1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
527 
CALIFORNIA SHEEP MANURE MINING. 
Utilizing Old Deposits of Fertility. 
The Pacific Rural Press recently printed photo¬ 
graphs taken at a sheep manure mine, and we have 
had drawings made from them as shown at Fig. 206. 
It-seems that, in the early days of California farming, 
large flocks of sheep were folded in the grazing val¬ 
leys of the State. An inclosure would be made, and 
the sheep driven back from pasture over night, and 
kept therein. Year after year, as the accumulation 
increased, the fences were raised so as to bring them 
above the great piles of manure. The sheep packed 
the manure down hard, and, as there is little rainfall 
in that region, there was practically no loss from 
leaching. In some cases, this packed manure is now 
10 feet thick, and is of very great value as plant food. 
In the early days of California, it was not thought 
that manures or fertilizers would ever be necessary. 
The early settlers never dreamed that the time would 
come, when such a thing as restoration of the soil 
would ever be necessary. * 
What a change has now taken place. These great 
deposits of sheep manure are now regarded as fer¬ 
tilizer mines, and are being broken up and crushed, 
sacked, and shipped away, mostly to be used on Cali¬ 
fornia soil. The little pictures show how this work is 
being done. In the upper left-hand corner, a deposit 
is shown, which is 160 feet square. The depth is 
10 feet at the point where the man and team are 
standing. The lower picture shows the crushing ma¬ 
chine in operation. The pile here is considerably 
taller than the engine. An 18-horse power thrash¬ 
ing engine is used to operate a crusher, which can 
smash and fine nine tons an hour. The elevator at 
the left-hand side of the cut, carries 
the manure from the machine. From 
there, it passes through a spout to the 
ground, where it is taken away by a 
scraper and team. The manure comes 
to the machine in large lumps, but is 
thoroughly crushed. 
The opposite picture shows the con¬ 
dition of the manure after it is crushed. 
The man at the left is throwing it out 
with a scoop shovel, for it is almost as 
fine as dust. The upper picture at the 
right shows how manure is loaded on 
wagons. A high bridge is made under 
which the wagon stands. The team 
then draws the pulverized manure with 
a scraper to the top of the bridge, and 
dumps it through scantlings into the 
wagon. This utilizing of the old ue- 
posits of sheep manure is just as legiti¬ 
mate as, and a good deal cheaper than, 
the gathering of guano off the coast of 
Peru. We do not need to go so far west 
as California to see much the same 
thing. 
A recent writer in the Breeders’ Ga¬ 
zette, from Illinois, said that he pro¬ 
duced, each year, from 3,000 to 4,000 wagon-loads of 
sheep manure. The farmers around him, he says, do 
not care enough about it to keep it drawn away with¬ 
out cost. He wants to know whether this material 
has sufficient value, if ground and sacked, to enter 
into competition with commercial fertilizers. 
Throughout Kansas and Nebraska, are to be found 
large quantities of corn-cob ashes, and some enter¬ 
prising man has already begun to collect them, and 
ship them east for fertilizing purposes. It would 
seem as though this sheep manure offered a good 
chance for fertilizer manufacturers to secure cheap 
materials with their goods. It is a good sign when 
farmers begin to clear up these old supplies of fer¬ 
tilizers, and utilize them in this way. They must not 
forget either that, right in the air which rests upon 
their farms, is to be found an almost inexhaustible 
supply of the most expensive of all plant foods, 
namely, nitrogen. This is to be had in large quanti¬ 
ties for the mere asking, but we must employ plants 
like cow peas and clover to do the work for us. They 
are the only plants that the nitrogen will listen to 
for a moment. 
EFFECTS OF THE COLD ON FRUIT TREES. 
Here, where we have a reasonable Winter, our trees 
do not freeze back so badly as they do in Iowa, Missouri, 
Maryland and other frigid countries. We have been 
experimenting here, however, with some very tender 
varieties, which have shown a tendency to kill back 
more or less. In dealing with them, I prefer to cut 
back the tops to fresh wood, if possible. If this is 
not conveniently done, however, I leave a large por¬ 
tion of the trunk and branches standing, even though 
they may show no sound buds. This is simply to 
keep the hired man and the plow off the plant until 
the new shoots get a start. I do not believe it makes 
any difference in the recovery of the tree. We find 
no serious difficulty jn managing young trees, even 
though they freeze back more or less when first set 
cut. 'i hey usually become hardier as they gain in 
age, and finally cease altogether to kill back. 
Vermont Exp. Station. f. a. waugh. 
Where peach trees are so severely injured as to 
necessitate either cutting back to within a foot of the 
ground, or taking the tree out entirely, I advocate the 
latter. I would prefer to reset with a vigorous young 
tree rather than take the chances of getting a satis¬ 
factory tree from the stump of a tree so severely in¬ 
jured by the Winter. If the injury is less severe, I 
advocate cutting back the main branches to stubs. I 
have known of instances in which this latter method 
has been followed, with very satisfactory results. 
Geneva, N. Y. s. a. beach. 
Tiie effects of the various methods of pruning upon 
fruit trees injured by cold during the last Winter are 
observed as follows: 
1. Lack of pruning, or the removal of but one or 
two years’ growth, has resulted, in many instances, in 
the death of the trees. The trees yet living have 
many dead branches, and the living branches are 
making but poor growth. Some of these trees will 
die yet. 
2. Cutting off the tops of the trees to the secondary 
branches has given good results. New uranches have 
started in sufficient number to give the tree an excel¬ 
lent head, are making luxuriant growth, and are de¬ 
positing new wood over that which has been injured. 
3. Cutting off the tops at the primary or main 
branches, leaving stubs 1 or iy 2 foot long, has not 
proved successful, owing to the scarcity of buds on 
the portions left. Not enough branches are starting 
to make a respectable head, and those that have 
started are poorly distributed; from some of the 
prongs, no new growth is starting at all. 
4. Cutting off the trunk has not been at all success¬ 
ful, for the reason mentioned above. This treatment 
has almost invariably resulted in a profusion of 
sprouts from the root of the tree. 
5. The effects of the different methods of pruning 
are more noticeable on old than on young trees. 
Where the trees were not of bearing age, there is but 
little difference in the results of slight or severe 
pruning. w. l. hall. 
Kansas Ag’l College. 
TOBACCO AND POTATO BEETLES. 
Perhaps the most remarkable thing we have read 
about potatoes, is a story in the daily papers, of a 
Maine man who inoculated his seed with tobacco. 
This was an old sea captain in Maine who buys his 
tobacco in large quantities. In order to keep it from 
getting too dry, he cuts a raw potato in half, and puts 
the raw side on top of the tobacco. His friends told 
him that he was extravagant to throw the potato 
pieces away after having used them on the tobacco, 
and so he used these pieces for seed. The story is 
that the Colorado Potato beetle would not touch the 
plants grown from this seed, and of course, our wise 
friends of the daily press, proceed to save the farm¬ 
er’s crop, by advising him to pack his seed tubers in 
tobacco before planting them. Here we have Prof. 
Slingerland’s comment on this story: 
“The immortal words of Entomologist Walsh, writ¬ 
ten in 1867, are as applicable to-day as then: ‘Long 
live King Humbug! He still feeds fools on flap¬ 
doodle!’ 
“If those Maine potato plants which grew from 
potato cuttings which had been inoculated with to¬ 
bacco, entirely escaped the ravages of the Potato 
beetle, it is far from being proof that the tobacco had 
anything to do with the immunity of the plants from 
the beetles. I am unable to conceive a sensible reason 
why or how tobacco applied to the seed could affect 
the plants growing therefrom to a sufficient extent, to 
render them distasteful to such an insect as the 
Potato beetle. It will take very strong decoctions of 
the tobacco applied to the insects themselves to affect 
them noticeably. This is not the first instance where 
the public have been asked to believe that potato seed 
treated with any substance would render the plants 
immune from the attacks of the beetle. 
“In 1895 there was put upon the market in the West 
a substance known as Siebner’s Potato-Bug Exter¬ 
minator Compound. It was claimed that, if the seed 
potatoes were treated with this mysterious compound, 
the bugs would be prevented from destroying the 
vines, and furthermore, that the quality and quantity 
of the crop would be improved. It seems almost 
needless to add that careful tests by two experiment 
stations showed that this compound was entirely 
worthless for the purpose recommended. Our agri¬ 
culturists should learn to exercise a little more com¬ 
mon sense when approached with a panacea for all 
the ills to which plant life may be heir, even though 
backed by the testimonials of hundreds of sufferers.” 
M. V. SLING ERL AND. 
IMPROVED CHESTNUT CULTURE. 
Is There Any Profit in It? 
What is the present outlook for growing improved 
varieties of chestnuts? Is it practicable to graft large 
forest trees to improved varieties? 
So far as our observations have ex¬ 
tended, we do not note any increased in¬ 
terest in improved chestnut culture this 
season. We are slow in advising the 
clearing of timber land and grafting 
sprouts, especially if there is any chest¬ 
nut timber near. There will be too 
many wormy nuts. This is one of the 
most serious drawbacks, and unless 
some way of getting ahead of the 
weevils is discovered, I doubt if the in¬ 
dustry can be made to pay. In orchards 
away from the native chestnut, the 
weevils are not so plentiful. The trou¬ 
ble here is that it requires time and 
money to get an orchard into profitable 
fruiting. On the whole, we must say we 
are not so sanguine as we once were. 
We find, too, that the season for the sale 
of chestnuts is much shorter than that 
of other nuts, on account of the diffi¬ 
culty of keeping them in prime condi¬ 
tion. Perhaps if this were better under¬ 
stood, their season of sale could be 
lengthened. 
You do not say how large your trees 
are. If they are scattered over the 
place, and not over six or eight inches in diameter, 
the best way would be to cut off all the branches, 
where they are from one to V/ 2 inch thick, and 
graft each over. This requires considerable time, but 
one could get large bearing trees in a year or two. If 
it is on a piece of timber land it would have to be 
cleared, and the sprouts grafted. We would not ad¬ 
vise grafting sprouts, unless they are on land that is 
comparatively level, and free from rocks. The labor 
of mowing the underbrush, and gathering the nuts is 
too great on rough land. That is our experience, 
whatever others have discovered. 
H. M. ENGLE & SON. 
There is, undoubtedly, a rapidly increasing interest 
in chestnut culture, and it is going to increase until 
there are a great number of extensive orchards in the 
country, and until thousands of bushels of nuts are 
marketed yearly. Grafting on small stocks about the 
same size as the scion, and doing the work close to 
the ground, seems to be best. Still, by cutting back 
older trees, and getting new vigorous shoots, there is 
no reason why chestnut trees cannot be top-worked, 
the same as the old apple tree. My son climbed to the 
top of a big chestnut two years ago, and put in a 
single scion with the cleft graft, and last Fall he 
brought into the office quite triumphantly a handsome 
lot of burrs that came from that scion, which clearly 
proves that the thing can be done all right. 
J. 11. HALE. 
A Kansas editor says that the farmers of his State 
have a joke on the twine trust; twine has advanced in 
price, but there isn’t any wheat to bind. 
The New York Board of Health has been investigating 
nearly 2,000 samples of candy, chiefly purchased from 
street stands and from the little shops near public schools. 
Contrary to what one would expect, none of the samples 
examined contained harmful or insoluble ingredients. 
Starch, sweet gum and glucose were the chief materials 
used. 
