1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
559 
MR. GREINER EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 
Cabbage and Onion Culture. 
THE MATTER OF SPACE.—The criticism of rural 
writers by a correspondent in a recent issue of Tiie 
R. N.-Y., charging them with lack of definiteness in 
their instructions, and making special mention of my 
advice found in “How to Make the Garden Pay,’’ “to 
give cabbages plenty of room, and the thorough culti¬ 
vation practiced by good farmers,” is not without just 
grounds. Most writers are apt to fall into that fault. 
For instance, we may advise the use of “a weak solu¬ 
tion of copper sulphate” or “strong tobacco tea,” but 
unless we give the exact proportions, say an ounce of 
bluestone to one or two gallons of water, or a pound 
of tobacco stems steeped for an hour in a gallon of 
water, etc., the advice seeker will not be helped very 
much, and is likely to come back for more definite 
figures. Yet in many respects it will be found almost 
impossible to do otherwise than clothe such advice 
in rather general terms, It is very largely so in the 
matter of space, In repiy to the question, how far 
cabbages should be planted apart, definite figures can¬ 
not be given Unless all the circumstances of the case 
are known. When you plant, a variety which you ex¬ 
pect Will make heads nine or 10 inches across, Or 
plant any sort on soil which will produce Only heads 
of that size, you may set. your plants two feet apart 
each way. But when you expect to produce heads Of 
l2 to 15 inches across, by planting the large late sorts 
on very rich soil, provisions must be made for at least 
a space of three feet apart each way. Crowding 
plants seldom makes anything else but crip¬ 
ples, and the advice to give each plant, for 
almost any crop, a sufficiency of room, is 
safe enough, but for those who try to follow 
it there is always much room left for the ex¬ 
ercise of good judgment, and common sense. 
Where that is lacking, even the most care¬ 
ful and most exact writers will find it hard 
to give serviceable advice. People will be 
bound to go wrong. 
THE NEW ONION CULTURE—I have 
read the various allusions to the “new onion 
culture” in recent, issues of The It. N.-Y. 
with mingled feelings of amusement and 
surprise-surprise particularly about the ap¬ 
parent fact that the “new” system and my 
attitude in the matter with it, are yet so 
much misunderstood. I have never yet 
recommended this new culture as one ap¬ 
plicable for general purposes of onion grow¬ 
ing. It. is like a special tool of tillage—made 
for and suited to a special purpose, and this 
purpose is the production of immense yields, 
on comparatively small areas, of immense 
bulbs of the sweet Spanish type, and this at 
at a time when they can be sold at a price 
ranging from 75 cents to $1.25 a bushel. I 
use onion seedlings only to a very limited 
extent as a substitute for sets (and by the 
way, Prizetaker sets are good keepers and 
make large early bunching onions of most 
excellent quality). My own “new culture” 
for growing very early green onions consists 
in sowing seed of some hardy onion variety 
(possibly Barletta or Beaulieu’s Hardy 
White) rather thickly in drills in open 
ground, during August, wintering the plants, and 
making the crop in Spring following right where seed 
was sown. That is much easier and considerably 
cheaper than growing or buying and planting sets, 
and besides the crop is earlier and very much larger. 
We pull up the specimens as soon as large enough, 
thus thinning the plants in the rows and making 
room for other plants to bottom, and have a con¬ 
tinuous supply during the entire early Spring. My 
Barlettas wintered well last year without special pro¬ 
tection or mulch. Beaulieu, however, tells me that 
he has not found the Barletta or any other sort hardy 
enough for all situations, and not as hardy as his 
“Hardy White,” which he claims is evolved from the 
White Portugal, hardy as an oak. The best tool in 
the hands of a person who does not know how to use 
it, must fail of its purpose. The best tool, used in the 
wrong place, at the wrong time, and for a wrong pur¬ 
pose, will fail to give satisfaction. So it is with the 
new onion culture. I think I know it and its possi¬ 
bilities quite well. But if I had ordinary good onion 
land and wanted to raise dry Fall onions to be sold 
at 50 cents or thereabouts per bushel I would sow 
seed of Yellow Danvers or similar standard sorts on 
the old plan. The fact is. however, that I do not have 
such iand at my command. I have tried time and 
time again to grow onions here by sowing seed in 
drills in open ground, as I used to do, with some suc¬ 
cess years ago (and as I found it comparatively easy 
on sandy loam in New Jersey, even with the Prize- 
taker.), and have invariably made a miserable failure 
of it. I confess I do not possess the skill necessary 
for growing a good crop of onions on my land by the 
old system. The “new onion culture” helps me out 
nicely, and enables me (as it will enable others situ¬ 
ated about as I am and equally unskilled or unfavor¬ 
ably located) to grow very fine crops of magnificent 
Prizetakers. And that is about the gist of it. 
T. GREINER. 
VORACITY OF THE CHINESE LADYBIRD 
BEETLE. 
Within the last few weeks the entomologists of the 
Department of Agriculture at Washington have been 
trying accurately to determine some of the points 
with regard to the appetite of the lately imported 
Chinese ladybird beetle for San Josd scale. In addi¬ 
tion to those fastened in large cages that enclose 
whole trees covered with this scale, and also others 
infested with the White Peach scale, they put three 
larvae of the beetle in a small cage and for three days 
observed and counted the larvae of the scale that were 
eaten. In the three days the three ate 4,500 each, 
which is 1,500 per day to each insect. When timed 
by the watch one was noticed to eat from five to six 
per minute. This is fast work, and as the young 
larvae of the beetles flourished on this diet, which 
they seem to prefer to all else, it is a very hopeful 
sign of what we may expect when there are beetles 
enough to turn into some of the scale-infested or¬ 
chards. The appetite of our little friend seems to 
equal the ability of the San Josd scale to multiply. 
THE QUEEN PEACH. Fig. 227. See Page 562. 
The beetles are multiplying so fast in some of the big 
cages that they have eaten all the scale insects on 
the trees and are being taken out and put in new 
cages, where they will have more scale to feed upon, 
or sent away for experimental purposes. The life of 
one of these ladybird beetles is estimated by the ento¬ 
mologists at Washington to be from six months to a 
year, and as they are very active and eat scale of all 
sizes, but especially the young ones, except during 
their dormant period, which is only in cold weather, 
even one beetle will devour an immense number of 
scale insects. At the rate of 1,500 per day, for only 
six months, it would require 270,000 to satisfy the 
appetite of a single beetle for that time. 
h. e. van deman. 
A PARCELS POST IS DEMANDED. 
We have been interested much in the experience of 
some of your readers with express companies, as told 
in The R. N.-Y. from week to week. About two years 
ago, wishing to put out a plantation of red raspber¬ 
ries of a variety which I did not have, I ordered a 
stock of plants from a Hudson River nursery firm. In 
due time we received notice that the plants were 
shipped; after waiting two weeks or more for those 
plants to arrive we presented our claim through an 
attorney. They promised to investigate the matter, 
and reported that they could find no trace of the 
package after leaving the shipping point, and refused 
to settle. Later the nursery firm took the matter in 
hand and tried to get a settlement with the express 
company. Again they promised to look the matter 
up, and the last we heard from them they said all 
the papers concerning my claim had been forwarded 
to the general superintendent for final disposition. 
Evidently they are considering that claim yet, or per¬ 
haps hunting for those plants in the hope of forward¬ 
ing them in time to get them planted in good condi¬ 
tion. Now we were out not only the price of those 
plants (a considerable sum) but were a year behind 
with that patch of raspberries, because it was then 
too late to duplicate the order, and no redress without 
expensive litigation. There ought to be a remedy for 
such a condition of things, and we believe the remedy 
lies in the parcels post. If all the nurserymen, fruit 
growers, poultry men and others interested in hand¬ 
ling perishable goods would begin a bombardment 
on the legislative halls at Washington we might get 
a quick transportation system that would carry per¬ 
ishable goods at a reasonable rate and at the same 
time be responsible for the property intrusted to its 
care. We believe it is the duty of the honest farm 
press to agitate this matter till it produces results. 
With all its boasted progress this country is a back 
number along that line. w. p. keeper. 
Pennsylvania. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH “CLARK” GRASS 
SEEDING. 
As it is only by writing our personal experiences 
we can learn from each other, and as I have already 
gathered many valuable points in your paper, I am 
willing to give our experience in seeding 
grass somewhat on the Clark method. The 
piece was a low, dark, loamy clay meadow, 
underdrained, and was in oats and peas fol¬ 
lowing corn. In the Spring of 1901, after 
the crop was harvested, the ground was 
plowed and put in excellent order for seed¬ 
ing, and was seeded rather late, I thought, 
owing to frequent rains, so it was seeded 
about the middle of September with three 
bushels per acre of grass mixture, said to 
contain Timothy, Red-top, Kentucky Blue 
grass and White clover, and some Alsike. 
We also sowed at the same time one ton of 
the following mixture: Nitrate of soda, 100 
pounds; tankage, 300 pounds; acid phos¬ 
phate, 1,400 pounds; muriate of potash, 200 
pounds; $19, 500 pounds per acre. The grass 
started somewhat slowly but continued to 
grow till Winter, when the field was nicely 
covered, but I could have wished it a little 
larger, so as to have a firm deep rooting to 
stand the Winter. You may remember we 
had a hard Winter, and not much snow till 
late, and once the field was covered with a 
thick mass of ice, the ground being hard 
frozen when it rained, so hard as to cover 
the held with water, which could not get 
away by the drains, and this froze solid to 
the ground, and I feared the grass was 
ruined. Finally Spring came, but cold and 
late, and then we had a very dry May, as 
well as cold, which has made one of the 
shortest hay crops that we have had in this 
section. We gave this piece of grass 500 
pounds per acre of the following: Nitrate 
of soda, 400 pounds; raw bone, 400 pounds; acid 
phosphate, 1,200 pounds; costing $22. The result 
was a beautiful crop of thick, fine grass (but 
short on account of dry cold Spring) which was 
cut with much difficulty owing to thick stand, and in 
spite of the season was down in places. Our farmer 
informs me that he hauled 12 medium-sized loads off 
the piece of four acres, and he assures me that the 
12 loads would weigh 10 tons of well-dried hay. So 
from the above you will see, despite all the backward 
season and other drawbacks, we feel well pleased with 
our experiment, for such it was, and had the season 
been favorable we certainly would have had much 
more hay, as it was quite short. The expense was 
three bushels grass seed at $1.50, $4.50; 500 pounds 
fertilizer, $4.25; 500 pounds at $5.50; total, $13.25. 
Value of hay, $37.50, less cost, a gain of $24.25 per 
acre, and we have a beautiful sod that will give us 
lots of pasture all the Fall, and the horses that we are 
pasturing prefer this piece of grass to any other part 
of a 30-acre tract of second crop. We hope to be able 
to duplicate the above this Fall on 15 acres more, and 
hope we can equal or exceed our first experiment. I 
would say the natural grasses seem to be hardy, and 
the thick sowing made the hay very fine. I feel sure 
had we sown Red clover it would not have stood the 
Winter, and it seems impossible for us to get a satis¬ 
factory stand of Red clover; it either does not take 
or winterkills, or dies in Spring, and besides, it ripens 
too early for the Timothy, so chat they do not work 
very well together. CHAS. williamh. 
Philadelphia, ^ 
