1899 
545 
How to Kill Plantain. 
T. F. K., Carmel, N. Y .—I have a lot in 
which plantain is getting a good foothold. 
I don’t wish to plow it. How can I get rid 
of it? How would it do to top-dress it with 
wood ashes or land plaster? 
Ans. —While a top-dressing of wood 
ashes or plaster might be beneficial to 
the grass on the field, it would not kill 
the plantain. A handful of salt put upon 
each plantain will destroy the plant. If 
the lot is a small one, possibly a sharp 
spud could be used to advantage in cut¬ 
ting the plantain off well below the sur¬ 
face. The most practical plan is to plow 
the field and plant upon it some crop 
which can be given intro-culture. In¬ 
tensive tillage will do more toward ex¬ 
terminating weeds than any other 
method. If it is thought not wise to 
plow the field, then a handful of salt 
may be put on each bunch of plantain, 
and the entire field should receive a 
top-dressing of fertilizer relatively rich 
in nitrogen, that the grass may be 
stimulated to increased growth, l. a. c. 
Sex in Strawberry Plants. 
II. 'A., Jersey, Ohio .—As a small grower of 
fancy strawberries, I wish to learn the sex 
of the strawberry plant. We all know 
there are perfect and Imperfect blooms. Is 
the perfect bloomer a male or female plant? 
Ans. — The perfect-flowered straw¬ 
berry is bisexual or hermaphrodite. 
Botanists describe two other classes, 
staminate or male, in which the stamens 
are chiefly developed, and pistillate or 
female, which show main development 
of pistils. The staminate class can 
hardly be said to exist among cultivated 
strawberries, because a plant produc¬ 
ing male flowers only cannot produce 
fruit. The different classes of flowers 
are readily distinguished. The perfect 
or bisexual flowers show an abundance 
of yellow anthers, bearing the fine pol¬ 
len dust. The pistillate flowers display 
a cluster of pistils, looking like a mi¬ 
nute green strawberry in the center. 
The stamens are there, but only in a 
rudimentary condition while the per¬ 
fect flower shows both stamens and 
pistils. When varieties which produce 
pistillate or female flowers only are 
planted it is necessary to set plants 
producing perfect or bisexual blossoms, 
to impregnate them with pollen. For 
this reason, many prefer bisexual vari¬ 
eties, which save them from anxiety 
on this point. The strawberry is not 
unique in this peculiarity of its flowers; 
there are many plants which produce no 
perfect flowers, the staminate form be¬ 
ing borne by one individual, and the 
pistillate by another. 
Green Manure for Poor Land. 
C. G. »S'., Ro8»man, N. Y.—I purchased a 
farm last Spring. One field contains IS 
acres, and was sown to rye. The crop is 
poor; not over six or seven tons of straw 
will be cut from the whole piece. It has 
been sown to rye for 20 years; no manure, 
fertilizer or grass seed has been put on it. 
The soil is a medium light sand, and what 
we call leachy. My plan in the Spring is 
to plow deep, and sow to Canada cow 
peas, l'/> bushel to the acre. As soon as in 
bloom, plow under and sow to peas again. 
Plow under and put on a crop of rye in the 
Fall of 1900. As 1 have no manure for the 
field, can you advise anything better for 
me to do with it? 
Ans. —There is no such thing as tne 
Canada cow pea. You, probably, have 
it mixed up with the Canada field pea. 
The cow pea is really a bean, and very 
susceptible to frost. The Canada field 
pea is a true pea, and will thrive and 
grow even after severe frosts in Autumn. 
That soil evidently needs vegetable 
matter, but you will make a mistake 
if you attempt to grow it without using 
fertilizers of some sort. If that farm 
were in New Jersey, we would plow it 
up at once, and sow the southern cow 
pea, using at least 100 pounds of muri¬ 
ate of potash, and 400 pounds of dis¬ 
solved rock per acre. We would let the 
eow peas grow until destroyed by frost; 
then we would plow them under, and 
sow rye, which would make a fair crop. 
About the middle of May, this rye would 
be plowed under and rolled down; then 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
we would sow cow peas again, and let 
them occupy the groum. during the sea¬ 
son. It would be a good plan to use 
in connection with the cow peas 150 
pounds per acre of air-slaked lime. In 
the Fall, we should consider the ground 
in fair condition for seeding to grain or 
grass, provided we used a fair quantity 
of fertilizer. The plan of trying to re¬ 
claim poor land of this kind with green 
manures alone will not prove satisfac¬ 
tory. A fair amount of potash and rock 
applied with the piece of rye will great¬ 
ly help those crops, aiid add to the 
value of the ground. You are too far 
north to make use of the cow peas this 
year, but you can still use the Canada 
field pea in about the same way. 
What Manurial Crops ? 
I’. E., Woodstock, Conn .—I have plowed 
Crimson clover into a field. What can I 
sow to cover it for Winter so as to seed 
down in the Spring? 
Ans. —If we had that piece of ground, 
and wanted to get it in the best possible 
condition for next year, we would have 
sown cow peas on it as soon as possible 
after plowing under the Crimson clover. 
These cow peas might have been drilled 
in three feet apart, and well cultivated; 
then it would have been possible to 
sow Crimson clover again at the last 
cultivation of the cow peas. This would 
have given you a good growth during the 
Summer, also during the Winter. You 
can hardly do better now than to sow 
Crimson clover again, sowing about the 
middle of July, after carefully prepar¬ 
ing the ground, and if possible, just be¬ 
fore or during a shower. You can work 
this under in the Spring with good ef¬ 
fect. If you wish to seed the ground 
next year, and do not like to have a 
green crop growing on it in the Spring, 
you can still sow cow peas and get a 
fair-sized growth from them to lie on 
the ground during the Winter, and be 
plowed under next Spring. 
ACETYLENE GAS. 
FACTS ABOUT A POPULAR NKW MATERIAL. 
Several times during the past few 
years, we have referred to the use of 
acetylene for illuminating purposes. As 
many of our readers doubtless know, 
this gas is in quite common use in some 
localities. It is said to be the most prac¬ 
tical means for supplying gas in country 
houses, and is now used in large lamps, 
and also in bicycle lamps and lanterns. 
Few people, however, appear to know 
what this gas is, or how it came to be 
developed. 
A writer in Popular Science Monthly 
says that it is only five years ago that 
the use of acetylene was suggested to 
the public. In 1892, a Canadian elec¬ 
trician tried to make the metal calcium, 
in an electric furnace, in North Caro¬ 
lina. He heated a mixture of lime and 
coal dust, thinking to form pure calcium 
in this way. He did not succeed, but 
found in the furnace after the heating, 
a brown crystalline mass. He found 
that, by pouring water on it, an inflam¬ 
mable gas was immediately set free. 
Scientific men found that this brown 
mass was calcium carbide, which, when 
mixed with water, immediately sets free 
the gas. From that beginning practi¬ 
cally, the system of using this carbide 
for lighting purposes has grown. It not 
only supplies light and heat when 
burned as a gas, but the carbide has 
other uses. 
From an agricultural point of view, 
the most useful is its work as a germi¬ 
cide. It is said to destroy the phyllox¬ 
era, perhaps the worst enemy of the 
grape. The carbide is applied to the 
soil, the moisture of which sets free the 
gas, and destroys the germs or insects. 
It will, probably, be used to destroy the 
Woolly aphis or other insects that work 
on the roots of plants. To make the 
carbide, a temperature of over 2,600 de¬ 
grees is necessary, and electric furnaces 
are necessary for this purpose. The car¬ 
bide can be made with water power from 
a stream. This power is used for gen¬ 
erating the electric current, which is 
carried to a generator to fuse the mix¬ 
ture of lime and coke. A furnace com¬ 
monly used is a huge, short cylinder or 
hollow wheel, which revolves slowly on 
a horizontal shaft. The top of this 
wheel is left always open, cast iron slats 
being put below as it. revolves. The up¬ 
per part of the cylinder is filled with a 
mixture of powdered coke and lime. 
Two carbon electros project down into 
it, and the fierce heat is turned into 
Lhem, and this tuses the coke and lime 
into the carbide. As it is formed, the 
cylinder is revolved, ana the caruide 
broken oil and taken out below, ixew 
material is constantly heated up, wane 
the lower part is cooling. The caruide 
is crushed and packed in air-tight tin 
cans, and shipped as wanted to thooe 
wno use it. The principle on which it is 
used, is to mix tlie carbide with water; 
gas is given off at once, and this is 
stored in tanks and pipes, and used 
about like ordinary gas. 
There are three forms of generators, 
the most popular of whicu seems to be 
the plan of dropping the carbide m the 
form of powder into a large amount of 
water; another form is tne reverse of 
this—dropping water in small quanti¬ 
ties upon the carbide. The former 
method appears to be safer, and will 
give, on the whole, better results. The 
chances seem to be that this method of 
beating and lighting houses will become 
very popular. It seems to be possible 
to generate this gas at a very low cost, 
and it seems probable that, within the 
near future, great use will be made of 
the carbide for this purpose. 
SHORT STORIES. 
The Bicycle Buu.—T he alleged kiss¬ 
ing bug having become too common to 
receive much notice, a new entomolog¬ 
ical terror has appeared, in the person of 
the bicycle bug. This depraved insect, 
which is described as an unusually large 
June bug with powerful jaws, makes a 
furious onslaught on bicyclists, dashing 
into their faces and knocking them off 
their wheels. At least, this is the view 
of the victims, but it seems more rea¬ 
sonable to believe that the onslaught is 
merely due to misdirected energy on the 
part of a clumsy but well-meaning in¬ 
sect, rather than the existence of a 
grudge against bicyclists. 
The Right Talk. —Secretary James 
Wilson, while on his way to California, 
told in Chicago recently of a black man 
who was graduated at the Iowa Agri¬ 
cultural College, and is now at Tuske- 
gee, Ala.: 
Carver, that’s the young man’s name— 
George Carver—came up to Ames from 
somewhere in Missouri, and told me that 
he wanted to learn about agriculture. 
“Well,” I said to myself, “we’ve had a 
good deal to say in Iowa about equal rights, 
and now I guess we’ll put it into practice.” 
So I took him in. But he couldn’t get a 
room, and the outlook was dubious. How¬ 
ever, I had two rooms as director of the 
Station, and through my connection with 
the College, and I gave him one of them, 
and there he stayed until he completed his' 
course. 
The writer has seen Prof. George Carver 
and the work he is doing at the TuSke- 
gee College. Secretary Wilson did one 
of the best things of a long and useful 
life when he befriended this black man 
and helped him to an education. Prof. • 
Carver is doing excellent work for the 
South—work that will rank well in prac¬ 
tical value with that done at any south¬ 
ern agricultural college. 
“Atomizing” Potato Beetles. —My 
boy, 14 years old, can spray three acres 
per day of eight hours, with the small 
sprayers (atomizers), and not work 
hard. It kills all the beetles, and uses 
only two pails of water and iy 2 pound 
of green. We do not have to wait for 
dew, etc.; it’s the best way. It dries in¬ 
to the leaf, and sticks so as to kill the 
old ones that come after. 
Second-Crop Potatoes. —As far north 
as Philadelphia, farmers are taking up 
the plan of second-crop seed potatoes. 
In Gloucester County, N. .T., last year, 
the plan was tried of planting fair-sized 
seed of the first crop as soon as it was 
well ripened. This seed, planted on 
good ground, gave a fair crop before 
frost, and this second crop used for seed 
this year is said to have proved fully 
equal to northern grown seed. Reports 
from the West indicate that a few farm¬ 
ers, even as far north as southern Michi¬ 
gan, have succeeded with this plan. Last 
year, however, was exceptional, as kill¬ 
ing frosts held off until quite late in 
October. We understand that, in south¬ 
ern Jersey, a large acreage of second- 
crop seed will be planted this year, and 
we intend to try the plan at Hope Farm 
with seed from our first digging. 
Potash. 
T ''ARMHRS should know its 
value and its importance 
/ 
in a fertilizer to be applied to 
their grain crops. 
Our illustrated books which 
tell what Potash is, how it 
should be used, and how much 
Potash a well-balanced fertil¬ 
izer should contain, are sent 
free to all applicants. Send 
your address. 
GERMAN KALI WORKS, 
93 Nassau Si., New York. 
Profits of Farming 
GARDENING AND FRUIT CULTURE. 
depend upon Good Crone and they in 
turn upon Good Fertilizer*!. The 
uniformly best fertilizer for all Crops 
and all soils is made by 
The Cleveland Dryer Co., Cleveland, O. 
Materials Supplied for “ Home Mixing." 
Jadoo Fibre and Jadoo Liquii 
Will give you Early Crops and Large Crops 
of Vegetables or Fruit. Bend for Catalogues 
and be convinced of the merits of these 
new Fertilizers. 
THE AMERICAN JADOO CO., 
815 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 
POISON 
Is not used in my Killer of Cab¬ 
bage Worms. By mall, 25 and 50c. 
EDW. SWARTri, Blockton, la. 
FumaCarbonBisulphide 
“The wheels of the gods grind slow but exceed¬ 
ing small.” So do weevil, but don’t let them grind 
your grain, it doesn't pav. it £11 US M as others 
KILL THEM WITH rUmAj aredoing. 
EDWARD K. TAYLOR, Cleveland, Ohio. 
RUINED 
GARDEN, 
flower bed, green house 
or lawn may oe the result 
of a few hours operation 
of an active, energetic 
mole. The remedy Is to 
catch them on tlrstsigus 
of appearance. 
0ut-0-Sight" 
MOLE TRAP 
catchcs him every lime. It’s 
guaranteed to do that. Can be 
set anywhere—under glass, in 
the hot-bed, &e. Sumplc trap 
_ ; cts. by mail, or have your dealer 
order for you. It is not like others— 
It Im better. Descriptive matter 
on traps mailed free. 
ANIMAL TRAP CO. 
10 Tlcek St., Abingdon, 11 
BUY YOUR FERTILIZERS DlRECTI 1 
Save Money! No Salesman’s Expenses; No Middleman’s Profit. Our entire prodnot 
goes from Factory to Farm. Write for free samples and book. 
WALKER, STRATMAN A CO., Pittsburg, Pa. 
