1894 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
551 
STRAWBERRY AND POULTRY NOTES. 
While calling' at the home of a neighbor recently, 
he said : “ Come out here and see how the drought 
has slaughtered my strawberries. This soil is as rich 
as manure can make it; last spring I set 600 good, 
strong plants right here, and every one started off in 
fine shape. They were doing nicely before the 
drought set in, and now look at them ! This is the 
third year I have set out a bed of strawberries, only 
to see a drought kill them all during some part of the 
season. I am very fond of this fruit, hut I can’t grow 
it any more. If I could irrigate a small patch, I be¬ 
lieve I could succeed with the plants, and I’ve been 
thinking seriously of making some arrangement of 
tank and pipes for that purpose.” 
I saw at a glance what ailed his plants, and it was 
not drought by any means. “ Is this the way your 
plants have always been affected ? ” I asked. 
“ Yes. They grow finely at first, then begin to wilt 
and die one after another, until the entire lot is gone.” 
“ Let me show you what ails them,” said I, and 
with a pocket knife I dug from under a freshly wilted 
plant, one large and three small, white grubs. Then 
lifting the plant I showed him how they had eaten 
off all the roots. “That’s the sort of drought that 
kills your plants. I’ll venture the assertion that 
every square foot of this ground contains not less than 
half a dozen grubs.” 
We took a spade, and turning over three spadefuls, 
carefully examined them, and found 17 grubs, varying 
in size from 
one- eighth 
of an inch 
to the full- 
grown white 
whopper. 
This sort of 
drought i s 
the invaria¬ 
ble result of 
manuring 
with stable 
manure, and 
is very de¬ 
structive to 
strawberry 
plants, as 
well as vari¬ 
ous other 
fruits and 
V e g etables. 
The best 
remedy o f 
which I 
know is to 
apply,im¬ 
mediately 
before the 
ground is 
plowed in 
the spring, 
a good dress¬ 
ing of wood 
ashes and 
salt, and 
then to ma- 
n u r e with 
commercial fertilizers exclusively. Those who have 
adopted this plan are growing good strawberries 
without difficulty, while those who use stable manure 
continue to buy their berries. No salt should be 
applied after the plants are set, or more than likely 
it will destroy them. 
Let me give our Western poultry keepers a few 
pointers on building a poultry house. Build it of 
boards one inch thick, batten the cracks tight, and 
see that no knot-holes or small chinks are left open 
for biting winds or snow to sift through, but don’t 
make double walls or put any building paper of any 
kind on the inside. Don’t line the inside with any¬ 
thing. Don’t put any ventilator in the roof. Put a 
window in the south side and arrange it so that it can 
be slid aside. Pit the door close, and shut it every 
night. 
For ventilation, open the window according to the 
condition of the weather—wide open in mild, a few 
inches when cool and frosty, and shut tight when 
stormy or the wind is blowing a gale. Have the 
perches arranged along*the side opposite the window, 
and not over 20 inches above the fioor. Don’t keep 
more than .50 fowls in one house. A roof ventilator is 
a roup generator. Paper lining inside, and double 
walls, are the same. Both harbor dampness, mold, 
lice, disease and death. 
The great “ corn belt” is the finest poultry section 
in the United States. See page 503. It is the home 
of the hog and hen. Thousands of hogs are raised 
every year on corn, clover and water exclusively, and 
millions of fowls are raised ou the same, wi^h worms 
and grasshoppers for dessert. Thousands of both 
hegs and hens never see any grain other than corn, 
from the time they first open their eyes until they are 
closed in the slaughtering pens. And yet we are told 
that corn is not good food for either hogs or hens. 
Corn makes the fiesh of fowls yellow, oily and rich, 
but it is mighty good eating all the same, when prop¬ 
erly cooked. If our farmers would pay as much at¬ 
tention to their hens as they do to their hogs— 
especially in securing a good breed and keeping it up 
—we could supply the world with poultry meat. Let 
the mountaineers and people outside of the “ corn 
belt” raise Leghorns if they wish, but give us “ corn- 
belters”, Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes for profit. 
They are America’s meat hens. fred grundy. 
Christian County, Ill. 
SELECTING SEED POTATOES FROM THE 
PLANTS. 
WIEL IT PAY TO GO TO THE TROUBLE ? 
Have you evei tried the plan of selecting seed potatoes by marking 
the most vigorous plants while gro wing, and selecting seed from them? 
If so, has the result been latlsfactory ? Would you advise farmers to 
go to the trouble of marking the best hills In this way 7 Is It your 
opinion that continued selection from these vigorous hills, year after 
year, will produce an Improved strain of potatoes ? 
I have never tried this plan. I have selected the 
best yielding hills when digging, and those which 
contained the best formed tubers. I think this plan 
is better, for sometimes the most vigorous hills con¬ 
tain ill-shaped tubers. I believe that the continued 
careful selection of tubers from hills which gave a 
good yield of nicely formed tubers, will give better 
results, and will retain the vigor and yield of the 
variety much longer than when no care is exercised in 
selecting seed. I do not think that even that will 
keep a variety from running out after a time, and the 
improvement in the strain will be only temporary. I 
think the changing of seed from one locality to 
another, even if only a few miles, very beneficial. 
C. R. WHITE. 
I have tried selecting seed potatoes, and find that it 
has been very satisfactory. I would advise all to do 
likewise. e. m. bracy. 
I have never tried the plan. I think that it would 
most certainly improve the strain of the potatoes. I 
intend to try it this fall with my seed potatoes. 
_ C H. JACKSON. 
RAISIN PACKING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
At the prices received for raisins by the California 
rancher, he can not afford to spend as much time in 
fancy packing as was the practice a few years ago. 
Four or five years ago, every 20-pound box of loose 
Muscatels was “faced that is, the face, or top layer, 
was placed in rows after being pressed fiat between 
thumb and finger. At that time, all raisins shipped 
from these parts were packed in boxes containing 
just 20 pounds. Then came a heavy manilla sack 
with a cover of jute, holding from 70 to 85 pounds, 
some packers even shipping in white cotton sacks. 
In 1893 we began to ship in boxes containing 5Q 
pounds; and that will probably be the raisin box for 
the future ; it is easily and quickly handled, and the 
raisin will retain its shape and good appearance when 
it gets into market. 
The California raisin growers did not get enough 
for their raisins last year to pay expenses. The com¬ 
mission men made the money the rancher should have 
made, it seems. The commission men are ma'^iing the 
money on orahges and lemons, and the grower gets 
“nix,” and will continue to do so until the growers 
and packers send their own men to look after them. 
There are thousands of villages, hamlets and towns 
throughout the Fast, where a California raisin is 
never seen. Why is that ? Is it because there is “no 
demand” ? Or is it because the commission men are 
more interested in the larger cities ? Where are the 
jobbers ? Don’t they get a finger into the pie ? 
Within a very few weeks after the first shipment 
from California, comes the report, “no demand,” and 
prices go down. Why is, or why should there be, no 
demand ? Is it because every dealer is anxious to ob¬ 
tain a supply at the highest price (?), knowing that 
the price will be lower later on ? Or is it because 
their customers use only California raisins once a 
year ? There is something wrong somewhere. The 
raisin for which the good housewife pays 15 to 25 cents 
in the East, brings the grower about 33^ cents in 
California. 
The California raisin grower must have better prices, 
or go out of the business, and let the foreign growers 
supply our 
markets as 
of old. The 
wages have 
been cut 
down so that 
it is almost 
i m p o s sible 
to support a 
family. Ma¬ 
chines are 
used that 
save a very 
large part of 
the manual 
labor form¬ 
erly employ¬ 
ed, yet raisin 
ranches are 
being mort¬ 
gage d in 
order to ob¬ 
tain funds 
for another 
trial. 
All raisins 
intended for 
“loose,” or 
stemless, 
are expoted 
to the sun 
until the 
stems are 
very brittle; 
they are 
then run 
through a 
stemmer, which consists of a cylinder of heavy wire 
netting set in a frame inside of which runs another 
cylinder somewhat smaller. They pass from this, on 
an elevator, to another machine which blows out all 
stems and dust, and grades the raisins—running them 
directly into the boxes in which they are shipped. 
The machine does its work so perfectly that only the 
fancy grade is picked over by hand in packing. 
London layers will not be so plentiful as usual this 
year, on account of a lack of rain the past season; 
the raisin crop will not be so large as usual, but, if we 
have good weather for curing, the raisins will be of 
uncommonly good quality. Grapes grown on a dry 
soil, although not so large as those grown on a damp 
soil, are solid, meaty, and of excellent flavor, and do 
not shrink so much in drying ; giving more substance 
in less skin than those grown on damp soil. 
There are a great many anglomaniacs in the East, 
who think a foreign raisin far superior to a raisin 
grown, cured, and packed in California. Take them 
out of the box and take the paper off, and I will defy 
them to tell which is the foreign and which tbe Cali¬ 
fornia product; the majority would say that the Cali¬ 
fornia raisin came from “abwoad.” These carpers will 
pay nearly double for a foreign product because “you 
cawn’t get such goods in this country as you cawn 
abwoad—you know.” Such people are a disgrace to 
the country in which they were raised. G. r a. 
California. 
R. N.-Y.—There certainly is too great a margin be¬ 
tween the prices received by fruit growers—East as 
well as West—and the prices paid by the consumers 
'V^ho gets the faj ? 
Picking Apples by Machinery. After Shaking. Fig. 143. 
