696 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Mother and Maiden’s lilush usually do not begin to 
bloom xintil the early and medium blossoms are gone, 
so if cross fertilization is a necessity with the apple, 
the planter ought to set the early bloomers together, 
and the same with the late. The Keiffer pear is a 
persistent bloomer, and our tree almost every year 
has the fruit formed before the Bartletts open. I 
have little faith in the nece.s.sity of a mixed planta¬ 
tion, yet it is possible that the mixed plantation would 
be superior. Nothing is lost in planting in alternate 
sections. No amount of cross fertilization will ever 
make the Primate an abundant producer ; no want of 
it render the Smith’s Cider barren, i. .1. hi.,ackwkm.. 
Mercer County, N. J. 
WHAT POTATOES TO PLANT. 
A walk in early morning along the market street of 
Rochester, revealed the fact that two-thirds of the 
wagons were loaded with Rural No. 2 potatoes. They 
are so smooth and perfectly free from scab and knots, 
that they sell, although the skin peeled on them. 
This too early harvesting hurts the reputation of the 
potato as to quality. Said one, “I drew one load to 
the asylum, and they would not take another. In 
March, I drew some more under another name, and 
they immediately contracted for all I had. It’s a 
winter potato.” Some few loads of New Queen were 
very fine, but it is a light yielder, iinless on especially 
well prepared soil. 
Among 91 varieties I exhibited, none attracted more 
attention among the early ones than the Carman No. 1. 
One man who received three eyes, dug a half bushel. 
They show a wide variation in shape, are extremely 
vigorous in growth, and keep green so long that many 
doubt their being an early potato, but a specimen dug 
August 1.5 had its skin set tight. They are heavy. Is 
that a sign of solidity, quality, or of a large amount 
of water ? They are too precious to eat, and I do not 
know. The Orphan and Dutton of my introduction, 
were examined by men from the numerous seed houses, 
who have offices in Rochester, and declared to be among 
the best for color and shape. The Wilson seedling, 
American Wonder and Rupert’s Perfection are strong 
favorites. The Freeman is excellent for quality, 
beautiful to look at and “just what you make it” for 
yield. “ Rut,” was said to me a hundred times, “ we 
cannot biiy all these kinds. Name the best three late 
and early kinds.” On my gravelly, hillside, loamy, 
chestnut soil, for family use I would place in order of 
yield. Orphan, Rural No. 2, WiLson Seedling for late, 
and Crane’s June Eating, Chicago Market and Free¬ 
man for eaidy. For market, Bliss’s Triumph (Stray 
Beauty) is the earliest, and a fair yielder on rich soil. 
Early Sunrise is next in order, profit considered. For 
late. Orphan, Dutton and Rural No. 2. For very late, 
where it will mature, Troy Seedling. These are the 
kinds I shall plant the most of next season, after try¬ 
ing 100 kinds. c. E. c. 
THE POSSIBILITIES OF AN ACRE. 
The subject that has arrested my attention the most 
frequently in the past two montlis, is the possibilities 
of an acre of very rich ground. I have just dug three 
bushels of blood beets from a single row six rods 
long. 1 had previously dug one bushel, which I ped¬ 
dled with other vegetables at 10 cents per half peck, 
getting 80 cents. Beets are now bringing at whole¬ 
sale, .50 cents per bushel, and 00 cents when sold at 
houses. Three bushels at .50 cents and one at 80 is 
$2.30. The ground was very rich and beets as good 
could be grown in rows a foot apart; indeed, I be¬ 
lieve that the rows could be narrowed enough so that 
this row, six rods long, would represent just one-third 
of a square rod. Figuring on this basis, a square rod 
of beets would be worth $0.90, and an acre would 
figure up to the snug tune of $1,104. 
My little farm is a long parallelogram, and one side 
is bounded by a farm owned by a non-resident who 
lias it worked sometimes and sometimes it lies idle ; 
but the fence rows lie idle all the time, and grow up 
to brush and weeds. Last fall, with the consent of 
the owner I cleared up this fence row, with the ex¬ 
ception of a little done the year before, I to have the 
use of it until I had it subdued, and to get pay for my 
labor. It is about 12 feet wide, and on a piece less 
than 12 rods long which was cleared the year before, 
I planted 400 Charleston Wakefield cabbages and 
about .50 caulifiower plants. The season was so dry 
that the latter failed, and the cabbages did not get as 
large as they might have done ; but I sold nearly $10 
worth, or at the rate of more than $1 per square rod. 
The ground was not manured and had grown some 
very fine potatoes the year before. On about 30 rods 
in length, I planted Early Vermont sweet corn (which 
by the way is a much better kind than the Cory); but 
it was so dry that I had only about a dollar’s worth of 
ears good enough to sell. 
There were three stone piles that we did not get 
time to move, and around these the mice or ground 
squirrels took the seed. I had a boy plant the vacant 
hills to White Spine cucumbers as soon as I found the 
corn was missing. There were about 80 hills of 
ciicumbers, and the weather was so dry up to Septem¬ 
ber 5, that I got hardly anything ; but rains at that 
time started them into new vigor, and 1 have sold 
altogether $0 worth of cucumbers, big and little. 
This is at the rate of cents per hill and 2,.500 hills 
can be grown per acre. 
Matthew Crawford, who lives in this county, plants 
tomatoes six feet apart and gets a bu.shel of fruit to a 
hill. This is at the rate of over 1,100 bushels per acre, 
and last year and this, tomatoes have averaged .50 
cents per bushel. 
Early in May, I transplanted 33,000 Prizetaker 
onions on a quarter of an acre of ground, and I have 
harvested enough to warrant the belief that I shall 
have 100 bushels, which will bring me 55 or 60 cents 
per bushel. It was very dry, and many fields of onions 
within 20 miles failed to grow any larger than pick¬ 
ling size. Had it been a good season, I would have 
had three or four times as many. It was so dry that 
there was not water enough in the soil to make the 
plant food available. 
Perhaps these statements of yields may make some 
sleepy reader who raises 8 or 10 bushels of oats to an 
acre, open his eyes. Be that as it may, I can verify 
them with an affidavit if nece.ssary. The row of beets 
referred to was transplanted from a little plot where 
I spilt some seed in sowing the main plantation. I 
took them up on a shovel and carried them to a vacant 
place alongside the onions and dibbled them in three 
inches apart. They were hoed but once, and cx’owded 
each other so in growing that they were oblong in 
form. L. «. PIERCE. 
Summit County, O. 
FEEDING WHEAT TO BROOD SOWS. 
EXIT THE SEOI» BARREL. 
Last fall it was nece.ssarj’^ to allow the sows on this 
farm to farrow in a wheat stubble field at some dis¬ 
tance from the farm buildings—so far away that we 
could not .slop them, as is our usual custom. On ac¬ 
count of feeding the spring pigs for market near the 
buildings, the sows with their young pigs had to re¬ 
main in the stubble field till the pigs were about one 
month old. A neighbor claimed great success in feed¬ 
ing whole wheat to his hogs. Having strong faith in 
his claims, 1 thought to keep the sows in good condi¬ 
tion by feeding wheat whole—and without soaking. 
I was sati.sfied that I would succeed if I could secure 
thorough mastication of the grain, which 1 endeav¬ 
ored to do by scattering the wheat thinly on the 
ground. This I was unable to do; the sows had 
large litters, and must necessarily consume large 
amounts of grain to supply the demands of their 
pigs. One thing against this was the insufficient sup¬ 
ply of grass and clover. Had these been growing in 
abundance, I believe that the results would have 
been different. “Hogging rye” has not been profit¬ 
able with us. unless there was an abundance of grass, 
and 1 believe that the same is true in feeding whole 
wheat. 
In spite of all I could do, the sows would swallow 
the wheat without mastication, and, as a result, they 
ran down rapidly in fiesh, and the pigs did not grow 
as rapidly as I wished. I am strong in my belief that 
for young pigs, whole wheat is a most excellent ra¬ 
tion : they will not swallow it wdthout mastication, 
as larger animals do, and besides, it is a well-balanced 
ration. Farmers talk a good deal about animals 
assimilating ground feed better than the whole. 
When the whole grain is voided unbroken, it is in¬ 
disputable evidence that it has not been digested. 
With the ground feed it is altogether different; the 
farmer assumes that digestion has been perfect, but 
he does not know from the appearance of the voidings 
whether this is true or not. 
Experiments with whole corn and corn meal, fed to 
determine their comparative value as hog feed, did 
not show in results a sufficient balance in favor of the 
meal, to pay the toll and trouble of going to mill. I 
do not know why this will not be true of wheat whole 
and ground. With corn meal fed dry, and wet, the 
results are in favor of the wet food. 
If the sows had been near the house and could have 
had the wheat crushed and wet, I could have kept them 
up in fiesh. If I were feeding wheat, ground, to swine, 
and wished to wet it, I would not want it ground fine, 
but the grains well broken or crushed. When ground 
fine, it makes a sticky mass hard to handle—leaving it 
coarser avoids this. In my practice, I am doing away 
with the slop barrel as a mixing receptacle. I pour 
the ship stuff in the troughs, and pour the accumu¬ 
lated slops over it. If there be not sufficient slop to 
dampen it well, add water. It requires about one 
gallon of water or slop for each gallon of dry feed. 
By this plan, I do away with that great breeder of 
disease, the slop barrel; am relieved of the trouble of 
packing the barrel in sawdust to prevent freezing in 
cold weather, and also save one handling of the feed. 
So far as I am able to judge, they eat the feed pre¬ 
pared in this way, as readily as if it soaked 12 to 24 
hours. JOHN M. JAMISON. 
Ross County, Ohio. 
AN ACTOR AND HIS POTATOES. 
TWENTY-FIVE PER CENT “ OLD FOGY ” AND SEVENTY- 
FIVE PER CENT R. N.-Y. 
I have been experimenting with my potatoes this 
year, and have achieved a grand success ; in fact, too 
much of a hit, as some of my neighbors tell me. They 
say that my potatoes are too large to sell, but I don’t 
believe it for I have sold from one to three bushels to 
nearly every one who has seen them, for seed pur¬ 
poses, at $1.75 per bushel. My method of planting 
was to make furrows about eight inches, or perhaps a 
little more in depth. Then I spread some well rotted 
stable manure in the furrows an inch deep from end 
to end, planted the seed, one eye to a piece, about a 
foot apart and covered it with a couple of inches of 
earth. Then I sowed Bradley’s fertilizer by hand 
along the furrows, the same quantity I would use 
putting in fodder corn, and then filled the trenches— 
no hills. 
Some of my neighbors .said, “You are only wasting 
that manure and fertilizer, for you will have nothing 
but a big crop of tops and no tubers.” Another said, 
“ You vill burn your crop all up with that fertilizer, 
for the manure will sprout the seed, and when the 
plants get up to where the fertilizer is, they will be 
burned to death by the strength of the chemicals.” My 
reply was, “ Gentlemen, for four years I have been 
gathering potatoes not much larger than pigeons’ 
eggs, and this is an experiment; if it doesn’t work, 
you will get the benefit, for I will have to buy from 
you for my own use.” 
Three times before the tops came through, I went 
over it with a Breed’s weeder, and twice or three 
times afterwards, and I had very few weeds this fall. 
I cultivated four times veVy shallow, just enough to 
break the surface. Such tops you never .saw. They 
looked like very large tomato vines, and all through the 
drought that dried up all the wells and brooks in this 
vicinity, those tops stood out green and fresh, while 
corn alongside of it burned up and died. Now the neigh¬ 
bors .say, “Where did you get that idea?” “From 
The R. N.-Y. partly, and partly from my awn idea. The 
Rural advocates fiat cultivation—no hills. It also 
says, ‘plant deep.’ It also advocates fertilizer. The 
old fogies say, ‘use stable manure.’ I combined the 
two— Rural and old fogies—three-fourths Rural, 
one-fourth old fogies.” Who gets the credit of the 
combination in my mind ? The Rural, of course, for 
if I had not read The Rural, I would be following 
the footsteps of the fellows around here who keep a 
yoke of oxen in preference to horses which are 
speedier and easier kept, and who cut bushes in the 
light of the moon and never buy a newspaper. 
Norfolk County, Mass. the actor farmer. 
COTTON SEED AS A FERTILIZER. 
HOW TO PREPARE IT FOR USE. 
In the last paragraph of an article in The R. N.-Y. of September 
29, page 618, by W. D. L., Reidville, S. C., he says that The R. N.-Y. 
may tell us how to tan the hides of these little fellows (cotton seed), 
and deliver their gray coats in dust to the soil. This is what hun¬ 
dreds of others as well as myself would like to know, just how 
they may be reduced to powder without driving off any of their 
valuable qualities as plant food. F. m. r. 
Hamlet, Ga. 
Composting Would Lose Nitrogen. 
I have never composted cotton seed, for doing so 
will necessarily cause loss of nitrogen unless it be 
buried under so great a mass of earth as to render the 
compost too weak in fertilizing elements. Even when 
composted the cotton seed will not be reduced to any¬ 
thing like fineness, as the hull will not decay for a year, 
and sometimes more. The only way to reduce it to any¬ 
thing like fineness, is either through mills made ex¬ 
pressly to grind hull and kernel, or else to use a mill 
with blades, which chops it up into about quarters. I 
am not a believer in cotton seed as a fertilizer except 
in the green state, or crushed, put in the hill with 
corn, or broadcasted on oats. I have plowed in and 
harrowed 100 bushels per acre for strawberries, cab¬ 
bage, onions and other crops, and have never seen one 
indication, either in color of plant or in product, that 
any fertilizer had been applied. I have seen the effect 
of cotton-seed meal on rye and oats planted in the 
fall, and on corn in spring, but the only effect on cab¬ 
bage or other crops was to fire. I never saw the 
green color afforded by nitrogen from applications o^ 
