Le Conte pear and Satsuma and Mariana plums grow 
readily from cuttings in' Georgia, and the latter make 
a superb stock for budding the other Japan and Euro¬ 
pean varieties upon ; in fact, it is probably the best of 
all stocks to graft or bud Orientals upon. j. h. hale. 
Le Conte and Keiffer Pears from Cuttings. 
W. B. S. has in a measure answered himself in re¬ 
gard to using whole apple seedlings for grafting, 
which is by far the best method for propagating 
apple trees. Piece-root grafts have their advocates, 
especially at the West; but for Southern planting, 
such trees do not give any satisfaction. Whole seed¬ 
ling grafts should be used for pears, apples and 
peaches, if long-lived standard trees are desired. As 
a rule, the best way to propagate nursery trees, is to 
plant out healthy seedlings in rows, and bud these the 
following summer or fall; budding is preferable to 
grafting, because, should the bud fail, the stock is not 
lost, as it may be budded over again. Some varieties 
of pears, like Le Conte and Keiffer, will grow from 
cuttings in certain sections of the South, but these 
trees at best are undesirable for planting outside of 
the extreme Southern sections, because they make but 
few roots. Wherever Le Conte and Keiffer can be 
raised from cuttings, such trees can consequently be 
offered much cheaper than trees propagated upon 
seedling pear stock, and growers of that class of trees 
contend that they are superior to grafted ones, because 
of their blight-proof qualities. Notwithstanding the 
immense destruction of Le Conte trees in Georgia and 
other sections of the South, where nearly every or¬ 
chard is planted with trees grown from cuttings, this 
assertion still prevails. 
As regards plum trees, the most desirable stock is 
Mariana plum. This grows readily from cuttings, and, 
if planted during the winter, may be budded the fol¬ 
lowing fall. All types of plums succeed well upon this 
stock, but peaches should never be grown upon Mari¬ 
ana plum stocks; although 'the trees make a most 
vigorous growth the first year from bud, they soon fail, 
and seldom survive the first year’s production of fruit. 
Peach trees should always be budded upon seedling 
peach stocks, apples upon seedling apple stocks, and 
pears upon Japan or European Seedlings. Japan pear 
stocks have one advantage South, they continue in 
growth during the summer, when the European pear 
seedlings cease to grow; hence budding the former 
may be practiced during the months of J uly and August, 
whereas European pear seedlings should always be 
cleft grafted as they stand in the rows, during the 
months of January and February, p. j. uerckmans. 
Budding and Grafting. 
The apple is propagated by budding upon the seed¬ 
ling apple root, and also by grafting on the same root. 
In budding, it is necessary to use good, strong, thrifty 
stocks. In grafting, also, good stocks should be em¬ 
ployed, and enough of the root should be used so that 
the graft may unite and start well and grow vigor¬ 
ously. There is some confusion about grafting which 
should not exist; grafting on pieces of root is correct, 
providing the pieces are large enough ; our practice is 
to use the root of one seedling for a graft. Some 
make more grafts from the single root, but this is a 
mistake, we think. The pear is propagated by bud¬ 
ding and grafting, but at the present time almost ex¬ 
clusively by budding at the North. In the South, 
some varieties like Keiffer andiLe Conte may be grown 
from cuttings, but even there it is only in a few local¬ 
ities that these varieties can be successfully grown in 
that way. The best method of propagating the plum 
is by budding upon the plum, ellwanger & barry. 
No Favor for Piece-B,oot Grafting. 
The best stock now available for budding the plum, 
is the Mariana, grown from cuttings. Especially avoid 
plums on peach roots. Many Georgia orchards of 
Wild Goose on peach stocks have been sad failures. 
Le Conte pears grown from cuttings are fairly suc¬ 
cessful ; also Keiffer, Garber and other Oriental varie¬ 
ties budded thereon ; but seedlings are preferable, 
especially Japanese pear seedlings. Pres. P. J. Berck- 
mans, however, says that even Le Conte trees on 
French pear seedlings, after 16 years’ trial, are as 
healthy as trees grown from cuttings, with the ad¬ 
vantage in favor of the former of bearing sooner and 
yielding larger fruit. As to whole roots and piece 
roots—-no one who has ever fully tested both, favors 
piece-root grafting. stark bros. 
How Much Hoot P Russian Pears ! 
Any of the ways of propagation referred to, will pro¬ 
duce good trees under proper management; but root¬ 
grafting and budding are the most generally used by 
American nurserymen. All root-grafting is ‘ ‘ piece- 
root” grafting; that is, few, if any, use whole un¬ 
trimmed or unshortened roots. There is some dispute 
about how much of the seedling root it is best to use. 
The longer the piece, the more vigorous will be the 
growth the first season, other things being equal. But 
when it is desired to get the graft mainly or wholly 
upon its own roots, (and this is important in the prop¬ 
agation of the iron-clad tree fruits for planting in the 
“ cold North ”) the long scion on a short root, planted 
deeply, will give trees far more likely to succeed, and 
endure. 
All the tree fruits may be root-grafted successfully, 
but where the question of hardiness against winter’s 
cold needs no consideration, there is little doubt that 
a finer and more vigorous tree can be produced in the 
least time by low budding. As large and fine trees 
may usually be got in this way in two seasons as in 
three by root-grafting, especially on short piece roots. 
If, however, we had iron-clad stocks to graft upon, 
trees for the North could be grown in the same way 
as those for milder localities ; and I am now engaged 
with some experiments upon stocks grown from the 
seeds of iron-clad varieties. So far as I have got, the 
results are encouraging. I find that I am getting as 
good seedlings from the iron-clad Russian apples, pears, 
plums and cherries as I have seen of foreign growth; 
and, so far, there have been no drawbacks. My pear 
seedlings, grown from seed of the Lutovka pear, are 
quite as large and fine in every way as imported French 
pear stocks, and it is interesting to note, so far, that 
there is entiie freedom from the blight which destroys 
the foliage of seedlings grown from the old varieties, 
and makes it necessary to import our pear stocks for 
the old varieties. 
It will take some time to discover, among our quite 
large list of Russian pears, what sorts will give us the 
best seedlings. The Bessemianka pear, which is prob¬ 
ably the most widely planted of all the Russians, has 
practically no seeds, and is therefore not available for 
this purpose. As other varieties come into free bear¬ 
ing, I hope to test the value of their seedlings as stocks 
for budding. If it should turn out that we have in 
Russian seedlings good blight-proof stocks for pears, 
it will be a great boon for American nurserymen, who 
are now practically shut up to the use of imported 
stocks. T. H. HOSKINS. 
FRUIT EXPERIENCES. 
NOTES AND COMMENT. 
The summer of 1893 was very dry here, and demon¬ 
strated very clearly to me, that a soil well worked re¬ 
tains moisture better than one mulched in the best 
manner. I tried mulched potatoes and grape cuttings, 
and in each case, those well worked did best. An ex¬ 
amination showed the stirred soil to be the damper. 
I have just finished marketing about 240 bushels of 
strawberries. The Warfield was in fruit longer than 
any other variety, and was most productive. Warfield 
and Lovett make a team. The best five on our grounds 
are Warfield, Eclipse, Haverland, Lovett and Parker 
Earle. Burt and Beder Wood were too small on our 
soil. Middlefleld has nothing but vigor of plant to 
recommend it. Enhance has nothing to make it worth 
growing. 
I have read Fred Grundy’s book with much interest. 
The advice to young men is alone worth many times 
the cost of the book. While reading I wondered how 
much was fact, how much was “founded on fact ” and 
how much was fiction. One thing I take to be fiction. 
He speaks of the white grubs, which were put into the 
ground with manure, injuring his strawberries. I 
feel very confident that the manure grub, very seldom 
or never disturbs growing plants. True, the grubs 
look alike, but I think they are only cousins. If the 
hero and heroine of the story had a half dozen chil¬ 
dren, the fortune would not have been so easy to find. 
I have a very interesting object lesson in peach trees. 
Two years ago I put out raspberries where I expected 
to plant a peach orchard. At proper intervals, I put 
in a peach pit. I also planted pits in nursery rows. 
Only part of the pits grew. These were budded, and 
this spring the vacancies were filled from the nursery. 
The trees were all alike in the spring. Now the trees 
not moved look as though they were two years older 
than those transplanted. The trees not transplanted 
are almost as large as trees set two years ago. 
Moral. If you can do so, plant the pits where you 
desire the trees. j. h. van. 
A WIFE WORTH HER WEIGHT IN GOLD. 
now TO HEAD OFF THE HORN FLY. 
There is no worse pest to the stock grower than the 
so-called Texas horn fly. He is a sticker. Once he 
has fastened upon the unlucky cow, no matter how 
dark the night, he holds on and continues to suck the 
lifeblood from the unfortunate bovine. Although a 
single fly can take but a little blood in the 24 hours, 
yet in the aggregate the support of this little pest 
costs the dairymen of this State alone, many hundreds 
of thousands of dollars each year. It is not alone the 
extra food which it takes to furnish the blood taken by 
them, but it is the worry and unrest of the poor cows 
caused by the continual biting of these pests. Many 
things have been prescribed to drive off and keep 
away the fly, but with any of them more or less 
annoyance is caused and loss occurs. While they will 
persistently stick to any cow upon which they have a 
hold, through the darkest night, they will not fly 
about the pastures in the dark to any extent. 
A neighbor friend of mine, a young man with a wife 
who is indeed a helpmeet, runs a dairy of Jerseys and 
supplies regular customers by the year with gilt- 
edged butter at a good paying figure. Last summer 
he noticed when the flies were so bad that, feed his 
cows as liberally as he would, they fell off in milk, 
and the butter supply was short. One evening, 
when they were milking, his wife was in the stable 
and one of these flies settled on her hand and began 
to bite and she said to her husband, “ Can it be pos¬ 
sible that these flies hurt the cows when they bite 
them, as badly as this one does me ? If so, I don’t see 
how the cows give any milk at all.” The next morn¬ 
ing she had a plan perfected to head off the flies. 
She set her husband at work making frames to fit the 
stable windows, and got wire screen cloth to cover 
them. While he was doing this, she looked up a lot 
of old fertilizer sacks, washed them, ripped them up, 
and so nailed them at the stable door that when the 
cows came in they would have to crowd through the 
sacks so as to sweep off all the flies. This done, they 
kept the cows in the stables through the day, and 
fed them on soiling crops which they had grown for 
feeding in dry weather. At night, the cows were 
