546 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 29 
; Ruralisms 
Grape Experience. — Horticultural 
life is full of surprises which, it would 
seem oddly enough, increase in numbers 
as one gains experience. 
After the past Winter, the severest in 
30 years of our experience, it was rea¬ 
sonably assumed that the grape crop 
would he a failure, and that a large pro¬ 
portion of Tiie Rural's present collec¬ 
tion (about CO varieties) would be, all 
of them harmed more or less, and many 
of them killed. It is true some of them 
were seriously injured. It is also true 
that others are bearing larger crops 
than ever before. The bunches are 
larger, and more perfect. This is due, 
probably, to the fact that the pestifer¬ 
ous Rose chafers and the grape flowers 
did not make a close connection. The 
berries were well set before the Rose 
chafers put in an appearance. 
We have tried during these 30 years 
nearly every kind offered by nursery¬ 
men, and scores of kinds which have 
been sent to us for trial by their too- 
sanguine originators. The result is that 
less than a dozen varieties have been 
found worth cultivating. All of Rog¬ 
ers’s, Ricketts’s and Munson’s hybrids 
fail, either because of tenderness or mil¬ 
dew. Those which passed last Winter 
without harm and are bearing larger 
crops than ever before, are Cottage, 
Worden, Campbell’s Early, Diamond, 
Green Mountain, or Winchel, Victoria, 
Concord, and a variety which originated 
at the Rural Grounds—a cross between 
Ricketts’s Lady Washington and Cot¬ 
tage. We had high hopes of the last 
because it proved to be the earliest 
black grape known to us, and because 
the quality was fine—better than that 
of either parent. But the vine proves 
so unproductive that it is not worth 
placing on the market. 
Among all the varieties tried at the 
Rural Grounds, the climate of which, it 
should be borne in mind, is not favor¬ 
able to the culture of the finer hybrid 
kinds, we should, after these 30 years of 
experience, choose the following: 
Campbell’s Early, Worden, Diamond, 
and Green Mountain or Winchel. If we 
could have but one black, it would be 
Campbell’s Early, because of the hardi¬ 
ness and fruitfulness of the vine, be¬ 
cause of its large bunches and berries 
which are superior to Concord in that 
there is no foxiness and little or no 
acidity about the seeds, and finally, be¬ 
cause of its earliness. If we could have 
but one white, it would be Diamond, be¬ 
cause of the exceeding hardiness and 
fruitfulness of the vine. The grapes 
mature before Concord, and the quality 
is fully as good. If we could have but 
one early white grape, it would be the 
little Green Mountain. 
A Promising Blackcap. —If we may 
judge the value of a new kind of black¬ 
cap from a single season’s fruitage, Liv¬ 
ingston Late would be given a high 
place. The plants were received April 
6, 1898, from C. W. Middleton, of Utica, 
N. Y. Notwithstanding the unprece¬ 
dented drought, the canes are now from 
seven to nine feet high, and still loaded 
with berries which began to ripen July 
2. The berries, in a favorable season, 
would, probably, grow to the size of 
those of the Gregg. The quality is fine, 
the seeds small. The Gregg, by the 
way, is the very last blackcap we 
should raise for home use. 
Spineless Gooseberries. —During the 
Spring of 1897, Mr. C. H. Joosten, of 
New York, was kind enough to send us 
several plants of the new spineless 
French gooseberries. They are spineless, 
but we regret that that is the most we 
may say in their favor, as they behave 
at the Rural Grounds. The varieties 
sent were Souvenir de Villard, Belle de 
Meaux and Edouard Le Port. They 
were but little injured by the past ex¬ 
ceptionally cold Winter, but they make 
scarcely any growth, and have borne 
no fruit. A spineless variety of a goose¬ 
berry, excellent in other respects, would 
be a grand acquisition. 
Tiie Best Gooseberries, as grown at 
the Rural Grounds, are Keepsake, Gra- 
cilla, Triumph, Columbus and Carman. 
Keepsake, from E. W. Reid, Bridgeport, 
Ohio, is a prize. It is of English origin, 
but it does not mildew, and bears the 
largest berries ever grown at the Rural 
Grounds. 
Gracilla plants were sent us by L. H. 
Hoysradt, of Pine Plains, N. Y., during 
the Spring of 1896. They were not hurt 
by the past Winter. It is as productive as 
need be. The berries average nearly as 
large as those of Columbus, of a light 
green color, slightly oblong. The 
bushes are not affected with mildew, 
the berries do not rot. 
Triumph and Columbus are, as we 
saw last year, so nearly alike that the 
writer can not distinguish one from the 
other, either as to plant or berry. 
The Carman has not yet been intro¬ 
duced, and perhaps never will be, owing 
to the difficulty in propagating it. It 
is in all ways as good as Columbus or 
Triumph, and 10 days earlier. The 
Storrs & Harrison Co., of Painesville, 
Ohio, control this variety. 
Old Favorites. —Mr. Charles Pierson 
Augur, of Woodbridge, Conn., has a 
well-merited word of praise for two old 
kinds of raspberries: 
“I was very glad to see, in the last 
Ruralisms, a good word for my old fa¬ 
vorites, Turner and Caroline raspberries. 
For 20 years, I have grown both sorts, 
and have never known either to be in 
the least injured by the weather. This 
year, everything else in the raspberry line 
is dead above ground, but these vari¬ 
eties are as bright and vigorous as 
could be desired. Cuthbert and Golden 
Queen are never quite hardy here, and 
Golden Queen is loo crumbly to be of 
much account. While the Caroline is 
an acid berry, it is a most excellent 
canning fruit, and in yield and vigor of 
cane, it is second to none. I have tried 
nearly every variety of raspberry that 
has been offered, and have raised hun¬ 
dreds of seedlings, but I have never 
grown any kind of reds or yellows that 
can equal Turner and Caroline.” 
Turner was among the very first red 
raspberries planted in the Rural Experi¬ 
ment Grounds. We valued it, as has 
been stated, for the high flavor of its 
berries and exceeding hardiness of its 
prolific canes. Caroline came later. It 
may be said to-day that it is the hardiest 
and most prolific of the yellow varieties. 
Xantiioceras Sorbifolia, or the Hy¬ 
acinth tree, as Tiie R. N.-Y. would 
name it, is rare. Why it is rare, no one 
knows that the writer knows of. All 
agree that it is a grand hardy shrub, 
yet it is rare. The botanical name will 
never be accepted for a “common” name. 
So it is that Ruralisms dares to suggest 
one. The two Greek words Xanthos 
and Keras, from which the generic name 
is derived, mean respectively “yellow” 
and “horn,” alluding to the glands at 
the base of the petals, the specific name 
because of the resemblance of the leaves 
to those of the Mountain ash. 
The first mention known to us of this 
shrub was made in the London Garden 
during 1876. It was re-engraved for 
Tiie R. N.-Y.—then Moore’s R. N.-Y.— 
and presented February 26, 1876. This 
slrowed the racemes of the flowers to 
be considerably larger than those which 
appear this week on our first page. The 
reason is that the lower flowers wilted 
before the writer could get them in the 
hands of the photographer. It was 
really a choice of evils, the uppermost 
flowers not being fully expanded until 
the lower ones were collapsed. 
A year or so after, we were enabled 
to procure a plant so that we have had 
it under observation ever since. 
The beautiful pinnate leaves are well 
shown in Fig. 211, which are reduced to 
about one-quarter their natural' size. 
The racemes of flowers resemble, in a 
general way, those of the horse-chestnut, 
to which it is closely related, as well as 
those of the hyacinth to which, of 
course, it is by no means related. They 
are from six to ten inches long, each 
bearing from 40 to 50 flowers, the pet¬ 
als being nearly white, 1 y 2 inch dia¬ 
meter with a crimson eye. They are 
odorless. A raceme grows from the axil 
of almost every leaf, so that the shrub 
is a grand sight from early until late 
May. The leaves bear about 13 leaflets 
to the petiole, which where it joins the 
stem, resembles a horse’s foot as do the 
petioles of the Yellow-wood, Ailantus, 
etc. The leaflets are, as shown, long, 
narrow, lanceolate, acute and con¬ 
spicuously toothed. 
The average fruit is shown at Fig. 212, 
page 543, which much resembles the 
smooth-fruited horse-chestnut (Ravia). 
'l his contains many round seeds the size 
of Ganna seeds, or a little larger. They 
may be planted in the Fall or Spring in 
tne open ground. They sprout readily, 
and the plants will bloom the second 
year. 
Xantiioceras sorbifolia has a failing. 
Now and again the leaves of a brancn 
will wither and die without apparent 
reason. Again an entire brancn will 
die as if struca by biignt. The shrub 
grows to the height ot irom six to lb 
teet, and always fruits abundantly, 
dhe nuts borne by tne willowy shoots 
of the current season are so heavy that 
the branches sometimes break under 
their weight. 
It is perfectly hardy at the Rural 
Grounds... 
necticut, and farmers often ask, Why is 
this? Prof. Wheeler says that practically 
all the fertilizers shipped into Vermont are 
sent during the Winter months. This is 
because the cheapest form of freight con¬ 
veyance in that State is a snow sled. The 
farmers like to haul their goods while the 
snow is hard and firm. The Spring thaws 
leave the roads almost impassable, and 
much time and money are saved by hauling 
goods over the hard snow. Thus the ferti¬ 
lizer business in Vermont, and to some ex¬ 
tent in Maine, is conducted several months 
ahead of the same business in southern 
New England and New Jersey, and the 
stations are thus able to get their samples 
and have analyses made before early Sum¬ 
mer. Yet it will be seen that these analy¬ 
ses are really of no more value to the Ver¬ 
mont farmers than the later analyses made 
in other States. 
" Woman s Work 
is Never Done." 
The constant care causes sleeplessness, 
loss of appetite, extreme nervousness, and 
that tired feeling. But a ’wonderful 
change comes when Hood's Sarsaparilla 
is taken. It gives pure, rich blood, good 
appetite, steady nerves. 
[ADAM 
THE FENCE MAN; 
Makes Woven Wire 
Fence that“Stands 
Up.” Cannot Sag. 
Get his new catalogue. It- 
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| W. J. ADAM, JolTet^ 
o-‘ -- 
BULLETINS BOILED DOWN. 
A bulletin from the Kansas Experi¬ 
ment Station (Manhattan), gives an ac¬ 
count of an experiment with hug cholera. 
Tne Jensen Creamery Co. have lost many 
hogs from cholera. The Agricultural Col¬ 
lege inoculated 12 shotes with the hog 
cnolera germ. This was done on the same 
principle that is used in vaccinating hu¬ 
mans against smallpox. These shotes 
were sent to the creamery, and efforts 
were made to have them take the cholera. 
A hog that died from the cholera was left 
in the pen with them, and no attempt at 
cleaning or disinfecting was carried on. 
In spile of this exposure, the 12 shotes 
were not in the least touched by cholera, 
and showed rapid gain. They were fed 
for three months, and made a net profit 
over the buttermilk and wheat shorts 
given them, of $3o.S2. This experiment is 
to be duplicated by the Kansas Station 
in various parts of Lite State, and it ought 
to show whether this inoculation treat¬ 
ment is valuable or otherwise, in talking 
with western hog raisers, we learn that 
most of them believe that inoculation is 
valuable, but they think it costs too much, 
and few apparently adopt it. 
Spraying Weeds.— The English agricul¬ 
tural papers frequently contain accounts of 
experiments in spraying to destroy weeds. 
The chief effort seems to be to kill char¬ 
lock, which is often found growing in 
crops of grain. A solution of either sul¬ 
phate of iron or sulphate of copper is 
sprayed over the entire field. The reports 
are that this destroys the weeds, but is not 
injurious to the valuable crops. These re¬ 
ports are so often printed that we are 
forced to believe that the English think 
favorably of this plan, in this country, 
our American scientists say that they 
know very little about it. They doubt very 
much whether sulphate of copper used 
strong enough to kill weeds would not also 
kill crops, even grass. The solution of two 
per cent of the sulphate was used in the 
English experiments at the rate of 50 gal¬ 
lons per acre. This is only about one-half 
as strong as the solution sometimes used 
upon fruit trees, for the Apple-scab fungus, 
just before Spring growth begins. From 
American experience, it would seem that 
sulphate of copper would hardly kill weeds 
when sprayed upon them, unless used 
strong enough to destroy crops also. If 
weeds could be destroyed in this way, with¬ 
out injury to the crops, it would certainly 
be a blessing to agriculture. 
Fertilizer Analyses.— In Bulletin No. 54, 
from the Rhode Island Experiment Station 
(Kingston), Prof. H. J. Wheeler gives an 
illustration of the curious way in which 
climate may affect business. There has al¬ 
ways been more or less complaint among 
farmers that the analyses of chemical fer¬ 
tilizers are not printed in time to be of the 
greatest use to those who want to buy good 
fertilizer. The Vermont Station, for ex¬ 
ample, prints its analyses earlier than 
they are printed in Rhode Island or Con¬ 
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1 »de > 
New York State Fair, 
SYRACUSE, N. Y., 
September 4 to 9, 1899. 
$25,000 in Premiums 
New Buildings, New Water Plant. 
Great Attractions. 
Premium lists now ready. Apply to 
J AS. IS. DOCHAKTf, Sec’y. Albany, N. Y. 
Special Railroad Facilities. Reduced Kates, and ah 
exhibits unloaded from cars on 
the Fair Grounds 
