1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
279 
grower, and a sure bloomer. The Yellow Rambler is 
a worthy companion for it. I have had less experience 
with White Rambler.” 
Everblooming Koses.—“ The usual request is for 
roses that will bloom all Summer ; can one insure 
hardiness in such case ? ” 
“ Teas and Hybrid Teas are, of course, more tender 
than Remontants ; but by selecting the hardier among 
them, and giving Winter protection, it is quite 
possible to select everblooming roses which will live 
through cold weather, even though they lose some of 
the shoots.” 
“ What protection would you give them ? ” 
“ About the beginning of November, bend the plants 
over, and peg the shoots down on the ground ; then 
lay over them sods, grass side down, and add a cover¬ 
ing of earth. One great advantage of this covering is 
the fact that it does not harbor field mice as grass or 
leaves would.” 
“ Will you name some satisfactory varieties for such 
use?” 
“ Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, creamy white shading 
to amber at the base, is superb, and protected as de¬ 
scribed, endures the Winter well; Meteor, glowing 
red; Souvenir de Wootton,rich crimson ; La France, 
silvery pink ; Duchess of Albany, similar to La France, 
hut deeper in color ; Mme. Caroline Testout, clear 
shell pink, are all fine. Papa Gontier, crimson pink, 
though rather smaller in flower than the preceding, 
should not be omitted ; it is vigorous and a free 
bloomer. A charming old Tea is Comtesse de Labarthe, 
also known as Duchesse de Brabant ; it has fragrant 
shell pink flowers shaded with carmine, especially 
pretty in bud. This variety is excellent for bedding, 
and a profuse 
bloomer. It w a s 
introduced more 
than 40 years ago, 
and seems to have 
dropped out of sight 
of late years, but is 
well worthy of a re¬ 
vival.” 
“Which of the 
Polyantha roses 
would you consider 
the best for bed¬ 
ding ?” 
“There are sev¬ 
eral worthy ones, 
but little Clothilde 
Soupert, flesh pink 
shaded with car¬ 
mine, is my favor¬ 
ite, and is a reliable 
bedder. Agrippina, 
crimson, and Her- 
mosa, pink, are two 
old Bengals which 
are excellent for 
bedding; they are 
the hardiest of 
their class.” 
Remontants.— 1 The Remontants—the type com¬ 
monly described as June roses—may not be depended 
upon for continual flowering ?” 
“Speaking broadly, no; yet some Remontants do 
bloom more or less during Summer and Fall, in addi¬ 
tion to the main crop of bloom. Mrs. John Laing, 
bright pink, and Mme. Chas. Wood, reddish crimson, 
are very free bloomers. A good selection of Remont¬ 
ants, in addition to these, would include Ulrich Brun¬ 
ner, cherry red ; Alfred Co’omb, crimson, very sweet; 
Margaret Dickson, white, center flesh-color; Baron 
de Bonstetten, velvety maroon ; Jules Margottin, car¬ 
mine, very hardy; Paul Neyron, bright pink, enor¬ 
mous size. Never allow any of the flowers to fade 
on the plant; cut them off, and you encourage any 
tendency to produce a later crop.” 
“ Do these varieties need Winter protection in the 
latitude of New York?” 
“No; they may suffer some loss cf wood during 
exceptionally severe Winters, but that is all.” 
“ What pruning do roses need ? ” 
“ Climbers require only the removal of weak shoots, 
and a slight shortening of the tips. Remontants re¬ 
quire cutting back about one-third in early Spring or 
Fall. A slight cutting after the June crop of flowers 
is useful, but if all the flowers are cut before they 
fade, this is sufficient. Severe cutting will induce 
rank growth without flowers. Everbloomers should 
have dead wood removed when they are uncovered, 
and the strong branches cutback after flowering dur¬ 
ing the Summer. The rule in trimming is to cut strong 
growers moderately, weak growers severely”, e. t. r. 
Papers report that L. C Tibbets, the man who gave the seedless 
orange to the world, is now living in a California poorhouse. It 
is a sad commentary upon modern civilization to learn how, one 
after another, those who give the world desirable fruits, end their 
days in poverty and unhappiness. 
THE LAZY PLANT FOOD IN THE SOIL. 
HOW TILLAGE SETS IT AT WORK. 
In a recent R. N.-Y., we read about the soil analysis at Cornell, 
showing the great quantity of potash, etc., found in the soil ex¬ 
amined, enough, if available, to produce crops for an indefinite 
time, and if the same substances were soluble, all crops would 
be destroyed by the excessive quantity present. The article 
prompts a few questions. Why did the addition of a small quan¬ 
tity of fertilizer produce such a marked increase in crop ? Is a 
soil containing great quantities of the elements of plant food un¬ 
available, inert in the soil, of more value than a soil not contain¬ 
ing the same elements? How much cultivation is required to 
prepare inert material to make it available plant food? Would 
it cost less to apply the needed elements than the expense en¬ 
tailed by long-continued cultivation? To what geological divi¬ 
sion do the soils examined at Cornell belong ? w. h s. 
Pinegrove, Pa. 
ANSWERED liY PROF. I. P. ROBERTS. 
Value of Tillage. —If Nature were not very con¬ 
servative, the careless farmer would rob the soil of 
its most valuable constituents faster than be now 
does, either by carrying the plant food off, or allow¬ 
ing it to leach or wash away. It is noticed that or¬ 
ganic matter, as soon as it ceases to live, is resolved 
into its original elements, and that these elements, in 
most cases, combine with bases—the phosphoric acid 
with lime, the potash with silicates, and so on—and 
when combined, they are often so securely locked up 
and preserved, that this plant food is not available 
unless man does something to help along the processes 
of Nature. The farmer has, in most cases, taken from 
the land the plant food which is easily available ; has 
often robbed it of its humus, hence its moisture-hold¬ 
ing capacity ; and then the crops suffer from two dis¬ 
tinct causes, first a lack of a full supply of available 
plant food, and second, for lack of moisture. 
Intelligent tillage does two things. It makes the 
plant food more Available,,and if tillage is practiced, 
especially in conjunction with covt r crops or manures, 
the two together, that is, the tillage and humus, are 
likely to correct, to a very great extent, both evils. 
To put available plant food in a soil without sufficient 
moisture is like feeding a horse a balanced ration, and 
then withholding a suitable supply of water. To pro¬ 
vide for moisture and not a sufficient amount of avail¬ 
able plant food, would be like giving a horse all the 
water it required, but not enough oats. No one can 
foretell how much tillage will be necessary to secure 
maximum crops. In some soils, the plant food is ex¬ 
tremely lazy ; in other soils, it may be deficient rather 
than lazy. The soil that contains an abundance of 
lazy plant food is more valuable than that which con¬ 
tains a small amount of lazy plant food. Soil that 
contains but a small amount of plant food, a large per 
cent of which is available, is more productive than a 
soil which contains much unavailable plant food, or 
much plant food which is made available with great 
difficulty. 
Soluble Food. —The reason why soluble plant food 
is frequently so beneficial, is because the plants, when 
young, cannot secure from the unaided soil sufficient 
nourishment, and they become dwarfed, and once 
dwarfed, they never entirely recover. Then if a suf¬ 
ficient supply of available plant food has not been 
provided for the young plants by tillage, it is always 
wise to add available plant food which may serve as 
a starter. To draw another illustration, a young calf 
cannot be well nourished on straw. The food which 
straw contains is not readily available. A grown ani¬ 
mal may subsist fairly well upon this coarse food, but 
the calf must have a starter, that is, food that is easily 
digested, as milk. 
Only by experiments can it be positively determined 
whether expense would better be incurred for extra 
tillage or for the purchase of a little available plant 
food. Our experience seems to indicate that the ex¬ 
tra tillage is the most rational method of indirectly 
nourishing the plant wherever it is certain that there 
is an abundance of lazy plant food in the soil. 
As the readers of The R. N -Y. no doubt know, we 
are still securing nearly 400 bushels of potatoes per 
acre, by means of superior tillage on land of moder¬ 
ate fertility, which has been continuously cropped for 
four years, no manures or fertilizershaving been used 
during this time. On some soils, without doubt, these 
results could not be reached without some added plant 
food ; but often in soils that are only moderately pro¬ 
ductive, a great increase in production can be secured 
by better preparation of the soil, and by better inter¬ 
culture. The ordinary farmer would do welltosperd 
a few days in a truck garden where intensified tillage 
and double cropping are practiced. 
I do not know what the geological formation of the 
soils analyzed is, as they were taken from widely- 
separated localities. 
JAPAN PLUMS IN VERMONT. 
THE BLIZZARD DID NOT KILL THEM. 
Are they hardy ? I have fruited Burbank and 
Abundance for several years. Satsuma I have tried, 
too, but as yet have never succeeded in getting a 
single blossom, and do not expect to in this climate. 
Red June, Wickson, Hale and Chabot are hardy in 
tree, but I have no trees of these varieties that are 
old enough to fruit. My faith in them is good enough 
so that I expect to plant quite an orchard of them 
this Spring. I shall 
expect to find them 
as hardy as Bur¬ 
bank or Abundance, 
which are certainly 
as hardy here as 
any plum I have, 
and I have most of 
the leading Euro¬ 
pean sorts. During 
the Winter of 1897 
and 1898, the ther¬ 
mometer went to 26 
degrees below zero 
at my place, yet 
my plums were not 
injured in the least, 
and I got a very 
large crop. The 
past Winter has 
been very severe, 
yet I brought 
branches of Bur¬ 
bank in my house 
that bloomed fully, 
showing that all 
the buds, or prac¬ 
tically all of them, 
are uninjured. 
Branches from Abundance brought in only a few days 
ago, will soon be in bloom. 
I have no doubt the mercury has been down to 30 
degrees below zero in the orchard, as it has been re¬ 
ported as low as 40 degrees below about here, and the 
ground has been covered with snow since November 
34 I have had reports from many parts of the country 
claiming that all plum buds were killed, some of them 
from places where the thermometer has not reached 
zero. I cannot believe that this would happen if the 
trees were properly cut back and pruned. 
I have great faith in the Japan plums and Japan 
crosses. I believe that they have come to stay, but I 
am, also, of the opinion that they will be more useful 
in the North than in the middle Atlantic States, 
where, when the buds are not killed by cold, they will 
open too early, and get caught by the late Spring 
frosts. 
As to the proportion of years that the Japans will 
actually bear fruit here it is hard to say, but if I may 
judge from the past, I should say that the varieties 
that prove as hardy as Abundance will give eight full 
crops in 10 years. I have harvested three big crops 
from trees set only five years, and these trees only of 
medium size when set, what are rated in the nursery 
as five-eighths medium size trees. 
As a market fruit, the Japan plums are far ahead of 
most other sorts with which I am acquainted ; they 
sell more readily, and at better prices. The Burbank 
seems to have a hahit of rotting on the tree, but I 
have never failed of a big crop of sound plums. I 
would feel perfectly safe to plant such varieties as are 
mentioned above. I would not, however, advise any 
one to plant whole orchards of these, and no others, 
but I am planting many Japans for market purposes, 
and still I expect to see very great improvements in 
plums in the next few years. A. a. halladay. 
