I fertilized these as well as I did the grapes, 
although I used the droppings from my poul¬ 
try houses instead of straw, manure, or mulch. 
I cleaned out my poultry houses twice every 
week and got a bushel of pure droppings each 
time. I put about a gallon of the droppings 
to each bush, which made them grow well, 
and I now have a fine lot of bushes which 
are bearing loads of fruit. In putting out 
pie-plant I took a new departure from any 
method I ever heard of in the fact that I sim¬ 
ply dug the holes in the ground, then planted 
the roots, after which I put half a gallon of 
droppings from the hen-house around each 
plant and “spaded it in/’ The result of the 
experiment was highly satisfactory. The 
pie-plant grew rapidly and we used contin¬ 
uously of it the first year, and we have had 
more than we can use every year since. I 
never stir the ground among raspberries after 
the first year. I usually plant some root crop 
among the bushes the first year they are out 
and tend it well. In the fall I mulch heavily 
with leaves and rotten straw and fertilize the 
plants with droppings, doing the same thing 
each year following. This I find the best plan 
for me. I always fertilize the strawberry bed 
with the driest, best rotted manure I can get 
hold of. I place it among the plants in the 
fall after the season is far gone, and get a fine 
lot of it around the roots. Then, as winter 
approaches, I cover the plants up with straw, 
removing it in the spring after the danger 
from freezing is past. 
HOW JOHN BECAME A MARKET 
GARDENER. 
OLIVER HOWARD. 
NO. I. 
John was born on a rocky, swampy, old 
farm in Massachusetts 45 years ago. His 
father was, in general, a thorough farmer, 
known among some of his shiftless neighbors 
as the luckiest man they ever saw. 
"He’s the lucky man every time,” said one 
of his workmen. “ The crows never pull up 
his corn; the showers never catch bis made 
hay; he gets his corn shocked before the first 
hard frost, and he gets his fire-wood out of the 
swamp whether other folks do or not. I never 
see such a man —always lucky.” 
The explanation of Uncle John’s luck was 
easy enough. He began every job in good 
season, ami pushed the work continually 
“Don’t the crows pull up your father’s 
corn ?” said Deacon Irongrasp one day to John. 
“Never,” said John. 
“ I’d give anything to know how he prevents 
them,” cried the deacon, excitedly. 
“Just as the corn begins to prick through 
the sod, father takes a peck of corn and scat¬ 
ters it about the field and feeds the crows, 
and so they don’t trouble themselves to pull 
up any corn.” 
“ What!” cried the deacon, “ feed the black 
rascals a whole peck of good corn ?” 
“Yes.” 
“I vum, I wouldn’t do that if they pulled 
up all my corn.” 
Uncle John contrived to pay his debts “and 
brought up a respectable family. ” This 
bringing up a large family so that every mem¬ 
ber shall become a respectable citizen, is no 
small praise to any father and mother. It 
means something more than good luck. That’s 
the best crop the old farm ever raises—a crop 
of respectable citizens. Uncle John never 
made much of a kitchen garden. He said he 
hadn’t time to pester with a garden. To be 
sure he had as good a garden as the New 
England farmer of 30 or 40 years ago gener¬ 
ally had. But he put his strength into corn, 
potatoes, Ray, cattle and timber. He did have 
some pole-oeans, and peas, and a patch of 
asparagus about as large as his bed-room floor, 
which was pretty small. And he did have some 
cucumbers, beets, parsnips, carrots and cab¬ 
bages. He sowed his pea patch to turnips. 
a “The twenty-nfth of July 
Wet or dry” 
But he never dreamed of the positive saving 
and luxury there are in a really good garden, 
besides tending toward health, and giving the 
boys and girls an idea that “ there’s no place 
like home.” The old-time farmer had a fash¬ 
ion of setting apart a corner of land for his 
garden, and arranged the “sass” so that it 
must be cultivated with the hoe if at all. It 
had not been revealed to Uncle John that the 
garden should be made mlong rows so that 
most of it could be cultivated with horses 
like the main crops. John the school-master, 
at the time he set out for Colorado to avoid 
the damp winds of the Atlantic coast, had 
never so much as seen celery, spinach, egg 
plants, cauliflowers, and some other veget¬ 
ables growing; and as for strawberries, green 
peas, radishes, or ^asparagus, he had seldom 
had all he wanted of any of them. The great¬ 
est gardening feat his father had ever at¬ 
tempted was the having of green peas and new 
potatoes for the Fourth-of-July dinner. 
In Colorado, John owned his first cow and 
his first acre of land. He deliberately chose 
dairying as a business, when he had concluded 
after 10 years of school-teaching that his 
health was suffering thereby. The burden¬ 
some grasshopper about that time had a way 
of devouring the whole region. Great clouds 
of them came sailing down, covering the 
earth, spoiling the open wells, and frightening 
the very fowls by their numbers. The noise 
of their jaws as they set to work on the grow¬ 
ing corn sounded very much like the falling 
of gravel on a coffin, and was not much more 
cheerful to the afflicted farmer. They ate off 
great cabbages, so that they looked as if 
sliced in two with a carving knife, and the 
turnips and onions were eaten down to the 
very roots. 
“The grasshoppers most likely won’t eat 
my cows,” John said, “and if they eat all the 
grass in this place, I can drive them else¬ 
where.” 
After a while John’s cows and young stock 
numbered an even hundred, besides horses, 
pigs and fowls. As a matter of course his 
Fig. 355. 
eight acres of home ranch became very rich. 
As 10 years of teaching had worn John out in 
that line, so now 10 years of the milk business 
had taken the charm all out of that. The 
milk business admits of no holiday, no rainy 
day, and no Sunday, and materially shortens 
the night. All this is not compensated for by 
the one fact that a man who has good business 
tact, may in time become fore-handed. 
So it happened that after disposing of most 
of the cattle, John gradually became a market 
gardener, and that without serving any ap¬ 
prenticeship. 
Of course, experienced gardeners made fun 
of his first awkward attempts, for it is apt to 
seem presumptuous to the skilled workman 
that a man shouid attempt, even in an humble 
way, to do the business he has been engaged 
in a long time, But John persevered, reading 
books and papers, and learning from observa¬ 
tion , consultation and experience. 
He soon came to the conclusion that most 
men disperse their efforts over too much land. 
As a general thing the farms of the United 
States are too large for one man. This is es¬ 
pecially true in Colorado where young men 
attempt to farm from 80 to 300 acres. 
After awhile men said to John, “You make 
more clear money off from your eight acres 
than we from our eighties.” 
John found that he could raise two or more 
crops on the same land in one season; that the 
home table was supplied with a great variety 
of vegetables and fruits; that there was al¬ 
ways something for each member of the 
family to do, thus cultivating the habit of in¬ 
dustry in a section of country where industries 
are by no means greatly varied. When 
dealers and consumers at home and abroad 
learned that they could obtain good produce 
of John, and at short notice, his sales became 
quite large. Then it was delightful to see the 
young crops growing. The wife and children 
enjoyed the work very much indeed, especially 
the first season; for novelty charms us all, old 
and young. 
It will help experienced window-gardeners, 
who seek to relieve the universal gray and 
white of the out-door view by some fresh 
green for the eye to rest upon in the window¬ 
framing, to be reminded that plants cannot 
use water excepting when they have active 
leaves or are making growth or bloom. If 
any plants have been nipped by frost, water 
very sparingly until fresh leaves have unfold¬ 
ed Flowers are to be looked for only on 
plants which have not been allowed to blossom 
during the previous summer, but have their 
means stored up ready for flowering in the 
winter. Steady warmth, high or low in de¬ 
gree, according as the plant is of temperate or 
tropical origin, is necessary for this. w. 
the farm and put them in a barrel. Then l 
got another barrel and put in one layer of 
bone on the bottom, and then a layer of ashes 
unleached with lime unslaked. Then I put a 
good covering of muck, taken out of a swamp, 
over this, then another layer of bone, 
covered over with ashes and lime with muck, 
and kept at work so until I had filled four or 
five barrels. I keDt it wet with water all the 
time, and I tried it on corn the next spring by 
putting it in the hill with good results—but it 
spoiled the barrels. The bon»s were all 
broken up fine. I mixed it all up together in 
the spring with a hoe. c. w. l. 
Windham, Vermont. 
ANSWERS TO OORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name 
and address of the writer to Insure attention. Before 
asking a question, please see If It Is not answered In 
our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper. 
WOOD ASHES AND FERTILIZERS. 
O. B., Lombard , N. Y.— 1.—Do unleached 
hard-wood ashes contain all the elements re¬ 
quired for plant food? 2. Does the charcoal 
in ashes make the soil warm and more reten¬ 
tive of all fertilizing elements? 3. Which is 
the more economical to use on an upland loamy 
soil, unleached hard-wood ashes or the ordin¬ 
ary commercial fertilizers? 4. I own 146 
acres of nearly worn-out land and wish to 
know how to restore the lost fertility; clover 
winter-kills badly on account of the frequent 
thawing and freezing, otherwise I would sow 
clover and plow it under as a green manure. 
ANSWERED BY PROF. H. H. WING. 
1. No: the elements of plant food that it is 
ordinarily necessary to supply artificially to 
soils are, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. 
Of these there is no nitrogen present in wood 
ashes, a small amount of phosphoric acid, and 
a considerable amount of potash. Wood ash¬ 
es are chiefly valuable as a fertilizer for the 
amount of potash they contain. 2. The very 
small amount of charcoal present in the ashes 
would have no appreciable effect either in 
making the soil warmer or more retentive of 
fertility. In fact, most soils would of them¬ 
selves be as retentive of fertility as the char¬ 
coal. 3. It will depend very largely on the 
character of the soil and the kind of crops 
that have been taken from it. Worn-out soils 
are more frequently lacking in phosphoric 
acid than in any other constituent. What is 
lacking must be ascertained in every case by 
experiment upon the soil itself to be treated. 
It is earnestly recommended that in planting 
any crop, strips at the side of the field be treat¬ 
ed with nitrogenous, phosphatic and potash 
fertilizers, and with mixtures of them. Those 
fertilizers that give the best response in the 
crop will indicate the special needs of the soil 
•piANKwq 
■piANKINd 
Making Compost.— On the farm one 
autumn, I thought I would make some home¬ 
made fertilizer and try it on corn ; so I 
picked up all the old bones that I could find on 
Fig. 356. 
and the question then of what fertilizer to use 
is merely one of dollars and cents. Unleached 
hard-wood ashes contain an average of about 
12 per cent of potash, worth in the market 4>£ 
cents per pound, and about eight per cent of 
phosphoric acid, worth seven cents per pound. 
The same constituents are worth the same 
prices in commercial fertilizers that they 
are in ashes, and the more valuable forms of 
nitrogen, amitrates.ammonia salts,dried blood 
etc., are worth about 17 cents per pound. All 
fertilizers sold in this State must have plainly 
marked on the bag or package an analysis of 
their contents. From this, and knowing 
what elements of fertility give the best re¬ 
turns on your soil, the question of economy as 
between ashes and any particular fertilizer 
can be readily made out. 4.—Very probably 
the clover kills out badly because the land is 
so poor that it cannot make a growth 
vigorous enough to carry it through the 
winter, or it may be that the ravages of the 
clover root borer cause it to die during the 
second winter. In this State it is almost im¬ 
possible to carry clover through the second 
season on account of this insect. To get a 
stand of clover I should proceed as follows. 
Prepare the ground carefully for wheat 
or other winter grain, and sow with the 
grain about 300 pounds per acre of some 
high-grade commercial fertilizer. Before 
winter sets in, preferably in November, 
a light dressing of strawy manure or even 
a thin mulch of straw will prove of 
great benefit not only to the wheat, but in 
keeping the clover from freezing out the fol¬ 
lowing winter. As early in the spring as pos¬ 
sible, sow four quarts per acre of medium clo¬ 
ver seed On no account should the clover be 
plowed under. It is worth far more to feed 
to cattle or sheep, and the manure from them 
will have nearly as much fertilizing value as 
the green clover; besides the roots and stubble 
will add to the soil an amount of vegetable 
matter about equal to the stems and leaves 
taken off If O. B. will proceed in this way, 
and in addition will feed each year bran, cot- 
ton-seed meal, or linseed-oil meal to the 
amount of what he would otherwise pay for 
commercial fertilizers, I think he will find 
that his farm is constantly increasing in fer¬ 
tility and that it is easier each year to get a 
good stand and a good crop of clover as well as 
other farm crops. He will find in the Rural of 
October 13, page 676, a carefully worked-out 
FR'OJVr 
OF 
nnDAM 
Fig. 357. 
table giving the manurial value of a ton of 
several of tho more important foods, and he 
should read that article in connection with this. 
irrigation from a ravine. 
C. L. M., Nunda, N. Y .—I have a small ra¬ 
vine on my place that I wish to convert into 
a reservior to irrigate my fruit garden. It 
would cover from one-half to three-fourths of 
an acre, with an average depth of 10 feet. 
During the spring quite a stream flows through 
the ravine, so a reservoir could be easily fill¬ 
ed. This stream is fed by a spring and also 
receives a large amount of surface drainage 
during heavy rains. Of late years, during the 
summer, the supply from the spring soaks 
away before it reaches my land. The dam 
would be 50 feet wide. How should it best be 
constructed with flood gates to protect against 
the spring rise? I think that the summer rain¬ 
fall would supply all the water I would lose 
by evaporation and leakage, so that I could 
rely upon at least the amount of the spring 
storage. With this supply and liberal mulch¬ 
ing in the case of strawberries, I hope to more 
than double my present profits. Do you think 
the plan feasible? I have six acres now plant¬ 
ed adjacent to the ravine. I would need a 
steam pump to irrigate with. I cannot dam 
the ravine its full depth on account of the 
water backing up on my level laud. Part of the 
water must be pumped about 40 rods, the ele¬ 
vation being 30 to 40 feet above the surface of 
the reservoir. The land farthest away, about 
five acres, can be flooded by surface ditches 
as in Colorado; that nearer is so uneven that 
it must be watered by hose. I want to use 
two-inch pipe so as to pump 3,000 gallons 'per 
hour. What horse power engine would I re¬ 
quire and where can it and the pump be ob¬ 
tained? 
ANSWERED BY HENRY STEWART. 
A dam 50 feet wide and 10 feet high under 
the circumstances mentioned may be con¬ 
structed of crib-work in the following man¬ 
ner: The crib should be made of stout timbers 
10 inches square, in the form shown at Fig. 
355. These are bedded in trenches dug down 
to hard-pan, solid gravel or rock bottom, and 
as one crib is placed, a second one is framed 
to it by similar timbers so as to make one 
continuous crib-work across the ravine for 
the whole distance. The ends of the cribs, at 
each bank, should be protected by sheet-piling 
to prevent the earth from being washed out, 
so as to cut a way for floods around the dam; 
and this protection should be carried high 
enough above the level of the dam to insure 
safety in the highest freshets and force the 
overflow to go’over the waste-weir In the mid¬ 
dle part of the dam, as shown at Fig. 356. 
The crib is planked on the outside, and a 
waste-gate may be made in the planking con¬ 
nected with a plank race-way from the front 
of the dam for use in draining the pond at any 
