THE RUBAI. NEW-YORKER. 
country every year—to the shame of Ameri¬ 
can farmers be it said. I speak of the Waver- 
ley Fair because I visited it this year and took 
pains to investigate the lessons such an exhi¬ 
bition teaches. It was with the profoundest 
pity that I saw young men and boys—the 
farmers of the future—led to the beer saloon, 
the race-track or the gambler’s table, simply 
because those who had charge of the exhibi¬ 
tion would not provide purer entertainment. 
The State Fair is the farmer’s holiday. To 
many farm boys it means the only excursion 
of the year—something to be looked forward 
to and remembered and thought out. Think 
of the boy who takes home for his year’s 
thinkin only the coarse ]okes ot the comic 
singer or the language of the race-track! The 
future nee men with something besides 
trash in their heads. I claim that the men 
who prepare such an entertainment as I wit¬ 
nessed are guilty of a crime against morality, 
that is unpardonable. jerseyman. 
A NEW AND AN OLD SUMMER APPLE. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
I forward herewith to the Rural speci¬ 
mens of two apples now (Aug. 30) in season in 
the cold and elevated region of Northeastern 
Vermont. One (the redone) shown at Fig. 332, 
with a cross-section at 333, is the Sops of Wine, 
No. 268 of the American Pomological Society’s 
list. The other (pale yellow, streaked and 
mottled with rose)), see Figs. 334 and 335, is 
Red Summer Calville, No. 182 of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture’s list of Russian apples 
imported in 1867-70, 
These apples form an immediate succession 
to the Yellow Transparent. The Red Sum¬ 
mer Calville is quite as iron-clad as the latter, 
about as productive, and not inferior to it in 
beauty, quality or size. It has been very 
little propagated, I myself having it only as a 
top-graft on two or three trees. I received 
the cions several years ago from James A. 
Nelson, of Indian Run, Mercer Co., Pa. From 
what I now know of it I am inclined to re¬ 
gard it as valuable, and worthy of extensive 
planting where there is a market for this class 
of apples. 
The Sops of Wine is an old English variety, 
long in cultivation in New England. The 
tree is very hardy (as much so as Red Astra- 
chan, Talman’s Sweet or Fameuse), but not 
quite iron-clad, and therefore not very profit¬ 
able, even when top-grafted, in my locality. 
In Southern New England it has been gener¬ 
ally replaced by the very similar Williams’s 
Favorite, which seems to do better near the 
sea, especially in the vicinity of Boston. The 
peculiar spicy flavor of the Sops of Wine 
makes it a favorite with those who know it, 
notwithstanding its lack of juiciness, while 
its rich and uniform redness gives it value as 
a market fruit. There is no better apple for 
street stands or sale on the cars, and it is a 
very good shipper, which I fear the Red Sum¬ 
mer Calville, with its delicate skin, may fail 
to prove. Both are very smooth and sym¬ 
metrical apples, almost perfectly round, and 
very ornamental in use for table decoration. 
Orleans Co., Vt. 
HINTS TO INTENDING PLANTERS OF FRUIT 
TREES. 
I wish to urge all fruit-tree planters to 
st rt trees low for these reasons : They bear 
earlier, have a more healthy growth, are less 
liable to break down or be blown over by 
high winds, and the fruit can be more con¬ 
veniently gathered, and when fruit drops off 
it is not bruised very much. Low trees are 
not affected so much by sun blight; they are 
more easily sprayed for the coddling worm, 
caterpillars and canker worms. Head the 
trees low; plant them on good soil and culti¬ 
vate while they are young. I. J. B. 
From Nature—Fig. 332. 
RYE CULTURE. 
For my best crop of rye I gave the land 
thorough plowing and harrowing in prepara¬ 
tion for the seed. The cultivation was the 
same as for ordinary crops. I used two bushels 
of seed per acre. I grow no wheat; it is a 
contingent crop. I prefer rye in seeding land 
to grass; but it is not so valuable a crop as 
oats. Sown in the fall of the year, however, rye 
is one of the best crops with which to grow 
Timothy at the same time. I sow both with a 
drill or broadcast, as may be most convenient. 
Rye is a good grain to feed to all kinds of 
stock, if ground in a grain-mill—not whole. 
The straw is valuable bound in thrashed bun¬ 
dles for various uses, but it is poor fodder 
for stock, being too hard and stiff. The better 
the laud, the better the crop. I have not used 
fertilizers for it; if the land is too rich the straw 
is apt to failover and be injured. I have had 
it do so. My land is all fertile in its natural 
condition. I don’t raise much rye. I have done 
most of my grass (hay) seeding with oats in 
the spring and never had a failure until the 
present year, when it was caused by the cold 
May drought. L. F. allen. 
THINNING KAFFIR CORN. 
Thinning doesn’t always pay. Kaffir corn 
is a stout variety of sorghum. It is an im¬ 
portant crop in some sections for the seed. 
We hardly need it here in Iowa, although it 
does remarkably well. A plot of it was 
grown this season at the Iowa experiment sta¬ 
tion. It was planted May 16, in hills 2% and 
33 4. apart, 10 to 15 seeds in a hill. When 
well started two rows were thinned to four 
plants in a hill and the remainder left. The 
soil was a deep black prairie loam as good as 
can be found. The plants in the rows which 
were thinned averaged about five feet in hight, 
some of them being not over three feet, but 
all were very stout. Kaffir corn is not in- 
: dined to sucker, but many of these trimmed 
stalks sent up branches from the upper joints, 
which grew taller than the main stems and 
produced heads some of which will not ripen. 
Owing to the shortness of its stalks many of 
the main heads failed to free themselves from 
the sheath of the upper leaf, so that much of 
the grain on the lower portion of these heads 
failed to develop. On the part of the plot 
which was not thinned, the stalks averaged 
over six feet in hight, were smaller in diame¬ 
ter and more uniform in appearance, and had 
good heads, nearly always free from the 
upper leaf. The seed ripened more uniformly 
than where the plants were thinned, and in 
good season, though not quite as early. 
Thinning, therefore, made the plants coarser 
and less valuable for fodder, and greatly di¬ 
minished the yield of grain. 
A. A. CROZIER. 
Iowa Ex. Sta., Ames, Iowa. 
HIGH PRAISE FOR RYE. 
HENRY STEWART. 
The best rye crop more than twice as profit¬ 
able as the best wheat crop ; soil and cul¬ 
tivation ; a safe crop ; rye straw valuable 
for sale and fodder : excellent for seeding 
to grass ; how to feed grain and straw ; 
learning from the Pennsylvania Dutch 
farmers. 
Rye is a crop that is long-suffering and pa¬ 
tient under ill-treatment, but it does well when 
it is used well. My best crop of rye yielded 
35 bushels to the acre with straw from six to 
seven feet long, that sold for 15 cents for quite 
a small bundle. This crop paid me about $75 
in money, the straw being worth more than 
the grain. The same year I had a good crop 
of Clawson wheat, over 30 bushels per acre, 
which yielded me $37.50 in money. The land 
was a light sandy loam. It had been in sweet 
corn for market ears two years previously, 
and had been then manured with 30 loads per 
acre of a compost made of manure from richly 
fed cows, swamp muck and lime. The second 
crop of corn was the best, yielding nearly 
11,000 ears per acre, and very heavy fodder. 
The land was plowed late in August when the 
corn had been moved off, then worked with 
the Acme harrow. Two bushels of seed of 
rye and one and one-half of wheat were sown 
per acre broadcast about the middle of Sep¬ 
tember. As soon as the seed was sown 300 
pounds per acre of Mapes’ complete manure 
was sown and both covered with the Acme. 
The rye came ahead of the wheat (both in the 
same field) and was pastured by a few calves 
(five or six, not more) until the mid He of J anu- 
ary, when snow covered it. Rye always gives a 
good crop when well treated. Wheat is very 
uncertain; it may be doing excellently and be 
struck with rust quite suddenly. 
Rye-straw is good fodder for horses and 
when cut with clover-hay makes the best of 
feeding along with mixed corn and rye chaff. 
This same meal finely ground, is excellent for 
cows kept for butter. Rye is never worth less 
than $1 a bushel for feeding when oats are 
worth 35 cents, because it has less husk, and 
what it has is worth more than oats. It is 
never injured by the Hessian fly, the wheat 
midge, rust or smut, all of which hurt wheat 
more or less. It is a better crop for sowing- 
grass seed with, although my own practice 
now is to sow grass and clover in the spring or 
summer, always, with either oats or millet. 
Rye will give a very good crop after corn or 
oats which have been manured; but it will 
always pay for a liberal dressing of manure 
or fertilizers, 300 or 400 pounds per acre of the 
latter—complete manure only, and not merely 
superphosphate. 
I never owned a seed drill, except for plant¬ 
ing corn. I am careful in sowing seed and 
can sow it as evenly as a drill by taking pains 
to use stakes. I give more weight to the even 
covering of the seed by plowing and harrow¬ 
ing the land thoroughly first and then 
covering with the Acme harrow, which leaves 
the seed and the land in quite as good relative 
position and condition as any drill I ever saw 
work, than to sowing in rows with spaces 
between. 
I never sold a bushel of rye, believing it to be 
too valuable for feeding. I chop it with corn 
for horses; grind it finer with corn for cows 
and pigs; crack it with corn for young chick¬ 
ens and turkeys, which need nothing else in 
the way of food, and I like rye bread and 
griddle cakes myself far better than those 
made of the new-process wheat flour. Indeed, 
the grain of rye is good for man and beast, 
and the straw is very good fodder for horses; 
all of which I learned 25 years ago from those 
successful, thrifty, sound-headed, good farm¬ 
ers, whose farms and barns are well worth 
seeing and studying, viz.: the East Pennsyl¬ 
vania Dutch farmers. Indeed, I owe a good 
deal to some of these people, with whom I 
spent a few years of study in good farming; 
and rye is one of their best and most profit¬ 
able crops, as it is their most cherished bread 
and feeding grain. 
RAISING RYE. 
M. B. PRINCE. 
Nothing better than rye for soiling stock in 
early spring; straw good fodder for cattle 
and horses ; how to raise the crop ; wheat 
for soiling. 
I have grown rye for soiling so many years 
that I should be at a loss to know how to get 
my stock through the spring Jwithout it. As 
to my best crop, I always have a good one, so 
that a general description of my way of grow¬ 
ing it will answer for all. When the land has 
been manured for a spring crop, no more 
manure is applied, otherwise I use about 20 
horse loads per acre. The land is plowed and 
put in as good condition as possible, which, 
by the way, is generally none of the best as 
our land has usually a mass of Crab-grass 
on and in it, at the time for sowing rye 
which makes good plowing a difficult opera¬ 
tion. I sow one to one and a quarter bushel 
per ||acre broad-cast. I prefer to sow it 
SOPS OF WINE APPLE. 
RED SUMMER CALVILLE APPLE-HALF SECTION.-Fig. 335. 
SOPS OF WINE APPLE-HALF SECTION.—Fig. 333. 
