6o6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 8 
THE FARMER AND A LICENSE. 
Farmers on Top in Illinois. 
I notice that the license question bobs up again. 
We have had a little pull at the question lately in 
our market, in Springfield. My. boys brought out 
word one evening that the police said they had or¬ 
ders to arrest anyone who was selling from house 
to house, or even from store to store, who had not 
paid the $50 license. My boys had interviewed the 
city comptroller and he tersely told them that as 
they had no city taxes to pay they had not even the 
real right to wear out city pavements in any shape. 
He also held that if a load of country produce was 
brought in, and an offer was obtained for it and re¬ 
fused, then the act of offering the load at another 
store or place, constituted “peddling,” and a $25 
fine and costs was the penalty. So I started for the 
scene of war the next morning, and found the fruit 
growers and farmers aflame with excitement, but 
with no definite place of defense formulated. 
A first-class lawyer was consulted and a paper was 
circulated for signers to an agreement to bear an 
equal share of the costs of a test suit. Twenty 
names were quickly obtained (and, if necessary, this 
could have been increased to a thousand). Every one 
was instructed to pay—in case of arrest, the $4 jus¬ 
tice fee and appeal to the circuit court—the signers 
going on each other’s bonds. The lawyer was in¬ 
structed to hasten the case or cases to the highest 
court as soon as possible. To be sure each sale 
made a separate “offense,” and this seemed a little 
startling, but we intended to include the names of 
all the farmers of the county and many of the resi¬ 
dents of the city on our defense list if they took the 
plan of wholesale arrest. Then we went ahead as 
free American citizens, and sold as we thought 
best. 
By the way, we found that most of the towns¬ 
men preferred to buy of the farmers rather than 
of the “Dagoes” and “shysters.” Isn’t this 
strange? Finally a gardener (not on our list) 
was arrested and in place of appealing to a 
higher court his case was tried before a justice 
of the peace. Well, as there seemed to be no 
chance for any of us to obtain an arrest we in¬ 
structed our lawyer to assist at the trial. The 
result was that the city paid the costs and could 
not be induced to send the case up higher. So 
this was not a test case after all. But it is a 
shame. We recognize that a city may be so 
crowded that peddlers of no kind should obstruct 
the streets—or some of them; also that a man 
may make a nuisance of himself in many ways— 
as by blowing of horns, boisterous talk, etc., and 
should be suppressed. But where a licensed ped¬ 
dler may go, a farmer can go, and where a city 
or even State imagines itself big enough to step 
in between the American farmer and the con¬ 
sumer, such city or State is too large to be under 
the control of our little but free Republic. 
Illinois. BENJ. BUCKMAN. 
R. N.-Y.—The only way to settle this vexed 
question is to start an effective campaign, as Mr. 
Buckman describes. Without this it will crop up as a 
perennial annoyance. 
THE EVERBEARING PEACH. 
Late in July we received from P. J. Berckmans, of 
Augusta, Ga., samples of the Everbearing peach. Fig. 
211 shows a fair-sized specimen which, in flavor, cer¬ 
tainly bore out the claims made by the introducer. 
The following statement is taken from Mr. Berck- 
mans’s catalogue: 
“This is one of the most remarkable of peaches, as 
it combines many desirable qualities which make it 
of great value for family use. The first ripening be¬ 
gins about July 1, and successive crops are produced 
until the beginning of September. Fruit in all stages 
of development—ripe and half-grown—may be seen 
upon the tree at the same time. The fruit is creamy 
white, mottled and striped with light purple and with 
pink veins; oblong in shape, and tapering to the 
apex; flesh white, with red veins near the skin; very 
juicy, vinous, and of excellent flavor; quality very 
good to best. Freestone of the Indian type. The 
first ripening averages 3% inches long by three inches 
broad. The size of the fruit of the second and follow¬ 
ing crops diminishes gradually, until that of the last 
ripening is about two inches in diameter. A supply 
of fruit may, therefore, be secured from the same 
tree for nearly three months in succession. 
“We do not recommend the Everbearing peach for 
commercial orchards, but for family use or small 
gardens, where there is room for only a few trees, its 
value is unquestionable. We offer it with confidence, 
as we have known the original tree for the past five 
years, and have gathered fruit from it in its various 
stages of development. In some parts of the country 
where the commercial peach growers have had con¬ 
tinuous crop failures, the Everbearing is being con¬ 
sidered very seriously for orchard planting. Two- 
year-old trees in our test orchards produced a fair 
crop of fruit during July and August, 1898, the quality 
being pronounced as unusually good by the Assistant 
Pomologist of the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture, who saw the fruit here.” 
AN INSECT THAI SAWS WOOD. 
I send a piece of branch from an English walnut tree 
showing the damage done by some insect. What Is it, 
and how can It be prevented? t. c. f. 
Harrisburg, Pa. 
The branch had evidently been girdled by one of 
Nature’s “pruners” known as the Hickory twig- 
girdler (Oncideres cingulatus), a brownish-gray 
beetle with a broad gray band across its wing covers. 
It is a little more than one-half inch in length, and 
its antennae are longer than its body. The beetles ap¬ 
pear on the trees from August to October. The fe¬ 
males puncture the branches, usually near a forming 
Winter oud or small twig, and insert in each punc¬ 
ture a small oval whitish egg. Several eggs are often 
laid in one branch. After laying the eggs, the female 
moves toward the base of the branch, and selecting a 
place an inch or more below w r here the lowest egg 
was put, she proceeds neatly to girdle the branch 
with her horny jaws, cutting a narrow groove com¬ 
pletely around it through the bark, and often half 
way or more through the wood. Thus girdled, the 
branch soon dies, and is often broken off by the wind. 
In this manner the mother provides dead wood, the 
favorite food for her progeny, and this affords a 
striking instance of insect foresight and instinct. 
Branches over half an inch in diameter are thus 
TI1E EVERBEARING PEACH. Fig. 211 . 
girdled by the mother beetle. Both the male and fe¬ 
male beetles are said to feed upon the bark of the 
tree. The eggs in the dead branches soon hatch, and 
the little white grub begins feeding on the dead wood 
just beneath the bark. During its lifetime a grub 
will excavate an irregular chamber just beneath the 
bark, extending along the branch for an inch or more, 
and often nearly through the wood. The grub keeps 
its burrow or home very neat. As fast as made the 
little pellets of excrement are thrown out through a 
small opening in the bark, and the pellets accumu¬ 
lating outside near the branches in piles afford an 
easy method of determining where the grub is at 
work in the branch. Our observations indicate that 
the grubs may feed for at least two years before 
going into the ground to form pupae from which the 
beetles issue in the Fall. 
Although the insect works mostly in hickory, it 
has proved a serious pest in pecan groves, in persim¬ 
mon, orange, peach, plum, apple, quince, and pear or¬ 
chards, and in elm trees in different parts of the 
country; and now it seems to have attacked the Eng¬ 
lish walnut. It is a very easy pest to combat, fortu¬ 
nately. All that is necessary is to gather and burn 
the girdled, dead branches, whether yet on the tree or 
on the ground, in the Fall, Winter, or Spring, thus 
destroying the grubs they contain. m. v. s. 
Heavy Carriage Tires.— A few years ago we increased 
the thickness of tire used on all wheels up to and includ¬ 
ing %-inch tread. We think %-inch is as light as should 
be used on %, % and 1-inch tread. It is possible it would 
be wrong to use heavy tires on sulkies and light speeding 
wagons. We do not manufacture carts or lumber wagon 
work, but it would seem to us that on this class of work 
the heavier the tire, the longer the vehicle would last. 
The heavier the tire, the more it costs the manufacturer, 
but we feel that our vehicles will give enough better 
satisfaction to pay us for the difference in cost of the 
tire. ELKHART CARRIAGE A HARNESS CO. 
PLANTING A FRUIT ORCHARD. 
How and When ; the Varieties. 
Part II. 
“There were 925 dwarf pear trees used as fillers in 
between the trees in the row, and between the rows 
of the standard pear trees. The dwarf pears were of 
the following varieties: 200 Lawrence, 100 Duchess 
200 Beurre d’Anjou, 100 Lincoln Coreless, and 150 
Beurre Easter, and 25 to 75 trees each of the follow¬ 
ing: Seckel, Vermont Beauty, Louise Bonne de Jersey, 
Bartlett, Idaho; 300 standard pear trees of the follow¬ 
ing varieties: Idaho, Beurre Bose, Seckel, Duchess, 
Clairgeau, Anjou, Winter Nelis, Worden-Seckel, Pres. 
Drouard, Lawrence; 400 Japan plum trees, 100 Abun¬ 
dance, 50 Red June, 100 Wickson, 50 Hale, 50 Sat- 
suma, 50 Chabot, 65 October Purple; 80 sweet cherries, 
equal quantities of Black Tartarian, Gov. Wood, Na¬ 
poleon, Windsor; 60 sour cherries, equal numbers of 
Early Richmond, Montmorency, English Morello; 250 
quinces, 100 Bourgeat, 50 Champion, 50 Meech Pro¬ 
lific, 50 Orange.” 
“Are these about the same varieties that Mr. Miller 
is growing in California?” 
“I could not say as to that, but I rather think not.” 
“How far apart were these trees set; that is, peach, 
plum, pear, apple, cherry and quince?” 
“As a matter of fact, we regulated our distances to 
suit the conditions there, to a certain extent; we plant 
one or two feet closer or farther apart, so that we 
made the trees line out regularly in the fields, how¬ 
ever. The object was to get the apple trees 20 feet 
apart, the peach trees 15 feet apart, the Abundance 
plums 20 feet apart, the standard pears 20 feet apart, 
and a dwarf tree in between every tree in a row, and 
then a row with dwarf in between the rows. The 
sour cherries were 15 feet apart, the sweet cher¬ 
ries 25 feet, with a dwarf apple tree in between 
them. The quinces were set 14 feet apart. We 
mounded up those trees 12 or 15 inches high, and 
the labor of mounding all those 4,200 trees (500 
are yet to be planted) amounted to less than $10. 
We deferred all pruning back until the early 
part of March. We did this for the reason that 
we thought it better for the peach trees to re¬ 
main as they were set, without any pruning till 
Spring, so that if the tops were injured in any 
way we could better tell where to form a new 
head. I don’t anticipate that they will be in¬ 
jured at all, unless we have a Winter such as 
the past one, which was the severest on fruits I 
have ever known.” 
“How old were these trees when you set them 
out?” 
“The peach trees were one year old from the 
bud. The others were all three-year-old trees.” 
“Can you tell us in a general way, taking an 
apple tree for example, how that was pruned on 
top and root when you set it out?” 
“As I said, the upper part we did not touch at 
all, yet there is no general rule that can be ap¬ 
plied to all trees. In fact, nearly every tree, 
young or old, needs different treatment in prun¬ 
ing. The trees were all dug with spades, and imme¬ 
diately packed in a box, with moss about the roots, 
not being exposed to the wind or sun five minutes. 
We try to get as'large a mass of roots as we can. 
Our aim always is to preserve as large a system of 
roots as we possibly can. Every hole that is dug for 
a tree, whether the tree be a little dw'arf pear, or a 
large Japan plum, must be three feet across. Any 
large roots that may possibly suffer injury in digging 
by being bruised are cut to a clean surface.” 
“What fertilizer or manure did you put on them?” 
“None as yet; the land was in good heart. Mr. 
Miller’s intention is thoroughly to cultivate the 
ground around where these trees were planted. He 
will use a complete fertilizer about the trees, one that 
has a good proportion of potash in it, and will grow 
green crops between the trees to be plowed under. 
He may grow some annual crops between the trees for 
the first few years.” 
“If you had unlimited capital, what outfit of tools 
would you pick out, from your experience, to keep 
that orchard in nice shape?” 
“I do not know that I could give you as satisfactory 
information on that as some others, for the reason 
that we are more largely growers of young trees and 
plants than cultivators of large orchards. But I will 
say that the Acme harrow and the Planet Jr. culti¬ 
vators we have found to be the best tools. We have 
tried many other improved plows and cultivators, 
nearly all of which are good for some special work. 
I wish to say that at my suggestion Mr. Miller visited 
the fruit farm of John R. Cornell, near Newburg, and 
received valuable information from him. Mr. Cor¬ 
nell is one of the most successful pear growers of 
this country, and an occasional contributor to The 
R. N.-Y.” j. J. d. 
