34 
January 17 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
sprouts next Spring. The seeds would not come true 
to the variety, although some of the varieties so pro¬ 
duced might he like the original or even better in 
some respects. There is a hardy blue plum called 
Moore Arctic, that is sold by many nurseries. It may 
suit your part of the country, but the native type of 
plums are far more certain to succeed on the prairies 
of the upper Mississippi Valley. h. e. v. d. 
darker and of a velvety appearance about May and 
June; which is from the crop of spores that covers 
the surface of the knot. Afterwards the surface be¬ 
comes dead and black, but in the interior, where the 
fungus is alive, it will continue to spread until the 
branch dies, which may be several years later. Clyman 
is the earliest plum of the Domestica class, and Peach 
is about the next one to ripen. Spaulding ripens 
without making the soil less acid than it should be. 
The ashes may not be able to give up their potash and 
phosphoric acid without sweetening the soil too much 
with their lime. Bone meal is one of the best fertiliz¬ 
ers for strawberries. Some fine crops have been grown 
where nothing else was used. On most soils, however, 
potash in some form is needed to produce good crops 
of fruit, and bone contains none of this substance. 
In the East one of the German potash salts is con¬ 
sidered best to balance the bone. 
Budding Peaches. 
I have about 160 four-year-old peach trees planted In 
the orchard which I wish to bud to another kind. How 
would I best go about It? o. *• 
Amity, N. Y. 
These trees should be cut back very severely next 
Spring, so they will send out young shoots as far 
back as possible. These should be budded in August. 
They will then be ready to cut back to the buds the 
following Spring and may bear a little fruit the year 
following that one. H. e. v. d. 
Disease Affecting Apple Trees. 
I have a Newtown Pippin orchard 21 years old In which 
within the last five years several trees died In the Sum¬ 
mer with a disease such as sometimes attacks the King 
apple. The bark blisters and peels up. When the trees 
are attacked they will not live to mature the fruit, even 
when half or two-thirds grown. I saved one tree that 
was attacked by digging a trench around It and putting 
two or three barrels of salt brine within It. What Is 
the trouble, and Is there a remedy? R. w. h. 
Germantown. N. T. 
It would be impossible for me positively to deter¬ 
mine the cause of this trouble, probably the disease 
known as the root rot, but this is not well under¬ 
stood even by scientists. There is no known remedy 
for it The diseased trees should be burned, root and 
branch. Then the earth should be dug out where each 
one stood, hauled far from the orchard and replaced 
with other soil before new trees are planted. 
H. E. Y. D. 
Treatment of Peach Seed. 
What would you advise me to do with my peach seed? 
I ordered the pits early In the Pall, as usual, but for 
some reason they were not promptly shipped, and when 
T received them the ground was already frozen. In case 
the ground would open within several weeks would you 
advise me to plant them same as In the Pall, or will it 
be necessary for me to crack them now? In case the 
ground does not open within several weeks, I had thought 
of cracking them, and packing the kernels In boxes of 
sand and set outdoors until Spring. <*• B. s. 
East Prospect, Pa. 
Cracking peach seeds Is a very tedious matter, as I 
have reason to know from experience, and is often 
unproductive of good results. However, If they are 
at once carefully cracked, so as not to hurt the ker¬ 
nels, and then packed by layers in damp sand they 
may sprout the coming Spring. There is no need to 
freeze them, but simply keep them In a cool, damp 
place until planted in the Spring. Peach seeds should 
never be allowed to become very dry if they are ex¬ 
pected to germinate well. The sooner they are put 
in the ground after being gathered the better. 
H. E. V. n. 
Apples and Plums for Prince Edward Island. 
All points considered, the Ontario seems to me to be 
the best apple for this section, but as I have never .seen 
Sutton Beauty fruiting In this Province, and as you al¬ 
ways recommend It for New York State, I should like to 
know In what respects It Is superior to the Ontario. Tn 
what respects Is the Pewaukee Inferior to Sutton Beauty? 
What Is the latest and most Improved treatment for the 
prevention and cure of black knot on plum trees? At 
what stage of growth does a knot first throw off spores? 
What Is the earliest variety of the Domestica class? 
What do you know about the Spaulding? D. J. s. 
Prince Edward Island. 
As I have never had the opportunity to test the 
Ontario and Sutton apple, nor seen them tested by 
others In the same orchard I am not able to say from 
observation which Is the better bearer, but I have 
been told by several orchardlsts In New York and 
Ontario that Sutton Is the more productive. It is a 
later keeper than Ontario, and about as good In qual¬ 
ity. It would not be wise to plant this or any other 
variety largely on Prince Edward Island until it has 
been well tested and proved to be valuable for that 
region. Pewaukee Is decidedly Inferior In quality to 
Sutton, and Is not so late a keeper. 
Black knot on plum trees Is kept under control 
hy persistently cutting out every sign of It and burn¬ 
ing the affected branches at once. It Is claimed by 
some persons that the disease can be stop.ped In cases 
where It has not taken too deep root, and this will 
perhaps pay where there Is a chance to save an Im¬ 
portant branch. It Is done by paring off the knot and 
coating the wound with strong Bordeaux Mixture. A 
combination of kerosene with some pasty material 
to be put on the pared places and also on knots that 
are Just beginning is said to be quite effective In de¬ 
stroying the germs or spores when they appear. These 
spores. If not destroyed, will lodge on otner branches, 
take root, and in due time produce other knots. These 
young knots are at first mere t veilings which have 
a yellowish color In early Spring, but later become 
about mid-season, is green in color, of medium size 
and fair quality. It is a good bearer and reasonably 
hardy. h. e. yajs deman. 
NOTES ON FERTILIZERS AND FERTILIZING. 
The Lime in Bone and Ashes. 
In an issue of recent date you claim that ashes are not 
the best fertilizer for strawberries; too much lime In 
them. How about pure fine ground raw bone meal, 500 
pounds per acre worked in the soli just before setting 
plants? Isn’t raw bone meal nearly as limy as ashes? 
Bone meal here In Indiana used as suggested above has 
given good results, better than phosphates. reader. 
Indiana. 
We see how “limy” bone meal Is as compared with 
wood ashes in the following table, pounds in one ton: 
Nitrogen Potash. Phos. acid Lime. 
Ashes. 100 36 690 
Bone. 70 ... 460 620 
Both contain lime, yet the lime in the bone cannot 
fully take the place of that in the ashes. We must 
understand that It Is the quality or chemical combina¬ 
tion In which the lime is found that gives its great¬ 
est value to agriculture. You would not expect raw 
ground limestone or crushed oyster shells to give you 
good results when spread on the soil. When the shells 
and the stone are burned and afterwards “slaked” 
they are in the proper form for use on the soil. The 
bone is an organic substance like the oyster shell. 
A CO-OPERATIVE CORN SHREDDER. Fia. 18. 
The wood before it was burned was organic material 
and contained lime. Yet even if you ground it and 
crushed it to a fine powder this lime could not 
“sweeten” the soil, because it was not in a form to 
combine with the acids which make the soil sour 
and neutraM'ze them. When you burn the wood to 
ashes you put the lime into a condition which enables 
it to do this work. The organic forms of lime, like 
the bone, cannot neutralize the soil until they are 
burned or otherwise changed in their combination 
with other substances. Thus bone may give up its 
nitrogen and phosphoric acid to the strawberry plant 
What Fertilizer forlorn? 
A fertilizer known as “soft bone” Is guaranteed to con¬ 
tain 3.6 per cent of nitrogen, 0.0 per cent of potash solu¬ 
ble In water, 14 per cent phosphoric add. This fertilizer 
Is the product of dead animals, horses, cows and hogs; 
they are skinned, then cut up or quartered, put In a tank 
and steamed; the oil pressed out, and the remainder dried 
and ground. I think It Is rated In the list with others at 
$28 per ton. We pay $1.50 per 100 pounds for It. How will 
It do to drill In with corn on clay ground? w. F. l. 
Shelbyvllle, Ind. 
This fertilizer will supply nitrogen and phosphoric 
acid for the corn, but it contains no potash. Heavy 
clay soils are usually quite rich in this substance, 
and for one or two crops at least this fertilizer may 
produce good crops of corn. On many western farms 
where the soil is heavy such a fertilizer as this or 
even “phosphate” alone (which supplies only phos¬ 
phoric acid), will give fine crops of corn. Sometimes 
it is found that such a fertilizer loses much of its 
effect after a few good crops. Then the farmer often 
says that fertilizers do not pay—that they “ruin the 
soil.” The truth is that the available potash has 
been removed from the soil and the corn cannot make 
its full crop, even though nitrogen and phosphoric 
acid are added. In such cases the addition of even 
small amounts of potash will greatly Increase the 
erop. It is sometimes argued that potash is of little 
use in fertilizing corn, since the grain and stalk con¬ 
tain but little of it. The following table will interest 
all who are studying this subject. Pounds in one ton: 
Total ash. 
Potash. 
Phos. acid 
Lime 
Corn grain 
. 26 
7.4 
11.8 
0.6 
Oats . 
. 54 
8.8 
12.4 
2.0 
Wh^at .... 
. 36.6 
11. 
17.8 
1. 
Cornstalks .. 
. 83.8 
19.2 
10.6 
8. 
Rye straw .. 
. 92. 
22.4 
6. 
8.2 
Oat straw .. 
. 80.8 
17.8 
10.6 
8. 
Corncobs ... 
. 9.2 
4.8 
0.4 
0.4 
The “total ash” means that if 2,000 pounds of corn 
were fully burned there would be only 26 pounds of 
ash left. Of this 7.4 pounds or over 28 per cent is 
potash. The ton of cobs will give less than 10 pounds 
of ash. but over half of it is potash. You will notice 
that grain, stalks and cob of corn rank low in the 
total amount of ash which they contain—yet the 
proportion of potash in this ash is larger than that 
in most other grains. This shows the necessity of 
using potash on corn since the cob cannot be formed 
without It. The table also shows another Important 
thing. See how little lime these grains and straws 
contain! This makes it clearer that we do not use 
the lime so much to provide plant food as for Its 
chemical effect upon the soil. On a heavy clay soil 
the above fertilizer will probably increase the corn 
crop. In our own farm practice we should use mu¬ 
riate of potash with it. If it does not give good re¬ 
sults do not conclude that all fertilizers are failures, 
but try potash in some form with it. 
PINK ROT ON APPLE SCAB. 
The picture at Fig. 19, photographed by Prof. John 
Craig, shows a parasite on a parasite. The primary 
agent In destroying these apples is our old enemy, 
the Apple scab. The secondary agent is the pink fun¬ 
gus, which lives on the spots of scabby apples, but 
which destroyTS the flesh of the apple as well as the 
scab Itself. This trouble was widespread last Fall. It 
destroyed the salability of thousands of bushels of 
Greenings, Fall and Holland Pippins; Baldwins and 
Spitzenburgs suffered also. The point is, that only 
scabby apples were attacked. Thoroughly sprayed or¬ 
chards mostly escaped. The trouble is described In 
Bulletin 207, Cornell University Experiment Station, 
just published. This bulletin states that in many 
cases during the past wet season sprayed orchards lost 
their foliage. The spray of the ordinary Bordeaux 
Mixture Injured them. There was much less Injury 
when more than the usual amount of lime was used. 
It is claimed that in rainy seasons twice the regular 
amount of lime should be used in the Bordeaux. At 
any rate, we should use as much lime as can be forced 
through the nozzles. 
GRAPES FOR “JUICE.”—I notice on page 848, last 
volume, an Inquiry from H. T. W., Hood River, Ore., 
in reference to kind of grapes for making grape juice 
and the answer by my friend J, W. S.. Westfield, N. 
Y. I grow Moore’s Early, Worden and Concord, and 
sell more or less for the making of grape juice. I 
have learned some things the past season that I did 
not know before in reference to yield of juice per 100 
pounds. One of my customers told me that from the 
1 000 pounds I sold him last year he obtained 100 
gallons of juice. He bought at the same time 1,000 
pounds from a man living about three miles from me. 
from which he obtained only 60 gallons. Another of 
my customers had 2,000 pounds of me about October 
1 last, from which he pressed 275 gallons. In both 
these cases the grapes were mixed, in the latter case 
about equal quantities of Concord and Worden and a 
small amount of Moore’s Early. This man, who has 
been making wine in a limited way for many years, 
says that mixed grapes of Concord and Worden make 
the richest and best juice and wine, and It appears 
that the grapes grown by me are far richer and bet¬ 
ter than others he has used. You may naturally ask 
why is this? I can only reply that the soil is a strong 
slaty clay, rich in potash and annually fertilized, the 
vines vigorously pruned, which may account for the 
better quality of the product. wadter e. taper. 
Dutchess Co.. N. Y. 
