420 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 6 
FARMERS’ CLUB 
[Every query must be accompanied by 
the name and address of the writer to in¬ 
sure attention. Before asking a question, 
please see whether it is not answered in 
our advertising columns. Ask only a few 
questions at one time. Put questions on a 
separate piece of paper.] 
Czich Crops in Corn. 
K... Phila.. Pa.—What is the best green 
fertilizer crop to sow in corn in a sandy 
soil with clay subsoil, three miles from 
Delaware Bay in Cumberland Co.. N. J.? 
Does the cow pea make growth enough 
to pay for planting in the last cultivation 
of the corn? How would it do to sow half 
a bushel of peas and half a bushel of rye 
at the time of last plowing? Has any 
person in that belt had successful experi¬ 
ence with the long or Cow-horn turnip 
sown in corn? 
Aj\.s. —We would not sow cow peas in 
the corn. At any rate it will not pay to 
sow rye and cow peas together. We 
would sow 12 pounds of Crimson clover 
and one pound of Cow-horn turnip seed 
to the acre. Sow it broadcast among the 
corn and then cultivate lightly—if pos¬ 
sible using a drag or plank behind the 
cultivator to smash and smooth the 
ground. We would like to have readers 
in southern New Jersey give their ex¬ 
perience with Cow-horn turnips. 
The Cabbage Maggot. 
FT. J. S.. Kenwood, N. Y.—This pest, that 
burrows in the stems of early-set cab¬ 
bages and cauliflowers, has been especially 
destructive on this place for many years. 
It has sometimes seemed hardly worth 
while to attempt to raise early crops of 
either cabbages or cauliflowers. Not till 
the season of 1902 have I had a fairly suc¬ 
cessful crop. Upon application, I received 
from Prof. Bailey a bulletin that recom¬ 
mended paper collars that could be cut out 
with a specially constructed chisel and 
fitted closely around the stem resting on 
the ground, in this way preventing the 
deposition of eggs by the parent fly. 1 
applied at a machine shop to have made 
for me this somewhat complex chisel, but 
before it was made hit upon another ex¬ 
pedient which I will describe: I obtained 
a bale of paper pulp which looked like a 
loose rough kind of paper doubled up into 
a bale four Inches thick. Then for $1 I 
had made for me a tin syringe, about 14 
inches long and large enough to hold about 
two quarts. The rear end of the syringe 
had a cover that fitted into the barrel, and 
the piston rod worked through a hole in 
its center. By taking off this cover and 
drawing out the piston I could fill the 
barrel with anything I wished to put in it. 
The orifice at the other end of the syringe 
was a little more than one-eighth of an 
inch in diameter. By tearing up the paper 
pulp as fine as possible and mixing it in a 
vessel with a due amount of water, giving 
it a thorough stirring. I obtained a kind 
of jelly with which I nearly filled the 
syringe at the rear end. After replacing 
the piston and fitting the cover to its place, 
I found that with a slight pressure or tap 
with my hand on the handle of the piston 
rod, I could drive out a small portion of 
the pulp and leave it around the stem of 
each plant where it came out of the 
ground. Some care to have ground level 
around the plant was necessary. A little 
dry weather hardened the pulp, making 
a paper that effectually excluded the ovi¬ 
positor of the Insect with her eggs. I found 
some difficulty in making the dry paper¬ 
like pulp fine enough so that it would dis¬ 
solve sufficiently to pass readily through 
the small hole at the end of the syringe. 
I overcame this difficulty by placing the 
bale on a box bottom upwards with one 
end of the bale protruding over the edge 
of the box and scraping the edge of the 
dampened bale with a sharp curry-comb, 
making a fine sawdust of the pulp. The 
manifest advantage of this method of 
fighting the Cabbage maggot is the rapidity 
with which it can be applied and conse¬ 
quent saving of time. Moreover, one can 
easily try all manner of experiments with 
this apparatus, such as putting Paris- 
green into the pulp, or Slug-shot, a milder 
poison, or perhaps using instead of the 
pulp a thick syrup made by boiling down 
molasses. I tried the two last-named 
remedies in a small way, but cannot yet 
claim that they have any advantage over 
the use of the pure paper pulp. One sea¬ 
son’s trial is not sufficient to determine 
the value of the experiment, and I might 
add that the season was unfavorable. The 
wet weather prevented the pulp drying 
readily, and the rain in many cases washed 
the soil over the pulp, so that the insect 
could operate above it Of 600 or 700 plants 
not much more than a df.zen were attacked 
by the maggot, so that the outcome of the 
experiment is on the whole highly encour¬ 
aging. . .] 
Ans. —This scheme for applying pads 
ready-made to keep out cabbage mag¬ 
gots is certainly one of the cleverest 1 
have met with. And I believe the 
scheme is all right, provided the pulp 
and pad does not bind the stem of the 
plant too closely. If there is a chance 
for the stem to grow I should think the 
scheme would work as well as a tarred 
paper pad. There is nothing about the 
tarry smell that helps the effectiveness 
of that pad. I sincerely hope the cor¬ 
respondent will test this unique scheme 
again in a more auspicious season and 
report results. M. v. smnqerland. 
Crown Gall on the Apple. 
E. M. P., Rirhview, III.—I notice on my 
young apple trees, set three years ago last 
Pall, a large per cent of them are affected 
with crown gall. Will you advise me what 
you consider the best known remedy for 
combating this much-dreaded disease, for 
I wish, if possible, to save my young trees? 
Ans. —Crown gall, root gall or root 
knot are terms that are variously ap¬ 
plied to a disease of the apple root 
which is met with in the apple-growing 
districts of the United States and of Eu¬ 
rope. The apple gall appears to be per¬ 
ennial in character, as it continues to 
enlarge from year to year. There are 
other enlargements of the apple root 
which may be confounded with the true 
crown gall. An enlargement may occur 
at the union of root and scion, particu¬ 
larly if the scion tends to outgrow the 
root. This enlargement, due to a differ¬ 
ence in the rapidity of growth of root 
and scion, may be distinguished how¬ 
ever by having a comparatively smooth 
bark which is of the same general color 
as that of the surrounding parts. The 
Woolly aphis causes enlargements, but 
these are usually small. The true crown 
gall attains large size, often being sev¬ 
eral inches in diameter. It has a darker 
surface, which is marked by deep con¬ 
volutions, giving a gnarled appearance. 
In the vicinity of this gall numerous 
fine tufted roots generally appear. The 
crown gall itself is, however, usually at¬ 
tached to the main stem or main root 
near the crown, while the aphis enlarge¬ 
ments may occur on the small lateral 
roots. The crown gall usually occurs 
at the point of union of root and scion 
while the tree is young, though it may 
occur sometimes on other portions. 
Wounds of any kind appear to favor its 
gaining a foothold wherever new tissue 
is exposed. Observation of thousands of 
trees shows that it is particularly liable 
to occur where a borer has entered the 
crown of the tree. Wounds made by cul¬ 
tivators or other implements favor its 
gaining a foothold. Crown gall is preva¬ 
lent in a great variety of soils. It seems 
to thrive wherever apple trees will grow. 
Apparently, however, it requires a cer¬ 
tain amount of aeration and will grow 
deeper down in a loose soil than it will 
in a compact, heavy one. 
The crown gall is an infectious dis¬ 
ease, and spreads, though somewhat 
slowly, from tree to tree once it has 
gained a foothold in an orchard. Its 
effect upon the tree seems to vary in 
different cases. In some orchards we 
have seen a number of trees die from 
it while they were quite young, say in 
two or three years after being infected. 
In other cases trees containing large 
galls have continued to look healthy 
above ground and to bear good crops 
year after year. It is difficult to mea¬ 
sure its effects upon the tree, for it 
usually occurs in connection with other 
factors that may favor or oppose the 
growth of the tree. If a tree is infested 
with borers, if it is allowed to overbear, 
or if it is in thin, sterile, dry soil and 
has the crown gall it is not liable to last 
many years, while if all other conditions 
for growth are favorable a gall-infected 
tree may last and be profitable for 
years. Gall-infected trees are liable to 
beai young, and to overbear while their 
vitality keeps up, the gall seeming to 
have somewhat the effect of girdling. 
If the gall forms all around the crown. 
so as to encircle it with the enlarge¬ 
ment, the tree will die sooner than it 
will if the gall is attached only to one 
side of the trunk. 
No very satisfactory remedy is known 
for crown gall. The orcbardist should 
refuse to plant young trees that have 
gall when they come from the nursery. 
This should not be construed to mean 
that if a part of the trees in the nur¬ 
sery have gall the remainder of the trees 
growing in the same nursery should be 
discarded. This would mean practically 
to exclude nursery stock from the mar¬ 
ket, for almost any nursery is liable to 
contain a few gall-infected trees. The 
individual trees which have the gall 
should be rejected, for not only will 
their own vigor be impaired by the gall, 
but the disease will almost certainly 
spread to other trees in the orchard. An 
old apple orchard site should not be re¬ 
planted to apples for many years after 
the old orchard has been taken out. Our 
experiments show that where old apple 
trees were grubbed out and the land 
tilled in other crops for three and four 
years respectively the gall fungus still 
remained in the land and infected young 
trees when they were planted in it. 
Wounds at the crowns of the trees 
should be avoided when cultivating. 
Borers should be kept out by the appli¬ 
cation of washes or wrappers, for the 
wounds caused by borers offer the most 
favorable opportunity for the formation 
of the gall. Since the gall develops best 
reasonably near the surface, where the 
soil is well aerated, grafts should be 
planted in the nursery so that the union 
of stock and scion will be well below 
ground. This may be accomplished by 
using as long a scion as is consistent 
with the character of soil, etc., and by 
careful planting. Areas that wash badly 
should be avoided for nursery stock, as 
washing the soil away from the point cf 
union and from the roots of the young 
trees renders them more liable to infe."’- 
tion. Avoiding wounds and washing of 
the soil from the roots applies to nur¬ 
series and orchards alike. Once young 
trees in the orchard have become badly 
infected with the gall there is perhaps 
little that can be done for them with our 
present stage of knowledge. If, how¬ 
ever, a few of the trees have galls and 
are still vigorous it may be worth while 
to cut off the galls and paint over the 
wounds with the following: One-half 
pound copper sulphate, one pound iron 
sulphate, one pound of lime and two 
gallons of water. This mixture makes 
a thick paint which is conveniently ap¬ 
plied with a brush. Trees were treated 
in this manner at the Experiment Sta¬ 
tion and on them the galls did not reap¬ 
pear the following season. Many other 
washes have been applied but with no 
promise of success up to the present 
time. It is. however, too early to recom¬ 
mend the above as a positive preventive, 
though it gives some promise. The diffi¬ 
culty of removing the galls from small 
trees while they are set in the ground 
is great, and one can hardly be certain 
whether or not all the gall is removed. 
Investigations concerning this gall are 
still in progress at the Station. It is 
hoped to determine definitely what it is 
and how to protect trees from infection 
from it, but at tbe present time we have 
very little to offer in the way of sug¬ 
gestion for the treatment of trees that 
are already infected. Efforts to avoid 
getting it in the orchard, however, are 
of the greatest importance. 
[Prof.] .1. C. WHITTEN. 
Missouri Exp. Station. 
For the land’s sake, use Bowker’s Fer¬ 
tilizers. They enrich the earth.— Adv. 
Potted Strawberry Plants, 
well rootert, July 15. 1 OO Ooin Tiiul for 
KEVITT’S PL-\NT F.\KMS. AtUenia, N. J. 
Dll* CTCU Sweet Potato Plants, $1.75 per 1,000; 
Dill O I kill Jersey Reel and Pierson the same; 
Jersey Yellow. $1.50. Large orders less. i:i kinds. 
Write for price-list. F. S. Newcomb, Vineland, N. J 
DELERY PLANTST.T 
berry Plants, $1 per 100, from July 15 to August. 
COW PEAS 
—Early Black, $1.26 per bu., sacked and 
£. o. b. O. O. Gwatbmey, Aylett, Va. 
Bedding Plants in Fine Condition 
Ready for Delivery or Shipment. 
CASH WITH ORDER. jqq 
Alyssum, Giant, Double and Dwarf, 2-lnch.$2 00 
Snapdragon, White,2-inch. 2.00 
Ageratum Stella Gurney. Princess Pauline and 
Dwarf White. 2-inch. 2.00 
Althernanthera, Red and Yellow, 2-inch. 2!oo 
OannaIn var.,4-inch.$8... 3-inch, 6.00 
Coleus in var.. Standard and Fancy, 2-inch.. 2.00 
Feverfew, Little Gem, 3-inch, $5.2-lnch, 2.00 
Geraniums, Standard var., 4-inch, in bloom, 
$8; 3-inch. $5.2-inch, 2..50 
Geranium Mrae. Salleroi,3-inch,$5 2-inch, 2.M 
Fuchsia in best var.,3-ineh. $5.2-inch, 2.50 
Heliotrope, best dark,3-inch, $.5.2-inch, 2.50 
Ivy, German and Kenilworth, 2-inch. 2.00 
Ice Plant, 8-lnch, $5.2-inch, 2..50 
Lantana, 21j^-inch,$5.2-inch. 3.00 
Lemon Verbena, 2'4-inch, $4.2-inch, 3.00 
Petunia, Double-Fringed,3-lnch,$5.2-inch, 2..50 
Saxifrage, 2-lnch. 3.00 
Stevia var., 2-inch. 2.00 
Tradescantia(Wandering Jew var.).3-in.,$5; 2-in. 2.00 
Verbena, in best var..2-inch. 2.00 
Vinca var. Large,$12 to $20 per 100; 3-in.. $6; 2-in. 2.00 
Pansies. Florists’ International, in bud and 
bloom. Per 1.000. 1.5.00 
Aster in var. Transplanted. Per 100. 1.00 
GypsophilaPanicuIata. PerlOO. 1.25 
Sweet William. Fall transplanted.2-inch, 1.25 
Oentaurea (Dusty Miller). Per 100,2-inch. 2.i0 
Ooboea Scandens,3-inch.$0.2-inch, 3.00 
Lobelia Compacta and Hpeciosa,2-inch. 2.00 
Pyrethrum Aureum, 2-inch. 2.00 
Mignonette.2-inch. 2.00 
And many other varieties and sizes in stock. 
VEGETABLE TLANT.S. 
Celery. Transplanted. Per 100.$0.30 
Pepper. Transplanted. PerlOO.35 
Rhubarb Clumijs. Per 100. 5.00 
Tomato, 15c., 60c. and $1 per 100. 
Wholesale Price-list on application. 
8.500 Anthony Avenue, nearSo. 
r. lTlUoU/x„»\j Chicago Avenue, Chicago, 111. 
niUCV MADAME I’EKKET, Sendforcir- 
rflll V I cular. Beaulieu, Woodhaven, N. Y. 
bank, originator of new fruits, and his grand new 
plum, “Ma.viiarU.” Send 10c stamps, Oregon 
Nursery C’o., 6 12th Street, SALEM, OREGON. 
nEES SUCCEED WHERE 
Largeet Nursery. OTHERS FAIL 
STAIM?.„. 
fill * Fruit Bo<nc Free. Result of 78 years* experience 
%1p^STKRK BROS, Lodslana. Mo.; Dansville, N. Y.; Etc 
BUDDED FRUITS. 
Peach, Apple and Pear Buds. 
Largestand best assortment in the United States. 
Write us to-day for the list of varieties & prices. 
Harrison's Nurseries, Box 29. Iterliii, Md, 
Trees, Plants and Vines 
Ornamentals, Shade Trees, Shrubs, 
Flowers—everything to make the home 
grounds beautiful. Fruit Trees, too, 
Send for Catalogue. 
STEPHEN HOYT’S SONS, 
New Canaan, Conn. 
Free for a Club of Four. 
Here are 44 first-class tools for repair¬ 
ing shoes, rubber, harness and tinware. 
We are going to give no arguments why 
you should have them. 1 he i-easons and 
uses are apparent to every one. There 
is nothing like mending a hole, putting 
in a stitch, or driving a nail in time. It 
SOLDER 
SOLDER IRON 
W8ENCU.. 
iHEELPLATESj 
BRISTLES 
HEELPLATES' 
tmcLts 
CEMOI1 
For Sale 
$1.50 ucr bu. J. 
-Home-grown Crimson Clover 
Seed, $3.50 i)er bu.; Cow Peas, 
E. HOimAND, Milford, Del. 
Cow Peas --r! 
Hammond'S Extra Early .Whippoorwill, Clay .Wonderful, 
Black’s, $1.50 per bu., mixed $1.20. Medium Green 
Soja Beans, $2 per bu. Dwarf Essex Rape, 4c. a lb. 
HARRY N. HAMMOND SEED CO. Ltd. 
Box 42. Bay City, Michigan, 
always saves time and money. It often 
saves lives. The price is $2 alone, hut 
we will .send it and a year's suh.scription 
to The Rural New-Yorker new or re¬ 
newal, both for S3.35. The receiver pays 
freight charges, or we will send it to you 
free for a club of four yearly subscript- 
tioiis at $1 each. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
