664 
IHE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 20 
eyes and plant one piece ? If this be done, in many 
cases the most powerful eye will draw the vitality 
from the rest, and one will get only one or two shoots 
and the same result as when a single one-eye piece to 
the hill was used. 
I have just dug some potatoes raised from one pound 
of seed, in which the potato was cut to single eyes, 
planted in pots and then sprouted. In one case, where 
I weighed the product from one of these single 
sprouts, I had 6K pounds of potatoes. Although I 
did not carry the process nearly so far as I could have 
done, I had six bushels and 17 pounds from the pound, 
or an averasre of three and one-third pounds to the hill, 
equal to 269 bushels per acre, at three feet each way. 
In this test, the sprouts gave larger yields than the 
seed which was planted after being sprouted twice. 
This, I think, goes to show that the first sprouts are the 
best, and that badly sprouted seed is greatly damaged 
for planting. The variety was the Great Divide. 
Ontario County, N. Y. c. R. white. 
“TRUCKING” OR “INTENSIVE FARMING?” 
A description of some “intensive farming” in a 
recent R N.-Y. greatly interested me, though I had 
previously supposed that sort of thing was “truck¬ 
ing,” or on a small scale, just plain gardening. I am 
much afraid I have been guilty of some “ intensive 
farming” without knowing it—on false pretences, as 
it were—and I want The Rural's opinion to quiet my 
conscience about it so that next time I shall know 
whether to call it “intensive farming,” or just plain 
gardening, as I supposed it was. 
Last May I set tomato plants on a trifle less than 
one-sixteenth of an acre of well manured ground, 
using no “phofpbatf s,” “nitrates,” or “potash salts” 
then or since. P’rom that ground. I have sold, up to 
date, tomatoes to the amount of ?83 75, which is at 
the rate of more than SI,340 per acre. No other crop 
was raised between the rows, though my neighbor’s 
Business Hen raised Cain there occasionally, and 
massacred some of my finest tomatoes which had 
blood in them. The Business Hen knows the differ¬ 
ence between a wildcat tomato and a thoroughbred 
easily. And still I am not happy. The drought cut 
short the crop to some extent, one kind rotted badly, 
and recent heavy rains cracked a good many so that 
they were unsalable. Then I had no Planet plaything 
with which to run up the rows on one side, and down 
on the other, and “give them lunches,” but just a 
common hoe to stir the surface soil with when I felt 
like it. Now is that “intensive farming” or not ? 
I have to thank The Rural for something at every 
turn, so in this matter it is the same. After the plants 
were set out, many being in blossom, came the June 
freeze. Being sure that it would kill the plants, the 
problem was to protect them. Hadn’t pans and things 
near enough, but I had read in The Rural (of course) 
what a correspondent said about covering tomato 
plants with dirt, and so with a prong hoe I tried it, 
and in an hour or two had them all safely covered, 
and they remainf d so for three days, through a heavy 
rain, and came vp smiling and none the worse for it 
except about a dozen broken, which were replaced 
from reserve plants. I should not have had the wit to 
think of that, and so The Rural has my thanks as 
well as its correspondent. w. 
Monroe, Wisconsin. 
R N. Y.—“What’s in a name?” That which we 
call “ Intensive farming” would be just as satisfactory 
under the name of “trucking,” Never mind the name 
so long as it is possible to show possibilities of con¬ 
centrating labor and manure on good plants. 
POTATOES FROM SPROUTED SEED. 
MR. GREINER EXPLAINS HIS POSITION. 
What I referred to especially as “nonsense,” (see 
page 619), was the assertion that the “ tubers grown 
by the sprouting method ” would rot. I don’t see 
what justification, either in theory or practice, you can 
have for any such assertion. You do not even men¬ 
tion this subject in your remarks in the last issue 
(September 29). What seed I prefer, is an altogether 
different question, and herein, I probably agree with 
you entirely. My first choice, for the maintenance of 
the original vigor of the variety, is a whole potato, 
and next a piece as large as I can get it. Of sprouts, 
I would use the first crop in preference to the second, 
and the latter in preference to the third lot. This, 
however, would not deter me from using sprou’s in an 
emergency, and for a single season. The process of 
“ running out” is slow, and the tendency can be over¬ 
come or even reversed by judicious treatment. The 
sprouting method is simply the extreme in close cut¬ 
ting, but really only a step more than single-eye plant¬ 
ing, and cannot result disastrously if practiced only 
once, and then counteracted by heavier seeding. I am 
sure the latter course will be found safer and less 
weakening to the variety, than the long-continued use 
of single eyes for seed. Still I would like to hear what 
experienced propagators have to say on this point. 
I had a peck of the Carman No. 1 to plant. Of this, 
I planted two specimens whole. The rest was divided 
into two parts ; one half was cut to single eyes and 
planted in carefully prepired rich soil ; the other 
half was used for sprouting in the greenhouse. After 
all, except the last lot of sprouts and the exhausted 
tubers themselves, had been planted, the heavy rains 
set in and kept part of the patch under water for 
days, and the soil soaked for weeks. This ruined the 
soil to such an extent, that only one of the two whole 
(very large) potatoes made any growth, and this was 
hardly as thrifty as that of the single sprout plants. 
Only one-third of the single eyes started up, simply 
because the soil, after drying, was left as hard as a 
rock, being worse in this respect on the side where 
the potatoes and pieces were planted than where 
the sprouts were set out. The whole crop, surely, was 
badly injured. A comparison between the two 
methods of planting, therefore, can hardly be called 
conclusive. Surely there was no noticeable difference 
in the yield from the different plantings, but a good 
deal of difference in different parts of the same rows, 
planted the same way. This evidently resulted chiefly 
or only from the condition of the soil, whether packed 
and baked more or less. The yield of the whole patch 
was at the rate of almost 400 bushels per acre, the 
hills giving an average of over two pounds each, 
usually three potatoes ranging in weight from hardly 
less than three-quarters to one and one quarter pound 
and over, each. They are the largest specimens I 
have grown fer many years, and all sound. Heavy 
mulching with coarse manure at the beginning of the 
dry season has apparently carried this patch through 
in reasonably good shape. The leaf-spot disease came 
early, but progressed very slowly. 
The plants from the latest sprouts are yet as green 
as grass. The frost late in September only scorched a 
few leaves, and the leaf-spot disease is nearly absent. 
I find good big potatoes in the hills, but will not dig 
them until the growth is checked by frost. All this 
might also be said of the plants grown from the tubers 
after they were through the sprout-growing process, 
and seemingly exhausted and dead. The tubers looked 
exactly like the old seed potatoes which one ociasion- 
ally finds in a hill grown from whole seed. They had 
that dull color on the outside, and that hard, coarsq 
appearance inside which denotes exhaustion of the 
vital principle. The tubers were cut in pieces, each 
with two or three eyes, and planted in the usual way. 
They grow and make vigorous plants. At digging 
time I will compare the yield from this lot with the 
yield from the sprouts. 
R. N.-Y.—We would suppose that a potato whose 
vitality had been weakened—from any treatment 
whatever—would be more liable to rot, all else equal, 
than another not so weakened. 
WHEAT FED TO HOGS, 
RESULT OF A THREE WEEKS’ EXPERIMENT. 
A farmer who has fed quite a little wheat to hogs, 
gave me the following facts about feeding 17 head of 
high-grade Poland-Chinas the last two weeks of 
August and first of September : 
The 17 head weighed just 3,000 pounds the middle 
of August, and were fed 14 bushels of soaked wheat 
with the addition of three bushels of whole corn. At 
the close of the first week, the gain in weight was 155 
pounds. The hogs sold later at 5>i cents per pound, 
which allowed him only 50 cents for the wheat and 
corn—just the market price here. The second week 
with a weight of 3 155 pounds, 14 bushels of wheat 
were ground and fed in slop, making a gain of 315 
pounds. At cents per pound this would be $17 33. 
With wheat at 50 cents this made a gain of $9 62, 
putting up the price of the wheat to a little over $1.18 
per bushel after deducting 70 cents for grinding. 
This was rather an abnormal gain ot 2% pounds daily 
against IK pound the first week. 
The third week began with the herd of 17 hogs 
weighing 3,465 pounds and they were again fed 14 
bushels of ground wheat fed in slop resulting in a 
gain of 135 pounds. At 5K cents this made $7.42. 
Wheat at 50 cents, with 70 cents for grinding made 
the wheat or feed worth $7.70 making a loss of 28 
cents sustained for the third week’s feed. No other 
reason was advanced for this loss except the extreme 
hot and dry weather, with no water to wallow in, as 
all other circumstances were the same as during the 
other weeks. 
A summary in recapitulation for the three weeks re¬ 
sults in a gain of 605 pounds at 5K cents, or $33 27 ; 
deduct $23 90, the price of the grain and grinding, and 
there remains a balance of $9 37, as the gain for 21 
diys’ feeding, and 70 4 5 cents per bushel for the grain 
fed after deducting the cost of grinding, $140, and a 
gain of 1 7-10 pound per day for the feeding period. 
Fractions have not been closely counted in the above 
calculation, which may make a slight variation, but 
on the whole this experiment, like many others re¬ 
cently published, proves that wheat at 50 cents is an 
economical feed for hogs up to at least a certain age 
and weight. 
It has been a question with me, both from experi¬ 
ence and observation, whether the ground or soaked 
wheat can be fed at a profit after the hog has arrived 
at a point where growth ceases and the animal takes 
on nothing but fat. It might have been that the 
reason given here was a good one for the loss sustained 
the third week, but I believe that some corn added 
during that period would have made a reasonable 
gain in weight. Farmers are finding out more about 
wheat as a feed than ever before, simply because it 
could not be grown for 50 cents per bushel and leave 
a profit, and they have begun testing its feeding value. 
We have always looked upon it as food for family con¬ 
sumption only, putting it after the fashion of an old 
German hereabouts, that “it was made for man to 
eat, and ’twas wicked to feed it to stock.” We are 
leaving behind many relics of fogyism and the 
scruples of dipping “into the flour barrel for pig feed,” 
as a moral sin is one of them. When the farmer can 
head off the bulls and bears of the Chicago grain mar¬ 
kets, get 25 cents in premium over the ruling prices 
for wheat, and still have the manurial residuum left to 
enrich the sdU, we are doing the greatest wrrk of our 
generation. _ geo. e. scott. 
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not answered In our advertising columns. As-k only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
JAPANESE PLUMS FOR A RETAIL TRADE. 
WHAT VARIETIES ARE BEST ? 
1. With your present knowledge of plums, what varieties would yon 
advise planting for a retail trade? 2. Do not most of the Japanese 
plums ripen too early In the season to sell well ? 8. What proportion 
of the several varieties would you advise planting In Connectlcnt T 
Lombard, Quackenboss, Coe’s Golden Drop, Reine 
C’aude, Bradshaw, Burbank, Satsuma, Simon’s, Chabot, 
Botankio and Abundance. Ogon and Abundance are 
too early. The others on the above list are all 0. K. 
Plant three quarters Japans, one-eighth Lombard and 
one-eighth of other European plums. G. s. butler. 
They Do Not Ripen Too Early. 
We are not much versed in plum growing, but 
from our present knowledge, we would prefer Brad¬ 
shaw, Reine Claude, Shipper’s Pride, Quackenboss, 
Abundance and Burbank. They do not ripen too 
early. Good fruit, nicely put up, will sell at any time. 
We would plant about equal proportions of the 
above varieties, excepting Reine Claude, and perhaps 
not so large a proportion of this variety. The plum is 
smaller in size than Bradshaw or Shipper’s Pride. 
Although good in quality, it is not quite so attractive 
as the other named. There may be other varieties as 
good, but we think there can be no mistake about set¬ 
ting these. STEPHEN hoyt's sons. 
Mr. J. H. Hale’s Opinion. 
In the retail trade, I expect the inquirer wishes to 
cover the longest season and it can best be done with 
the Japan varieties in about the order of Willard, 
Ogon, Abundance, Burbank and Satsuma, which will 
cover the season from early July until into October. 
As to the too early ripening of the Japans, I think the 
very early ripening of the Willard is much in its favor 
as a market variety, but possibly the Ogon and 
Abundance ripen at a time when the markets are well 
supplied with peaches, and plums are not likely to be 
in so good demand, either for dessert or canning pur¬ 
poses. The Burbank and Satsuma coming later, are 
in more demand, and the long-keeping qualities of the 
Satsuma enable it to be handled to the best advant¬ 
age. Possibly future plantings of Japan plums will 
be confined more to the extremely early, and the very 
late kinds, and not so many of the Abundance and 
others of that season. In Mr. Burbank’s new crea¬ 
tions, one known as “J” or “Prolific” is of extremely 
large size, very beautiful color, and as fine in quality 
as the choicest of European varieties ; and, as it 
ripens late, it will probably be one of the most profit¬ 
able of market varieties, serving as a fine dessert fruit 
after most of the peaches are gone. As to the pro¬ 
portion of trees to be planted in Connecticut of the 
varieties now on the market, I would suggest 15 
Willard, 10 Ogon, 15 Abundance, 20 Burbank and 40 
Satsuma to the 100, as likely to give most profitable 
returns. I intend to plant several thousand Japan 
trees the coming spring, but shall plant largely of the 
latest varieties to come in after the main peach crop 
is gone, J. h. hale. 
