Tiff RURAL H1W YORKER. 
8EPT i 
0 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Conducted by 
e. s. CARMAN, 
3 . S. WOODWARD, 
Editor. 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 1885. 
In consideration of the very great in¬ 
terest which has been shown in this 
Special Fertilizer Number, and the many 
articles that we have received from our 
good friends, the subject will be contin¬ 
ued next week. 
- - » ■» 0 
The Rural New-Yorker from now 
until January 1st, 1887, for the regular 
price, $2. 
Tnis Special Number of the Rural 
New-Yorker is not intended to puff up 
(•.mcentrated fertilizers, or to belittle the 
effects of barn-yard manures. It is pre¬ 
pared in the hope of inducing our read¬ 
ers to inform themselves as well as they 
may, regarding the use and value of fer¬ 
tilizers, to the end that they may feed 
their crops in the most economical way. 
-» - 
Most small fruit growers recommend 
unleached wood ashes and bone flour for 
grape-vines, strawberries, raspberries, etc. 
They are good certainly; but if we add 
some form of nitrogen in the Spring, after 
the plants have begun growth, the effect 
will be most marked, as we know from 
experience. Several experienced fruit¬ 
growers use bone alone, believing it to 
give all the food that the plants need. 
This may be true in soils that have an 
abundance of potash—but not otherwise. 
Among all summer or late summer 
pears, is there one of higher quality than 
Rostiezer? It is a little pear to be sure, 
and one that makes a poor show on the 
market. But those who cat it once will 
ask for it again. The skin is a dull 
broDze-green, with a reddish-brown cheek 
that gives little intimation of the juicy, 
melting, perfumed flesh within. The 
tree bears early, and ripens its fruit at the 
Rural Grounds about August 25. 
Last week we cut a little plot of corn 
half of which received only potash and 
phosphoric acid; the other half, potash, 
phosphoric acid and nitrogen. Many of 
the plants of the entire plot were* de¬ 
stroyed by black-birds; but the nitrogen 
half suffered most. On the latter there 
were but 47 plants. These yielded 32 
pounds of ears. On the other half (phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash) there were 84 
plants, which yielded but 33% pounds of 
ears. The stover was not weighed, but 
we should judge the growth from the 
complete fertilizer was double that from 
the incomplete. 
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In a general sense we have but one 
phosphate in chemical fertilizers, viz., 
phosphate of lime, as in bones. A su¬ 
perphosphate is merely a phosphate of 
lime dissolved in sulphuric acid. Now 
to call all chemical fertilizers “ phos¬ 
phates” as farmers and even dealers are 
prone to do, is mixing things up beyond 
disintanglement. to those who do not un¬ 
derstand the misuse of the word. Potash 
and nitrogen are not “phosphates,” and 
vet there can be no “complete” fertilizer 
without them. The Rural has called at¬ 
tention to this matter on several occasions, 
and it is to be hoped that “chemical fer- 
tilzers” or simple “fertilizers,” compre¬ 
hensive words, will be used instead. 
■ •» » » 
Low-priced fertilizers or “cheap” fer¬ 
tilizers, mean an inferior article. Do not 
ever forget this, farmers. We can not 
buy gold dollars for 50 cents each. Re¬ 
member also not to conclude that chem¬ 
ical fertilizers are worthless on your land, 
because either potash, bone or nitrogenous 
compounds fail. Potash will not help 
crops on land already rich in potash. 
Phosphoric acid well not help crops on 
land that has been “boned to death.” 
Neither will reversing these fertilizers 
materially help crops upon land that 
needs both. Try both. If the crops are 
not benefited, try potash. If not then 
improved, try both bone and potash. If 
still the crops do not respond, nitrogen¬ 
ous fertilizers must be added. If yet, 
there is no improvement, it is because the 
land is too rich to show the effects of 
additional food, 
■ ♦ » » 
Now is just the time to propagate the 
Great-panicled Hydrangea from cuttings. 
Use the new wood cut just beneath a joint 
of last year’s wood—an eighth of an inch 
below is enough. Place these cuttings in 
sand or in the soil in the garden, and 
they will root very readily. Cuttings of 
the old wood are very slow to root; in¬ 
deed we have never succeeded in rooting 
them at all. As the plants become large 
and old, the panicles grow smaller, so 
that if we would have those of the largest 
size, plants should be started every year. 
It is worthy of note that one year-old 
plants will bloom and bear panicles larger 
than the plant itself. This Hydrangea 
is a coarse shrub—coarse in flower, coarse 
in foliage. But now while few other 
shrubs are in bloom, its banks of white, 
presently to turn to rose color, are very 
pleasant to look upon. We were the first of 
American journals to call attention to Hy¬ 
drangea paniculatagrandiflora,and having 
grown it through all these years, may say 
that it has never been harmed either by 
the cold of Winter, the heat of Summer or 
by insect enemies. 
4 4 » 
A ‘ 'complete'' 1 fertilizer is so called be¬ 
cause it, furnishes- more or less of the 
three essential plant foods, viz., nitro¬ 
gen, phosphoric acid and potash. A 
“complete” fertilizer is not necessarily a 
valuable one. It may be worth five or 50 
dollars per ton, its value depending mere¬ 
ly upon the quantity of those three foods it 
contains in an available form. Bone and 
unleashed wood ashes form a “complete” 
fertilizer, though deficient in nitrogen. 
South Carolina rock, with kainit and hair 
or ground leather, would form a “com¬ 
plete” fertilizer of the lowest grade, and 
would be chiefly valuable for the potash 
in the kainit. High-grade sulphate and 
muriate of potash, pure bone flour or 
dissolved bone-black, and nitrate of soda, 
sulphate of ammonia and dried blood, 
would form a most valuable “complete” 
fertilizer. What we wish to Bhow is 
that a fertilizer may be “complete,” if it 
cost but five dollars per ton just the same 
as if it cost 850, and that this word, in its 
technical sense, means only that the fer¬ 
tilizer contains the three leading plant 
foods. 
In view of the frightful extent to 
which our commonest, articles of food are 
adulterated, we feel like giving the sub¬ 
ject a continuous advertising. The press 
of the country should take the matter up, 
and harp upon it continually. If the 
facts wore kept before the public as care¬ 
fully as our common political questions 
are kept, there would soon be a remedy 
thought out. There is hardly a public 
question before the people to-day of more 
vital importance than this one of food 
adulteration. Poor people suffer most. 
They are obliged to buy the commoner 
articles of food, and they have no money 
w r ith which to procure articles which they 
know to be pure. We hear much of a 
decreasing vitality and size in the poorer 
classes of city population; how much of 
this evil is due to impure and improper 
food cannot be computed, but it can be 
imagined. Adulteration appears to be 
on the increase. It ought to be strangled, 
and it could be if the press of the country 
would give it the attention that is now 
given to “scandals,” to gambling devices, 
and to office polities. 
There are medium-sized towns and cities 
all over the country that do not begin to 
consume the early fruits and vegetables 
they should. Each of these could be 
made to provide excellent markets for 
gardeners, if the goods were only pro¬ 
duced in good shape; as a general rule, 
the beginner in market gardening will 
find Ins best stand near one of these me¬ 
dium-sized places. The larger places are 
generally surrounded by old-established 
gardeners. The smaller places provide 
but a small market, as many families have 
their own gardens. A fruit and vegeta¬ 
ble market must always be built up. The 
first produce brought into the town may 
fail to bring remunerative returns. It is 
only by a persevering attention to busi¬ 
ness that the public can be made to ap¬ 
preciate the value and convenience of a 
constant supply of fresh and reliable fruits 
and vegetables. People ought to eat 
more fruit, but they must be cosxed into 
buying it. A neat, unfailing Bupply will 
prove the most pursuasive agency. Every 
gardener has to sustain reverses and dis¬ 
appointments at first, but there is hardly 
a business where a faithful attention to 
details will count for more. Farmers 
who are thinking of moving away because 
the farm does not pay, will do well to 
study the history of every fruit and veg¬ 
etable market. 
It seems probable that New York will 
handle at least 1,500,000 baskets of peaches 
this season. Already 677,500 baskets have 
been received, with the great bulk of the 
New Jersey crop to come. Other fruits are 
here in abundance. The favorite pear 
seems to be tbe old standard Bartlett, 
and there are thousands of them for sale 
at every street corner. Apples are mak¬ 
ing o good showing; but it seems as if 
the New York taste led to pears and 
peaches rather than to apples. One sel¬ 
dom sees a sweet apple offered for sale on 
the streets. The great mass of fruit eaters, 
who “eat as they go,” seem to prefer the 
acid of the apple, and the sweet of s"»me 
other fruit Melons are still largely eaten. 
The enormous supply has pushed down the 
price so that there is little profit in hand¬ 
ling the inferior grades. The market is 
largely filled at present with the well- 
known Black Spanish or “Nigger-head.” 
A fine melon from Maryland, known to 
dealers as the “Scaly-bark,” brings the 
best price. The only fault dealers find 
with it is that they “can’t get enough.” 
An abundance of cheap fruit is a blessing 
to any city. It makes the doctors cry 
“cholera,” hut it gives many a poor fam¬ 
ily a “country” taste that they seldom 
get. 
4 4 4 - 
TO WESTERN READERS. 
Years ago the Rural New-Yorker 
began the publication of special numbers, 
with the intention that each should pre¬ 
sent with regard to the specialty treated, all 
the most valuable information that could 
be collected in a single issue. Thus corn, 
wheat, small fruits, grapes, apples, pears, 
hardy shrubs and trees, cattle, etc., etc., 
have each been given special considera¬ 
tion, as much for the benefit of our West¬ 
ern readers as those in the Middle, Eastern 
and Southern States. Our present Fertil¬ 
izer Special will not engage the interest of 
many of our Western and far-Wcstern read¬ 
ers just at this time. But the day is not far 
distaut when they will seek just such in¬ 
formation, and it might be well that tbe 
younger members of the family should 
begin to acquire it now. 
- 4 - 4-4 - 
THE ABUSE OF CHEMICAL FERTIL¬ 
IZERS. 
Careful experiments made at the 
Rural Experiment Grounds, have well 
shown that soil which needs all kinds of 
plant, foods will not give full crops if 
furnished but one or two. If the soil is 
already rich, then fertilizers will serve 
merely to prolong its fertility. Thus it is 
that while one fanner who has manured his 
soil sufficiently and has tried bone, pot¬ 
ash, nitrogen, in any form, or all three, 
may condemn commercial fertilizers as 
worthless, a neighbor who has “run down” 
his land may find them as valuable as farm 
manure. 
Our potato fertilizer experiments last 
year were made upon a soil naturally poor 
and so impoverished by constant crop¬ 
ping for 15 years that a crop of sweet or 
field corn without manure, even in a most 
favorable season, was impossible. It will 
be remembered that lime,sifted coal ashes, 
unleached wood ashes, sulphate and 
muriate of potash, kainit, nitrogen, plas¬ 
ter, burnt bone, etc., etc., were tried 
separately without materially increasing 
the yield over the unmanured plots. The 
effect, likewise, of any two of them wa9 
much the same. It was only on those 
plots where bone, potash and nitrogen 
were used, that the yields were increased. 
It will be remembered, also, that half 
of a plot of corn was fertilized with phos¬ 
phoric acid (burnt bone) and potash, 
while the other half received nitrogen also. 
The weakly, yellow growth and small 
yield of the first,and the dark-green, vigor¬ 
ous growth and greatly increased yield of 
the latter,fully confirmed the lesson taught 
by the potato experiments, viz., that this 
land needed complete food. 
The present season, a similar experi¬ 
ment has been conducted on a larger scale. 
Instead of one plot of corn, 12 plots of 
different varieties of corn were treated in 
tbe same way. Judging from appearance 
at this time, the corn receiving the coni' 
plete fertilizers will give double the yield 
of that which received only the burnt 
bone and potash; while the difference in 
color, breadth of leaves and hight of 
stalks may be seen 200 feet away. 
4 4 4 
SPECULATIVE CROP REPORTS. 
Speculative reports of crops were 
never more numerous then now. Every 
week we have widely^differing reports 
collected by irresponsible persons, nearly 
always in the employment of speculators, 
or by journals run in their interest and in 
which they often hold sufficient stock to 
control their columns. Large sums of 
money are expended in collecting, manu¬ 
facturing or manipulating these reports; 
but wbat matters that to large speculators, 
since a single “lucky” deal will more than 
return the outlay? Speculators across the 
Atlantic are equally unscrupulous in the 
means by which they try to influence the 
markets in their favor; but legal restraints 
there are. more stringent aud penalties 
for false representations where moucy is 
concerned, are more likely to be enforced; 
hence the transatlantic gamblers in 
produce are cautious about indulging in 
unscrupulous practices at home; but most 
of the largest of them operate in American 
markets where they outdo Americans in 
what may he cal’ed “American” tricks. 
Not only do these contribute to the 
number of unreliable reports made up m 
this country; but they also often join 
with our native speculators in “doctor¬ 
ing,” by the cable,official and other trust¬ 
worthy foreign crop reports, or in sending 
to this country misrepresentations of the 
outlook for crops, which they would nit 
venture to promulgate at home. Fre¬ 
quently such reports influence the market 
for a brief interval; but short as it may 
be, it is long enough to allow them to 
realize more than the cost of the venture. 
Scarcely a week papses without the re¬ 
ceipt here of several conflicting reports 
with regard to the crops in one or more 
of the countries that compete with 
us in supplying the cereal peeds of 
the world. Specimens of these are given 
every week in the Rural. It is general¬ 
ly difficult and often impossible to assign 
to any of them its just degree of credi¬ 
bility, until a series of other reports con¬ 
firm or disprove its import, and then it is 
generally forgotten, though it has con¬ 
tributed towards the general impression 
formed in the mind with regard to the 
outlook in our foreign markets. 
Last Tuesday a cablegram from Lon¬ 
don announced that the European wheat 
crop is as follows, on the basis of 100: 
“Austria, 104; Hungary, 117; Prussia, 
94: Saxony and Bavaria, 100; Baden, 97; 
Wurtenhurg, 99; Denmark, 116; Sweden 
and Norway, 105; Italy 70 to 85; Switz¬ 
erland, 125; Holland and Great Britain, 
95; Russia, 75 to 100; Roumania. 80 to 
115; Servia, 110.” No authority was 
given for these figures, which, on the 
whole, are considerably higher than those 
previously received. On Wednesday it 
was cabled that the surplus wheat for ex¬ 
port from Austria was 12 , 000,000 hun¬ 
dredweight, and that the prices in Vienna 
were below those at New York. No 
markets could be found in Germany or 
France, because these countries bad a 
sufficient home supply, and the high 
tariffs recently adopted shut out foreign 
competition. Now if Austria cannot sell 
to her next-door neighbors, Germany and 
France.even at less than New York prices’ 
what probability is there that we can dis¬ 
pose of any of our surplus in those coun¬ 
tries? But were the reports trustworthy? 
- 4 4 4 - 
BREVITIES. 
Fertilizers. 
Several valued articles on fertilizers 
L ave arrived too late for this issue: 
Soot from soft; coal is a good fertilizer. It 
is n good remedy for the onion maggot. It is 
believed by some to prevent club root in cab¬ 
bages. 
Mr. F. K. Phchnix, of Dshivao, Wis. 
writes ur that both leached and unleached 
ashes, with stable manure, and also coal ashes, 
especially on heavy soil, have given him good 
results. 
An “impoverished.” “worn-out” or “unfer¬ 
tile” soil means ouenf several things, viz.: that 
it needs phosphate of lime, or potash, or nitro¬ 
gen. or two of them, or all of them. If it 
needs all, neither one separately nor any two 
cau be depended on to produce full crops. 
Remember this: so far as is known, the ex¬ 
pensive fertilizers, nitrate of soda and sulphate 
of ammonia, are either taken up by plants 
the first season, or they pass through the soil 
and are lost. Stable or farm yard manure, 
however, decays slowly, giving up its nitrogen 
every season for years. 
MANY farmers have tried potassic or pbos- 
phatic fertilizers upon their land without 
appreciable effect. Much of these mav still 
remain in the soil. Let them now use those fer¬ 
tilizers not used before. Thus if bone alone 
has been used, try potash; if potash alone has 
been used, try hone. If both have been used, 
try blood, nitrate of soda or sulphate of am¬ 
monia. 
There are few soils not. benefited by phos¬ 
phoric acid, the chief food ingredient of 
bones, and we mav use it iu unlimited quanti¬ 
ties. as it will remain in the soil until exhaust¬ 
ed by plants. There is iu hones a small per¬ 
centage of ammonia, which adds to their 
vulue. If we desire phosphoric acid alone, 
we shouhfibuy burnt bones yr a plain super¬ 
phosphate. 
