1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
673 
EVERYBODY'S GARDEN. 
Can you tell me anything about Refugee 
beans? I am told they are great yielders, 
and bring more than other beans per 
bushel. Are they good beans to grow for 
profit? w. d. b. 
Batavia, N. Y. 
Refugee Varieties. —There are two 
strains of this bean, the Refugee or old 
Thousand-to-One, and the Extra Early 
Refugee, and some of the seedsmen list 
a third variety, Refugee Wax. The 
Refugee is a late variety and much es¬ 
teemed for late snap or pickling beans. 
The Extra Early Refugee is simply a 
strain of the old sort, maturing 10 days 
or two weeks ahead of the parent stock. 
Both are green podded and highly es¬ 
teemed as snap or shell beans. They 
are also prolific and good for home or 
market, but I do not know that either 
has any qualities that command higher 
prices than other sorts. There is, how¬ 
ever, this regarding the old Refugee; ’t 
is a reliable late sort, and the best prices 
are usually realized for the very early 
or late crops rather than the medium. 
They are a reliable sort to grow for late, 
but I do not think they will command 
any higher price than other good varie¬ 
ties maturing ac the same time. The 
Extra Early is a medium sort and would 
be good for its season. Of the Refugee 
Wax I know nothing personally. It is a 
white pod, said to be very early and 
valuable for its season. Now as to pro¬ 
fits that depends upon what you wish to 
do. Judging from your locality it wouid 
be field beans that you wish to grow. If 
so, the White Marrow, Dwarf White 
Navy or Vineless Marrow would be the 
varieties to plant. If you wish to grow 
snap, shell or pickling beans the three 
varieties of Refugee would be as reliable 
as any. 
I am starting a truck and poultry farm, 
and am going to try tomatoes. To grow 
them so as to be one of the first on the 
market in this section (principally in 
Syracuse and Oswego), I shall require 
them ready for use August 1. When 
should they be set in the ground to obtain 
this result, and what kind of device would 
you think best to use to protect from frost 
in the Spring? Will it be necessary to 
have the sides protected, or will a cover 
over the top of plants be sufficient? Also, 
do you think I can compete with the 
southern fruit? J. H. k. 
Phoenix, N. Y. 
Early Tomatoes. —Sow the seed in 
the hotbed in the latter part of March; 
certainly not later than April 1. If sown 
in boxes or pans for the window, sow 
10 days or two weeks earlier. I should 
by all means prefer the hotbed and sow 
the seeds in drills four inches apart 
across the bed, not lengthwise. When 
the plants put out the second set of 
leaves transplant between the drill rows, 
leaving them to stand about one inch 
apart. Give the plants plenty of air, and 
water enough to keep the soil moist. In 
warm days take off the sash or raise 
them high to avoid too tender growth. 
By May 1 they should be potted or trans¬ 
planted to cold frames, and ought to be 
ready for the open ground in three 
weeks. Early varieties ought to ripen 
quite freely by July 15. I have made 
very good protectors of the heaviest 
tarred building paper. Cut strips nine 
inches wide by 27 inches long. Bend the 
strips into round form like a bandbox, 
lapping the ends one inch. With a sharp 
knife make an incision through the lap 
one inch from either edge, and fasten 
with brass paper fasteners. This makes 
a drum or cylinder nearly as large as a 
peck measure, and they are large enough 
for all practical purposes. The covers 
are made of squares of same material 
cut an inch or two larger than the diam¬ 
eter. The protectors are very conveni¬ 
ent for shading the plants when first set 
cut, and they will also protect from the 
cold. The covers may be put on at night 
and removed in the morning, and are 
held in place by a small stone, soil or 
any kind of weight. In cool windy 
weather it is often of great advantage to 
leave the protectors on the plants with¬ 
out the covers. This allows the sun to 
shine in upon them while they are also 
protected from the cold winds. They 
are very cheap, costing not over two or 
three cents apiece and are worth many 
times their cost in forwarding the 
plants. When no longer required for 
use they may be quickly taken apart by 
unclinching the fasteners. Pack them 
away under a weight to prevent warp¬ 
ing and they will be good as new for the 
next season. If there is danger of frost 
the plants will require protection at the 
sides as well as at the tops. The pro¬ 
tectors will serve both purposes, and 
give ample protection unless there was 
danger of a severe freeze, when it might 
be necessary to cover over and bank up 
the entire protector with soil. I have 
figured much on protectors of wood, tin 
and sheet iron, but have never found 
anything except the heavy building 
paper that was at all durable, and still 
within reach as to cost. You need have 
no fears whatever of competition from 
southern grown stock. When the home¬ 
grown tomatoes get into the market the 
people have little use for the inferior 
quality and poor flavor of southern- 
grown stock. Until this season I have 
never known the shipments from the 
South to hold down the prices of our 
own crop. This has been an exceptional 
year, and I think there has hardly been 
a home supply at any time. This condi¬ 
tion sent prices soaring skyward, and 
compelled the dealers to seek relief from 
outside markets. 
Potato Bugs. —A new enterprise 
seems to have been inaugurated among 
the Potato bugs this season, and in some 
localities their ravages have been ruin¬ 
ous to the tomato crop. A few miles 
distant from here a stock company was 
formed last Spring for the erection of a 
tomato canning factory. The enterprise 
was controlled entirely by the farmers, 
and a large acreage of tomatoes was 
planted. Buildings were erected, ma¬ 
chinery placed and an expert was hired 
at a large salary for the season. The 
bad weather would have been a serious 
drawback of itself, but what the weather 
failed to accomplish the Potato bugs 
completed. The plants were destroyed 
so that daily plantings by the thousands 
had to be made, and some farmers were 
forced to hire men by the day to fight 
the bugs. From recent reports, 30 bush¬ 
els of tomatoes have been received at the 
factory, and the loss to the farmers will 
reach high up into the thousands. The 
losses, very likely, will not end with 
this year, as most of the farmers will 
have had enough of tomato growing and 
thus be very slow to try it next year. 
The serious mistake, we believe, was in 
not extending the work a little farther 
and including either corn canning or 
fruit evaporating. With an immense 
apple crop, the evaporator would have 
been timely, and total losses would have 
been avoided. J- e. morse. 
Michigan. 
FARMING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY 
A Reply to Dr. Smead. 
PART XIV. 
Flax Is considered a very hard crop on 
the land by farmers in this country, and 
for this reason it is usually seeded on 
prairie sod the first year it is broken. 
Professor Bolley, of the North Dakota Ex¬ 
periment Station, Fargo, who is well posted 
on conditions in the Valley, and an au¬ 
thority on flax, claims that it does not in¬ 
jure the soil more than other crops. The 
people who settled the West are a mi¬ 
grating people, in a limited sense of the 
word, but we are hardly as bad as Dr. 
Smead paints us. The eastern reader 
would be led to believe that we broke up 
our land, cropped it until it was exhaust¬ 
ed, and then moved farther west. How¬ 
ever, we are permanently located, as are 
thousands of others. Of course there are 
hundreds who fail in every new country, 
but that is the fault of the man, or ad¬ 
verse circumstances, such as crop failures. 
Has Dr. Smead ever been at Casselton, 
Mayville, Hillsboro or Wahpeton, N. D.? 
If not, he has not seen land that I call 
typical of the Red River Valley. I have 
never traveled north of Moorhead on the 
Minnesota side of the river, so cannot 
speak from observation of the conditions 
.there, but from reports of friends who 
have lived in the country traversed by Dr. 
Smead, and from information obtained 
through the daily papers as to crop con¬ 
ditions for the past two years, I would 
say that conditions there are far different 
from here. During the Summer of 1900 I 
traveled about 800 miles on a bicycle 
through Cass, Barnes, Griggs, Steel and 
Traill counties, N. D., making newspaper 
collections, and although I came in con¬ 
tact with farmers almost exclusively, I 
saw no such agricultural conditions as Dr. 
Smead speaks of. That was the dry year 
in the Northwest, too, and as the crops in 
many fields were an entire failure the 
grain was plowed under. One of the 
bonanza farmers of North Dakota, in an 
article in the Minneapolis Journal, called 
that drought “a blessing in disguise,” as 
farmers would be obliged to Summer-fal¬ 
low their land, and grow a much larger 
crop the following year. This Summer I 
have traveled 100 miles by team and bi¬ 
cycle between here and Wahpeton, and I 
find that the methods I have been giving 
are typical. That part of the Valley 
traversed by Dr. Smead has been very un¬ 
fortunate in its crops for the past few 
years. A great part of the land is low, 
and the State Is spending large sums of 
money annually in constructing ditches 
for draining this land. The area destroyed 
by hailstorms is insignificant compared 
with the total area. Grasshoppers were 
numerous here last year, but they were 
effectually checked by “hopper-dozers,” 
the State furnishing kerosene. Thirty 
years ago crops in this vicinity were 
totally destroyed by hoppers, and 11 years 
ago hail destroyed the grain on the farm. 
I can assure you that I sympathize with 
the farmers in any vicinity where wheat 
averages only eight bushels to the acre. 
The average through the Red River Valley, 
as I know it, approaches nearer 15 bushels. 
I would ask Dr. Smead whether the ag¬ 
ricultural methods or system of "soil rob¬ 
bery,” as he terms it, are not simply a 
repetition of the methods practiced in the 
older States when the land was new? My 
father tells me that land was cropped in 
New York State until finally it would not 
yield over five bushels of wheat to the 
acre! However, we expect to profit by 
the eastern man’s experience, and keep 
our soil up to a better standard. It is 
natural for men to do things in the easiest 
and cheapest manner, and that is just the 
reason we do not haul more of our ma¬ 
nure. How much ground would 500 or 1,000 
loads of manure cover on a 1 , 100 -acre farm? 
As long as we can grow from 15 to 25- 
bushel crops of wheat (and we can do it 
every year by the rotation of crops), corn 
and potatoes, we are satisfied with our 
methods. After a crop of potatoes on 
our land wheat grows so rank that the 
yield is diminished by the excessive 
growth of straw. For this reason we are 
contemplating growing flax after potatoes 
in the future. 
No, Doctor, it is not that we do not want 
to spread that manure, or that we do not 
have the money, but it is as I have said 
above; other methods are cheaper. As to 
a farmer’s credit in the West, practically 
everything is bought on time from April 
1 until the new crop comes in. Day labor 
is the only bill that has to be met with 
cash. Machinery is always bought on time 
from six months to two years, divided into 
annual payments with interest at seven per 
cent. Even binding twine and groceries 
are never paid for until Fall. As to farm 
mortgages I know of very few farms in 
our vicinity that are not mortgaged for 
from $5 to $20 per acre, and this is one of 
the advantages of farming in the Red 
River Valley. Thanks to the confidence 
that most eastern capitalists have in our 
land values, we are enabled to borrow al¬ 
most unlimited amounts of money at six 
and seven per cent interest, and invest it 
in land that will give returns of from 10 to 
25 per cent. It may be that land values 
are above the safety point between Moor¬ 
head and Hallock, but here farms are not 
being bought by speculators but by busi¬ 
ness men and farmers, who realize that 
land here will soon be worth more than 
in Illinois or even New York State, if we 
are to believe Superintendent O. C. Gregg, 
of the Minnesota Farmers’ Institute, who 
lectured in that State last Winter. 
I have made reference to North Dakota 
in several places in this article. Of course 
it will be understood that as much or a 
greater part of the fertile part of the Red 
River Valley lies in that State as in Min¬ 
nesota. I wish to thank Dr. Smead most 
heartily for his comments on my articles, 
and I should never have written this only 
that he has unfairly characterized the en¬ 
tire Red River Valley as like the strip of 
country he visited. This is not written in 
a spirit of spite or jealousy, or to ques¬ 
tion the authority of Dr. Smead in the 
least, but simply to give the readers of 
The R. N.-Y. a view of the Valley as held 
by one who has lived, prospered and been 
engaged in farming in it for the past 10 
years, in contrast with the view held by 
one who has spent only a month in the 
Valley. Perhaps in order to be fully un¬ 
derstood I should say that I do not own 
any land out here, and am not interested 
in any land deal, boom or settlement 
scheme whatever. However, I intend to 
stand up for the country that gives me my 
bread—and some to spare besides. 
Wolverton, Minn. J. u. b. 
For the land’s sake, use Bowker’s Fer¬ 
tilizers. They enrich the earth.— Adv. 
Please Tell Me 
Who Needs My Book. 
I ask you for the name of a friend 
who needs help—that is all. 
Just send me a postal to tell me the 
book he needs. No money is wanted. 
Do that much and I will do this: 
I will send him the book, and with it 
an order on his druggist for six bot¬ 
tles Dr. Shoop’s Restorative. I will au¬ 
thorize that druggist to let the sick one 
test it for a month at my risk. If it 
succeeds, the cost is $5.50. If it fails, 1 
will pay the druggist myself. 
There was never a sick one who could 
refuse such an offer—and I am very 
glad to fulfill it. My records show that 
39 out of each 40 pay for the medicine 
gladly. I pay just as willingly when 
one says that I have failed. 
The reasomis this: After a lifetime's 
experience I nave perfected the only 
remedy that strengthens the inside 
nerves. Those nerves alone operate 
every vital organ; and no weak organ 
can be well again until its nerve power 
is restored. I want those who need help 
to know it. 
For his sake, please tell me some sick 
one whom common remedies don’t cure. 
Simply state which 
book you want, and ad¬ 
dress Ur. Shoop, Box 
570, Racine, Wis 
Book No. 1 on Dyspepsia, 
Book No. 2 on the Heart, 
Book No. 3 on the Kidneys, 
Book reo. 4 for Women, 
Book No. 5 for men (sealed). 
Book No. 6 on Rheumatism. 
Mild cases, not chronic, are often cured by one or 
two bottles. At all druggists. 
WANTED 
Golden Queen Raspberry Plants. Address, 
stating numbor and price, Box 227, No Collins, N.Y. 
5,000 Glen Mary for $7 50. 
KEVITT’S PD ANT FARM, Athenia, N. J. 
SKGRAPE VINES 
100 VBridles. Also Small Fruits,Trees, Ac. Best Root¬ 
ed stock. Genuine, choap. 2 sample vines mailed for 10c. 
Descriptive price-list free. LKhlS UOKSCU, Frsdunls, M. I. 
October Purple Plum 
trees three years o’.d. No man does his 
full duty to his family until he supplies 
this fruit. No waiting. Fruit next year. 
Let us tell you about it. Do you want 
F App.qt r ppppq NVe have them. 
rOrC?»l 1 reeb . In fact the larg¬ 
est nursery in New England, fruit and 
ornamental trees of every kind. Let us 
tend you our cata'ogue to-day. Just 
send address—no money. 
STEPHEN HOYT’S SONS, New Canaan, Conn. 
SAN JOSE SCALE . 
And other Insects can be Controlled by Using 
Good’s Caustic Potash Whale- 
Oil Soap No. 3. 
It also prevents Curl Leaf. Endorsed by Entomolo* 
gt 3 . This Soap is a Fertilizer as wel 1 as Insecticide. 
60-lb. Kegs, $2.50; 100-lb. Kegs, 14.50; Half-Barrel, 
270 bs., 8*^c. per lb.; Barrel, 425 lbs., 8Mc- Large 
quantities, Special Rates. Send for Circulars. 
JAMES GOOD. 030 N. Front St., Philadelphia, Pa. 
50000 FARMERS 
Now use Duplex Machines, making 1 Fence 
llorse-hlgh, Bull-strong, Pig; and Chicken-tight at 
ACTUAL COST OF WIRE 
and save profit fence manufacturers extort. 
Why don’t you? Machine on Trial. Catalog free 
Kitselman Bros. Box D02 
The Best Farm Fence 
is made of woven wire. Our ‘'Superior’ 
Square Mesh Poultry, Lawn and Farm 
Fence is the best; descriptive circulars 
tell why. We are making’ SPECIAL low 
prices for Fall delivery. 
CASE BROS., Colchester, Conn. 
BECAUSE YOU KNOW 
him is no reason why you should let him stick you 
with a liiuisy woven wire fence that won t hold even 
chickens after three years. Get your money's worth; 
buy something that’s get tne stuff in it to last. Try 
the Frost containing all heavy hard steel wire. 
Catalogues, etc., free. 
THE FROST WIRE FENCE CO , Cleveland, O. 
IF AN AGENT 
should induce you to try hi* fence Instead of our 
12-Bar, 58-Inch PAGE Standard Farm and Stock 
Fence, we believe you’d always be sorry. 
PAGE WO YES WIRE FENCE CO., ADRIAN.MICH. 
