43o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
•Iune 23 
HOW TO GROW TULIP BULBS. 
One of our readers asked Mr. Crawford, of Cuyahoga 
Falls, Ohio, to tell how he grows tulip bulbs. Mr. Craw¬ 
ford has prepared the following statement: 
Tulip bulbs are dormiant from June till Septem¬ 
ber in this climate. During this time, if out of the 
ground, they should be kept dry and as cool as may 
be. If left in the sun a single day they are damaged, 
and in a few days they are ruined. They are some¬ 
times spoiled in the ground, while dormant, if very 
near the surface, and the soil is not shaded by any 
growth. When grown as a crop, they are always 
taken up as soon as the leaves turn yellow, and are 
carried to the cellar and put in flats three by four 
feet, and four inches in depth. The bottoms are of 
lath alhout an eighth of an inch apart. They are sup¬ 
ported by three cross pieces of one by two inches, 
which make the flats an inch apart when piled up. 
These hold two bushels, and may be piled up almost 
to the joists. The same flats hold our G-ladiolus 
bulbs during the Winter. In this way we store several 
hundred bushels in a very small amount of cellar 
room. During rainy days in the Summer the tulip 
bulbs are cleaned and assorted, and then returned to 
the flats. After they are seasoned and cleaned they 
can be kept in barrels or boxes, if mixed with plenty 
of chaff, buckwheat hulls or even dry sawdust. Daffo¬ 
dil bulbs are cured in the same way. 
About the end of September the lower part of the 
bulbs, where the roots first appear, commences to en¬ 
large, and this is an indication that they are ready 
to make root growth, and may be planted. If kept 
dry, however, they may be held until December in 
good condition. By common consent, October is the 
month for planting hardy bulbs, and if delayed much 
later their time for making root growth is diminished 
accordingly. If planted 'before October, they get so 
well rooted that a warm spell late in the Fall may 
cause them to send up their buds too near the sur¬ 
face, which is not desirable. In that case a few 
warm days in the Winter will bring them up, to be 
frozen later on. To prevent this we cover the beds 
with manure or any coarse litter as soon as they are 
frozen. If put on too early it invites mice, which are 
very fond of tulip bulbs. I have grown the bulbs for 
more than a third of a century, and have not yet 
found any soil that was too heavy or too light. Last 
Winter I had beds on ground so low that water cov¬ 
ered them for days at a time, but none were hurt. 
I have noticed that on dry sandy or gravelly soil the 
bu'lbs are smaller. Tulip bulbs send out a great num¬ 
ber of roots that are not well able to penetrate hard 
soil. For this reason I make it very fine, and avoid 
pressing them into it, especially if it be rather damp. 
In planting tulips in a bed for display, they are 
usually put about four inches apart, but When bulbs 
are the abject, they are planted in rows as we do 
onions, for the convenience of cultivating and weed¬ 
ing. Bulbs are usually covered about three diameters. 
The tu'l'ip, however, is so perfectly hardy, that if cov¬ 
ered only an inch, it will come out all right in the 
Spring. 1 cannot recall a season when the tulip 
failed to bloom. With me the flowers have no com¬ 
mercial value, and as I need no great amount of seed, 
I allow all my friends to carry them off by the hun¬ 
dred. By this means the bulbs grow larger than they 
would if seed were produced. That we are going to 
raise our own tulip bulbs there is not a shadow of a 
doubt. Besides paying very well, their culture is ex¬ 
ceedingly interesting. It is just the Work for women 
to engage in. 
FINAL CHAPTER OF A FRUIT FRAUD. 
For several years past The R. N.-Y. has warned its 
readers against a firm of Ohio nurserymen who were 
operating in western New York on a peculiar plan. 
Their agents tried to sell several new varieties of 
peaches, for Which they claimed most remarkable 
properties. They were frost-proof, yellows-proof, and 
for all we know, thief-proof. Their pedigree dated 
back to the early history of this country, and if there 
is any good quality which a peach can possibly pos¬ 
sess, which these agents did not claim, for these va¬ 
rieties, it was either because they ran out of breath, 
or had not heal'd of it. The best fruit growers and 
horticulturists of the country knew nothing about 
these famous varieties. They were not catalogued by 
the American Pomological Society, and the crowning 
bluff of these agents was the claim that they pos¬ 
sessed a patent or some paper from the Department of 
Agriculture which prohibited all other agents or 
nurserymen from propagating or selling these varie¬ 
ties. In spite of repeated warnings by The R. N.-Y.. 
Mr. Van Deman, and hundreds of other reputable 
men, large quantities of these peaches were sold right 
under the noses of responsible nurserymen and hon¬ 
orable fruit growers. In some cases the trees were 
sent, and were planted, only to prove a disappoint¬ 
ment when they came in fruit. In one case, one of 
these highly-praised trees produced a miserable seed¬ 
ling peaen. On another bundle, labels marked El- 
berta were found, the inference being that the trees 
were Eiberta sent out in place of these so-called nov¬ 
elties. The thing came to a head with us this Spring, 
when one of our readers wrote us that the agents had 
prevailed upon him to buy a good-sized order of these 
trees. They talked so plausibly, and their stories 
were so eloquent, that this man bit at the bait. He 
afterwards heard the other side, and asked our ad¬ 
vice as to what he should do. We advised him to 
cancel the order at once, and to state that the best 
fruit growers and horticulturists had never heard of 
these varieties, and did not recommend him to plant 
them. He did this, promptly canceling the order, 
and refusing to accept the trees. In apite of this, his 
$90-order of trees was shipped to him, and ’ he 
was finally informed that it awaited delivery at his 
railroad station. Then he wrote us again, asking 
what he should do. Under the circumstances, The 
R. N.-Y. advised him to refuse to accept the trees, 
and promised to defend him at our own expense if 
suit were brought against him. He had canceled the 
order in a perfectly legal way, stating his reasons for 
doing so. The cost of the trees was undoubtedly ex¬ 
cessive, and under all the circumstances we felt justi¬ 
fied in telling him that he was under no obligations, 
moral or legal, to take the trees. The agent and the 
nursery company of course put up a strong bluff, and 
informed him that he would have to take the trees 
and pay for them. His answer was that he was satis¬ 
fied that the trees were not as represented. He told 
them that if they would produce such fruit as the 
agent told him they would, he would take not only 
$90, but $900 Worth. He was satisfied, however, that 
the trees would do nothing of the sort. The agent 
told him that he would have to pay the money, and 
went off in a huff, but nothing came of it. Our friend 
afterwards learned that the agent went to the depot 
and shipped the trees elsewhere, and this ended the 
last act of a would-be fraud. There can be no ques¬ 
tion about the fact that any man Who goes about 
claiming great and mysterious properties for some 
new variety of fruit, while the best fruit growers and 
nurserymen in the country know nothing about it, is 
not the man for the average fruit grower to deal with. 
He should not only give him a wide berth, but throw 
him out of the berth entirely. Our friend is so much 
pleased with the help given by The R. N.-Y., that 
he says he would like to send us a box of cigars. 
There is not anybody in the office at the present time 
who uses tobacco, so that a nice club of subscribers 
would prove a far more acceptable recognition. 
COW PEAS BEFORE STRAWBERRIES. 
Last year The R. N.-Y. commended the practice of 
sowing cow peas, preparatory to planting strawber¬ 
ries, concluding with the intimation that sowing in 
drills and cultivating would likely keep down the 
crop of grub worms. Later a correspondent com¬ 
plained of the abundance of grub worms after cow 
peas. For more than 20 years, I have each year 
sown from five to 10 acres of land, either cleared of 
strawberry plants, or the same plowed down after the 
crop was gathered, using, in part, the same land for 
the same purpose the year after. It is not my experi¬ 
ence that the cow pea induces the grub worm; in 
fact, on pea land we seldom lose a pliant. I have six 
acres of strawberries on pea sod, on Which there is 
not a single Vacancy, and the opinion is ventured 
that not 100 plants were destroyed by them. I fancy 
the trouble with your correspondent Cither is that the 
land is already infested, or that the peas are sown 
too early, making considerable covering on the 
ground when the May beetle is in flight, and by that 
reason inducing the deposition of the eggs. 
The May beetle is in flight here the early part of 
May, but we never sow cow peas until the ground is 
really warm, as rapid and uninterrupted growth in¬ 
sures the greatest final development. Our practice 
in turning down differs from that in vogue in the 
South. In September or early October with a large 
plow, a rolling cutter wheel and four heavy horses, 
we turn down the wealth of tangled vines, 12 or 14 
inches, leave the ground in the rough until next 
Spring, then harrow (town nicely and plant. I know 
that it is claimed that such practice sours the soil, 
and that Spring plowing insures better results, but 
that is not my observation. Our Autumns in Ken¬ 
tucky are generally dry, and I question the accuracy 
of the forming of acids in the slow decay of the 
vines. The plowing down of dry litter, or trash of 
any kind just in advance of planting any crop, is 
questionable practice. At all events, we have such a 
soft, fluffy seed-bed, such fine growth in seasons wet 
or dry, and such an entire immunity of weeds of all 
kind, that any change in practice is not contemplated. 
I appreciate the yeoman service The R. N.-Y. has 
done in trying to teach farmers to fertilize their 
fields with catch crops, when those of the paying 
kind—of the money j paying, right-in-hand kind—can 
not be made to occupy them. If it will turn its ener¬ 
gies With as much zeal to a covering of lands that 
are full of crops, by about July 1, with the southern 
cow bean—it is a bean, not a pea—as it did in demon¬ 
strating the value of Scarlet clover on land free of 
crops from August until May, it will have scored a 
great triumph. Scarlet clover must run the gamut of 
more chances than the cow bean, and more frequent¬ 
ly loses out, but the two will flourish admirably in 
the same latitude. The writer has not an acre of 
land, vacant at either end of the year, that is not 
covered by these two plants, so promotive of their 
betterment. H. f. h. 
Lexington, Ky._ 
“THE GRASS OF THE FIELD/’ 
In the introduction to Forage and Fodders, the ex¬ 
cellent report issued by the Kansas State Board of Agri¬ 
culture, the following worthy sentiment is expressed by 
ex-Senator J. J. Ingalls: 
“As he reflected upon the brevity of human life, 
grass has been the favorite symbol of the moralist, 
the chosen theme of the philosopher. ‘All flesh is 
grass,’ said the prophet; ‘My days are as grass,” sighed 
the troubled patriarch; and the pensive Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar, in fliis penitential mood, exceeded even these, 
and, as the sacred historian informs us, did eat grass 
like an ox. Grass is the forgiveness of nature—her 
constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, 
saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, 
grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgot¬ 
ten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown 
like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, 
harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immor¬ 
tal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of Winter, it 
Withdraws into the impregnable fortress of its sub¬ 
terranean vitality, and emerges upon the first solicita¬ 
tion of Spring. Sown by the winds, by wandering 
birds, propagated by the subtle horticulture of the 
elements which are its ministers and servants, it 
softens the rude outline of the world. Its tenacious 
fibers hold the earth in its place and prevent its solu¬ 
ble components from washing into tne wasting sea. It 
invades the solitude of deserts, climbs the inaccessi¬ 
ble slopes and forbidding pinnacles of mountains, 
modifies climates, and determines the history, char¬ 
acter and destiny of nations. Unobtrusive and pa¬ 
tient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished 
from the thoroughfare and the field, it bides its time 
to return, and when vigilance is relaxed, or the 
dynasty has perished, it silently resumes the throne 
from which it has been expelled, but which it never 
abdicates. It bears no blazonry of bloom to charm 
the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely 
hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It 
yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet should its har¬ 
vest fail for a single year, famine would depopulate 
the world.” 
HARROWING SMALL GRAINS. 
Conditions often make necessary methods in one 
section of our country that would be wholly unsuited 
for some other sections. The annual rainfall in east¬ 
ern Dakota is rather less than 20 inches, in western 
Dakota and British Columbia even less, not now 
more than 15 inches per year. Most of this comes 
during the growing period, for we have little or no 
snow; June and early July are also rainy months. 
The problem then is to conserve the moisture in the 
feeding zone of the plant. Harrowing conserves the 
soil moisture, and destroys millions of weeds, which 
drink up the moisture from the cultivated grains, if 
allowed to grow. Differences in seasons, early rain¬ 
fall, and soil moisture modify the benefits to be 
derived from harrowing grain. In 1898 a single har¬ 
rowing before the wheat was up gave an increase of 
2.20 bushels per acre over the unharrowed field, ac¬ 
cording to Prof. Shepperd. Some farmers harrow sev¬ 
eral times, even until the wheat is several inches 
high, thus destroying weeds, forming a mulch blanket 
of dust on the surface, and conserving the moisture in 
the upper six inches of soil, where the plant food is 
most available for the plant. 
Wheat roots in the Dakotas will extend down for 
four or five feet, securing water, but it is a question 
whether under these conditions the plant would find 
enough plant food in an available form, even though 
there might be an abundance near the surface, in the 
first foot, but for lack of moisture not available as 
plant food. The practical workings of agriculture 
is quite different in these plateau States from what 
it is in the eastern States, or even eastern Minne¬ 
sota. Many failures are to be attributed to trying 
to use New York or New England methods of agri¬ 
culture in a climate and on a soil wholly different, 
such as exists in the Red River Valley. 
No. Dakota Experiment Station. e. f. ladd. 
