1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER: 
56i 
Free Rural Mail. 
What is the best mail box for free rural 
mail delivery? What do farmers think of 
this mail service where it has been adopt¬ 
ed? 
Rural free delivery has been in suc¬ 
cessful operation here since early last 
Winter. It met with a great amount of 
opposition at first, on account of the 
wholesale abolition of long-established 
post offices, which made it very incon¬ 
venient for many patrons until the new 
system was better perfected. It has 
now increased in popularity wonder¬ 
fully, and is giving general satisfaction. 
My home is not on an established route, 
and being quite near to the post office I 
do not need its service. All manner of 
boxes are used, from the plainest and 
simplest wooden affair to the well-made 
metal receptacle manufactured by the 
Government and sold to the user, I think 
at cost. It is entirely optional with the 
individual what kind of a box he uses, 
but if it is not secure he assumes the 
risk himself, as the responsibility of the 
carrier ceases when mail is delivered in 
the box erected to receive it. J. s. 
Lin wood, Md. 
Free rural delivery has been estab¬ 
lished in our county for several months, 
and seems to give universal satisfaction. 
In driving over the county yon can see 
almost any kind of a box, from a cigar 
box to the most substantial, some with 
leather hinges and a great lock attached 
to the lid. The kind of box 1 use is 
wood, lz inches long, 6x6 wide and deep. 
My house is situated about 300 yards 
from rural route, with a slight descent 
from road. A smooth fence wire is 
drawn from road to house, a pulley with 
a deep groove made to fit the wire nicely, 
and my box attached to it. When my 
mail is deposited in the box the car¬ 
rier drops a hook and it will come right 
to my door. In the evening my hired 
man takes the box back on his road 
home. H * B - F< 
Union Bridge, Md. 
That “ Wade System" of Farming. 
J. O. B„ Raleigh, N. C.—The criticisms that 
appear in a recent issue of your paper, in 
regard to the Wade system of farming, 
page 537, clearly show that the critics do 
not fully grasp the idea. They appear to 
think that the successful working of the 
system depends on giving the colored 
laborer only one-third of his crop. The 
system can be worked by giving him one- 
half of the crop, if necessary, and the 
child (boy or girl) the other one-half. The 
question is this: If a farmer has a large 
body of cleared land, is it more profitable 
to pay wages for labor, or to give the full 
crop to the laborer and his daughter and 
have the daughter work in the factory? 
The latter plan is preferable, 1 think, as 
the farmer's success will depend wholly 
on his factory, and all losses from the 
failure of crops will fall on the laboring 
man. Mr. Lee admits that the laborer will 
work for one-half of the crop. If that is so, 
won’t the daughter work in the factory 
for the other one-half? As said above, the 
only question is, to pay wages or pay in 
crop, which is better? 
Several years ago Col. Lamar Fon¬ 
taine, of Lyon, Miss., started a story 
that a large Mississippi cotton planter 
had imported a dozen or so monkeys as 
“cotton pickers” to take the place of the 
negroes, and the experiment proved so 
successful that the planter imported 500 
monkeys, and that, in a few months, 
negro labor was useless, the monkeys 
taking their place. This story got into 
the eastern press, and was copied in 
some of the papers in the great cotton 
market of Liverpool and threatened to 
depress prices of cotton in the South, 
and some were said to he alarmed at it. 
I think the “Wade system” just about as 
big a yarn. geo. w. Carlisle. 
Mississippi. 
I do not regard the matter at all feas¬ 
ible for one, if no other reason, and that 
is that our farmer here never i - eceives 
over one-third of the crop for the use of 
WE WANT YOU 
to represent The R. N.-Y. at Fairs. Liberal 
terms will be sent on request. Write early 
for appointment, and give place and date of 
Fair you want to attend. 
THE RURAL NEW YORKER, New York. 
his land, and often receives only one- Apple rust should be combated, first by 
fourth. Another reason is that it would removing all sources of infection—that 
be a complication to which the negro 
does not take to very well. He wants 
a very simple and plain contract, and 
honest and fair treatment, which, if 
given, he works well and is satisfied, 
even if he only makes a scant living. 
If the canning business is not profitable 
without complications of that kind, it 
wouid better be postponed. 
Texas. jefferson Johnson. 
About the “Potash Salts." 
V. M. II., Seneca Falls, N. Y .—What is the 
difference between muriate of potash and 
sulphate of potash? Would 500 pounds be 
too much to mix with one ton of land 
plaster, and would that be a good mixture 
for wheat, sowing about 150 pounds per 
acre? 
Ans. —The difference is a chemical 
one. The muriate or chloride is a com¬ 
bination of potash with chlorine, while 
the sulphate is potash and sulphur. To 
make a fair comparison take land plas¬ 
ter and chloride of lime. The plaster is 
a sulphate; that is, the “lime” or cal¬ 
cium is combined with sulphur, while in 
the chloride it combines with chlorine. 
Take another illustration with soda. 
Common salt is a chloride, baking soda 
is a carbonate—that is combined with 
carbonic acid, while the sulphate is the 
well-known Glauber’s salts so often used 
as a medicine. The muriate of potash is 
a coarse, damp salt which is inclined to 
“cake” when left in the damp. The sul¬ 
phate is drier and finer, and not so likely 
to “cake” and much easier to mix with 
other chemicals. You can mix 500 
pounds of muriate with a ton of plaster, 
but this will not make a good fertilizer 
for wheat. The crop will need both ni¬ 
trogen and phosphoric acid. A heavy 
clover sod may provide the nitrogen, but 
the phosphoric acid is needed on most 
wheat lands, both for the grain and the 
clover. We should add 600 to 800 
pounds of acid rock to the muriate and 
plaster, and use at least 200 pounds per 
acre. 
Rust on Crab Apple. 
It. M. M., New York City —What causes 
about one-third of the leaves on my double¬ 
flowering crab apple tree to turn brown. 
What should I do to cure them? 
Ans. —The leaves were marked by 
many bright orange-yellow spots in 
which were many groups of minute 
cups with a fringed border. When ex¬ 
amined under a microscope each little 
cup was found to be full of a fine, brown 
powder; each minute particle of this 
powder is one of the spores or seed of a 
curious fungous disease known as the 
Apple rust. Sometimes the fruit and 
branches are also attacked by this 
fungus; infested fruits become mis¬ 
shapen, and are rendered worthless. 
The disease works on the apple tree 
during May, June and July. Curiously 
enough, however, the seeds or spores 
formed in the little fringed cups will 
not grow on any part of the apple tree, 
but will germinate only on the branches 
of the cedar or juniper. Thus, in midsum¬ 
mer, the spores of the Apple rust are 
borne by the winds to cedar trees, where 
they find congenial surroundings in the 
tissues of the branches. They cause 
the cedar branches to enlarge rapidly in 
an abnormal manner, resulting in the 
production of hard, rounded, apple-like 
bodies, commonly known as “cedar ap¬ 
ples,” varying from y 2 to 1 y 2 inch in 
diameter. These “cedar apples” attain 
their full growth in April, and then push 
forth a number of yellow, jelly-like, 
horn-shaped processes, often an inch or 
more in length, rendering the apple a 
conspicuous object. On the ends of 
these curious processes, the spores or 
seeds are developed. These spores will 
grow, however, only on the leaves, fruit, 
or branches of an apple tree, where they 
produce the Apple rust. 
It has been shown that the spores of 
“cedar apples” may be carried eight 
miles by the wind. Thus, wherever 
cedars occur, the Apple rust may be ex¬ 
pected to flourish. It thus follows that 
is all cedars or junipers should be de¬ 
stroyed so that the “cedar apple” stage 
of the fungus cannot develop. If this 
is impracticable, one can check the dis¬ 
ease largely by spraying the affected ap¬ 
ple trees with Bordeaux Mixture. Be¬ 
gin spraying early in May and make two 
or three applications at intervals of a 
week or 10 days, thoroughly covering 
the foliage and bark each time. This 
rust rarely seriously damages apple 
trees. T-e Quince rust, however, which 
is a similar fungus, often ruins a crop. 
It has been demonstrated that quince 
orchards sprayed several times with 
the Bordeaux Mixture have much less 
of the disease than unsprayed ones. 
SI. V. SLINGERLAND. 
Hot Water for a Greenhouse. 
II. A. McQ., Fair llaven, Ohio.—I wish to 
change my greenhouse from being heated 
by a llue to hot water. Will a coil of two- 
inch pipe, five pieces in coil six feet long, 
on top of the fire in the furnace, be suf¬ 
ficient? Will a two-inch pipe three feet 
standing up, be high enough to give the 
right flow? My house is 12x32 feet. I am 
thinking of using l*4-incli pipe, two strands, 
for the flow; how high should the barrel 
be that supplies the coil with water? I 
use wood for fuel. 
Ans.—A coil boiler containing 30 feet 
of two-inen pipe ought to be ample to 
heat a greenhouse 32x12 feet provided a 
sufficient quantity of piping is put into 
the house. The coil should be set over 
the furnace with a slight rise to the 
front of the fire box and the flow pipe 
taken from the highest point on the 
coil, the return pipe entering the coil 
from the back or lower end. If it is in¬ 
tended to rise at once from the boiler 
with a vertical flow, and then to give 
the piping a regular fall all the way 
around the house and hack to the boiler, 
a rise of three feet will be enough to en¬ 
sure rapid circulation, the piping being 
given a fall of three to four inches in 
a length of 32 feet. It is not good prac¬ 
tice to use so small a pipe as l^-inch 
for hot water heating, lV^-inch pipe be¬ 
ing the smallest that should be used for 
this purpose, and two-inch pipe is still 
better. For a house 32x12 feet three 
runs of pipe on each side should be 
used if 1 ^-inch pipe is decided upon, 
but two runs of two-inch pipe on each 
side would be sufficient to maintain a 
temperature of 55 to 60 degrees in cold 
weather if the house is a well-built 
structure. The water supply or expan¬ 
sion tank should be attached to the 
piping at the highest point, and only 
need be raised two or three feet above 
the piping, if not convenient to give it 
a greater elevation, but if the boiler is 
placed beneath the floor of a shed or 
work room, and it is possible to raise 
the expansion tank to a height of xO 
feet, a more rapid circulation will be 
had, and the danger of boiling over will 
also be obviated. w. 11 . taplin. 
Wheat was not more than one-fourth 
crop on hill land here; it was better on the 
river bottom and good lowland; the oats 
are the best I have ever seen here. Pota¬ 
toes are good, corn looks well where it 
wasn’t drowned, meadows very light. 
Daviess Co., Ind. J. a. 
Itheidrilled well! 
Is beyond a doubt 
THE PURE WELL. 
A never-failing stratum can be 
quickly and easily found with the 
f^ST AR 
I DRILLING 
MACHINE 
and much worthless, 
barren, arid ground 
can be made valuable 
thereby. Write for our illustrated catalogue. 
Star Drilling Machine Co., Akron, Ohio. 
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA. 
Classics, Letters, Economics 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 Hail, for boys under 13. 
The 57 th Year will open September 4th, 1900. 
Catalogues Free. Address 
Rev. A. MORRISSEY, C. S. C., President. 
a largo feed opening. Thisniakeathem correspondingly 
They are made in 38 styles and sir.t'S for either horse 
or steam power. They are thus best suited to the wanta of the 
individual farmer or the man who makes baling a business. 
Made entirely of stool, they combine in a high degree, lightness, 
strength, durability and general efficiency. Buies aro compact 
and even sized—pack to good advantage in cars, saving freight. 
We until Inrire IUiihI ruled catalogue free. 
Presses 
COLLINS PLOW CO. 1111 Hampshire St., Quincy, Ills. 
THE MIETZ & WEISS 
Kerosene 
KNGINE8 
Cheapest and Safest 
Power known. For 
Pumping water, grinding 
corn, separating cream, 
sawing wood ,and all poiver 
purposes. Send for Catalog 
A. MIETZ, 
128 Mott Street. New York 
CHARTER GASOLINE ENGINE 
Any Place 
By Any One 
For Any Purposi 
StaHonaries, Portable • 
Mhtyiite* and Pumps, 
State your Power Needs. 
Charter Gas Engine Co., Box 26, Sterling, III 
MIGHTY HANDY 
for general farm work, handling pota¬ 
toes, beets, coal, lime, manure, 19 the 
DlUftlOND 
SCOOP FORK. 
Does not bruise vegetables. Screens 
out dirt. Last indefinitely. 10 or 13 
tines with Hat points, made of one 
piece of steel. Ask dealers for the 
Diamond. Send for catalogue 
farm tools. It is free. 
ASHTABULA TOOL CO., 
Ashtabula, Ohio. 
nu /~a / 
S0 ( 
CDIIIT evaporator, “the granger. 
rnUI I For family use. $3, $5 and $8. Cir. Free 
EASTERN MFG. CO., 25T So. 5th St., I’HILA., FA. 
E vaporating fruit 
Complete rigs for gilt-edge work and big profits. 
AMERICAN MANUFACTURING CO., 
Box 4U7, Waynesboro, Pa. 
FRUIT evaporator 
]U I R THE ZIMMERMAN 
The .Standard Machine 
Different sizes and prices. Illustrated Catalogue free. 
T1IE BLYMYER IRON WORKS GO., Cincinnati, O. 
..„ PRESS CO.. 
Water Street, 
SYRACUSE, N. v. 
NATIONAL 
Cider and Wine Mills. 
Best qualities of both Crush¬ 
ing and Grating Mills. 
Small sizes for Family use. 
Large sizes for Farmers’ use. 
Wine and Lard Presses. 
Barrel Headers. 
AMES PLOW CO. 
Boston and New York, 
Send for Circulars, Catalogue. 
Cider Mills. 
8'Gallons to 8 Barrels 
Send for Circular to 
Cutaway Harrow Co., 
HIGQANUM, CONN . 
kk 
FUMA 
M M kills Prairie Dogs, 
' * Woodchucks, Gophers 
and Grain Insects.“The 
wheels of the Gods 
grind slow but exceed¬ 
ing small.’' So the weevil, but you can stop their 
£ith “ Fuma Carbon Bisulphide « e 5Suig 
EDWARD R. TAYLOR, Penn Yan, N. Y. 
WE SAVE YOU MONEY ON FERTILIZERS. 
Buy your fertilizers ZHrect at Wholesale Pricei, and get your money’s worth. 
SPECIAL OFFER TO CLUB PROMOTERS. 
(VRITE FOR PRICES, SAMPLES AND PAMPHLET. 
WALKER, STRATMAN 8c COMPANY, F*itt»bxirgh, F»a. 
