Vol. XLVI. No. 1955. 
NEW YORK, JULY 16, 1887. 
PPJCE FIVE CENTS 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1887, by the Rurai. New Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
“NIAGARA GRAPE SALES.” 
Allow me to correct an inquiry and state¬ 
ment concerning t he Niagara Grape Company 
and Grape in the Rural of July 2d. The 
two Counties of Wayne aud Cayuga having 
been found to be peculiarly adapted to the 
cultivation of this grape, a special effort has 
been made to place our vines in them and a 
little territory adjoining them. The entire 
Ettral Copies. 
ers, or young berries must be covered with 
the lime or dust, and the foliage must be dust¬ 
ed underneath as well as on the upper sur¬ 
face. This, we’ say, is impracticable. Fur¬ 
ther thau this, however, if we may assume 
that the rose-bugs which infest the Rural 
Grounds are of the same tastes aud habits as 
other rose-bugs, the dust of ashes or lime is so 
little offousive to them that they' will eat the 
leaves, dust and all. 
We have tried Paris-green in water with the 
result that, if not strong enough to injure the 
foliage, it will neither kill nor sicken the rose- 
bugs. The recommendation to use Paris-green 
or London-purple on corn plants seems to us 
unwise, to say the least. 
Up to three years ago, the Rural Grounds 
so suffered during some seasons from this in¬ 
sect’s depredations that we were discouraged 
single pailful of the solution will go a long 
way. 
Every year since we have used pyrethrum 
powder at the Rural Grounds as soon as the 
rose-bugs appear in numbers. In half an hour 
after being sprayed they fly away or fall to 
the ground, and two thorough sprayings, 
about four days apart, suffice to relieve us of 
all fears from their depredations. Tent-cater¬ 
pillars, we have also found, are readily des¬ 
troyed. The spray penetrates through the 
web, and in less than half-an-hour every cat¬ 
erpillar will have dropped. At first it sets 
them crazy. They fight with each other in a 
frantic way as if each was the cause of the 
othex-'s disquietude, and finally they drop to 
the ground, where they perish. 
Pyrethrum powder is, however, an uncer¬ 
tain thing. All of it is the flour from grind- 
CRIMSON CLUSTER STRAWBERRY. From Nature. Fig. 242. 
from cultivating roses, while hundreds of 
grape blossoms were destroyed. It was then 
that we first experimented with pyrethrum 
powder. Finding that it killed the rose-bugs 
when confined in tomato cans, we next mixed 
it with water aud sprayed it upon infested 
roses, spirieas, grape-vines, magnolias, aud an 
Alexander Apple worked on Paradise stock, 
the fruit of which was In various stages of 
being devoured. Two tablespoonfuls of the 
powder were first wet with water and worked 
into a paste. This was tbeu stirred in two 
gallous of water and forced, by an “aqua- 
pult” pump through a hose, iron tube, uud 
“cyclone” nozzle. With this it is easy to 
spray any plant 12 feet in hight, aud the un¬ 
der parts of leaves are as accessible as the up¬ 
per parts. The spray is a mere vapor, aud a 
iug the flowers of Pyrethrum cinerarsefolium 
—a hard}- herbaceous plant which -we have 
grown for many years. The imported pow¬ 
der is just as good as that grown hei-e, if fresh 
aud pure; but it must needs travel a long dis¬ 
tance aud pass through several hands. It is 
liable to be exposed too loug. which x-esults in 
a loss of the volutile oil which is supposed to 
kill the insects. The dowers from which the 
powder is made are quoted in Europe at more 
than the manufactured powder in America. 
Druggists can buy the powder, according to 
quality, for from 25 to 50 cents a pound. They 
sell it for from So to SO cents a pound. It may 
be good; it may be worthless. The California 
product, known as Buhaeh, is guax-anteed to 
be pux'e and fresh. It sells for 75 cents a 
pound in six-pound tin cans. This may be ex- 
Jijly 30,1830, six plants of the Crim¬ 
son Cluster were received from Peter 
Henderson & Co., of New York, for 
trial at the Rural Experiment Grounds. 
They were carefully sec in fairly rich 
garden soil and mulched heavily be¬ 
tween the plants after the ground was 
frozen. It is a Durand seedling, and 
first named by him King Cluster. The 
above firm, however, upon obtaining 
control of the stock, changed the name 
to Crimson Cluster, as being express¬ 
ive of its color as well as its habit of 
beai'ing its fruit moi-e in clusters than 
other varieties usually do. The claims 
made for it by Henderson & Co. are 
these: “The richest crimson color, 
borne in immense clusters; it is one of 
the latest as well as the earliest, as its 
great vigor prolongs its season of fruit¬ 
ing, which, added to its excellent qua¬ 
lity, induces us to think that it is bound 
to be the most valuable strawberry 
ever raised. From its great tendency 
to fruit, plants set out in the spring, 
if the season be favoi'able, will produce 
a good crop of fruit in June, or six or 
eight weeks from planting.” 
It is fair to say that we have tried 
all of Durand's varieties that he has 
introduced to the public,simply to find 
after a sufficient trial that, for some 
reason unknown to us, they do not 
thrive. The vines have proven neither 
vigorous nor productive. 
Our notes taken June Sth, as to Crim¬ 
son Cluster, are as follows: “Vines not 
vigorous, no suckers. Bernes firm, 
borne in clusters of about a dozen. 
Nearly pistillate. Shape inclined to be 
oval or round. Color scarlet and crim¬ 
son. Flesh very solid and of line qua¬ 
lity. Medium as to season.” We have 
merely to add that the plants were not 
very productive, and, judging from a 
single season's test, we can praise the Crim¬ 
son Cluster only for its excellent quality. A 
bunch of the berries is shown at Fig. 242. 
(gxprrimcnt (6found.o' of the jKuval 
$cu)-\Jovkcf. 
Ineffective rose-buy remedies; objections to 
“ panning ” and jarring; inefficiency of 
lime dust and ashes; difficulties of appli¬ 
cation; the Rural’s experiments; its dis¬ 
covery of pyrethrum as a rose buy remedy; 
mode of application; ease and efficacy; 
death to other insect pests also. 
In the Albany Cultivator and Country Gen¬ 
tleman. of June 30, is an answer by New York’s 
State Entomologist, J. A. Lintner, to two ap¬ 
peals for help as to how the rose-bug may be 
killed or its ravages checked. Mr. 
Lintner is recognized as a thorough¬ 
going entomologist, and we are there- 
fore surprised that in the methods of 
fighting this aggravating aud destruc¬ 
tive pest which he suggests, he quite 
ignores the Rural New-Yorker’s re¬ 
medy, which in its way is about as ef¬ 
fective as is Paris-green for potato 
beetles. Mi'. Lintner mentions, first, 
that an old method of fighting the in¬ 
sect, and uue that is quite serviceable 
when nothing else offers, is “to beat 
them or jar them from their food 
plants.” “When on low vegetation,” 
he continues, “they can be rapidly 
beaten into a tin-pan holding some 
water aud kerosene.” From apple and 
peach trees, ho says, they can be 
brought down by sudden jars of the 
trunk or separate branches during the 
cooler parts of the duy, upon sheets 
spread beneath, Mr. Lintner further 
says that they “can be poisoned when 
attacking corn by distributing Paris- 
green or London-purple, mixed in plas- 
ter, over the leaves when wet with 
dew.” He ulso recommends dusting 
grape vines and fruit trees with any 
dry powdered substance that would be 
disagreeable “to take in the mouth.” 
Air-slaked lime, unleaehed oak ashes, 
etc., are also commended as service¬ 
able. 
In our own efforts to tight the rose- 
bug, we have found that “beating 
them or jarring them from their food 
plants” into pans of kcrosened water is 
impracticable. It is difficult, in the 
first place, to find the bugs. Many 
are concealed by the foliage. It is in 
most cases difficult to hold the pan 
under them ou account of the nume¬ 
rous branches or entangled vines; aud 
even when this is done, many of the 
bugs will fall outside the pan or fly 
away. With grape-vines the arbor or 
trellis interferes. With rose bushes, the 
thorns, crowded stems and ample fo¬ 
liage afford such a protection to the bugs that 
no one will care to light them in this way after 
two or three bushes have been operated upon. 
Besides, the bugs are fond of clustering in the 
roses and feeding upon the pollen and petals, 
aud they will cling there iu spite of a deal of 
beating and jarring. In fact if there were no 
more effective and rapid way of controlling 
this insect, we should allow our grape-vines, 
roses and fruit.‘trees to take their chances, 
feeling confident that the cost of the war 
would be far greater than the fruits of a vic¬ 
tory. Any remedy that costa more to put 
into effect than it is worth, is virtually no 
remedy at all. The use of lime, ashes, or dust 
seems to the writer even less feasible. 
Every leaf of a tree, as well as every fruit; 
every leaf of a vine, as well ns the buds, flow 
tended twice or thrice with plaster and is still 
said to be effective when blown upon insects. 
We do not know. Any one can grow his own 
pyrethrum, and a small plot would give flow¬ 
ers enough to serve for home use when ground 
to a fine powder. The trouble, however, 
would be in the grinding. 
The use of pyrethrum powder as a rose-bug 
and tent-caterpillar insecticide was first made 
known by this journal, and it has been so 
stated in quite a number of papers. That it 
has so long escaped the notice of Prof. Lintner 
aud our respected contemporary the Cultiva¬ 
tor and Country Gentleman is, as we have 
stated, a matter of surprise to us. 
Pure, fresh pyrethrum powder is also a per¬ 
fect insecticide for the currant worm, cabbage 
worm, flies, mosquitoes, etc., etc. For the 
currant worm we prefer hellebore, because it 
is cheaper. 
* * * 
THE NEW STRAWBERRY, CRIM¬ 
SON CLUSTER. 
