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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
OCTOBER 12 
be mistaken as to this point, and it is agree¬ 
able to get some support. The more I re¬ 
flect on this subject the more fully I am 
convinced that not only is it a fallacy to sup¬ 
pose that a bisexual influences the fruit of 
a pistillate as to size, shape or quality, but 
also that it affects it at all—practically I 
mean. As to the former point it is purely 
a theory, no facts to prove it having been 
brought forward to my knowledge. I do 
recall some experiments made at some ex¬ 
periment station and reported with illus¬ 
trations, but instead of proving the theory, 
they showed variations no greater than can 
be observed any day in any bed of berries. 
As to the mere fertilization of pistillates 
from outside plants, the question cannot 
be so summarily dismissed; but there are 
both facts and arguments to disprove the 
assumption. The Editor of the Rural 
says that “actual tests have been made and 
it has been found that purely pistillate 
flowers, if protected from pollen, do not 
form berries.” If the strength of this 
statement lies in the word “ purely,” then 
its truth may be admitted ; but if it allows 
that such varieties as Crescent and Man 
Chester are properly called pistillates, then 
there is proof on the other side. In my 
former article I mentioned the fact of a 
good crop having been grown from one of 
these so protected, and of another grown in 
a field a-quarter mile distant from other 
berries, and now Mr. Proctor tells of his 
growing a fine crop of Jersey Queens 600 
yards away from other sorts. A failure of 
a crop of pistillates when isolated does not 
prove the need of a bisexual, for it may 
have resulted from some other cause. I 
have had failures from perfect-flowering 
plants and they could not be attributed to 
a lack of pollen. On the other hand, the 
production of a crop when isolated, is posi¬ 
tive proof that a bisexual is not needed. 
The facts so far seem to be on our side 
and when we reason on the matter, the 
same conclusion is readied. First, I sup¬ 
pose it can be said that there is no such 
thing as a “purely” pistillate strawberry— 
at any rate those leading varieties that are 
called pistillate are not purely such, but 
contain some stamens and apparently 
enough to fertilize their own pistils. Then 
the difficulties that lie in the way of hav¬ 
ing the pollen from one blossom transferred 
to another that is one, two or five yards 
away, are so great that the claim that it 
has been done cannot be easily ex-edited. 
The crossing of plants of all kinds in this 
way is much over-rated. This statement 
should be emphasized—this cross-fertiliza¬ 
tion is not at all what it is generally sup¬ 
posed to be. There is one plant that is an 
exception—Indian corn, and this is always 
cited. But this is wrongfully done, for it 
is an exception among plants. Its pollen 
is very abundant and it is placed high 
where the wind can waft it far and near. 
Can another plant be found that compares 
with this in these respects ? Vine crops are 
somewhat readily “mixed,” but I have 
known watermelons grown in proximity 
without “mixing”. You will find beans, 
peas and other vegetable seeds that have 
been grow n side by side for a score of years, 
yet they are saved by the housewife in 
purity. Now all these are capable of being 
crossed, but, as a fact, seldom are and this 
is because of the difficulty of depositing 
pollen of one flower on another some feet 
or yards aw r ay. This difficulty is as great 
in case of the straw berry as in case of most 
other plants, lying as it does low down 
with the blossoms obstructed by leaves, so 
that the wind cannot readily carry the 
pollen to them. I have failed to see bees or 
insects in sufficient numbers to accomplish 
it. Here we have been talking of fertiliza¬ 
tion as it may occur so as to affect the pro¬ 
duction of seeds, and it follows that if the 
difficulties are great in this respect they 
are equally great as regards the fruit. 
But, supposing the seeds have been af¬ 
fected, it does not follow" that the fruit 
has been. If it is a common law r to affect 
the fruit it w r ould be observable in other 
fruits as well—it would be observable to 
every one—and it is not. Such things have 
been reported, it is true; but, if they were 
facts—which is doubtful—it is also true 
that they were exceptional cases, represent¬ 
ing not one, perhaps, in 10,000 instances. 
Now, we are required to believe, not only 
that such crossing may occur one time in 
1,000, but that everyone of the 500 blossoms 
on a square yard shall have the due pro¬ 
portion of foreign pollen deposited o'", it, 
each one thereby forming a berry—a feat of 
Nature so x'emarkable that I cannot credit 
it. 
A CANADIAN ON “PROTECTION.” 
T. S., Pelee Island, Canada.—I n dis¬ 
cussing the question of protection a friend 
in the R. N.-Y. of September 7, wants the 
United States potato-growers protected 
from the foreign “ pauper-labor ’’-grown 
potatoes of Canada, by an increase of the 
tariff upon them so as to exclude them 
from the markets of the States. We 
“ Kanucks ” spurn with indignation the 
imputation that our potatoes are grown by 
“ pauper labor.” The potato and other ag¬ 
ricultural products of Canada are grown by 
the labor of the actual owners of the soil to 
a greater extent, perhaps, than in any other 
country in the world. If we can raise 
cheaper and better products of the soil than 
can be raised in the States, and compete 
with the latter in their own markets, after 
being made to pay a tax of 15 cents a bushel 
upon potatoes, it must be because our soil 
and climate are better adapted to their 
growth, or because our farmers are more 
industrious, economical and self-sacrificing 
than the same class in the States—and both 
these reasons are no doubt true. 
The people and the press of the States 
are constantly boasting of their wealth and 
the poverty of Canada, and it does seem 
ridiculous that they should be afraid of the 
competition of Canada in anything and 
wish to put up the bar of the tariff to keep 
Canadian products out of their markets. 
Why should such a great country, with its 
vast area and variety of soil and climate, 
its immense thrifty population, with their 
splendid equipment of improved agricul¬ 
tural implements, its numerous markets 
and great facilities for transportation, and 
its thousands of imported foreign laborers 
—yes, foreign, pauper laborers—be afraid 
of the competition of the poor Canadians in 
the 'products of their soil and frigid cli¬ 
mate? While they thus keep the poor 
Canadians out of a convenient market for 
their surplus potatoes, barley, etc., they 
also increase the price of the necessaries of 
life to their o vn poor consumers. 
Another friend tells us in the R. N.-Y. 
about dining at a hotel where oranges and 
bananas were on the table to the exclusion 
of “ blueberries ” that were growing plen¬ 
tifully upon the hills about, and he forth¬ 
with wants bananas taxed to raise the 
price of blueberries so that they would be 
worth gathering, and he would thus com¬ 
pel people to eat blueberries which they do 
not want, instead of bananas which they 
do want. The advocates of a high tariff 
upon foreign fruits not only want to de¬ 
prive the consumers of their choice of the 
kinds of fruit they like unless they pay a 
bonus to the “ blueberry ” and strawberry 
raisers; but they also wish to cut the poor 
natives of the tropics off from a market for 
their fruit, and to keep them instill greater 
poverty and ignorance in order that they 
themselves may make greater profits and 
go on adding to the comforts and luxuries 
which they now have. Every one wants 
his particular product protected from com¬ 
petition so that he may increase the price 
to t he consumer and make greater profits. 
This is a call upon the government to keep 
up the price of the products of the more 
well-to-do and comparatively small class, 
the producers, at the expense of more nu¬ 
merous and poorer class, the consumers. 
R. N.-Y. Isn’t a protective tariff in 
force in the Dominion as well as in the Un¬ 
ion ? Isn’t the tax levied by Canada on 
goods imported from the United States 
about as heavy as that levied here on 
imported Canadian goods ? Thereare hon¬ 
est advocates of free trade or reciprocity 
among the minority in both countries, 
however, and doubtless our friend objects 
as strongly to the Canadian as he does to 
the “American” tariff. 
CHICAGO DRESSED HEEF. 
J. w. N., Stowe, Vermont. —The rais¬ 
ing and fattening of cattle for beef is a 
thing of the past in this section. A few years 
ago the cattle-buyers or drovers came around 
as regularly as the seasons, bringing thous¬ 
ands of dollars into this State, and taking 
away car-load after car-load of fat cattle. 
Others would come and buy up store cattle, 
calves, yearlings, and old or farrow cows. 
These w’ere taken to New Hampshire and 
Massachusetts and fattened. But this is 
all gone by. It is almost impossible to sell 
any kind of neat stock excepting what lit¬ 
tle is used by the country butchers for which 
the farmers get three to 3% cents per pound 
live weight. A few head of fat cattle go 
from this State to Boston nearly every 
week; but probably where one car-load of 
fat cattle is carried out of the State an equiv¬ 
alent of three car-loads, in the form of 
dressed beef, is brought in. The dressed 
beef goes into the large towns; small places 
do not receive it. Consequently the busi¬ 
ness of the local butchers in small towns is 
not affected to any great extent. The re¬ 
sult is that farmers are forced into dairy¬ 
ing, and this is one of the causes of the 
over-production of butter. The farmer 
must raise crops. The only crops we can 
market are potatoes, beans and a little hay. 
Hence we must feed what we raise to cat¬ 
tle. But the beef industry being destroyed 
and butter being so low, a large part of the 
farmers’ iucome is cut off. It is not possi¬ 
ble for men engaged in dairying to turn to 
sheep-raising without great loss, and few 
can make a profitable business raising 
horses 
To regulate the matter fairly, the rail¬ 
roads should be made to charge more 
equitable rates. A carcass of dressed beef, 
I am told, can be sent from Chicago to 
Boston for one dollar, while it costs eight 
dollars to ship a yoke of oxen alive from 
Northern Vermont to the same city. But 
this is only a step. The dressed-beef trade 
needs regulating wherever its baleful in¬ 
fluences extend, and it is only one of many 
similar evils. The future prosperity of 
agriculture in this country seems to de¬ 
mand of the farmers three things: first, im¬ 
proved methods of farming; second, busi¬ 
ness methods in buying and selling; third, 
wise use of political power. If things go 
on as they have been going for two or 
three years back it is only a question of 
time when the tillers of the soil will be far 
on the way towards serfdom. It is the old 
story of greed and selfishness, of the few 
growing richer and the many poorer. But 
the farmers of this country are possessed 
of great intelligence, vast political power, 
and a large amount of wealth. The pres¬ 
sure that trusts, middlemen, and specula¬ 
tors of all kinds are putting upon them is 
forcing them to use their power for self- 
protection. They are learning the value of 
combination and co-operation,and the power 
they can wield in the government. It is 
along these lines that the regulation of 
the Chicago dressed-beef trade and all oth¬ 
er systems of organized legal robbery must 
proceed. There is a wise and a right way 
to meet these evils, and this w r ay will no 
doubt be found. 
A PREVENTIVE FOR THE CAULIFLOWER 
MAGGOT. 
H. A. M., Skagit Countv, Washington. 
—I think I have found a preventive for 
the cauliflower maggot. I have tried every¬ 
thing that 1 have seen recommended for 
killing the pest and have never found any¬ 
thing that would kill it without injuring 
the plants to a greater or less extent. The 
only sure way with us 1ms been to get 
down on our knees and dig the rascals out 
and kill them. I read in the Rural last 
year that the Editor had used sulphur in 
the trenches to keep the wire-worms from 
causing scab in potatoes in the great wager 
trial. I thought that if it would repel the 
wire worm, it might have a similar repul¬ 
sive effect on the maggot fly. The experi¬ 
ment was worth trying anyway. On May 
10, I set 10 rows of cauliflowers, putting a 
little over 100 in a row. This was when 
the fly was doing its very worst. After 
taking the plants from the cold-frame 
where they were grown, we puddled them 
in the usual way but added half a pound 
of sulphur to the puddle. Then after the 
plants had been set, a boy went through 
each row with an insect-powder gun 
charged with sulphur, and blew half a tea¬ 
spoonful around each plant. The two out¬ 
side rows, one on each side, were planted 
without sulphur in the puddle or on the 
surface around the plants. The result was 
that these two rows were nearly destroyed; 
while not a plant of the eight that had been 
treated with sulphur was killed by the 
maggots. In fact, I never found a single 
fly or egg around the plants. I have so 
much faith in the sulphur preventive 
that I have ordered 35 pounds and intend 
to use it on everything the fly works upon 
—onions, radishes, turnips, cabbages and 
cauliflowers. 1 hope some of the readers 
of the Rural will give it a trial next sea¬ 
son and report. The damage done by this 
maggot pest is becoming so serious that if 
we can’t find something to head it off 
we shall certainly have to quit raising cab¬ 
bages and cauliflowers in this part of the 
country, for the pests did just as much in 
jury for me on a new piece of ground that 
had never before been cultivated as they 
did on old ground that had been in cauli¬ 
flowers for two years. 
A BIT OF EXPERIENCE. 
Mrs. C. M. G., La Grange, Ind. —In plant¬ 
ing my contest, plot, the first two rows 
were planted with freshly cut seed ou the 
evening of May 1. Not being able to com¬ 
plete the planting the next day, the basket 
containing the seed was allowed to stand un¬ 
covered in the hot sun and drying wind un¬ 
til noon on the third, when on going to fin¬ 
ish the planting, the seed-pieces were found 
to be very much wilted and dry. 'Some of 
the worst were thrown awav and the re¬ 
mainder were planted, leaving 1 )4 row, for 
which fresh seed was cut. The first, second, 
half of the tenth and the eleventh rows soon 
came up, looking strong and healthy; while 
the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, 
eighth, ninth and part of the tenth rows 
which were planted with the wilted seed were 
fully a week later in coming up and fully 
one-half never came up at all. During a 
rainy spell when the plants were about a 
foot high, the missing hills were filled in 
by digging down and taking off sprouts 
from the good hills and setting them, two 
to three in a hill, about all the good hills in 
the plot having from one to three sprouts 
taken from them. All these grew and seemed 
to do well, but were of course away behind 
the others in growth. When dug, the two 
row's planted before the seed became wilted 
were w r eighed separately and found to aver¬ 
age 81 pounds to the row’; while the average 
weight per row of the remaining nine rows, 
including the eleventh and half of the tenth 
which were also planted with freshly-cut 
seed, was a fraction less than 64 pounds, so 
I concluded that it does not pay to expose 
seed to sun and wind. 
THE WEATHER SAGE OF NEW JERSEY 
PROGNOSTICATES. 
A. J. De Voe., Hackensack, N. J.—In 
reading over the different articles furnished 
by correspondents of the Rural New- 
Yorker on various subjects regarding their 
crops, I noticed one on potatoes, and the 
writer closes with this remark; “This 
nearly total failure Is attributed, in great 
part., to the fact that a moist plot was se¬ 
lected in anticipation of a dry season. 
Last-spring it w'as the general impression 
that, owing to our wet spring, we would 
have a dry summer, and a great deal of 
labor and seed was thrown away for lack 
of knowledge regarding the future state of 
the weather.” This is not only true in re¬ 
gard to potatoes, but with regard to many 
other crops, and now that summer is past, 
many are predicting a dry fall, and an open 
winter; but the rains will continue to fall, 
and winter will set in very early, and if 
some of our farmers do not hurry, their po¬ 
tatoes w'ill be snowed under. There is no 
class of people who are so directly inter¬ 
ested in the’weather as the farmers. And 
they ought to be willing to pay for infor¬ 
mation regarding the future state of the 
weather, and then turn the information to 
practical account by planting their crops in 
such a w T ay that they would harmonize 
with the weather. The w’eatlier is con¬ 
trolled by natural laws, and when men un¬ 
derstand these laws they will know' just 
w'hat sort of weather to look for. 
SOAKING WHEELS IN OIL. 
F. Grundy, Christian County, III.— 
The plan of soaking the rims of wagon 
wheels in linseed oil once a year is a good 
one. It should be done during a dry spell, 
when the wood is perfectly dry. The w'lieels 
are suspended over a galvanized iron tank 
containing the oil, and slowly turned a few 
times every 15 or 30 minutes. They should 
be soaked four or five hours to do a good 
job. It may be done in connection with 
such other work as will permit one to give 
a moment’s attention to the wheels as 
needed. Some men think that the oil should 
be kept boiling-hot, but that seems wholly 
unnecessary. The wheels will soon take in 
all they will contain if the oil is hot to start 
with. They should be-placed under shelter 
to dry a few days before they are used. It 
is a waste of time and money to paint the 
rims of wagon wheels used in this country, 
because the mud, snow and slush take the 
paint off again in a very short time, hut a 
good soaking in oil is really beneficial and 
pays. 
SOUTHERN EGG RATIONS. 
C. C. W., Grand Bay, Ala.—R egard¬ 
ing the practice of feeding wheat to poul¬ 
try; this is not a wheat-growing section 
and consequently wheat is never used jus 
poultry food; in fact, very little attention 
is paid to feeding poultry in any way ex¬ 
cept it may be for two or three months in 
winter, and then the feed is mostly corn. 
I have found oats to be much better than 
corn for egg-production in this warm cli¬ 
mate, except in winter; then 1 use both 
corn and oats. Have any of the “ experts” 
ever tried rice, in the rough or unhulled, 
for this purpose? 1 have never heard of 
any comparat ive tests with rice; but I have 
often heard farmers say that rice will make 
hens lay better than anything else; but as it 
is generally worth IK) cents to * 1 per bushel 
very little is fed out to poultry; all they get 
is from the fields, and at thrashing time. 
With the present modes of preserving eggs 
for winter mouths, in _seasons_of plenty,‘1 
