1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
259 
Events of the IVeek. 
DOMESTIC.—A cave-in, caused by the tunnel excava¬ 
tion, occurred on Park Avenue, New York City, March 21, 
several handsome residences being involved. No lives 
were lost, but the damage amounted to $100,000. 
The trials at Havana of the cases arising from the em¬ 
bezzlement of Cuban postal funds resulted, March 24, in 
the following sentences: C. F. W. Neely, 10 years’ im¬ 
prisonment and $56,701 fine; W. H. Reeves, 10 years and 
$35,516 fine, and Estes G. Rathbone, 10 years and $35,324 
fine.At Cleveland, O., March 25, eight workmen 
were killed by a fall of earth into an excavation, where 
they were buried.At Punxsutawney, Pa., March 
25, three men were killed by an explosion in a powder 
factory. 
CONGRESS.—The Department of Agriculture will im¬ 
mediately prepare a list of articles imported into this 
country in which boracic and other acids are supposed to 
exist. This action is the first step taken by the Govern¬ 
ment looking to retaliation for the German prohibiton 
of the importation of meats containing boracic acid. 
. . . . March 21, the Senate passed the bill for the re¬ 
peal of the war revenue taxes, and also that for the 
protection of the President.Senator Fairbanks 
has introduced a bill authorizing the construction of an 
Agricultural Department building on the site of the pres¬ 
ent building, at a cost of $2,500,000.March 24, 
the Senate began the consideration of the oleo bill. Mr. 
Proctor, of Vermont, Chairman of the Committee on 
Agriculture, made the opening statement in support of 
the measure. 
PHILIPPINES.—The cholera has appeared in Manila, 
and two more deaths from plague are reported. The 
health officials are taking rigid precautions to prevent 
an epidemic.Efforts are being made by a num¬ 
ber of San Francisco capitalists to take advantage of 
the low rates to send a number of colonists to Manila. 
The projectors of the enterprise hope to get up a rush 
to the islands that will equal if not eclipse the rush to 
the northern gold fields. A wholesale descent is expected 
to be made upon the islands. It is expected that the 
land laws of the United States will be applied to the 
islands, and that thousands of acres now idle will be 
filled with American farmers and miners. 
GENERAL FOREIGN NEWS.—The Government of 
Turkey has flatly refused to comply with the demand of 
the United States for the repayment of the $72,500 paid 
to the brigands as a ransom for Miss Ellen M. Stone 
and Madame Tsilka.The cholera continues at 
Mecca, Arabia, 280 deaths being reported in a single day. 
It is the time of the great Mohammedan pilgrimage; 
there are said to be 240,000 pilgrims there now, and this 
immense horde of people, who pay no attention to clean¬ 
liness and are wholly ignorant of sanitary laws, fur¬ 
nishes an ideal hotbed for cholera and other diseases. 
When they disperse they take the epidemic with them 
and disseminate it everywhere. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Prof. W. J. Spellman, of 
Washington State, having declined the appointment of 
professor of agriculture in South Australia, the govern¬ 
ment has appointed Prof. J. D. Towar, B. Sc., of Michi¬ 
gan. Prof. Towar will arrive in Adelaide in May. Since 
1898 he has been agriculturist to the Michigan Experiment 
Station. 
Stock breeders of the Palouse district, Washington, 
have organized the Inland Registered Stock Breeders’ 
Association. Prof. H. T. French, of the University of 
Idaho, is president; John L. Smith, Spokane, vice-presi¬ 
dent; Prof. E. E. Elliot, of the Washington Agricultural 
College, secretary, and J. S. Klemgard. of the Hillsdale 
Stock Farm, near Pullman, treasurer. The organization 
takes in the following counties in Washington and 
Idaho: Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Garfield, Franklin, 
Douglas, Lincoln, Stevens, Spokane, Walla Walla and 
Whitman in Washington; and Kootenai, Latah, Shos¬ 
hone, Nez Perces and Idaho Counties, in Idaho. Annual 
meetings are to be held on the second Thursday in Feb¬ 
ruary. The membership is limited to breeders of pure¬ 
bred stock and the professors of the agricultural and 
veterinary science departments of the Washington Agri¬ 
cultural College and the University of Idaho. 
Trees Damaged by Mice. 
We have heard no reports of trees being girdled to any 
extent in this locality, and have noticed none in our own 
orchards. Seneca County escaped some of the heaviest 
of the snowstorms which occurred in other parts of the 
State. w. a. bassktt. 
Seneca Co., N. Y. 
Reports from Orleans County vary. Near Albion much 
damage is reported. In some cases trees 18 inches in 
diameter are gnawed clean for two feet. We have only a 
few trees injured. Banking last Fall would have pre¬ 
vented the trouble. Bridge-grafting will be tried. One 
peach orchard and a fair-sized apple orchard are reported 
ruined. c. a. 
Some damage has been done, but how extensive I can¬ 
not say. Some orchards are not damaged at all, and 
others that had a large growth of clover suffered badly. 
I know of one orchard of 600 or 800 trees, about one-half 
pears six years old, and the other half apples four years 
old, and at least half of both blocks are girdled. Some 
are girdled for 15 inches from the ground up; a sorry- 
looking sight, and a very serious one for the owner. I 
know of no better way to try to mend this trouble than 
to cut the trees off at the ground and graft them where 
wood and bark enough remains above ground. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. t. b. wilson. 
The mice have done much damage in this section by 
eating the bark off many of our fruit trees during the 
past Winter. Some of the larger trees can be saved by 
bridge-grafting. Some of the small trees will sprout be¬ 
low where girdled, and make good trees. I think that 
one-half to one per cent is hurt, and a part of the trees 
are ruined, especially the peaches. j. b. collamer. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. 
On my own grounds, which I care for in the best man¬ 
ner I know, I have not a single tree injured by girdling. 
My grounds were thoroughly cultivated until August 10; 
also just before Winter set in the trees were all banked 
with earth 12 or 15 inches high, as has been my annual 
custom even since beginning the orchard 10 years ago this 
Spring, and I do not think anyone has trouble from mice 
when this system is followed. Where orchards are totally 
neglected or partially so, much damage often results. I 
know of one block of dwarf pear trees set out 10 years 
ago which was neglected last Summer, no cultivation; 
grass and weeds grew at their own will. As I ride by 
nearly every tree appears to be girdled, and so Ividl.v as 
to cause their death. I feel sure that those 500 trees are 
at least 50 per cent ruined, and the owner is taking no 
steps to save them. Probably a good many could be saved 
by banking with fresh cow manure and earth in such a 
way as to keep bole of the tree moist. The surest way is 
to put in grafts leading from the bark below the girdling 
to the bark above, and then banking. I know of another 
block of 200 dwarf pear trees which were well cultivated 
with a horse last Summer, but a small space close to each 
tree, 12 to 15 inches square, was allowed to grow up in 
grass and nothing done in the Fall to save the trees. I 
noticed a few of these have been girdled, probably 10 to 
15 per cent, so I think it resolves itself into a question of 
how many orchards were properly cared for and how 
many were neglected. Wherever grass or other trash was 
allowed around the tree in the Fall there was undoubtedly 
much damage; very likely from what we hear, as much 
as 15 to 25 per cent of the young trees 10 years old and 
under have been destroyed, as there are so many who 
neglected them last year. w. h. p. 
Canandaigua, N. Y. 
How to Make Poor Farms Good Dividend Payers. 
In Rural New-Yorker, November 22d, 1899, Mr. H. W. Collingwood, in his account of bringing up a poor farm, by Mr. Newton Osborn, Newington, Conn., 
says: “Mr. Osborn thought at that time that the ability to feed a soil was measured by the supply of animal manure. He first proved that a high-grade com¬ 
plete fertilizer will fully take the place of manure. That point settled, he had the key to the situation, and applied it. Instead of being a soil loafer, that field 
began at once to pay a profit. It was so poor that it had never paid even the interest on the taxes. In six years it was paying dividends of 5 per cent on a 
valuation of over $4,000. Where can one find, outside of a gold mine, an instance where poor soil has gained proportionately greater earning capacity in six 
years?” 
The Cornfield in Farming- 
[ From Editorial iu the Massachusetts Ploughman, Official Organ of the New England Agricultural Society.) 
The grain of corn is as valuable to the Eastern farmer as the kernel of wheat is to the Western. Because the East looks to the West for its supply of 
wheat, it does not follow that it should likewise look to the West for its supply of Indian corn, that crop on which so much of the farm economy depends, 
and that maintains at an undeviating pace the farmer’s prosperity. 
Three elements in plant-growth are wanting, in a greater or less degree, on soil that has been under cultivation for a long time. They are phosphoric 
acid, nitrogen, and potash. And while all crops demand a supply of these constituent elements, they demand it in varying amounts. Nitrogen is a most ex¬ 
pensive ingredient, and yet most cheaply supplied to growing corn. It has been shown that while wheat requires from one-half »,o the full quantity of the 
total nitrogen supplied in a fertilizer—the condition of the soil being always taken into account, corn, even on comparatively poor soils, requires only 
about one-quarter of the nitrogen to be supplied as compared with what the crop contains. So that where, with the help of nitrogen, thirty-five bushels of 
wheat can be grown, we might expect to grow one hundred bushels of corn. Wheat has to be liberally fed with the needed nitrogen, while corn finds it for it¬ 
self, whether in the soil or in the air, or in both. 
It was long the established theory, and held by Dr. Lawes, of England that corn belonged in the list of grain crops that required to be fed with a sur¬ 
plus of nitrogen; but Mr. Charles V. Mapes for years persisted that it should be classed with clover and the leguminous crops, which yield such large quan¬ 
tities of nitrogen in their product, but require only a very limited supply. 
The opinion of Mr. Mapes has been fully confirmed by a great number of experiments and practical results in the field, and it is satisfactorily shown 
that Dr. Lawes is mistaken, probably from not knowing the habit of our corn crop in the field. This discovery wonderfully simplifies the problem of corn 
culture, so that the Eastern farmer is enabled to compete successfully with his Western rival in the production of this truly royal grain, or rather legu- 
mens. Keeping the soil frequently stirred, without regard to weeds, is of the first importance. It hastens growth, invigorates the plant, and assists it in its 
search for needed ingredients. 
The Great Corn Contest of the American Agriculturist 
CROPS 213, 119, AND 95 BUSHELS EACH; GROWN ON ONE MEASURED ACRE EXCLUSIVELY WITH THE MAPES CORN MANURE. 
Of this great crop, 213 bushels shelled corn, grown in Yates County, N. Y., with the Mapes Corn Manure (800 pounds per acre) exclusively, the“Ameri- 
can Agriculturist” says: “ If we allow only $15 as the value of the tops for fodder, and make no account of bottom stalks, the cost comes within twenty cents a 
bushel (shelled coim).” 
The largest crop grown with fertilizers other than Mapes (45 crops in all) was 84 bushels (chemically dried, 60 bushels). 
SOME LARGE CROPS GROWN WITH The MAPES CORN MANURE AND REPORTED IN THE AGRICULTURAL PRESS. 
Season 1888.—1,040 bushels of corn (ears) on; less than 4% acres, equal to 233 1 / £ bushels, or 116% bushels shelled corn per acre, grown on farm of “Rural 
New-Yorker,” with the Mapes Corn Manure. 
Ninety bushels (shelled) with 500 pounds per acre. 150 bushels (shelled/ WITH 600 POUNDS PER ACRE. Value of the grain alone over five times 
as much as the cost of the fertilizer.—American Agriculturist. 
Eight hundred and fiuy-six bushels (ears) on four acres. 159.37 bushels on one acre. 125.37 bushels on one acre. Nothing used but the Mapes.— 
Rural New-Yorker. 
ON TWO ACRES, 600 POUNDS OF MAPES, ALONE, BROADCAST, 19S bushels shelled corn. On three acres, same fertilizer, same quantity, 489 bush¬ 
els (ears). Grown by Dr. Henry Stewart.—New England Homestead. 
One hundred and eighty bushels of ears per acre; shelled, 98.45 bushels. 2,058 bushels (ears) on 16 acres. Only Mapes (800 pounds per acre) used, 
broadcast, harrowed in.—Connecticut Farmer. _ 
The MAPES CORN MANURE is an ALL-ROUND LAND STRENGTHENER—good also for sweet corn, fodder corn, all summer crops, late turnips, 
late cabbage, seeding down to grass, etc.—3 tc 4 bags per acre, broadcast, harrowed in. 
The Mapes Formula and Peruvian Guano Co., 143 Liberty Street, New York. 
Send postal for Descriptive Pamphlets, (with full accounts of the growing of some of the large corn crops) also on Fruits, Tobacco, “Fertilizer Farming,” etc. 
