482 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 13 
A Sweet Corn Crop. 
B. T. W.. Kochestkr, Mass.—O n page 
390, W. F. Taber tells of his experience 
with sweet corn. Last year, from one 
acre, manured lightly with sawdust 
horse manure, we sold 12,343 ears for 
$118.96, and had between 30 and 40 
bushels of ears to feed hogs; also a 
good crop of fodder. 
Homemade Hose. 
T. II., Onkkama, Mich. — It is not 
difficult to make a serviceable hose for 
conducting water. About four years ago 
I made 300 or 400 feet of it that has 
very well answered the purpose, and is 
still, after some rough handling, in good 
condition for use. Cut 10 ounce ducking 
into strips of requisite widths ; double¬ 
lap the edges and double-stitch them on 
a sewing machine. Immerse in three 
parts boiled linseed oil to one part pine 
tar heated well together, llun it hot 
out of this through a clotheswringer 
—an old one preferably. Stretch along 
the fence until dry, at intervals seeing 
that the sides don’t gum together. The 
outlay for this should be between 2 and 
2% cents per foot. Six feet pressure 
will be about as much as can be safely 
applied. 
Quality in Potatoes. 
H. S. A., Homer, N. Y.—In The R. 
N.-Y. for 1894, page 53, A. S. McB., of 
Lakewood, N. J., makes inquiry as to 
the best potato, and how to grow it for 
the best quality, having no regard to 
quantity, preferring 50 bushels to the 
acre of prime quality to 200 of an inferior 
one. I wish I knew which is the best 
potato, but I think that new land which 
has never been manured, the best for 
growing for quality. Well do I remem¬ 
ber my father growing the “ Long Pink 
Ey.e ” for market in such soil, more than 
60 years ago—his brother growing the 
same sort on land highly manured from 
the barnyard, greatly increasing the 
quantity, but spoiling the quality of 
the crop, so that my father could readily 
outsell him. We do not all have this 
kind of soil now ; perhaps a clover sod 
with some kind of potato fertilizer, 
would be the next best thing for quality. 
IIow we can grow for quantity first, 
utterly regardless of quality, is more 
than I can understand. I think that A. 
S. McB. is right in preferring 50 bushels 
to the acre of prime to 200 bushels of in¬ 
ferior quality. He is not the happiest 
man who returns from market with the 
most cash to deposit in bank, unless he 
is conscious that he has endeavored to 
give to the public, whom he loves as 
himself, the best he could. 
Japan Plums in Canada. 
J. W. J., Campbellford, Ont.—I n the 
spring of 1893, 1 planted one each of 
Burbank, Ogon and Abundance plums, 
one year old on plum stock, purchased 
from the Storrs & Harrison Co. The 
fii-st season, they grew but little, as 
they were late planted, and a dry time 
followed. They passed the following 
winter successfully, and made an enor¬ 
mous growth the following summer— 
many branches over six feet long, and 
one branch seven feet, three inches by 
measurement. I thought these long 
branches would kill back sure; but 
they came through the past winter with¬ 
out the loss of a bud, or sign of injury, 
though it was the coldest winter for 
many years—thermometer several times 
25 to 28 degrees below zero. These trees 
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stand fully exposed to the north and 
west. European sorts set at the same 
time, and under precisely the same con¬ 
ditions, did not make half the growth, 
and were injured by the winter killing 
back the young wood. 
The past spring, the Japans were 
loaded with bloom, even on last season’s 
wood, so that I was expecting to have 
to prop up my trees as The R. N.-Y. had 
to. But, alas ! The frost on the morn¬ 
ing of May 21, froze them as hard as ice, 
and as soon as the sun shone on them 
they wilted. All the other varieties of 
plums, as well as cherries, lost their 
fruits at the same time. Peaches do not 
stand the winter here ; we cannot grow 
them. I believe that plums worked on 
peach stocks, are not nearly so hardy as 
on plum stocks. Some of your corre¬ 
spondents report Japan plums not hardy; 
they may have been on peach stocks. If 
so. try them again on plum stocks. 
This spring I have planted some of all 
the other varieties of Japan plums that 
I could get for testing. I am well pleased 
with their behavior so far. They 
bloomed one to three days later than the 
native wild red or Canada plums here, 
and two to three days before the Eu¬ 
ropean varieties. I have not seen or 
tasted the fruit of any of the Japans 
yet ; 'but as far as I have tested them, I 
find that they are much better growers, 
hardier, and come into bearing younger 
than any of the European sorts. I see 
good reports as to the quality of the 
fruit from reliable parties. 
some way out of the air. Most of it 
comes in the form of “ organic matter,” 
and what we wish to consider now is 
where it comes from, and what changes 
take place in the soil to make it avail¬ 
able as plant food. These changes are 
called “ nitrification,” which is doubt¬ 
less the most important feature of agri¬ 
cultural practice. We shall try to tell 
you what this is, and how it may be pro¬ 
moted. First, we want you to go back 
to page 354, and read again the article 
by Prof. Smith. That will be good 
preparation for what is to follow. 
While you are thinking that over, we 
shall ask you to read the following 
notes on a somewhat different subject, 
yet in line with it. We wish to have 
this matter of “ bacteria ” understood. 
We can make them useful or harmful if 
we understand what they do, and how 
they live. By the neglect of certain prac¬ 
tices, we can “ sterilize ” the soil so that 
the useful bacteria will not develop. 
Sterilized Air for Preserving Fruit. 
We have heard much about sterilizing 
milk, and most of us have a pretty clear 
idea of what is meant by it. The changes 
in milk that result in souring, are 
brought about by bacteria or minute 
forms of life. So long as these bacteria 
are held in check and not permitted to 
grow, the milk will keep sweet. The 
application of heat up to a high degree 
of temperature, destroys the bacteria, 
and the simple meaning of “ sterilizing ” 
milk is to heat it to a very high de- 
Part XII. 
You understand by this time that there 
is a good deal more in farming or soil 
eulture than the mere acts of plowing 
and cultivating, and adding manure or 
fertilizers. If you were a doctor and 
wished permanently to cure a patient, 
you would probably divide the study of 
his case into three divisions. First, you 
would wish to have a sound body—with 
all the organs like throat, lungs, heart, 
kidneys, etc., in good condition. Then 
you would want to feed him pure, digest¬ 
ible and well-balanced food ; and lastly 
you would be interested in the changes 
that go on in the stomach and blood by 
means of which the food is digested and 
assimilated, and made into fat and 
tissue, or used as heat and vital energy. 
We might say the same of the soil. We 
have spent much time in discussing the 
mecha/nical condition of the soil, because 
that, after all, is the most important 
part. A man can’t be well unless he can 
breathe and swallow perfectly. In the 
same way, a soil can’t produce a good 
crop until its particles are so arranged 
that it can retain moisture perfectly, 
and also permit a proper circulation of 
warm air. We have tried to show how 
tillage, lime and green manures are the 
three agencies to enable farmers to 
change the character of their soils. The 
more we study this question, the more 
are we convinced that care of the soil itself 
is of more importance than the addition 
of plant food in the form of manure or 
fertilizers. 
We now come, however, to a new side 
of the matter, and must consider the soil 
as a storehouse of actual life. Like the 
processes of digestion that go on in the 
human stomach, what agencies do these 
minute forms of life play in the soil ? 
When you remember how the soil was 
originally formed, you will see that what¬ 
ever nitrogen it contains, must have been 
added since the rock was ground. Nitro¬ 
gen always goes up in the form of gas 
when exposed to heat such as that to 
which the original rocks were sub¬ 
jected. Therefore, what we find now 
in the soil, must have been brought in 
gree of temperature. Sterilized air. 
in the same way, is air that has 
been treated so that it will not con¬ 
vey the bacteria, or permit them to de¬ 
velop. The air is the great medium for 
conveying these deadly germs. It is 
easy to see that if perishable products 
were surrounded by “sterilized air” in 
which no bacteria could form, they 
would “keep” even better than when 
placed on ice, the object of which is to 
maintain a cool temperature in which 
bacteria develop but slowly. 
The use of “sterilized air” for pre¬ 
serving fruits, is a new thing, and was 
(Continued on next page.) 
|Ui$crilum , ou£ 
In a State of Bankruptcy 
—is the condition of 
our system if the 
liver becomes inac¬ 
tive so that the 
germs and poisons 
can accumulate 
within the body. 
Keep the liver and 
bowels active and 
we’re in a condition 
of healthy pros¬ 
perity and have 
sufficiently well in¬ 
vested capital to 
draw upon in the 
hour of need. The liver filters out the 
poisonous germs which enter the system. 
Just so surely as the liver regulates the 
system, so do Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets 
regulate the liver. Keep this in mind, and 
you solve the problem of good health and 
good living. The “ Pleasant Pellets ” have 
a tonic, strengthening effect upon the lin¬ 
ing membranes of the stomach and bowels, 
which effectually cures Biliousness, Sick 
Headache, Costiveness, or Constipation, 
Indigestion, Loss of Appetite, Bad Taste 
in Mouth, Sour Risings from Stomach, 
and will often cure Dyspepsia. The “Pel¬ 
lets” are tiny, because the vegetable ex¬ 
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in action, no griping as with old-fashioned 
pills. As a “dinner pill,” to promote di¬ 
gestion, take one each day after dinner. 
To relieve the distress arising from over¬ 
eating, nothing equals one of these little 
“ Pellets.” 
Mrs. Melissa Atwater, of Steuben , 
Washington Co., Me., writes : “As regards 
the little ‘ Pel¬ 
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I do not like 
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house. I have 
spoken very 
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friends and 
neighbors of 
them, and 
many are tak- 
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through my 
advertising 
them. I will MR s- Atwater. 
say they are the best pill I can take, es¬ 
pecially for an after-dinner pill, I think 
they have no equal.” 
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