220 
THK RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
March SO 
A MACHINE FOR ROLLING CHAINS. 
We once saw an old hand turner standing sadly be¬ 
side a new machine for turning out handles. The 
rough sticks were dropped in at one end and quickly 
turned out at the other, smooth and well-shaped. The 
complete handle was made before he could fit the 
stick to his small lathe That illustrates how inven¬ 
tion has changed industry by driving hard work out 
of certain trades. United States Consul Monaghan 
writes from Chemnitz about a new device that prom¬ 
ises to revolutionize the whole trade of chain making. 
At Fig. GG, 1 shows a bar of iron or steel from which 
the chain is to be made. This is passed while at a 
white heat through a passage made by four revolving 
wheels—two revolving horizontally and the others 
below and above so that the four nearly meet. On 
the rims of these wheels, are hardened steel dies or 
cutters so arranged that they cut the bar into rings. 
The bar goes in shaped like 1 and comes out shaped 
like 2. By means of tongs, cutters and molds, the 
chain is put into the shape shown at 3—in which the 
links are held together by very thin bits of iron— 
easily cut. After cleaning the links the chain is 
heated red hot and run through rolls which give it 
the shape shown at 4. The machine runs so rapidly 
that four yards of chain are thrown out per second. 
The chain is said to be stronger and better than when 
the joints are welded. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of 
the writer to insure attention. Before asking a question please 
see whether it is not answered in our advertising columns. Ask 
only a few questions at one time. Put questions on a separate 
piece of paper.l 
Where to Get Crude Petroleum. 
H.J. O., Bound Brook, N. J .—O. H. Smith, on page 173 of The 
R- N.-Y., tells us about crude petroleum, and that he pays $3 per 
barrel for it. Why not tell us where it can be bought for that 
price ? I have tried, and cannot get it for less that 15 cents per 
gallon, while one can buy refined oil for 6J4 cents per gallon in 
barrel lots. 
Ans. —You can buy small or large lots of A. A. Scott 
it Co., Lima, O. This excellent substance is one of the 
most useful things you can have on the farm. 
What Ashes for Hen Manure ? 
I). M. S., Rowenton, 0 .—1. Does it injure wood ashes to put them 
under the hen roosts for the droppings to fall on ? 2. Are potatoes 
injured for seed, that have been frozen a little and have been 
buried ? 
Ans. —1. No, it doesn’t hurt the wood ashes, but it 
does hurt the hen manure. A chemical action takes 
place which sets free the ammonia in the manure, and 
it escapes as a gas. Use coal ashes or plaster for that 
purpose, but not wood ashes. To see the difference 
between them read over Primer Science. 2. It is not 
safe to use the frozen seed potatoes. 
The R. N.-Y.'s Systen of Cutting Potato Seed. 
C. 11. L.. Brookton, N. Y. —1. What does The R. N.-Y. think of 
using small potatoes for seed ? 2. How would you cut them for 
planting according to the Rural trench system ? 3. How would 
you cut the seed ends of large potatoes ? Should there be more 
than one or two eyes left on a piece of seed end ? 
Ans. —1. We do not approve of using small potatoes 
for seed. Neither do we approve of using one-eye 
pieces. It seems to us that what is needed is to give 
the starting shoots sufficient nourishment from the 
seed pieces until the shoots, through their own root¬ 
lets, can support themselves. Just why we oppose 
the use of small potatoes for seed, we cannot say, 
further than that we have uniformly obtained smaller 
crops from their use than from large potatoes cut to 
two or three eyes or more. 2. To obtain the best re¬ 
sults from the Rural trench system, we would use the 
halves of medium-sized, sound tubers ; cutting off the 
seed end, so as to avoid the probability of too many 
sprouts, which usually give too many small tubers. 
To use this amount of seed, however, is rather costly. 
Our advice would be to cut medium-sized tubers to 
two or three strong eyes, rejecting the seed end. 3. 
We would cut right through the center of the seed 
end, halving the potato. 
Crossing of Seed Blossoms. 
K. B., Berea, 0 .—Will different kinds of potatoes planted side by- 
side in common field culture, mix by the winds blowing the pollen 
from one flower to the other ? 
Ans. —The pollen from one variety may blow from 
the anthers to the pistils of another variety. If seeds 
formed, they would be a mixture of the two kinds, 
but of course the tubers would not “ mix.” Rut this, 
nowadays, is unlikely. Most flowers do not bear 
pollen at all. In most localities, for this reason, it is 
impossible to make a cross even artificially. Some 
years ago, The R. N.-Y. planted 62 different varieties 
with the express intention of crossing them. Hours, 
if not days, were spent in the attempt. We could not 
find any pollen. 
To Build a Seed-Potato Warehouse. 
C. S. K., Willow Grove, Pa. —What is the best plan of potato 
house, all above ground, to hold 10,000 bushels of seed potatoes, 
to be put in in the fall, and kept till spring ? How much will they 
shrink from October to April ? 
Ans. —The best way to build a seed-potato ware¬ 
house above ground that we know of. is to build two 
walls of stone, each one foot in thickness, with an air 
space of six inches. We shall build one more ware¬ 
house next year on this same plan ; it will be 150 feet 
long, probably, and 40 feet in width. The walls will 
be eight to ten feet in height, and the roof fiat or 
nearly so, covered on the upper side with felt roofing 
of the best possible kind. Underneath the rafters, 
the roof will be ceiled with matched boards over paper. 
There will be in this form, a dead-air space above the 
potatoes, and on each side. As to the shrinkage, it 
depends altogether upon the variety of potatoes. Our 
potatoes this year and the year before, shrank all the 
way from five to fifteen per cent. A good, healthy, 
first-class variety that was thoroughly sweated out 
or seasoned in the fall, should not shrink more than 
five to ten per cent if the temperature is kept between 
3G and 40 degrees. We stored this past season, some 
40,000 bushels of potatoes, and do not believe that we 
will have a shrinkage of more than five to ten per 
cent. EDWARD F. DIBBLE SEED CO. 
What to Do for Raspberry Anthracnose. 
E. J. I)., Hamburg, N. Y. —My two-year-old raspberry plants are 
infected with a kind of brown scale or spot, and seem to be dying. 
Is it a disease or something in the ground that causes it ? I send 
a specimen of a cane. 
Ans. —The canes are probably being killed by the 
raspberry anthracnose, a serious fungous disease. It is 
proving to be a very hard disease to combat. Thus 
far, the application of fungicides like the Bordeaux 
Mixture to prevent it, has not been very successful. 
Mr. Reach, the Horticulturist of the State Experiment 
Station at Geneva, has just given a preliminary report 
on one season’s work with different fungicides in a 
raspberry field of several acres. His results, as given 
in Bulletin 81 from the Geneva Station, are, on the 
whole, encouraging, but not yet definite enough upon 
which to base any general recommendations. The 
same field is to be again treated this coming season, 
and a detailed report is then promised. Thus, at pres¬ 
ent, the only safe recommendation that can be made, 
is to cut out and burn the diseased canes as soon as 
they are seen ; watchful and thorough work in this 
way will eradicate the disease. M. V. s. 
The White Grub in Strawberries and Manure. 
11. H. L., Beloit, Kan. —Last spring I set out 1,700 strawberry 
plants, Parker Earle, Lovett, Warfield, Michel’s Early and 
Crescent. The land is a gentle slope to the East, and was covered 
in late winter with manure taken from an old livery barn yard, 
where cattle and horses ran over it for at least one season. The 
land was ploughed and subsoiled in early spring, worked thor¬ 
oughly fine and the plants set out in rows six feet apart, 16 inches 
in the row. The plants started to grow in good shape; and notwith¬ 
standing the drought I thought I would have a good stand. But 
in July, the plants began to wilt, and on examining the soil around 
the roots I found that the White Grubs had taken possession, at 
the rate of 8 to 12 to the square foot. I hoed, cultivated, and did 
every thing I could think of to encourgethe plants and discourage 
the worms; but all to no purpose. Parker Earle, Michel’s Early 
and Warfield, are four-fifths dead ; three rows half dead, one row of 
Lovett and two of Crescent, which I have thought of leaving the 
coming summer. Will the grubs mature, and come out of the 
ground and quit the field, or will there be enough grubs left to 
complete the destruction? Fred Grundy is right, and I know it; 
where the most old manure is, there will be the most grubs. 
ANSWERED BY M. V. SI.INGERLAND. 
I have asked Mr. L. J. Farmer, of Pulaski, N. Y., 
to help me in answering this question. He is a 
practical strawberry grower, and has had all sorts 
of experiences with the White Grubs. His observa¬ 
tions indicate that the grubs are three years in attain¬ 
ing their growth. This is the generally accepted 
notion, but it yet remains to be demonstrated beyond 
question ; no one has ever reared the insects through 
from the eggs to the beetle state. Mr. Farmer says ; 
If the grubs continued to work until late in the fall, 
they were in the second year of their growth, and will 
work again until July of this year ; but if they ceased 
to eat last year in June they were in the third year of 
their growth, and will not bother this year, because 
they have gone through their last transformation, and 
will come out in May as the well-known May beetles. 
Fred Grundy is misleading. He says, ‘ Don't use 
manure because it contains grubs.’ Now the grubs 
don’t always come from manure, neither do they 
generally come from it. Fresh manure drawn out in 
the winter, can not contain them. Rut if manure lies 
around the barn for years, or for one year during May 
or June, and it happens to be a year when May beetles 
are plenty, it becomes a favorite repository for their 
eggs, and becomes full of the grubs.” It is doubtful 
if the grubs so often reported in manure, are the true 
White Grubs of May beetles. Dr. Lintner has recently 
shown in the Country Gentleman, that the grubs of 
manure belong to an entirely different kind of beetle; 
however, these grubs, to the ordinary observer, would 
be White Grubs. I doubt if genuine White Grubs are 
ever found in manure before it is spread on the soil. 
I am open to conviction however, so send in your 
grubs found in manure and let us see what they are. 
The Curculio Spoils Apricots. 
F. 11 ../.. Vineyard Haven, Mass. —I have two Russian apricot 
trees seven or eight years old, that have grown nicely and are 
large, thrifty trees. They blossom freely every year, and set some 
fruit, but none ever matures, and when as large as a cherry 
withers and drops off, apparently ripe. What is the cause and 
remedy ? I had about decided to cut the trees down, and shall if 
you cannot suggest a remedy. 
Ans. —The trouble is the curculio. Only this and 
nothing more. The remedy is to jar the trees every 
day or so, from the time the fruit sets until the fruit 
gets as large as cherries, catching the insects on sheets 
spread under the trees, when they may be destroyed. 
Spraying with Paris-green is a partial remedy also. 
To Raise a Big Crop of Strawberries. 
J. T. F., Rockford, 111. —I have been growing berries for 10 
years, but fail to grow them as big as barrels or to get one of 
those mammoth crops we read about—120 bushels per acre, is the 
best I have ever done. I expect to set three acres in April or May; 
two acres are clover sod broken last spring, and planted to pota¬ 
toes which yielded the year before, 2 to 2^4 tons of clover hay per 
acre, and last year, 150 bushels of Rural New-Yorker No. 2 pota¬ 
toes per acre. On that two acres, with one acre adjoining with 
clover and Timothy eight inches high, I put 30 big two-horse loads 
of fresh horse manure per acre, and plowed and subsoiled it. The 
soil is a black loam with clay subsoil. I have Crescent, Warfield 
No. 2, Princess, Haverland, Bubach No. 5, Timbrell, Gandy, Parker 
Earle, Sharpless, Jessie, Beder Wood. I give thorough cultivation, 
and there was not a hatful of weeds last fall on six acres. Four 
acres of old were mulched with 25 two-horse loads of manure pet- 
acre ; two of the new were mulched with four loads of straw pet- 
acre from which we expect to get 2,000 to 3,000 quarts per acre next 
June. I would like to raise one of those big crops. Will The R. 
N.-Y. outline a method by which I would be likely to accom¬ 
plish it. 
ANSWERED BY M. CRAWFORD. 
To grow from 300 to 400 bushels of strawberries to 
the acre, is about equivalent to raising 150 bushels of 
shelled corn, or 800 bushels of potatoes to the acre. 
It is the reward of more care and skill than most of 
us are willing to bestow. It implies good soil, a 
knowledge of varieties, two favorable seasons—one to 
raise the plants, and one to fruit them—manual train¬ 
ing to enable one to do every part of the work in a 
workmanlike manner, faithfulness to attend to all the 
details at the right time, even at the cost of dropping 
all else, and, most important of all, a large develop¬ 
ment of the gardening instinct that enables one to 
detect at a glance anything that interferes with the 
prosperity of the plant. Where these conditions exist, 
400 bushels of strawberries may be grown on an acre, 
and even more. I know one man who has accom¬ 
plished this over and over, with the aid of his children, 
and they are girls—the oldest only 14. I have obtained 
his method and that of a number of other successful 
growers, and, with nearly 40 years’ experience of my 
own, I claim to know how it is accomplished. 
If 1 were intending to plant three acres of straw¬ 
berries this spring, and expecting to do my best, I 
would proceed as follows : First, pulverize three or 
four inches deep with the disc harrow, two-horse 
cultivator or whatever would do the work. Then 
plow and subsoil if possible. Much depends on the 
plowing. If the soil is deep, it should be plowed deep, 
but it is risky to bring up very much soil that has 
never been exposed to the air. After plowing, the 
surface is to be made fine and smooth. Mark both 
ways, 30 inches apart. All this is to be done as early 
as the ground is dry enough to work. Up to this 
point, all has been smooth sailing with but little 
liability of making mistakes. 
Selecting varieties, choosing plants, preparing them 
for planting, caring for them while out of the ground 
and planting them properly, are all important, ex¬ 
ceedingly so. It is easy enough when one knows how, 
but not for beginners. I am not assuming that J. T. 
F. is a beginner—far from it. A man planting three 
acres, or even one acre, should know what to plant. 
As the plants are taken up, they should be put in a 
wet sack, and taken to a shed or cellar where all dead 
leaves and runners are to be removed, and the roots 
shortened to three inches. They must be kept from 
drying when out of the ground. We carry them to 
the field in boxes, covered with wet sacks. In plant¬ 
ing, we carry them in a pail with water enough to 
cover the roots, taking each plant out as it is needed. 
Care is taken to have the crown on a level with the 
surface of the ground. Very soon after planting, they 
should be cultivated, and the blossoms must be cut 
off as soon as they appear. If left until seed com¬ 
mences to form, the plants will be weakened accord¬ 
ingly- 
About the time the blossoms are cut, runners will 
appear, and they must be cut at once. This must be per¬ 
severed in throughout the season. It is a serious matter 
to let the runners draw too long on the parent plant, 
and there is no more common mistake in hill cul¬ 
ture. Under favorable conditions, a runner will 
commence to root in a week from the time it ap¬ 
pears. Even if cut off then, it has been making a 
needless drain on the plant. As a matter of fact, run¬ 
ners are seldom cut off more frequently than once in 
two weeks. By that time, perhaps, half a dozen will 
* 
vt 
