742 
THE BUBAL 
time; the gate is drawn open by an iron rod 
and screw at the top of the dam. See Fig. 
357. 
The cribs are then filled with earth from 
the banks—clean, solid subsoil, free from all 
kinds of decaying matter. The inner slope 
should be two feet to one perpendicular. One- 
horse power would raise 3,000 gallons of water 
per hour 40 feet, and it would be easier done 
in a three-inch pipe than a two-inch. A two- 
horse tread-power would give enough force to 
do the work, and if a team is kept on the 
place, this might be better than a steam en¬ 
gine. A five-horse power noiler and steam 
pump can be procured for §200 of any of the 
engine works whose advertisements appear in 
the business columns of the Rural. 
BORERS ON MAPLES AND GRASS UNDER TREES. 
M. M., Tergus Falls. Minn. —1. I have on my 
lot some six-year-old soft maple trees, which 
have been in good, healthy growth before: 
but this season particularly, and a little last 
season, I have noticed that the bark is crack¬ 
ing and peeling off in pieces. I think that 
some thawings followed by severe cold spells 
have caused the trouble. What can I do to 
prevent the trees from dying ? The trees 
have been green this summer, but they are 
now losing the leaves earlier than other trees 
of the same kind. 2. Behind my house, on the 
north side, is a grove of poplar trees, with 
hazel bushes, a few black oaks, several wil¬ 
lows and wild cherries and plum trees. The 
underbrush is very thick and as it has not 
been taken care of, the soil is covered by decay¬ 
ing leaves, branches and dead, fallen trees. In 
the middle of the grove is a slough, which I 
have drained this fall, and intend to fill 
in when I can afford it. The dead, fallen trees 
I have removed from the grove. What kind 
of grass shall I sow and how shall I proceed to 
get grass on the ground and to prevent the 
underbrush from growing up too thickly ? 
Ans.— 1. The maples are' troubled with 
borers. In Bulletin No. 39 issued in Septem¬ 
ber 1888 by Prof. A. J. Cook, of the Michigan 
Agricultural College, you will find an excel¬ 
lent treatise on shade trees and methods of 
caring for them. We quote what Prof. 
Cook has to say about the treatment to pre¬ 
vent tte attacks of borers. 
“In case the trees are maple, apple, or lo¬ 
cust, it is very important that action be taken 
the first two or three years, to secure against 
attacks of borers. This should be done in the 
month of June, about the middle of the month. 
A cloth should be dipped in soft soap or very 
strong soap suds, and then used to thoroughly 
rub the trunks of the trees, so that they are 
thoroughly soaped. This will keep the borers 
off, and should never be neglected the first 
two or three years after planting the species 
named above. It would be safer to give this 
treatment twice; about the 10th of June, and 
again the very last of the month. If to be 
applied but once, it will pay to add carbolic 
acid to the wash as follows: Use one quart 
of soft soap or one-half pound hard soap, 
whale-oil preferably, to two gallons of water; 
heat this till it boils, then stir in thoroughly 
one pint crude carbolic acid. This holds its 
virtue longer than does the soap alone, and 
one application about June 10th usually suf¬ 
fices to resist the borers.” 
2. As to the grove:—if you will turn in 
sheep and cattle they will cut off and keep 
down the undergrowth. After much of the 
undergrowth is dead, you can sow seeds of 
June grass, Orchard grass, and Sheep’s Fes¬ 
cue with the prospect of getting some grass to 
grow even in the shade of trees. 
Miscellaneous. 
C. G., Ridgeville , 111.—I have a neighbor 
who has cut a lot of heavy corn with an old 
Kirby reaper, standing on the platform and 
catching it as it fell. He also cut 
a lot of heavy fodder-corn, planted 
thickly, with a self-binder. 
C. G., Ridgville, III. — I want a reliable 
cure for cabbage worms. I have tried slug- 
shot and failed; however, the slug-shot had 
stood open for three mouths, but I should not 
think that would spoil it. 
Ans. —Buhach is the best remedy for cab¬ 
bage worms. It is not poisonous in the least, 
and may safely be eaten by children. We 
should not care to put slug-shot or any other 
poisonous material on cabbage. 
H. S. B ., Rome , N Y .— Can the Rural or 
any of its readers tell me of any useful mix¬ 
ture of coal-tar and lime or other cheap mate¬ 
rial to apply to shingled roofs that begin to 
need repairs ? I want something that will fill 
cracks, harden and wear well. A favorable 
answer to this question would be worth mil¬ 
lions to the farmers of the couutry. 
Ans. —Who can answer this? Prof. Car¬ 
penter writes concerning it as follows : “ We 
tried one or two roofing paints on a shed-roof 
over our boilers, but experienced poor results; 
the best paint we could find would not stand 
the weather. I do not believe there is any 
paiut that can be recommended as of much 
value for this purpose. I found a number of 
recipes, but cannot recommend any, as I do 
not know about them. 
Subscriber, Portsmouth , Va .—I have been 
much interested in the potato contest. 
Though the result was not up to what you 
claimed, it showed that your system has merit, 
so I write to ask if you will not explain it to 
me, or for the benefit of your patrons. 
Formerly our people planted in drills, three 
feet apart, the seed about 15 inches apart in 
the drill, depth of drill about three inches. 
Now, the tendency is to plant shallow and 
cultivate as flat as possible. With us the 
yield is about a barrel of prime potatoes 
from 40 yards of drill up to 70 or 80 yards 
The best farmers get a barrel from about 40 
to 50 yards. 
Ans. —We propose to tell the whole story 
of the peculiar cultivation of the potatoes in 
the Potato Special, to be dated November 3. 
Those who desire to obtain the facts before 
that time will be furnished, upon application 
with a little pamphlet giving a brief statement 
of the “contest.” What do farmers say to the 
figures in the above? We dig a barrel of 
potatoes to'about 110 feet of drill on a field 
upon which the flea-beetle feasted. We plant 
12 inches apart, which would give 110 “hills,’’ 
or places in the drills where tubers form 
against 88 places at 15 inches apart. 
J. E. C., Cameron Mills. N. Y. —1. How 
can I make a cheap hay press with which to 
press my own hay? 2. A sells B a mare, not 
knowing her to be with foal. The mare now 
has a fine colt, four weeks old. B refuses to 
pay A for services of stallion, or let A have 
the colt. To which does the colt belong? 
Who must legally pay Cfor serviceof stallion? 
A has a chattel mortgage to secure him for 
the purchase price of mare, not yet due. 
Ans, 1. A veryg ood hay press may be made 
as follows. A strong frame is made of 4 x 4 
oak timber, inside of which is built a mold or 
form for the press, [of oak bars, three inches 
wide, and 1% inch thick, set two inches apart. 
This isTnade three feet long, two feet wide and 
five feet deep. The top of the frame should 
be one foot above this to give room for the 
screw. A loose cover or follower is made of 
bars, bolted to a 4 x 4 top bar upon which the 
sere w works. A common wooden cider press 
screw is used and is turned by levers inserted 
in a head at the top. A part of one side of the 
press is made separate and movable, to 
serve for a door by which the bale is removed 
from the press 
Wires are first laid on the bottom before 
the hay is put in and across the top on the 
hay before the cover is put on, in such a way 
that they are carried down with the hay as 
the cover is forced down. When the hay is 
pressed sufficiently, the ends of the wires are 
twisted together by looping them. 2. The 
colt belongs to B , but inN. Y the owner of 
the horse has a lien on the colt for service 
and B. must pay the fee. The chattel mort¬ 
gage covers not only the mare but the colt 
as well. 
DISCUSSION. 
MORE ABOUT BINDING GRAIN. 
H. T. F., Lansing, Mich.— Mr. Hiram 
Smith has studied the question of abandoning 
the use of the binder very carefully no doubt, 
but it seems to me that he makes one serious 
mistake in his first statement. While it only 
requires two horses to simply cut the grain 
without binding it, there is the additional 
horse-labor required to gather it. In case of 
the binder drawn by three horses, if need be, 
the grain is gathered into shocks, except the 
setting up, and is in much better shape for 
handling. Again, if the grain is allowed to 
dry before raking or gathering, there will 
be a great loss by shelling. When 
we consider the matter of drawing 
either into stacks or barns, we 
must concede at once that the grain will 
occupy less space, and can be handled much 
faster if bound, than when loose. This point was 
very forcibly brought to my attention this 
season in harvesting a piece of oats that were 
lodged too badly to bind. It took double the 
time to draw and store these oats that it did 
any other equal area of the field. As to the mat¬ 
ter of drying out, there is comparatively very 
little difficulty in drying grain when bound. 
1 can remember only one year in eight when 
any grain was lost from not drying out quick¬ 
ly, and that year grain could not have dried 
if it had been spread out ever so thin, or 
cocked up ever so nicely. From my exper¬ 
ience in pitching bundles and loose grain, I 
should say that one could pitch the same 
amount of grain in half the time if bound, 
that it would take if left loose. Any one who 
has had experience in pitching wheat-rakings 
can testify to this, especially if it has to go 
over the “big beam” in the barn. With our 
ordinary barn conveniences it would seem a 
great loss of time in thrashing to be obliged I 
to pitch loose grain. When pitching from the 
stack to the machine this would not be appa¬ 
rent, but in the barn, where, many times, the 
grain is 30, 40 and even 60 feet from the ma¬ 
chine, it seems necessary to have it bound into 
bundles, for in this shape one can throw it 
farther and pitch it faster than when it is put 
in any other. The fact that a single firm in 
the city of Lansing has sold 60 binders 
during the past season is good evidence of 
the faith farmers have in making them pay. 
J. C. 8., Pendleton, S. C. It is now 18 
years since I began to harvest oats without 
binding them. I also began harvesting wheat 
in the same manner, but on account of the 
grain shelling and wasting in handling, and 
complaints from the thrashers that it was 
hard to feed into the machines, I reluctantly 
abandoned the plan of harvesting wheat with¬ 
out binding. My practice is to sow or drill 
cow-peas, or cow-peas and fodder corn, on all 
lands seeded to small grain as early as it is 
possible to get the small grain crop off the 
land. This pea crop usually gives a fine crop 
of grain and forage, and invariably improves 
the land. I first threw two swaths off the 
grain cradle or the reaper in a place, thinking 
of saving labor in taking up, but this required 
turning in gavels in order to thoroughly dry 
the straw. Now I throw one swath off the cra¬ 
dle or reaper in a place and the straw will dry 
in one day without turning, sufficiently to 
house or stack in good weather. Here our 
rank oat-straw will not dry inside jthe large 
bundles without molding, even in the most 
favorable weather. I prefer to thrash about 
one half my oats for feeding purposes in order 
to proportion the grain with the straw or for¬ 
age. I have seen some account of a one-horse 
detached binder that was invented for the pur¬ 
pose of following the reaper, lifting and bind¬ 
ing the grain off the ground, just as the com¬ 
mon table-rake reaper leaves it, but I hear that 
this machine is not a complete success on ac¬ 
count of its imperfect work and the fault of 
gathering up all manner of filth with the 
grain. Now, if this machine could be made 
to work ^successfully, I would bind all my 
small grain after one or two days’ sunning on 
the ground, and house or stack it at once. 
This would lessen the risk of bad weather and 
save the expense of stacking the grain. Under 
this plan one need not risk more than one or 
at most two days’ cutting on the ground, at 
one time, and still have all the advantages of 
the combined binder, except the additional 
driver to run the detached binder, which 
would be over-balanced by the two hands to 
shock after the combined machine. My plan 
of planting peas after small grain has forced 
me to harvest most of my small grain without 
binding, which makes both grain and straw 
brighter and more valuable for either feed or 
market. 
buckwheat again. 
E. S. A., Torrington, Conn.— I have been 
very much interested in the buckwheat ques¬ 
tion which has been discussed in the Rural 
from time to time, and more particularly in 
what[J. W. I. has to say on page 677. He 
seems to think there must be a mistake in the 
figures of the unknown writer. Perhaps so, 
but I think not. I think he meant that 70 
bushels can be harvested from an acre, and I 
think it can be done if everything is favorable. 
What I mean by that is, land in good order to 
receive the seed, good, plump seed that will 
come up even and stand up well till ripe, a 
good season for the crop to mature, and care¬ 
ful hands to harvest the grain. So confident 
am I that 70 bushels per acre can be grown 
that, were I rightly situated, I would give it 
a trial season, a la Rural’s potato wager. 
Here is my experience this season: I sowed 
40 pounds of seed on a piece of ground, ODe- 
half of which was sod, turned over in 1886, 
and planted to potatoes; in 1887 it was planted 
to beans with a very light coat of hen manure; 
in 1888 it was sowed to buckwheat. The other 
half w'as planted to fodder-corn in 1886 and 
1887, with a light dressing of stable 
manure, and sowed to buckwheat in 
1888, with no manure. There was no 
extra fussing to obtain big results 
but the whole job was done in a hurry and at 
random and the season has been very bad for 
all kinds of grain in New England. Last week 
we thrashed it and left it on the floor to wait 
fora rainy day. I did not have to wait ; 
for it came on the 12th. We cleaned up 
22 bushels of as nice grain as 1 ever saw. Not 
thinking of what I had seen in the Rural, I 
thought it a good yield, but when I read what 
J. W. I. had to say, l made up my mind to in¬ 
vestigate a little. I measured the ground ac¬ 
curately, and found that the pi»ce contained 
62 rods and 4 square feet. Then I had the 
curiosity to know how much that would be 
an acre, and figured out the yield, at the rate of 
56.70 bushels per acre. Now I say, if I can have 
a good grain season, 1 can get 70 bushels per 
acre,aud if it com ?s right so I can, will give it a 
trial next'season’and report the result. 1 would 
ask why we cannot get that yield in buck¬ 
wheat if the Rural can get a big yield in 
potatoes. 
THE PRICE OF FLOUR. 
H. L T., New York. —In the editorial en¬ 
titled “ Wfieat and Bread ” the Rural seems 
to think that the grain gamblers at Chicago 
are mainly responsible for the misfortune of 
the city poor in having the price of th*ir 
bread increased. These gamblers without 
doubt made fortunes out of their manipula^ 
tions and unquestionably their operations 
precipitated a rise in price, that would have 
come gradually in the usual course of the 
market. The fact that these fellows made 
almost uncountable sums of money by betting 
on the price of produce they never saw or 
handled, ought to go towards making farmers 
understand the proposition which the Rural 
has repeatedly advanced —“ The farmer does 
not get a. fair share of the country's 
profits ” But the best market advices agree 
that the increase in the price of flour 
would have come sooner or later any¬ 
way. Some weeks ago it was evident 
that prices for wheat would have to rise. 
This was simply a result of crop conditions. 
We have not got the wheat to supply our own 
and foreign countries at the lower price. In 
England, the price of wheat has declined 
owing to poor quality, but the price of flour 
has advanced nearly $2 per barrel, and Eng¬ 
land supplies the market for a large share of 
our total flour exportation. Flour is bound to 
go up, there can be no doubt about it; it is a 
great pity that the farmer cannot get a better 
share of the increase. 
The Ailanthus.—A writer in a recent 
issue of the Rural New-Yorker calls at- 
tention to the beauty and value of the much 
abused Ailanthus tree for planting in city 
streets, says Garden and Forest. It is indeed 
one of the best trees that has ever been tried 
for this purpose, either in this country or in 
Europe, and no exotic tree, with tne excep¬ 
tion, perhaps, of the white willow, has yet 
shown such capacity for adapting itself to 
the peculiarities of the American climate. 
The only possible objection to the Ailanthus 
is that the flowers of the male plants have an 
exceedingly disagreeable odor to some people, 
and that the pollen is supposed to produce 
catarrhal troubles. But this objection can be 
very readily obviated by raising plants from 
root-cuttings taken from the female plants 
only, and by avoiding the use of seedlings, 
among which there might be expected to be 
as many males as females. As the Ailanthus 
grows rapidly from cuttings, a supply of 
plants can be secured quickly in th ! s way. A 
moderately severe pruning of the male trees 
made in the spring every second year will 
generally have the effect of stimulating 
growth to such an extent that the trees will 
not flower. 
Our contemporary hardly does justice, how¬ 
ever, to the great economic value of this tree, 
which is surpassed, in the value of the ma¬ 
terial which it yields, by few North American 
trees; and certainly there is no tree which 
can be made to grow in the United States 
which can produce so much valuable wood in 
such a short time. The wood of the Ailanthus 
must be compared in heat-producing proper¬ 
ties with white oak, black walnut and birch. 
It is less valuable than hickory, but hickory— 
the best fuel, all things considered, our forests 
furnish—makes a no more agreeable, although 
a somewhat hotter fire, than Ailanthus, which 
burns steadily and slowly without snapping, 
giving out a clear, bright flame and leaving a 
good bed of coals. The amount of ash left 
after the combustion of the wood is remark¬ 
ably small. The great value ot the Ailanthus 
however, as a source of fuel supply, lies in the 
fact that it makes wood, even in poor soil, 
more than twice as rapidly as any of our trees 
which produce fuel of anything like the same 
value. The fact has not been demonstrated 
by experiment, but it is safe to say that an 
acre of ground planted with Ailanthus would 
yield at the end of 30 years more than twice 
as much fuel, in bulk and in actual heat pro¬ 
duct, as the same piece of ground planted 
with hickory or oak. 
Ailanthus wood, in spite of the rapid growth 
which this tree makes, is both heavy and very 
strong. It neither shrinks nor warps in 
seasoning, and as material for the cabinet, 
maker it has few superiors among woods 
grown without the tropics. In color it is a 
clear, bright yellow, and altiiough coar.se- 
' grained, it can be made to take line polish. 
