1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
those who say that it would he a mistake to lengthen 
our season. All peaches now come into market at a cer¬ 
tain definite time, and buyers and consumers all look 
for them at that time. It might change the aspect of 
affairs somewhat if we were to go out of season and 
attempt to compete with the peaches fx*om Georgia, 
and also those from northern Jersey. As for varieties 
needed to do this lengthening. Mamie Ross and Bishop’s 
are improvements on the early sorts of a dozen or 20 
years ago, and there is no reason why Greensboro and 
Carman should not be, also. I can well remember 
when we had no variety to ripen between Late Craw¬ 
ford and Smock; but now, we have at least half a 
dozen of them. We all remember when Crawford was 
the first early yellow peach, but now we have St. 
John, Lady Ingold, Early Beauty and Triumph, all 
much earlier and several of them better in every way.” 
“ What can you say of some of the newer peaches as 
to quality and produetiveness ? ” 
“I grew and shipped the first Elbertas that ever 
went from Seaford, 1 think in the summer of 1890. 
These brought $1.25 per five-eighths-bushel basket in 
New York, when Late Crawford sold for 75 to 80 cents. 
More trees of Elberta are being set than of all others 
combined. Chair’s Choice made its appearance a few 
years before Elberta, and it is a magnificent peach, 
larger and better every way than Late Crawford, and 
a few days later. Couper’s Late is comparatively a 
new sort, confined, I think, largely to Delaware. 
Rather large, red and white, ripening after Crawford. 
An immense bearer. Of the really new varieties, 
Chinese Free, Belle of Georgia, and Crosby have been 
fruited most. The first two are good bearers of the 
Tliurber class of peaches, while Crosby appears to 
have nothing to recommend it to Peninsula growers. 
Champion ripens later than Mt. Rose, and ahead of 
Oldmixon, is large and fine in every way. 
Connet’s Early is as large and fine as 
Elberta, white with crimson cheek, an 
immense bearer, and does not rot. Be¬ 
gins to ripen a full week or more ahead 
of Mt. Rose. Bishop’s Early is of the Mt. 
Rose type, but larger and finer. In 1895, 
it ripened two weeks earlier, and in 189(5, 
one week ahead of Mt. Rose. Triumph is 
the earliest yellow peach, and nearly a 
freestone when fully ripe. It comes with 
Alexander. Mamie Ross is a Texas variety 
far superior to Early Rivers in size and 
appearance, and better in every way. 
Sneed ripens two weeks ahead of Alex¬ 
ander on my grounds. It is of the Chinese 
type, and where early peaches are a suc¬ 
cess, I would plant it, but not here. Lady 
Ingold is as large and fine as Early Craw¬ 
ford. It ripens with St. John, and is 
vastly superior in every way to this sort. 
Highly colored, a freestone and about the 
best of its season. I have but few peaches 
that pleased me more than Early Beauty, 
a fine large yellow variety that bore an 
immense crop, ripening with or a little 
later than Lady Ingold When the trees 
are not too full, this peach is as large as 
Susquehanna, but is inclined to overbear sometimes. 
Of the midseason peaches, Wheatland and Globe are 
two of the finest, immense in size, yellow, high color, 
and fine in every way.” n. w. c. 
THE STORY OF A RUN-DOWN FARM. 
WHEN STABLE MANURE IS CHEAPER THAN FERTILIZER. 
Part V. 
I take it that, regardless of your politics, you in com¬ 
mon with most people who are doing business for the 
hard, cold dollar, are buying your raw material in the 
cheapest market. That's what the merchants are do¬ 
ing to whom 1 sell; they will not pay me any more 
than they can get the same class of goods for from 
Virginia or New York State, plus the freight. It’s 
along this line of decreased expenses that some of us 
must look for increased profits. If I could succeed in 
making my ground rich enough to grow 400 bushels of 
potatoes per acre without too extravagant an outlay, 
the cost per bushel would be quite materially reduced. 
I hold that it is very poor farming that doesn't grow 
profitable crops and, at the same time, keep up a con¬ 
stant improvement in the soil. With reference to buy¬ 
ing in the cheapest market, it may be necessary to in¬ 
form some of my readers that, when I started on this 
farm, circumstances were such as to render it almost 
impossible to apply stable manure with any degree of 
economy ; but since then, the railroad officials have 
discovered that the more manure they drew, the more 
freight they will have in return, so they felt that they 
could consistently make some concessions, and in 
various other ways not necessary to mention here, I 
have been enabled to obtain quite a quantity of stable 
manure at a figure that justifies its use. I presume 
that the same rule holds good in buying plant food as 
in buying other commodities—“ Well bought is half 
sold.” 
Just a word regarding stable manure. I suppose 
that the average farmer seldom stops to think of the 
content of plant food of that which he draws out on 
the field, and dignifies it by the name of manure. I 
have in mind a stable containing 160 mules, in which, 
every day, there are used 16 bales of hay, averaging 
175 pounds, or 2,800 pounds; and 2,000 pounds of 
cracked corn and oats, half and half. No litter is 
ever used ; the stables are cleaned evex*y day, and all 
the accumulations found in the stables are placed by 
the side of the street to be drawn away. I have heard 
of parties who would load the whole on one load, and 
then look around for some to finish out with. Suppose, 
for curiosity, that we figure out what such a load is 
worth as plant food. According to the tables of Dr. 
Emil Wolff (than whom, so far as I know, there is no 
better authority extant, or one more generally accept¬ 
ed), there would pass through this stable of 1(50 mules, 
every 24 hours, approximately the following quanti¬ 
ties of plant food : 
Nitrogen Potash. Phos. acid. 
In 2,800 pounds of hay. 43 56 19 
In 1,000 pouuds of oats. 19.2 4.4 6.2 
In 1,000 pounds of corn. 16 3.7 5.9 
The proportion of these substances that is retained 
in the manure would not be so easy to determine ; but 
when we are told that the animals are fed at 5 o’clock 
in the morning, taken from the stable shortly after (5, 
worked continuously till from 2 to 4 i\ m., returned 
to the stable, and a little while later fed again (only 
two feeds per day), this when the mines are running, 
which seldom exceeds four days out of seven, may we 
not be justified in allowing one-half for the loss of 
droppings while at work, and the loss of urine in con¬ 
sequence of a lack of absorbents'? If this estimate 
be correct, there would then be drawn from that 
stable every day the following amounts of plant food: 
39.1 pounds of nitrogen, 32 pounds of potash, 15.5 
pounds of phosphoric acid. Perhaps a larger propor¬ 
tion of the potash content may be lost through the 
lack of absorbents than of either of the other ingre¬ 
dients. Again, the extreme richness of this manure 
causes it to heat to an extent that would as¬ 
tonish one who had never handled it, so that, if not 
managed about right, there will be a decided loss of 
ammonia. 
But the question 1 wish to submit to Tiie Rural 
readers is, If such manure could be placed on your 
ground at a price not to exceed $2 per ton, would it 
not be cheaper than fertilizers ? I have a neighbor, 
a painstaking, observant farmer, than whom there is 
no more skilled workman in his line to be found, who 
applies annually in the neighborhood of 30 such loads 
per acre to his onion ground, and I have seen him har¬ 
vest 40 odd hundred bushels of the finest Southport 
Globe onions ever looked upon in one pile, from four 
acres. But I wanted to make a comparison between 
this kind of manure and the water-soaked straw that 
the average farmer applies. According to the author¬ 
ity quoted above, one ton of dry wheat straw con¬ 
tains approximately the following quantities of the 
three leading substances that go to make up the bal¬ 
anced ration for all crops: 9.6 pounds nitrogen. 12.6 
pounds potash. 4.8 pounds phosphoric acid, so that the 
individual who cleaned out the stable referred to 
would have on one of his loads more than four times 
as much nitrogen as the farmer who draws out a ton 
of dry wheat straw, two and one-half times as much 
potash, and nearly four times as much phosphoric 
acid. The advocate of fertilizers will, probably, argue 
that a good brand of fertilizer from properly selected 
materials will be more immediately available; there 
is room for considerable argument at this point. It is 
still an open question in my mind whether we recover 
much more than 50 per cent of the mineral elements 
of the ordinary chemicals in the first year of their 
application. 1 am satisfied that, when such manure 
as I have referred to is rotted (and in two weeks it 
can be made pasty), it seems to require less moisture 
to render it available for crop production than the 
average chemicals. I am reminded in this connection 
of the old Scotch gentleman who was endeavoring to 
convince a neighbor of the superiority of the new 
life he had found over the old sinful practices. 
“ Mon,” he said, “ I ken weel eneuch. I hae tried 
them baith.” 
Does somebody want to know what this writer 
means by tx’ying to show, in the first place, the ap¬ 
parent benefits to be obtained from the use of legumin¬ 
ous crops and chemicals, and then wind up with some¬ 
thing like an effort to prove the superiority of stable 
manure ? I had a reason for it; one reason was that 
such manure as l have been speaking of, is practically 
unknown except in a very few sections, the stock- 
yards of Chicago and Buffalo, for instance; but this 
particular field of which I have been writing, has not 
received any stable manure since it came into my pos¬ 
session, except a narrow strip this fall after the pota¬ 
toes were dug, to see for myself, as well as others, 
what chemicals and green stuff would do. As most of 
my neighbors are aware, I have applied more or less 
stable manure to evei’y other field on the farm in con¬ 
nection with fertilizers. I did this because I could, 
in this way, obtain the necessary quantity of humus 
in the soil, without using half of the farm to grow a 
crop to be turned under; in other words, by using a 
fair share of stable manure, I did not have to let so 
large a proportion of the farm lie idle. 
Luzerne County. Pa. m. garraiian. 
PEACH YELLOWS. 
ITof. Erwin F. Smith, our highest recog¬ 
nized authority on this subject, says: 
“ With our present knowledge, the cure 
of Peach yellows appears to be impossi¬ 
ble.” Again, still later, he says more em¬ 
phatically : “ Peach yellows cannot he cured 
by any ordinary fertilization of the soil. We 
find that, after conducting experiments 
on more than 16,000 trees, covering a period 
of four years, in 15 different orchards in a 
variety of soils, elevations and horticult¬ 
ural methods,” he concludes as follows, 
“that Peach yellows cannot be cured or 
prevented by manuring the soil is believed 
to be demonstrated.” So satisfied was he 
that his work had been thorough, and all 
means had been tried, he adds: “It is 
thought advisable to discontinue this line 
of work.” 
It is useless for any one to attempt to 
hoodwink the eyes of the readers of The 
R. N.-Y. by intimating that, by judicious 
pruning, liberal application of potash 
fertilizer, or by any other method of ti'eatment. this 
most insidious disease can be either cured or pre¬ 
vented. The cause of the disease is as yet unknown, 
and the only treatment of orchards which, thxxs far, 
has proved successful, is to root out and burn any and 
all trees as soon as the disease is discovered, even 
thoxxgli upon one branch only. Premature ripening 
may be caused by borers, by starvation or by severe 
woxxnxls, yet not have a trace of yellows aboxxt it. 
But if premature fruit has the mottled flesh or red 
spot on the skin, with tangential lines running 
through to the pit, this is yellows, and is the first in¬ 
dication of the disease in fruiting ti*ees. In subse¬ 
quent years, while the marking on the fruit is as 
prominent as before, the wiry twigs on the old wood 
and the tufted gi’owth make their appearance, the 
fruit is insipid and tasteless, wholly unfit for use. 
1 am fully convinced that the nurseryman is largely at 
fault, and upon him principally x-ests the blame for the 
distribution of infected trees, though strongly and 
thriftily grown, and with no outward manifestation of 
the disease. lie can grow them to salable age and size, 
get them off his hands, and receive good money for 
his stock, and this class of trees is found in sections 
where yellows is common. To guard against such im¬ 
position, let farmers buy their trees from locations 
where yellows does not prevail. I have in my ox-chax’ds 
8,000 trees that, I believe, have no trace of yellows as 
they did not come from an infected district, and by prompt 
removals shoxxld the disease appear, I believe that I 
can preserve my trees to a good old age in a state of 
healthful productiveness. Where this method of treat¬ 
ment has been closely followed in the State of Michi¬ 
gan, the loss annually is reduced to one to ten trees 
per 1,000, and each spring, vacancies are filled with 
young, healthy trees. This is upon the authority of 
