1900 
529 
Bad Results from Lime. 
B. M. V., Grand Rapids, Wis.—Last Spring, 
and about May 1, we placed upon a strip 
across our vegetable garden, a quantity 
of air-slaked stone lime. This we disked 
in, until it was thoroughly incorporated 
with the soil. The garden soil is a light 
rich sandy loam about six feet above water. 
A barrel of the air-slaked lime was evenly 
distributed over an acre of about 1,000 
square feet. Across this are sown rows of 
turnips, carrots, garden beets (globe va¬ 
riety), onions, lettuce, salsify, spinach, 
parsnips and radishes. Otherwise than 
adding lime the soil adjoining the limed 
plot was the same, and had been treated 
the same. All had been given a heavy 
coating of fine stable manure plowed in 10 
inches deep in the Fall—disked, dragged 
and planked in the Spring, and the parts 
of rows of vegetables on and off the limed 
plot were sown at the same time. 
Through May and June the weather was 
very dry. During hot days after the mid¬ 
dle of June the beets, lettuce and spinach 
on the limed plot wilted badly, and at the 
present time the spinach on the limed plot 
is nearly dead, but on the adjoining plot 
is strong and healthy. All of the other 
vegetables on the limed tract except the 
parsnips and onions are decidedly inferior 
in size and healthiness to the same vege¬ 
tables on the unlimed land. In what way 
would the air-slaked lime render these 
vegetables, or this soil that they grew in, 
less drought-resisting? Does it usually act 
that way on sandy soil? Was too much 
lime put on the soil? Should it have been 
put deeper than the disk put it (about four 
inches)? Would it have been preferable 
to spread the lime on the soil in the Fa 
ANSWERED BY PROF. H. J. WHEELER. 
We have on two occasions had similar 
experiences in the use of lime upon 
light sandy soils. In one case beets were 
decidedly injured. In this instance, ow¬ 
ing to the fact that the land was leased, 
it was impossible to continue the ex¬ 
periment another year for the purpose 
of testing the matter further. In the 
second instance, the land was replowed 
the next season, harrowed and planted 
as usual, and most excellent results were 
obtained. These are given in detail on 
pages 165-169 of Bulletin 68 of this Sta¬ 
tion. i-dme has been applied to otner 
equally light and sandy soils upon other 
occasions with uniformly beneficial ef¬ 
fects, but in such instances the season 
was either very rainy, or else the land 
was situated iso that it remained moist 
during the entire period of the experi¬ 
ment. I think that the drought is the 
chief cause of the injury. Unquestion¬ 
ably it would have been better to have 
applied the lime the Autumn before. 
This is always a good rule in the case 
of sandy soils. In any case, when the 
application is made in the Spring it is 
well, if possible, to compost the lime 
with muck or some kind of organic ma¬ 
nure for some months before it is ap¬ 
plied. If the lime is applied in the Fall, 
it should by all means be harrowed in 
immediately after its application. Per¬ 
haps your correspondent’s soil is not 
acid, and does not stand in need of lime. 
If such was the case, however, I should 
expect that upon replowing to a good 
depth, good results would be obtained 
another season. 
The Production of Opium. 
G. II. P., Placer, Ore .—Do Opium poppies 
thrive in this region? What amount of 
poppies does it take to produce a certain 
amount of opium? What is the process of 
harvesting opium? What variety of poppies 
is used? We have poppies now five feet 
high, and are anxious to know whether 
they can be used for opium. 
Ans. —The Opium poppy, Papaver som- 
niferum, grows freely through the tem¬ 
perate zone, thriving best on rich, light 
soils. The best variety for the purpose 
is known as Smyrna, and is a strong¬ 
growing form of the original species, 
with large single flowers. Under the 
best conditions a yield of 50 to 75 pounds 
of opium can be secured to the acre. 
The soil should be well fertilized and 
put in good condition by deep plowing 
and thorough harrowing. About nine 
pounds of seeds, well mixed with sand, 
are sown broadcast to the acre. Pop¬ 
pies reach early maturity, and in the 
most favorable places three crops can 
be grown in a season. Opium is merely 
the hardened sap that exudes from the 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
capsules, or seed vessels, when cut. Its 
collection Is commenced a few days after 
the petals of the flower have fallen. 
Special tools are used to make incisions 
in the capsules as they successively de¬ 
velop, and to scrape off the opium after 
it thickens. It is allowed to dry in a 
place away from sunlight. Five or six 
successive incisions are usually made in 
a capsule before it is too old. The op¬ 
erations of cutting and collecting the 
sap are best performed in the afternoon. 
Cow Peas in New England. 
G. E. B., Paugus, Mass.— Could you give 
us more information in regard to the cow 
pea here in New England? Does it take 
different tools to handle it? 
Ans. —It is too late now to sow cow 
peas in New England. June 1 is about 
the right time. No special tools are re¬ 
quired for seeding. Plow the ground, 
sow the peas either broadcast or in 
drills, and harrow them in. For seed 
drilling is best. We doubt whether the 
seed will pay in New England. It costs 
too much to pick. There is a huller 
made in the South which separates the 
peas. The great value of the crop at the 
North is for manurial purposes. 
Draining with Dynam.te. 
E. N. G., Blair’s Corners, Pa .—I have about 
two acres of ground in oats which I wish 
to put in wheat, but the ground is wet; 
water lies a week or two part of the time. 
I cannot drain it without digging ditch a 
long way, and have not time to do so 
now. I have read of dynamiting. Will it 
drain it so I can raise wheat and clover? 
The ground is nice and dry now, and oats 
look passably good. How is dynamite 
used? How deep is it put in the ground, 
how much at a shot, and how far apart is 
it put? 
Ans. —There is no doubt about this 
correspondent being able to loosen the 
subsoil by me use of dynamite so as to 
be helpful in the way of drainage, for 
a short time at least. The only question 
is, will it pay? I don’t think it will. A 
case of this kind was brought to my at¬ 
tention a few years ago, the person 
made holes with a pointed bar about 
two feet deep, about 10 feet apart, and 
exploded a half stiek of 60 per cent dy¬ 
namite in the bottom of each, he claim¬ 
ed with good results for a year or two, 
but in a comparatively short time the 
clay returned to its normal condition. I 
am not familiar with the geology of E. 
N. G.’s section, but if he is north of the 
terminal moraine, he may find a stratum 
of glacial drift into which he could lead 
his drains, that possibly might serve aj 
an outlet. m. oakkahan. 
SHORT STORIES. 
The California Mule. —The Cali¬ 
fornia Fruit Grower says: 
Some mules hitched to a harvester in a 
Yolo County field one day recently became 
frightened and attempted to run away. 
The driver applied the brake; the friction 
produced sparks; the sparks starting a fire 
destroyed the harvester and 160 acres of 
standing grain, injured two or three of the 
mules and scared the driver almost out of 
his senses. 
The California climate plays Hob with 
the flavor of our good Old varieties of 
fruit, and it also seems to change the 
flavor of a mule. 
Fruit Syrups. —The following recipe 
is given by one who has the goods for 
sale: 
To make an artificial extract of orange 
for use at the soda water fountain, to each 
100 measures of rectified spirit add two 
measures of chloroform, two of aldehyde, 
one of methyl salicylate, one of ethyl for¬ 
mate, five of ethyl acetate, one of ethyl 
butyrate, two of ethyl benzoate, one of 
amyl acetate, one of tartaric acid, 10 of 
glycerine and 10 of orange essential oil. 
Pineapple, pear, strawberry, lemon, 
and all the rest are to be made in about 
the same way, and this is the stuff sold 
at the soda-water fountains for “pure 
fruit syrups.” Every glassful of such 
stuff injures the sale of pure fruit, and 
is, also, a menace to health. The way 
to stop it is to insist that the pure fruit 
be served. Let each one refuse to drink 
such concoctions, and they will lose 
their popularity. 
High Pressure.— A reader in the 
northern peninsula of Michigan sends us 
the following item from a local paper: 
A farmer in Kalamazoo County fell from 
a heavy roller that he was steering over 
a lumpy field one day last week and got 
an awful squeezing when it passed over 
him. When he got on his feet after the 
experience he spat out a copper cent that 
he had swallowed when a child some 50 
years ago. The incident serves to show 
how difficult it is to squeeze a cent out of 
the average lower peninsula Granger, and 
why it is that this class of Michigan’s 
citizens want the mines up here to pay the 
bulk of State taxes. 
Health and Farming. — I am having 
great sport with my five acres of old 
New England hillside, and what is more, 
I am paying for my sport. I was 
brought up on a farm in Central New 
York, and have long hoped to get hold 
of some soil to enjoy outdoor life again, 
but it is only within the past three 
years that it has been possible. Some 
time I am going to write to The R. N.-Y. 
a short account of my experiment; pos¬ 
sibly it may meet the eye of some other 
man who 'longs to do the same thing, but 
does not quite see his way clear to the 
object desired. I want to say something 
to fathers and mothers, with children 
shut up in city yards, of what three 
months of out-of-doors yearly is doing 
for my babies, and prove that the three 
months is costing us less than three or 
four weeks of boarding used to cost. 
err. 
Greatness of Agriculture. —It is not 
often we find so much solid sense in a 
metropolitan newspaper as is contained 
in the clipping taken from the edi¬ 
torial page of a well-known contempor¬ 
ary. The concentration of energy and 
congestion of values in a large city ac¬ 
customs one to the idea that rural in¬ 
dustries are very trivial affairs, and it 
is only when the city dweller pulls up 
and examines reliable statistics that he 
really grasps the idea that the quiet in¬ 
dustry of tne country toilers is the true 
source of National wealth. 
It never would occur to the average man 
who buys a peck of peas now and then, or 
raises a few rows of them in his country 
garden, that the pea crop was one in which 
millions of dollars are invested. Yet the 
scientists who have been studying the new 
pea pest report that last year, when it first 
appeared, it caused a loss in Maryland 
alone of $3,000,000, that this year Mary¬ 
land’s loss will be fully $4,000,000, and that 
the destruction in the Atlantic Coast States 
will amount to about $11,000,000. Yet the 
crop will be by no means destroyed. When 
the meaning of such figures is grasped it 
aids one to realize the greatness of this 
country and its vast sources of wealth, the 
importance of which few understand. We 
talk about our iron trade and our cotton 
crop as if they were something extraordi¬ 
nary, but alongside them are smaller, seem¬ 
ingly petty, industries which we never 
think of till something out of the common 
brings them to attention. 
In speaking of honey, Mahomet says, in 
the Koran, “This sweet, wholesome sub¬ 
stance, which sustains and strengthens the 
body, which cures all maladies, is a thou¬ 
sand times preferable to the poisons ad¬ 
ministered by the doctors to the human 
race. ’ G lean i n gs. 
The Kansas City Times says that one of 
the employees at Cudahy’s packing-house 
has invented a device for extracting the 
feathers from chickens that is a consider¬ 
able improvement over the old way of 
picking them by hand. There is a recep¬ 
tacle in which the fowl is placed after be¬ 
ing killed and into this are turned several 
cross currents of air from electrical fans 
revolving at the rate of 5,000 revolutions per 
minute. In the twinkling of an eye the 
bird is stripped of its feathers, even to the 
tiniest particles of down, and the machine 
is ready for another. 
For the land’s sake, use Bowker’s Fer¬ 
tilizers. They enrich the earth. — Adv. 
The University of Notre Dame, 
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA. 
Classics, Let t ers, Economic s and History, 
Journalism, Art, Science, Pharmacy, Law, 
Civil Mechanical and Electrical Engineer¬ 
ing, Architecture. 
Thorough Preparatory and Commercial 
Courses. Ecclesiastical students at special rates. 
Rooms Free. .Junior Or Senior Year, Collegiate 
Courses. Rooms to Rent, moderate charge. 
St. Edward's Hall, for boys under 13. 
The 57 th Year will open September 4tli, 1900. 
Catalogues Free. Address 
Rev. A. MORRISSEY. C. S. C., President. 
ROUND SILOS 
LABOR 1-2 SAVED. 
Also best Horse-power, Thresher, Clover- 
huller. Dog-power, Rye Tliresher and 
Binder, Fnnning-miU, Feed-mill, Saw- 
machine (circular and drag), Land-roller, 
Steam engine. Ensilage and fodder-cutter, 
Shredder, Root-cutter and Corn-sheller. 
CEO. D. HARDER, Manufacturer, 
Cobieskill, N. T. 
tW Please tell what you wish to pur¬ 
chase. 
COLES’ OAlK 
Picking Baskets 
For Peaches, Pears, Etc. 
X 
> 
o 
r 
Smooth inside,extra heavy iron bound, half hushe 
capacity. Used exclusively In Hale's Orchards 
Write for quotations and catalogue. 
COLES & COMPANY. 
109 and 111 Warren Street, New York. 
CD HIT evaporator, “the granger. 
inUI I For family use. $3, $5 and $8. Cir. Free 
EASTERN MFG. to., 257 So. 5th St., PH1LA., FA. 
E vaporating fruit 
Complete rigs for gilt-edge work and big profits. 
AMERICAN MANUFACTURING CO., 
Box 407. Waynesboro, Fa. 
FRUIT 
EVAPORATOR 
SCRAPS. 
Texas Stockman recommends calamity 
howlers who are anxious to dodge work to 
keep out of Texas. 
“Many a man takes $50 worth of hay 
from his orchard at the expense of $100 
worth of fruit.”— Farmers’ Review. 
To a correspondent who asked for the 
best rule for feeding laying hens an ex¬ 
change gives the following explicit direc¬ 
tions: “Give them a little of everything, 
and don’t overfeed.” 
National Provisioner states that for 
one week recently the meat seizures by the 
New York Board of Health were 5,310 
pounds of beef: 4,750 pork; 200 mutton; 
6,850 veal; 9,600 poultry. 
National Provisioner says that more 
than 1,000,000 cattle and 5,000,000 sheep were 
drowned in Argentina during the recent 
floods there. The deluge extended over a 
large section, and full reports of the dam¬ 
age done are not yet in. 
THE ZIMMERMAN 
The .Standard Machine 
Different sizes and prices, lllnstr&ted Catalogue free. 
THE BLYMYEU IRON WORKS CO., Cincinnati, O. 
THE BEST SCOOP FORK 4 
for handling potatoes, beets and all 
vegetables with the greatest ease, 
and without bruising or cut-^r 
t ing. is the famous ” 
DIAMOND 
SCOOP FORK. 
Oval tines with llat a 
points made of one 
4 
piece of solid steel. 
Catalogue free. 
Ashtabula Tool Co., A 
Ashtabula, 0^^^ 
A POTATO BUG 
Is most useful when he is dead. Kill him 
with “BOXAL,” and prevent blight by 
the same operation. $1 buys 10 pounds. 
BOWKER CHEMICtL CO , Boston. 
66 
FUMA 
■ 1 kills Prairie Dogs, 
' ' Woodchucks, Gophers 
and Grain Insects.“The 
wheels of the Gods 
grind slow but exceed¬ 
ing small.” 8o the weevil, but you can stop their 
SSS? “ Fuma Carbon Bisulphide ”"?«SSing 
EDWARD R. TAYLOR, Penn Yan, N. Y. 
WE SAYE YOU MONEY ON FERTILIZERS. 
Buy your fertilizers Hired at Wholesale Pricet , and get your money’s worth. 
SPECIAL OFFER TO CLUB PROMOTERS. 
(VK1TE FOR PRICES, SAMPLES AND PAMPHLET. 
WALKER, STRATMAN & COMPANY, Pittsburgh, F*a. 
