752 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 28 
Farmers’ Club. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the 
name and address of the writer to insure atten¬ 
tion. Before asking a question, please see 
whether it is not answered in our advertising 
columns. Ask only a few questions at one time. 
Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
APPLE POMACE AS FERTILIZER. 
How to Use It. 
A reader in Canada asks whether apple 
pomace, after being left in the heap to rot 
for one year, is of any manurial value to 
the land. He says that he gets it free, 
and could use it on clay or sandy land for 
trees or small fruits if it is of any value. 
Is such pomace, in your opinion, really 
worth handling? How could it be used 
to the best advantage, and would you sug¬ 
gest the use of chemicals in connection 
with it? 
Not Much Value. —I do not consider 
apple pomace of any value to the soil 
until the acid which 'it contains has 
been neutralized. This may be done 
with lime or wood ashes; lime is pref¬ 
erable. I consider the pomace in its 
sour condition injurious rather than 
beneficial to the soil. When mixed with 
lime, say 10 to 12 bushels of pomace to 
one of lime, and left lying for six 
months, with one or two workings-over, 
it will have a little manurial value, but 
I doubt whether it will more than pay 
the cost for labor in liming and work¬ 
ing. We have had access to mills where 
it could be had for the hauling, but we 
never considered it worth carting. 
Connecticut. edwin iioyt. 
Worth Hauling. —Fresh apple pom¬ 
ace contains on the average: 
Per Cent. 
Nitrogen .230 
Phosphoric Acid.020 
Potash .130 
The rotten, or decayed, would contain 
more of these ingredients, provided that 
the decay had been properly governed, 
so as to prevent loss of nitrogen. The 
content of nitrogen is nearly half as 
great, and the potash about one-quarter 
as great, as in average manure, though 
the phosphoric acid is considerably less. 
It would, therefore, in my judgment be 
worth hauling and spreading, and I 
should recommend that it be hauled in 
its green state and spread upon the land 
during the Fall or Winter, at the rate 
of eight to 10 tons per acre. Of course, 
hauling should be done when teams and 
men are not otherwise occupied. If not 
hauled when green, it may be com¬ 
posted with lime or plaster, and covered 
with earth, to prevent any losses. While 
there would be likely to be some acids 
developed in the decay, I do not think 
that there would be sufficient to cause 
any acidity of soil in the amounts re¬ 
commended. EDWARD B. VOORHEES. 
New Jersey Exp. Station. 
Use of Tobacco Stems. 
O. G. K., Manchester, N. JI .—What do you 
think of tobacco stems as a fertilizer for 
general market-garden crops? If stems 
could be purchased at $6 per ton, how 
would that compare with chemicals pur¬ 
chased at market rates, provided the stems 
are in the basement of the factory, and 
have to be pitched up one flight of steps? 
Would they be likely to draw moisture in 
this basement if they are kept there for 
months, although there is no water there? 
I would have to haul them but 2 M: miles. 
If I were to use them, would they' waste 
any by being plowed under this Fall? 
How would they do by putting them on 
heavily as a mulch for strawberries this 
Winter? Would they not serve a good 
purpose, as protection and also add some 
fertility, which strawberries would need? 
Ans. —Tobacco stems vary in composi¬ 
tion. A fair average sample would show 
2*4 per cent of nitrogen, 6% per cent of 
potash, and one-half of one per cent of 
phosphoric acid. We consider them 
worth about four times as much as 
stable manure. We would gladly pay 
$6 a ton for them. We should haul 
them as soon as possible. The best way 
to use them is to run them through a 
feed cutter, and then use for bedding 
the stock. They absorb the liquids and 
rot down in the manure. This is the 
way they are used at the New Jersey 
Experiment Station. They will make 
a good mulch for the strawberries. 
For the land’s sake—use Bowker’s 
Fertilizer.— Adv. 
SHORT STORIES. 
Curious Mistakes. —Several weeks 
ago we told of the expert apple grower 
who saw the ants following plant lice, 
and supposed that they were destroying 
them. So he protected the ants, which 
was the worst thing he could do, for 
they were keeping the plant lice at 
work. Texas Farm and Ranch gives 
this story of a similar mistake: 
Not a great while ago a similar mistake 
was made by an acquaintance of ours. 
The Black aphis were covering the small 
branches on his plum trees, literally de¬ 
vouring the foliage. There appeared in 
their midst a colony of Lady-bugs. Our 
friend mistook them for parents of the 
plum aphides and fell upon them to de¬ 
stroy them, spending more than an hour 
in an attempt to annihilate his best 
friends, believing they bore the relation of 
parents to the lice. Of course, when he 
learned his mistake he felt chagrined. So 
we see that one of the great faults of hu¬ 
manity is to jump at conclusions without 
an exhaustive investigation. 
Farm Workmen.— The English yeo¬ 
man, or skilled farm laborer, has about 
disappeared. He has gone to the towns 
and cities, and it is said to be almost 
impossible in some parts of England to 
find good farm laborers. The Mark Lane 
Express says that: 
The practical extinction of the yeoman, 
which was the work of the first half of the 
century, has at least had a compensating 
side in the attraction of capital to the 
land. The soil of England is owned in 
nine cases out of ten by capitalists, and 
the great drainings of the Fens which took 
place early in the present reign are simply 
a type of what has been going on steadily 
for the past 60 years. 
The efity man becomes a farmer when 
his money is invested in such great un¬ 
dertakings as draining vast swamps or 
taming savage land. Such lands become 
productive. They are places where pow¬ 
erful and rapid implements can be em¬ 
ployed, and this means the loss of a job 
for thousands of men who formerly pro¬ 
duced that food by hand labor. 
A Hired Man Talks.— What a sad 
or unusual experience the editor must 
have had when a boy to break forth, 
after 20 years of surcease, in his plaint 
on page 692 concerning the depravity of 
the hired man! The average hired man, 
like the average citizen of any other 
grade, is likely to be very much the 
child of circumstances, and to take his 
color from his surroundings. It is all 
very well to talk about controlling cir¬ 
cumstances and rising superior to sur¬ 
roundings, but—well, there is no dearth 
of preachers. No doubt many a boy has 
got his knowledge from the hired man 
when he should have got it from his 
father, but the good man has always 
answered the earnest and pertinent 
query of his smaller self with rot too 
ridiculous for even infantile belief, un¬ 
der the mistaken idea that ignorance 
and innocence are synonymous. I only 
feel sorry for the man who cannot in¬ 
struct his boy without vitiating him. 
All boys are bound to come by this, and 
if his father and the hired man with¬ 
holds it, he will appeal to the older boys 
in the neighborhood, where he oftener 
gets such knowledge than from the de¬ 
praved hired hand, and he will get it, 
too, with an amount of trimming that 
might much better be left off. And 
please don’t charge the hired hand with 
teaching the boys to be dishonest until 
farmers quit using short fruit packages, 
putting the small apples in the middle 
of the barrels, putting pumpkins in the 
peach baskets, burying from one to half 
a dozen men or boys in each load of hay 
they bring to town, quit salting their 
cattle heavily, so as to induce them to 
drink inordinately on the way to the 
butcher’s, and many similar tricks with 
which every one is familiar. As for 
shirking, I am prepared to say that no 
boy of my acquaintance needs a tutor, 
as they take to it naturally, simply be¬ 
cause all work is monotonous, and boys 
in their immaturity cannot see the ne¬ 
cessity therefor. Children are imita¬ 
tive, and are quite as likely, perhaps 
more likely, to imitate the shuddering 
farmer in chewing tobacco than the 
hired man, and I think that statistics 
will show that fully as large a per cent 
of farmers chew the weed as of their 
help. A. E. E., EX-HIRED HAND. 
Non-Explosive Cows.—Some cows at 
Hillsboro, O., being dissatisfied with the 
monotony of their rations, lunched on a 
few sticks of dynamite left in the field 
by stump blasters. The dynamite did 
not explode, but the effects of the con¬ 
tained nitro-glycerin gave them a very 
decided case of “blind staggers,” and 
eventually caused the loss of two out 
of five. One-hundredth of a grain of 
nitro-glycerin is a medicinal does for a 
human, and an overdose causes almost 
instantly, giddiness, violent headache, 
and palpitation of the heart, and finally 
death. There is little harmful matter in 
dynamite beside nitro-glycerin, the bulk 
being composed of inert absorbents. 
If the hired man had kicked one of these 
cows in the ribs shortly after her lunch, 
he probably never would have repeated 
the kick. 
Pedigree Strawberries 
Reoommended to all strawberry growers by RtntAi 
New-YORKKR March 11, ’99, and praised by it July 17 
’97 and July 16, ’98. We offer JOE, CARRIE SILVERS. 
STELLA and REBA In pot-grown plants at 25o each, 
$2 per doz„ $5 per 100; and ROBBIE and NETTIE, the 
best late strawberries yet introduced, at 26c. each, 12 
per doz., $6 per 100. Plants to be all pot-grown and to 
be delivered after July 1st. Ordsrquick; stock limited 
JOS. H. BLACK , SON & CO., Hightstown, N. J. 
Cyanide 
Guaranteed 98 to 99 per cent., for generating 
Hydrocyanic Acid Qas 
the most effective fumigating material, to 
destroy scale insects on fruit trees and 
plants. The only positive eradicator of 
the dreaded San Jose Scale. Endorsed by 
all Agricultural Experiment Stations. “A 
perfect practical remedy,” says Prof. W. G. 
Johnson, State Etymologist of Maryland. 
MANUFACTURED BY 
The Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Co., 
No. 100 William Street. New York. 
Jadoo Fibre and Jadoo Liquid 
Will give you Early Crops and Large Crops 
of Vegetables or Fruit. Send for Catalogues 
and be convinced of the merits of these 
new Fertilizers. 
THE AMERICAN JADOO CO., 
815 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 
f . CABBAGE 
P lantS LE A TTTJCE 
Cheap in Large Lots. 
J. LINTHICUM, Woodwardville, A. A. Co., Md. 
■ O NEW YORK STRAWBERRY PLANTS by 
I mail for $1. T. C KEVITT, Athenla, N. Y. 
TnrrP at Wholesale prices. Apple, Plum and 
I Krr\ Pears, $6 per 100; Peach, 3c. Cat. Free 
* *■■“*•'* Reliance Nursery, Box 10, Geneva, N. Y, 
Choice Fruit Trees, Vines, Shrubs, Plants, Bulbs, 
etc. Illustrated Catalogue and Price-List Free. 
S. E. HALL, Cherry Valley, Ill. 
DC A nil TDCCC -0ne year from bud. 2^c. and 
fLAlm I HlLO up—all leading varieties. 
TDPFQ Klne stock; low 
■ iaCEw prices. Write for 
Planters’Special Price-List. Tells 
about the wonderful/rost-p* oof IKON MOUNTAIN 
Peach. LINDSLEY S NURSERY.White House. N.J. 
The President Wilder Currant 
and other choice new fruits can be had at 
bottom prices of the subscriber. Send 
fnr riescrintive list and nrices to 
Grape Vines 
Descriptive and Price List free. 
Currants, Gooseberries and other Small 
Fruit Plants. Extraquality. Warranted true. 
T. S. HUBBARD CO., FKEDON1A, N. Y. 
Apple Seedlings. 
We offer the following grades: 
First-class, 3-16 inch and up, straights. 
Second class, 2-16 to 3-16 inch, straights. 
Branched, 3-16 inch and up. 
These Seedlings are equal to any on the market , 
and offered at reasonable prices. We also have 
a large stock of Root Grafts. Address 
F. S. PHOENIX, Bloomington, Ill. 
FALL PLANTING. 
Our CATALOGUE tells all about the Trees, Plants and Vines that can be planted with safety in the 
Fall, and explains why you should plant at this season. 13^- It will be mailed Free. Send your address 
T. J. DWYER & SON, Box 1, Cornwall, N. Y. 
l“Abundant Rains” take (though true when ad. was I 
L J written', but the rest is all right. Weare ready for your orders. If you have! 
not been able to “make connections ” earlier, we can help you make up for lost,U _ _ 
time with prompt shipment and good stock, and get it to you in good season for successful Fall plant¬ 
ing. Remember the name and the place to.buy. _ .. . „ - T ,, 
THE ROGERS NURSERIES, TREE BREEDERS, DANSVIIXK, N. Y. 
TRUSTWORTHY TREES 
Are most likely to be obtained from reliable growers—Harrison’s 
goods are trustworthy. TWO PRIME FA VORITES! 
MAMMOTH BLACK TWIO 
APPLE—High color, deep red, 
targe winter apple; good quality, 
good keeper, robust, heavy bearer. 
WICKSON PLUM—Pre-eminent 
among thousands, sturdy grower, 
very productive, fruit deep red. 
flesh fine and firm. Keeps two weeks. 
Hundreds of others! peaches, pears, strawberries, etc. Catalogue free. 
HARRISON’S NURSERIES, Box 29, BERLIN, Md- 
PEACH 
Grand lot of trees, free from borers, scale, aphis, yellows, 
etc. Largestock of Fear, Plum, Apple, Cherry, Quince, 
etc. Immense supply of Sr all Fruits. Headquarters for 
Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Bulbs. 
40 acres Hardy Roue*. 44 Greenhouses filled with Palms, Ficus, Ferns, Pandanus, 
Rose6, etc. Correspondence solicited. Catalogue and Price List free. 
The STORRS & HARRISON CO., Painesville, O. 
The October Purple Plum. 
Luther Burbank’s latest and best production. We are 
the introducers and can furnish first-class stock at lowest 
prices. We have 500 acres in nursery stock—shade trees, 
fruit trees, ornamental trees, shrubs and small fruit plants, in 
fact anything you can ask for. Catalogue, with colored plate 
picture of October Purple Plum, free. Write to-day. 
STEPHEN HOYT’S SONS CO., Box 10, New Canaan, Conn. 
