THh RURAL NEW-YORKER 
835 
ld03 
ALL SORTS. 
MORE ABOUT THE CARP.—I am glad that Prof. 
Smith, on page 787, says a good word for the despised 
carp. Almost any old mud hole or stagnant pond 
deep enough not to freeze solid to the bottom, will 
do for it to live in, and whenever the work-driven 
agriculturist wants something fresh, instead of the 
usual pork and salt cod, he may have fresh fish, if he 
can afford to take the time to pick out the bones. 
With what consummate caution the professor refers to 
the quality of the carp, saying it is “almost entirely” 
a matter of preparation. This is true of some other 
fish, and of some vegetables. The proper preparation 
of them corrects their faults and conceals their defi¬ 
ciencies, transforming them into palatable victuals 
really good enough to eat. 1 remember the tramp 
chef who. with only a fairly good paving stone, by 
means of sundry additions which he begged, made a 
fine pot of soup. But the preparation of the carp for 
the table might, I am told, with advantage begin a 
week or more before the death of the fish—a sort of 
pre-preparation, if 1 may use the term. My great- 
great-grandfathers in Holland had carp ponds filled 
with carp, some of which were said to be .50 years of 
age or even older. Some were named and tagged and 
were very tame. Now when the ancient and numerous 
family wanted a carp to eat they caught him and p\it 
him in a bag surrounded with wet moss, and hung 
him up in cool dark place and fed him bread and milk 
every day for about 10 days or until the muddy flavor 
had all got out of him. whereupon they killed him and 
cooked him and ate him, and found him to be deli¬ 
cious. <T. V. r. 
SUCCESS WITH PLUMS.—Our crop of Burbank 
plums proved to be the most paying one this year, and 
although the returns were not 
extraordinary, some of the facts 
which led to our success may 
prove helpful to your readei's. 
The trees. 30 in number, set in 
1896, are in a row across the 
orchard, other varieties of i)lums 
Iteing on either side. Our man¬ 
agement of these trees along 
with the whole orcnard has been 
annual plowing and cultivation, 
together with systematic heading 
in and pruning. The Burbank 
plum cannot be made successful 
without the two latter. It is a 
sprawling grower, and must be 
headed in intelligently from the 
start. It must be thinned also 
(the branches I mean), or too 
great a crop will set for the tree 
to mature. We have not given 
any applications of fertilizers 
except a moderate dressing of 
wood ashes in Fall of 1902. The 
heavy freeze of May 2 this year, 
when mercury registered 22 de¬ 
grees caught them in full bloom, and we*fully expect¬ 
ed nine-tenths of them to be killed. But they pulled 
through and set a heavy crop which recpiired thin¬ 
ning. We harvested a crop of 520 eight-pound bas¬ 
kets which netted $107, after paying for freight, com¬ 
missions and baskets. It took just three layers of No. 
1 to fill a basket. The trees are 15x18 feet apart, which 
is at the rate of 160 to the acre. They averaged $3.50 
to the tree, or at rate of $560 per acre. They should, 
however, be set 18x18 feet. At this distance the rate 
would have been about $472 per acre, .\mong the 
factors for our success were, that we sought an 
outside market where everybody was not sending 
plums. Climatic conditions were favorable, plenty of 
moisture right through, but no rot. We sprayed a few 
trees with copper carbonate solution, but without re¬ 
sults, as there was no rot to speak of. Other factors 
were hand thinning of the plums in June, and care of 
trees, etc., annually. w. .\. n. 
Seneca Co.. N. Y. 
KEROSENE AND LLME FOR SPRAYING.—With 
me the use of oil and lime mixed as an insecticide is 
one of those things that confirm the old adage 
“necessity is the mother of invention.” The chicken 
houses needed spraying when everything else needed 
doing, and the Madame contended that lime should 
be used for sanitary purposes and the oil for mites. 
To make one spraying do, and thus save time, I de¬ 
termined to try mixing them and found that by tak¬ 
ing 10 pounds of good lime and standing it to slake 
with water, then adding say a gallon of oil, then more 
water to keep it slaking, then oil again, I could incor¬ 
porate five gallons of 150 test oil in the 10 pounds of 
lime, which diluted with 25 gallons of water gives a 
20-per-cent oil mixture that stayed in suspension and 
went through Vermorel nozzles without trouble. I 
have since found that poor lime will not take up the 
five gallons of oil, neither will the good lime if the 
process is not closely watched. Should there be oil, 
ho^-ever, not taken up when the lime is done slaking, 
the addition of a gallon of copper sulphate solution 
dissolved a pound to the gallon will cause a complete 
blending. I have never used this for 'scale, as I am 
so far fortunate enough not to have it. I did use this 
20-per-cent mixture on cherry trees in full foliage for 
aphids to their complete destruction without hurting 
the trees. Men I told about it claim to have used it 
effectively also for scab with the trees in full foli.^ge, 
though I have since learned that those trees had been 
previously sprayed with crude oil. The strength of 
the oil must be impaired by the intense heat from the 
lime, otherwise a cherry or peach tree in foliage 
would never stand such a dose. The usefulness of it 
will have to be demonstrated by experiments, and is 
to be taken up and fully worked out by our experi¬ 
ment station. I can only vouch at the present for its 
mixing and ease of application, and do not know 
whether it is a mere mechanical mixture or a chem¬ 
ical combination. wm. si. oick.sox. 
Delaware. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH OAT HAY.—I had an ex¬ 
perience with oats which may interest some of your 
readers. We always seed our oats with a drill, using 
a good fertilizer on them at the rate of 250 pounds per 
acre. Last Spring I bought 500 pounds muriate of 
potash to use with the fertilizer as an experiment. It 
was sifted to break lumps and about 60 pounds per 
acre mixed with the usiial dressing of fertilizer. The 
oats looked fine upon the start, and when harvested 
many said they had never seen finer oats grown. 
When thrashed there was a good yield of very fine 
grain, but not so large a yield as had been expected, 
seven acres yielding an average of only 40 bushels per 
acre, but the straw was a sight to make one glad, long. 
A NEW LATE PEACH. Fig. 311. 
leafy and soft. We began by trying to bed our horses 
with it, but by morning their stall floors were bare 
(we keep them in box stalls); they had eaten it clean. 
Then we began to feed it instead of hay, and have 
fed it to horses, with an occasional feed of hay given 
for change, until the present date. They do well on 
it so far and are not constipated, as is usually the 
case when oat straw is fed. I expect to try the ex¬ 
periment again next year, using much more seed per 
acre, as this year’s crop seemed to indicate that the 
plants might have stood much thicker and still had 
enough room and plenty of food. I might add that 
we have found, on our heavy clay soil, that the crop 
does better when the ground is well plowed, as deep 
as (he soil will-stand with the furrows laid close to¬ 
gether, and then only enough harrowing to bring it 
to an even surface, the less harrowing the better. The 
plan of seeding grass in the Fall without any nurse 
crop has been practiced here by us for many years, 
but the recent discussion of the Clark plan in The R. 
N.-Y. has led us to do some experimenting along that 
line also, with very satisfactory results. The use of 
Red-top is a very mai’ked improvement over sowing 
Timothy alone. As we seed after the land has raised 
corn, oats, etc., the Clark method is not applicable 
with us, but the ground is piowed the same as for 
wheat and harrowed much finer than is usual for that 
grain. l)ut in our constantly cropped soil the intensive 
preparation followed by Mr. Clark seems to be an in¬ 
jury rather than a benefit. This preparation followed 
by plenty of seed and plenty of fertilizer is giving very 
good results. The only change which I expect to make 
will be more fertilizer, especially nitrate of soda. 
Allegheny Co., Pa. chas, j. wolfe. 
SOIME THINGS THAT P.\TD.—The dollars have not 
been quite so plentiful this year, yet with our humble 
wants a little more than enough to go around. That 
Williams apple free helped a-little. For the past eight 
years it has paid a clear profit of more than $100 in 
cash sales; never skipped a year, and this season did 
its full share of the hundred. Then there is that 
quince at the end of the sink drain which for the last 
few years has paid a better income than any $100 I 
could put at interest. A Ijttle off on its yield this 
season, two bushels or a trifle more; one bushel was 
sold at the city store for $4, not because tney offered 
it, but because I asked it, for they were fancy. They 
have had a favorable chance to grow and thrive, and 
I too have tried to make them do their best and it has 
paid. Those are little things, not a part of our regular 
fruit growing, set for our own use and pleasure which 
do all that and so much more. Little things they may 
be, yet he who has mastered the possibilities of even 
a single tree will not be a discouraged farmer, and he 
who knows the possibilities of his own farm will be 
a prosperous farmer. In driving to the city the other 
day we passed two heavily loaded teams, one more 
heavily laden than the other, drawn by a pair of 
horses whose every look and act showed good care 
and keep, with the ability to do a full day’s work. The 
other was about the same in size, but not in weight, 
whose load was more slowl;y drawn because of over¬ 
work and poor rations. Do the best they could they 
could not accomplish ihe best that was in them. Did 
that pay? Why cannot some men understand that 
overwork or poor living count as well with men as 
horses; that the well fed man who thinks and works 
with reason has an advantage brute force or saving 
at the table cannot overcome? n. o. mead. 
Massachusetts. 
NEW LATE PEACH.—W. L. McKay, of Geneva, 
N. Y.. sent us samples of a late peach which seems to 
us quite promising; samples are shown at Fig. 311. 
We do not remember any season when so many new 
late peaches were mentioned as 
has been the case this year. Mr. 
McKay gives the following state¬ 
ment about his peach: “Ten or 
12 years ago one of my men. 
John Hildreth, a tenant on our 
farm, obtained some peaches 
from William Sharp, of Rock- 
stream. N. Y., and put the pits 
out on the north side of his 
house. Of many seedlings which 
came up he saved this one on ac¬ 
count of its vigor and strong 
healthy looking foliage. It has 
borne almost continually for the 
past few years. The point of 
merit that can be particularly 
claimed are its juiciness, and for 
so late a variety, its high qual¬ 
ity. The specimens sent you 
were picked October 15; the last 
were picked from the tree this 
year October 23. I do not think 
it unsafe to claim that it is 
nearly if not quite as juicy as 
the Early Crawford. It is not as 
high quality as many of the varieties that mature a 
month or so earlier, but it has very high quality for 
so late a variety. The parent tree has proven to be a 
free and regular bearer, and the fruit bud hardy. Of 
two Hill’s Chili orchards on the farm, one, the higher, 
had this year a very fair crop; the lower one bore 
nothing owing to our freeze on the night of May 1. 
This tree at the same elevation as the lower orchard, 
bore more than the tree coukl carry. In the nursery 
the tree appears to be a strong grower with very dark 
green large leaves; glands reniform. From a nursery¬ 
man’s standpoint I deprecate the undue multiplication 
of varieties, and think a variety should not be intro¬ 
duced unless it is in at least one particular superior 
to any old variety of the same season. This seems to 
me, however, to have real merit over any variety that 
I know in combining great juiciness and high quality 
in an extremely late variety.” 
THE APPLE BUYER.—It seems that the apple buyer 
as well as the tree agent can make his way everywhere. 
He learns new tricks as he goes. In The Ranch, pub¬ 
lished at Seattle, Washington, P. Walden tells the fol¬ 
lowing story: 
“We have cull apples on our ranch in the Yakima Val¬ 
ley. We cannot ship them so we sell them very low to 
the Indians and others. We have a sign stuck up near 
our front gate which reads: 
APPLES, 25 CENTS PER BOX 
“Welli thereby hangs a tale. An apple buyer came by 
and saw that sign. He never came in to see these cheap 
apples, but moved on down the valley and called on an 
old gentleman who has a small orchard with about 1,000 
boxes of apples for sale. The buyer offered the old man 
a very small price for his apples but the grower declined 
and said that the price was too low. The reply was, 
‘Walden has a sign out offering his apples at 25 cents per 
box.’ He told the truth, and at the same time told the 
worst kind of a lie. The same buyer reported that there 
is an enormous crop of apples east, and that apples were 
selling at 75 cents per barrel in Michigan. Some apples 
may have been sold in Michigan at that figure, just as 
I had sold apples for 25 cents per box. Along comes the 
Chicago packer the same week that apples were reported 
as selling in Michigan for 75 cents per barrel and gives 
quite an account of how the Chicago apple buyers were 
rushing into the State of New York and buying largo 
(luanlities of apples at $2 per barrel.” 
