a 
4 
All my neighbors who have seen the potato 
say it is the biggest yielder they' have ever 
heard of. The other seeds did not do well. The 
R. B. Sorghum did not come up, and the Wash¬ 
ington Oats rusted badly. The asparagus 
seed came up weH and is doing middling well 
now. I would not take twice what the paper 
cost me for the potatoes. The Rural is the 
best agricultural paper that I have ever 
read. w. D. H. 
Wallingford, Rutland Co.—The White 
Elephant I planted May 13, cut into 15 pieces, 
making 15 hills, which were dug September 13, 
and yielded by actual weight 04 pounds. 
Some tubers weighed two pounds each. We 
find them to be of excellent quality. The 
mammoth asparagus now stands two feet 
high. The Branching Sorghum seed did not 
germinate. The Washington Oats proved to 
lie no better than my old variety. h. h. 
Wear Viritinia. 
Shepiierdstown, Jefferson Co—Owing to 
an arctic Winter, wheat will not average over 
ha If a crop in the county, and there has not been 
rain to the amount of a good dew siuco August 
7. Corn will not make half a crop. There is a 
prospect of the market starting at $1 per bushel 
for the new crop. Apples a fail' crop. No 
peaches. j. t. h. 
Wisconsin. 
Elroy, Juneau Co., Sept. 10.—I have this 
day dug the White Elephant Potato planted 
May 16, in 15 hills, one eye to the hill. White 
Elephant yield 57 pounds; Burbank’s (same 
maimer, 15 hills), 53 pounds; Snowflake (same 
manner, 15 hills), 40 pounds; Early Ohio (same 
manner, 15 hills), 23 pounds, 1 am fully con¬ 
vinced that one or two eyes to the hill will 
yield larger potatoes and more pounds than 
whole potatoes. e. e. b. 
(Querist 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name 
and address of the writer to Insure attention.] 
GRASS FOR A SMALL DAIRY* 
B. D. B., Banbury, Conn., aslts What kind 
of grass can he sow this Fall, that he can 
mow several times next Spring and Summer 
for cows in the stable. Would Orchard Grass 
or Alfalfa bo suitable? The. drought there¬ 
abouts has been very severe, and cows have 
fallen off greatly in their yield of milk which is 
therefore in great demand; some farmers have 
fodder com, but few have enough and our 
friend says that it would be a great advantage 
if ensilage could be put up in silos small 
enough to hold a supply for only half a dozen 
cows. 
Ans. —There is no meadow grass, so called, 
that our correspondent can sow this Fall to 
he cut several times next Spring and Summer; 
but he can sow a member of the grass family 
—winter rye, which he may cut several times 
as green food for his cows. Rye is a soiling 
crop much used. His land would probably 
bear a strong crop of rye, and it furnishes the. 
earliest cutting in Spring. It cannot be cut 
several times unless care is taken to cut before 
the head appears. If it makes a strong growth 
in the Fall, it may be light ly pastured to pre¬ 
vent smothering under snow. If the ground 
is dry and an early cutting is not desired, it 
may be lightly pastured early in Spring, and 
it will thicken up at bottom and yield a heav¬ 
ier cutting. In Germany, sheep have some¬ 
times been passed over it between the hurdles 
five and six times during the season, and it 
has then matured a crop the following year. 
In this case it is eaten off when six or eight 
in chi's high and before the seed head has com¬ 
menced, and it springs up again at once like 
clover. 
Orchard Grass is very valuable when once 
established, may be cut several times in a sea¬ 
son with sufficient rainfall, and is one of the 
best grasses for springing up at ouoe after 
cutting. The -writer has measured a growth 
of one-and-a-hulf inch the first 34 hours after 
cutting. But this grass often starts poorly the 
first year, and takes two years to got well es¬ 
tablished, but then wo have known it to pro¬ 
duce good crops for 20 years in a stiff clav 
loam. Two bushels of seed are required per 
acre, and it may be sown upon the Winter rye 
early in Spring. The prico is about $3.75 per 
bushel, weight about 14 pounds per bushel. 
Lucerne or Alfalfa also does well on line, rich 
loams; it is feeble for a year or so, but when 
well established, it yields large crops. It roots 
deep, and in Califorina Is very highly esteem¬ 
ed as a dairy food—in fact, it is the great re¬ 
liance for butter production in some parts of 
the State. It is somewhat richer in albuminoids 
than Orchard Grass. It has been grown but 
little in the Eastern and Middle States. It re¬ 
quires a deep, rich soil. About 15 pounds are 
sown to the acre, and it costs hero 15 cents per 
pound. All these seeds can be had from seeds¬ 
men who advertise in the Rural. 
Such a sweeping drought as we have 
had over almost the whole country cannot 
well be provided for in green crops to l)e 
cut as wanted. But R. D. B., if he chooses, 
may adopt the ensilage system with an as¬ 
surance of providing for any drought that 
may como. This system may be used for large 
or small operations. It is quite as applicable 
for six cows as for fifty. A silo for six cows 
would require to be 12 feet wide, 20 feet long 
and 14 feet deep, holding, under proper pres- 
ure, about 72 tons of green corn, grass or any 
green fodder crop. This silo may be built for 
$100, including the roof, if the farmer does 
some of the work himself. A silo of this size 
will keep the ensilage as well as a larger one, 
and its whole cost might be paid in the extra 
milk produced in a season like this. But let 
every ono abandon tho idea of adopting ensil¬ 
age simply to preserve green corn. Give the 
system its tine significance—a method of pre- 
strving for future use all our grasses and 
other succulent forage crops. The silo should 
turn out as groat a variety of grasses as an old 
meadow. Practical ensilage which shall ever 
establish itself in this intensely utilitarian 
country, must furnish as complete a ration for 
FIG. 
all purposes of animal growth, and the pro- | 
duction of milk, as can be- had in pasturage. 
A variety of grasses may be ensilaged as well 
as a variety of grasses cured and put in mow. 
A silo may be filled early in June with Winter 
rye and Red Clover. A little later it may be 
filled with all the varieties of meadow grasses- 
In September it may be filled with green com, 
second-crop clover, millet or Hungarian Grass. 
The early ensilage will cat ry the stock through 
the Summer aud through drought, and the 
later ensilage will rejoice the cows in Winter. 
DRILLING WITH THREE HORSES ABREAST. 
G. S. S,, address mislaid, aslcs, 1, for a di¬ 
agram showing how to hitch three horses 
abreast to a drill for sowing fertilizers; the 
tongue he says is the bother; 2, would it hurt 
wheat if one of the horses tramp on it when 
sown. 
Ans. —S. cannot driva three horses abreast 
on a tongue. Tho tongue on the drill must be 
replaced with two tongues, or a pair of thils. 
The middle horso must be in the thills and 
two nock yokes should bo used instead of one. 
The middle horse takes one end of both neck 
yokes. Take two light tongues; place them 
ltl inches on each side of the center of the 
present tongue-frame on a crossbar between 
the two tongues where the bolt for the evener 
comes in the drill tongue. These thills or 
tongues are easily fastened to the cross-pieces 
of tho drill in tho same way as tho tongue 
now is. Let the thills be about six inches 
longer than the tongue, to provide for the ex¬ 
tra room for the the throe-horse whitfletrees. 
Tho diagram, Fig. 477, will illustrate the 
whiffietrees. Tho writer has used them for 
some fifteen years, and regards them ns, per¬ 
haps, the most completely balanced form yet 
devised. The horses are exactly ou a line or 
abreast of each other. The three single 
whiffietrees hang as evenly as do the two sin¬ 
gle whiffietrees for two horses. The single- 
trees are 20 inches long. It will be seen how 
the middle, or balancing, trees operate to place 
each horse on an equality. This form of thr£u- 
horse trees is appropriate for plowing, haul¬ 
ing logs or stones, drawing loads upon a wagon, 
or for any purpose for which the strength of 
three horses may be required. The use of the 
third horso is a great economy in draft. Three 
horses well balanced and drawing evenly to¬ 
gether, -will draw as large a load as four horses 
in two pah’s, uue placed ahead of the other. 
A double tongue or thills on a wagon and a 
three horse team is an economical power for 
hauling heavy loads to market. Two tons 
may be hauled with such a team as easily as 
one ton by two horses. The third horse may 
be con.sii er d as drawing altogether on the load. 
But we do not think more thuu two horses, 
of fair strength, are required on a drill even 
when using the fertilizer attachment, unless 
tho drill sows wider than usual. A twelve- 
tube drill would require three horses to drawit 
comfortably. 2. It would not injure the wheat 
for the off horse to travel on the sown part. 
Wheat is tho better for rolling or compressing 
the soil over the seed. 
GROUND LIMESTONE AND LIME. 
W. S. H., l T rsina, Pa., and G. L., La Salle, 
III., both inquire as to the fertilizing value of 
ground limestone, and how best to utilize it 
for enriching good land in one case and poor 
land in the other. 
Ans.—R aw limestone, ground or unground, 
is carbonate of lime, consisting of lime and 
carbonic acid. In tho process of burning the 
carbonic acid is expelfed and the oxide of lime 
remains. The change in composition causes 
also a change in properties. Limestone, or 
carbonate of lime, is mild in its alkaline prop¬ 
erties, wbilo burnt lime is can stir. When ex¬ 
posed to the air it absorbs moisture and crum¬ 
bles, and is then called air-slaked lime; when 
mixed with water it absorbs about one-third 
its own weight and becomes hydrate of lime 
or the ordinary slaked lime of builders, etc. 
If exposed to the air for a. long time, however, 
it again becomes carbonate of lime after it lias 
absorbed its full supply of carbonic acid. Ap¬ 
plied to the soil, it is a powerful agent in de¬ 
composing the inert and inactive vegetable 
matter in it, making them available for plant 
food. Moreover, it also acts ou the compound 
silicates of the soil, such as silicates of potash 
and so on, liberating the potash, an essential 
element of plant food and one that is seldom 
found in large quantities in the soil in a solu¬ 
ble form, and is therefore soon exhausted. On 
poor soils, especially those poor in vegetable 
matter, the good effects of lime are small; it 
477. 
is on rich soils that its action is most benefi¬ 
cial, because it is in these that the materials 
for it to act upon are most abundant. Its ac¬ 
tivity is vastly greater than that of carbonate of 
lime, or raw limestone, however finely ground 
this may be. Powdered limestone is of very 
little value to the soil beyond furnishing one 
of the essential elements of plant food, which 
is generally abundant in the soil naturally. If 
applied in large quantities it may, too, alter 
the soil physically, but its action is slow and 
feeble. We would not, therefore-, advise the 
use of ground limestone except where the soil 
is destitute of lime in sufficient quantity to 
supply what is needed for plant food, and this 
is very rarely the case. The finer it is then 
divided the better, but even then lime would 
generally be more efficacious. On poor, sandy 
soil its application has been foiuid beneficial. 
FRUITS FOR KANSAS. 
J. E. P., Blue Mound, Kan., asks, 1, how 
to grow chestnuts and English walnuts, and 
whether the nuts sold in stores will do for seed; 
2, what varieties of apples and grapes will 
thrive best in that section. 
ANSWER BY PROF. E. A. POPENOE, KANSAS 
AGR’L. COLLEGE. 
1, To grow these nuts successfully, seeds 
known to be fresh and in good germinating 
condition should be procured in Autumn and 
bedded out through the Winter under a few 
inches of soil in a well drained situation; or, 
better, they should be packed in a box in lay¬ 
ers alternating with layers of saiul, and the 
box be buried in a place where no water 
stands. In tho following Spring tho nuts will 
probably be found in first-rate condition for 
early planting. They should lie placed where 
they are to remain if possible. It is not safe 
to trust seeds purchased in the grocery stores, 
ns it is uncertain whether even a small pro¬ 
portion of those obtained in such places will 
germinate. 2, Tho fruit list of the Kansas 
State Horticultural Society recommends the 1 
planting of the following varieties of apples 
in this State. Fop Summer: Early Harvest, 
Red June, Red Astra chan, Early Pennoek, 
American Summer Pearenain. For Autumn: j 
Maiden’s Blush, Rornbo, Lowell, Faineuse, | 
Fall Wine. For Winter; Winesap. Ben Davis, 
Jonathan, Rawle’s Janet and White Winter 
Poammin, among others. For grapes the list 
names, first, the Concord, Ives, Draeut Am¬ 
ber. Clinton and Delaware, although other 
and newer varieties are fust coming into fa vor, 
winch J. E. P. should try. I would also sug¬ 
gest to him and to other Kansans with hor¬ 
ticultural tastes, that the annual reports of 
our State Horticultural Society contain a 
fluid of valuable information upon the topic 
suggested by tho questions asked, and many 
other points. Such persons will find these re¬ 
ports cheap at the price of annual membership | 
(§1.00) entitling thorn to a copy. 
AN ANTI-KICKING DEVICE. 
Subscriber, Cincinnati, Ohio, says he lately 
saw in the advertising columns of an agrieul- I 
tural paper a picture of a man safely and 
cheerfully milking what was called a kicking 
cow to whose leg was tied a machine for keep¬ 
ing the beast quiet and harmless during the 
operation, ami he asks what we think of the 
efficacy of the device. 
Afs. —This so-called machine is merely a 
contrivance winch is strapped to the cow’s leg 
in the expectation that she will quietly submit i 
to such an exceptional proceeding. We have 
tried it. Instead of making the cow quiet, she 
kicked still more furiously until the contriv¬ 
ance flew off with a velocity that would have 
been dangerous to any person in its way. 
After several trials, we lent it to neighbors, 
but it was always returned very quickly as a 
failure. If the cow would only stand quietly 
with it on, it would be excellent; but a kick¬ 
ing cow is always a nervous or cross beast, and 
such a one resents, or becomes frightened or 
furious, when this thing is strapped to her leg, 
a ud it does not prevent her from kicking in 
the least. At least this is our experience; 
others may' have been more fortunate, as the 
man who is milking in the picture referred to, 
for instance. 
THE BLACK BLISTER BEETLE. 
J. A. S., Van Wert, Ohio sends specimens 
of a bug that has lately appeared thereabouts 
and which is eating up all the leaves of the 
pinks, carnations, asters, zinnias, etc., and asks 
its name and how to get rid of it without in¬ 
juring the plants. 
ANSWER BY G. H. FRENCH. 
The specimens of beetles sent and reported 
as injuring the flowering plants, are Epicanta 
Pennsylvania or the Black or Pennsyl¬ 
vania Blister Beetle. They are related 
to the striped potato beetle, and, like that 
species, they eat not only potatoes but a 
great many other plants. There are several 
species of these blister beetles that may often 
be found feeding together, and they' are usu¬ 
ally found in such numbers that whatever 
they attack is soon destroyed unless means are 
taken to prevent it. Often they may be driven 
from the place when they are found eating, 
but probably the best plan in tbe present in¬ 
stance would be to brush them with the hand 
or a stick from the plants into a vessel con¬ 
taining some liquid that will kill them. After 
a little vigorous catching among a drove of 
them, those that escape will generally fly 
away' not to return. 
THE OIL IN OIL MEAL. 
IF. H, l !., Ann Arbor, Mich., asks whether 
tho feeding value of oil meal given lately in 
some analyses in the Rural refers to the 
meal before or after theoil has hem extracted 
and how much difference is there in its feel 
ing value after the oil has beeu pressed out. 
Ans.— The values of oil meal given, refer to 
the meal of the oil-cake left after the larger 
part of tho oil has been pressed out; that 
which remains cannot be removed by pressure 
and is about one-fourth of the oil originally 
contained in the meaL If the whole seed 
were used it would be too rich a food and the 
oil would be wasted and in fact injurious. 
The difference in values consists only in the 
oil which is extracted from the whole seed, 
but this has never been taken into account 
when considering the value of oil meal. 
Miscellaneous. 
H. A. B., Glasgow, Mo., asks what are the 
distinguishing characteristics of the Jersey 
and Alderney cows. 
Ans. —The names Jersey' and Alderney are 
now commonly used in this country to desig¬ 
nate the same breed—the Jersey. Very few 
cattle are raised on the little island of Alder¬ 
ney and hardly any* are Imported by' us from 
there, while a great many are brought every 
year from the larger island of Jersey. The 
term Alderney, therefore, is a misnomer used 
by some through sheer ignorance, by some 
through an assumption of greater knowledge 
than is possessed by their neighbors, and by 
some because it was employed to designate all 
the Channel Island cattle hi the Dark Ages, 15 
to 25 years ago. 
P. -4. F., St. Paul, Minn., asks wdio man¬ 
ufactures the flax breaking and scutching ma¬ 
chine described in the article on Flax Culture 
and Handling published in the Rural last 
November. 
Ans. —It is made by the American Vegeta¬ 
ble Fiber Co., J. F. Dunton, Manager, 213 
South Front St.. I’l ila lelphia, Pa. 
E. P. B., Cobdcn III., ask from whom can 
he obtain the Jersey Queen and Bidwell 
Strawberries. 
Ans. —The -Jersey Queen from Peter Hen¬ 
derson, 35 Cortland St., N. Y. The Bidwell 
is offered by all sm-ifi fruit growers. 
Note. -To “ F.” let us. say that a full ar¬ 
ticle ou asparagus culture from the v.eteran 
horticulturist. Peter B. Mead, w ill appear in a 
short time. As to Dandelions we think not. 
♦ - 
Horticola—P. B. M.,—Subscriber—J. M.— 
A. B.—E. E. B.—W. W. H.—A. E. C.—E. F. B. 
—E. J. B., yes.—O. A. H., Lewiston, Maine. 
We do not exactly' understand the question as 
to planting tips of raspberries.—H, H. L.—A. 
B. A.—G. II. F., thanks.— C. L. B.—C. W. G. 
—F. D. C.—E. W. H., insects destroying the 
Rural Sorghum not its yet received.— N. H.— 
W. G. W. S.-A. P.-L. S. B.—P. R. G. 
I. N. C.—J. W. M.—Mr and Mrs. L. B. T.— 
S. C. G.—A. B. A.—J. D.—L W. Y.—W. J. 
E—D. W. C., thanks.—C. E. P.—W. J. H.— 
W. A. P.— 
