813 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 6 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
The Local Celery Crop has grown 
more vigorously than for many years, 
and the present quality is excellent, but 
the continuous mild weather is not con¬ 
ducive to good keeping in storage. The 
cool and rainy Summer just suited celery 
plants, and they made an old-time 
growth, continuing in full vigor up to 
this writing, where deep trenching for 
rapid bleaching has not been practiced. 
There was considerable leaf-blight in 
some fields during the muggy days so 
prevalent in October. The early self¬ 
blanching kinds suffered most, and the 
odor wafted from large plantings while 
this rapid destruction of leaf tissue was 
going on was the reverse of agreeable, 
but so favorable were other conditions 
that no great damage ensued. It is all 
very well for the experiment stations 
and the later text books to advise early 
and frequent spraying with Bordeaux 
Mixture to control Celery blight. It 
may prevent the pest under trial condi¬ 
tions, but the busy everyday grower has 
no time to copperplate his plantings be¬ 
tween showers, and is quite certain it 
would not pay anyway. He selects g:od 
varieties and is willing to fertilize high¬ 
ly, cultivate and weed faithfully, and at¬ 
tend to the numberless practical details 
experience has shown to be necessary, 
but he does not want to expend his en¬ 
ergy and substance on spray pumps and 
expensive chemicals. Celery in this lo¬ 
cality is a second crop to be grown after 
lettuce, peas or some other fairly reli¬ 
able money maker, and is of minor im¬ 
portance since the Kalamazoo and 
Horseheads growers flooded the mar¬ 
kets with their stringy commodity, but 
in a moist season like the present will 
give a fair return on the outlay. East¬ 
ern consumers are to be congratulated 
on the opportunity once more to get well 
flavored and fair-sized home-grown cel¬ 
ery in moderate quantity. Our own 
plantings of 800 vigorous roots of the 
Winter Queen and Schumaker varieties 
go directly into dark cellar storage to be 
ready for use about February 1. After 
setting in late July the plants received 
precisely the same treatment as cab¬ 
bages, that is, the soil was occasionally 
stirred with a light wheel hoe to de¬ 
stroy all weeds soon after germination, 
except those immediately in the row, 
which were taken out with hand tools, 
but the celery was not banked or han¬ 
dled in any manner. The strong root 
stocks thus developed may be trusted 
to produce a large but crisp and tender 
new growth later on in the moist gloom 
of the cellar. We can get # plenty of good 
field-bleached celery now, but in Febru¬ 
ary the cellar-stored article will be at a 
premium. 
m Chestnut Planting Not So Lively. 
—The boom in chestnut planting seems 
to have passed its zenith, and the en¬ 
thusiastic expansionists in nut culture 
who lately proposed to cover all vacant 
hillsides with improved varieties of this 
most desirable nut tree are less active 
now while waiting for commercial re¬ 
turns from their earlier ventures. The 
prevalence of the Chestnut weevil and 
the reduced prices offered in our mar¬ 
kets for the low quality Japanese nuts 
are strong antidotes to the undue en¬ 
thusiasm of the early promoters. E. 
Beekman, who manages a nut orchard 
of several thousand trees just coming 
into bearing, has well expressed present 
conditions on first page of The R. N.-Y. 
for November 22. Something may be 
done to control the weevil by cleaning 
up or burning over woodlands every 
Fall, and it is noticeable they do little 
harm to cultivated trees standing in the 
open, especially if the burrs are gath¬ 
ered and burned .soon after falling. 
There is a great flood of new varieties, 
particularly among the early-bearing 
Japans, as almost every batch of seed¬ 
lings develop a few trees of desirable 
quality, but much discrimination must 
be used in planting for profit. So far 
nothing of greater intrinsic value than 
the Paragon, of the European type, has 
been offered. If the trees could be had 
in quantity at a moderate price there 
would be little need of planting other 
kinds except for extreme earliness. Our 
experimental Paragon tree has again 
borne a full crop of large sweet nuts, 
almost entirely free from weevil. It 
stands in a poultry yard, but is making 
very moderate growth on account oj its 
tendency to overbear. Last year the 
burrs were thinned out as soon as form¬ 
ed, only a few hand-pollinated pistillate 
blooms being allowed to produce seeds, 
which may account for an unusual pro¬ 
duction this season. It will never pay 
to thin chestnuts for market purposes, 
but there is little doubt young trees are 
benefited by the removal of a portion of 
the too-abundant first crops. Paragon 
nuts are not quite equal to most natives 
when freshly gathered, but if cured for 
a week or two develop great sweetness 
and a most agreeable quality, either 
raw or prepared in the many ways per¬ 
fected by European cooks. Several seed¬ 
ling Paragon trees bore their first nuts 
this year. The seeds were procured 
eight years ago from H. M. Engle fe-Bon, 
Marietta, Pa., the disseminators of Para¬ 
gon, but the young trees by a rearrange¬ 
ment of the grounds were twice trans¬ 
planted, thus delaying the fruiting per¬ 
iod to some extent. These first burrs 
and nuts were about half the size of 
average Paragons, but larger than se¬ 
lected natives. They were ready for use 
in early October, and were not excelled 
in quality by any chestnuts we have yet 
tried. In tree and fruit these seedlings 
answer our preconceived idea of hybrids 
between the native and Spanish type, 
and if really productive as they reach 
maturity would be nearly as valuable as 
Paragon itself. At any rate we shall not 
try to graft them over until they dem¬ 
onstrate their capabilities or defects. 
w. v. F. 
Laying Down Peach Trees. 
Some time ago the question of laying 
down peach trees for Winter protection 
was up. I have had some experience in 
raising peaches in Minnesota, and wish 
to say to your subscribers who intend to 
lay down peach trees this Fall that there 
are a few important points to be ob¬ 
served. Do not let the soil touch any 
part of the tree, except the roots, which 
must be well covered with earth to pro¬ 
tect them from freezing. When ready 
to lay the trees down wrap the trunk 
with long straw, or marsh hay, and put 
enough of the same material on the 
ground to keep the branches from com¬ 
ing in contact with the earth. Next dig 
the earth away from opposito sides, and 
from beneath the tree, when it can be 
laid over on the straw, or hay, very 
easily, cover with about a foot of the 
material and weight down with heavy 
poles. Some provision must be made to 
prevent injury by mice, etc., during the 
Winter. This can be done by soaking 
some corn or wheat in strychnine water 
and scattering a handful among the 
branches just before putting on the cov¬ 
ering. This is considerable labor, but 
it only takes a few trees to supply an 
ordinary family, and besides there is 
quite a novelty in raising them out of 
their natural latitude. w. s. w. 
Minnesota. 
NEW YORK PURE MILK LAWS. 
As an illustration of the popular demand 
in cities for purer milk, I would call at¬ 
tention to a meeting recently held in Bing¬ 
hamton, N. Y., for the purpose of dis¬ 
cussing the subject. Two outside speakers 
had been invited by the Board of Health, 
one the Assistant Commissioner of Agri¬ 
culture for the State, Hon. George L. 
Flanders, the other Prof. V. A. Moore, of 
Cornell University. A moderate-sized au¬ 
dience composed of city residents and 
dairymen was present. Mr. Flanders out¬ 
lined the history of efforts that have been 
made since 18S4 to suppress fraud and 
bring upon the market a pure article. At 
the date mentioned, when the first agri- 
rultural law, so-called, was enacted, only 
two States, New Jersey and New Hamp¬ 
shire, had any laws governing the condi¬ 
tion of milk. The legislative committee 
charged with obtaining evidence concerning 
the condition of milk offered for sale pre¬ 
vious to the enactment of the law, found 
that an average of 40 per cent of the sup¬ 
posed milk was added water. Under such 
conditions it is not strange that a sub¬ 
stantial law was passed, and that an ef¬ 
fective law has ever since been in opera¬ 
tion. It is a fact worth noting that at the 
same time the request came from the con¬ 
sumers for relief from watered milk, an¬ 
other request came from the State Dairy¬ 
men’s Association asking for relief from 
fraudulent butter, which was even then 
making its influence felt upon the dairy¬ 
men of the State. The consumers got an 
effective law, but the producers were hard¬ 
ly as fortunate in having their demands 
fully satisfied. The law was so framed 
that persons were prosecuted, not on the 
charge of having watered the milk, but of 
selling milk that had been watered. In 
this State milk must have three per cent 
of butter fat and 12 per cent of solids in¬ 
cluding the fat, and 88 per cent may be 
water. The law that has since been en¬ 
acted in Massachusetts and has been quite 
well enforced, Mr. Flanders said, requires 
13 per cent of solids, 3% per cent being 
butter fat. The original law in New York 
was sustained by the courts. It was held 
that the Legislature was justified in 
throwing upon the seller the responsibility 
of furnishing milk that had the required 
amounts of solids and of fat. Under the 
enforcement of the law the consumption 
of milk has increased enormously, and the 
number of deaths of infants in New York 
City was shown to be less by fully 3,000 
in a year. Three-fourths of the children 
in that city are raised on cows’ milk. 
In later years there has developed a 
feeling, to some extent, that the law might 
work a hardship somewhere, and that an 
innocent party might be punished. This 
feeling has led to at least two steps modi¬ 
fying the law and the decisions of courts, 
so that at the present time a man may 
be allowed to show that he is furnishing 
the natural product. To do this, however, 
he must allow the State official to witness 
the milking process and preparing the milk 
for market, and then if the sample shows 
a per cent lower than the legal standard 
there shall be no action taken. It was 
shown that there has been a tendency in 
public opinion to make the enforcement of 
the law less severe, and Mr. Flanders asks. 
‘‘Will public sentiment demand still more 
concessions?” To provide for pure milk 
is “a plain duty but a difficult task.” He 
thinks dairymen should not ask for more 
concessions respecting milk, particularly 
at a time when they are asking for pro¬ 
tection against imitation butter, which 
means to them safety from financial loss 
only. Some discussion followed the ad¬ 
dress, and figures were given to show that 
the average test for butter fat in the 
State, omitting the three best counties, 
Delaware, Otsego and Scoharie, is from 
3.8 per cent to four per cent. It was also 
stated that one cow had been found whose 
milk tested as low as two per cent butter 
fat. The meeting, had been called to con¬ 
sider the question of sound milk in other 
respects rather than of watered milk, for 
the State looks after that feature quite 
closely. The President of the Board of 
Health spoke of stables properly cared 
for, and Prof. Moore took up the subject 
of living organisms in the milk. The city 
already has quite strict regulations respect¬ 
ing the sale of milk. h. h. l. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
It. N.-Y. and you will get a quick reply and 
‘‘a square deal.” See our guarantee 8th page. 
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