1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
75i 
THE PEACH SCAB IN MICHIGAN. 
The scab has seldom been very troublesome in Mich¬ 
igan upon the peach, but the results that have been 
obtained from the use of fungicides have been quite 
satisfactory, although a single application has not 
been sufficient to give very marked results. From the 
results of our experiments and the experience of a 
number of fruit growers who have sprayed their fruit 
trees for this and other diseases, I would recommend 
the following treatment in addition to the applica¬ 
tion of a solution of copper sulphate (one pound to 
25 gallons of water) early in April, or before the buds 
start: 
As soon as the fruit has set, spray thoroughly with 
Bordeaux Mixture (four pounds copper sulphate, four 
pounds lime, 50 gallons water), and repeat the same 
application about the first of July. Where the dis¬ 
ease has been very troublesome, and particularly upon 
varieties that are greatly injured by it, a third appli¬ 
cation would be advisable, but the early kinds should 
not be sprayed after the first of July ; in fact, it is 
not advisable to use Bordeaux Mixture upon the peach 
within six weeks of the time of ripening, and if three 
applications are made, the interval should be lessened. 
In some sections of the State where the scab has been 
quite troublesome upon the apricot, the thorough use 
of Bordeaux Mixture has almost entirely prevented it. 
A fungous disease upon the fruit of the peach, which 
has been far more troublesome than the scab, is some¬ 
times known as the Brown spot, or “pimples,” but 
even this yields readily to the use of the fungicides. 
During the last two years, the peach crop of Mich¬ 
igan has been reduced one-half in the case of many 
of our best varieties by the curl-leaf, a fungous dis¬ 
ease which seldom appears except in cold, wet Springs, 
but even this has readily yielded to the action of the 
fungicides. The treatment, however 
must be early in the season and in a very 
thorough manner. 
The importance of early spraying was 
clearly shown in some of our experiments 
the past season, in which applications 
made during the last week of March gave 
practical freedom from the attack upon 
varieties that, when unsprayed, dropped 
all their foliage, while trees given a similar 
spraying the last week of April, after the 
buds had begun to swell but before they 
were open, showed a considerable amount 
of curl-leaf, although the injury was not 
nearly so great as upon unsprayed trees. 
Treatment with a clear solution of cop¬ 
per sulphate gave practically as good re¬ 
sults as did Bordeaux Mixture. This year, 
little benefit was evident from the spray¬ 
ing with Bordeaux Mixture after the 
leaves appeared, but in other years, the 
benefits have been clearly shown. Aside 
from the three diseases above mentioned, 
the spraying with fungicides also greatly 
lessened the injury from Brown rot and 
Shot-hole fungus, and when arsenites 
have been added to the Bordeaux Mixture, the injury 
from the curculio and other chewing insects has been 
reduced. L. R. taft. 
Michigan Agricultural College. 
LATE-SET STRAWBERRY PLANTS. 
UNFAVORABLE CONDITIONS, YET THEY GREW. 
Got Behind This Year. —It has been our prac¬ 
tice in the past to take up plants early in the Spring, 
trench in closely together, in little beds, water and 
spray with Bordeaux for leaf blight, hold till June 1, 
and then plant out permanently. This has become 
necessary because of the rush of the nursery business 
at the usual time that strawberries are planted, in 
April and early May. 
This year we had calls for these plants that we had 
trenched, late in the season, and we sold them. This 
made it necessary to take up plants from the fruiting 
beds for our own planting. We did not get at it till 
June 1, and as luck would have it, the weather was 
terribly dry and hot. The piece on which we were to 
set the plants, was a low flat, made up of clay mostly. 
It had been plowed the Fall before, and subsoiled so 
deep that it would average to be stirred to the depth 
of 18 inches. Fearing the lumps, we did not plow in 
the Spring, but went over it with a deep digging har¬ 
row every few weeks. This kept the surface mellow, 
also quite moist, down a few inches below the surface. 
How It Was Done. —The land was marked, and 
then a narrow-toothed cultivator was run through 
each mark, allowing it to dig as deep as it would. 
This was to make it smooth and mellow for the set¬ 
ting of the plants. We found that below where the 
harrow reached, the ground was quite hard, and the 
tool used to set the plants would not penetrate it 
readily. The rows were all cultivated as deep as pos¬ 
sible about four times, and then Breed’s weeder was 
put on and kept going till the plants were all set. 
Only a few rows were marked in advance of the men 
who set them, and the weeder was run over the bed 
not yet planted, several times each day, till the whole 
was set. We found that, if we did not use the weeder, 
the earth would dry out down as deep as the cultivator 
teeth reached, and it was absolutely necessary to use 
it. On one row, the first one set, on which we did not 
use the weeder, nearly one-third of the plants died, 
while on the rest of the piece, not over 10 plants failed 
to grow on the whole five acres. It was a remarkable 
catch, and with this experience, I would not fear to 
set strawberry plants at any time in the future. 
A Grand Success. —No one not here at the time 
can properly realize what we had to contend with. 
The earth was fairly parched where we took up the 
plants. You could not see a particle of moisture in 
the soil when the plants were taken up. The wind 
was blowing a gale, and the thermometer registered 
over 90 degrees in the shade. As fast as the plants 
were dug, they were hustled under cover to protect 
from the winds and sun, wet, carried to the field in 
pans and baskets, and placed under tight boxes till 
wanted by the setters. 
The plants not only lived, but they have done well 
since. The season has been very favorable for late- 
set plants, the warm weather coming late in the sea¬ 
son, and we have as fine a growth of strawberry 
plants as we have ever grown. This only shows what 
can be done if one is extremely careful. Transplanted 
plants will grow if set in a dust bed, but plants taken 
fresh from a fruiting bed after bloomiDg, and, in fact, 
when the berries are half grown, are not the easiest 
things to make grow, as many know. I would rather 
have a strawberry bed set late and carefully culti¬ 
vated till Winter, than to have it set too early and 
A GOOD RED POLLED HEIFER. Fig. 342. 
then neglected late in the season. The trouble with 
early-set beds is that they cover the surface with 
plants by September 1, and after that, it is impossible 
to cultivate or hoe them. Plants, in order to remain 
healthy and vigorous, require cultivation the entire 
growing season. L. j. farmer. 
Oswego County, N. Y. 
FEEDING HOGS ON HOTEL GARBAGE. 
A number of questions have been asked about feed¬ 
ing hogs on hotel garbage. Farmers near large towns 
and cities seem to think that they can make very 
cheap pork if they can obtain such swill. The great¬ 
est danger seems to lie in the liquid swill. At some 
hotels, large quantities of soap are used in the dish¬ 
water, and this injures the hogs. Maj. E. 0. Roessle, 
of Albany, who has had experience in such feeding, 
gives us the following information : 
“ I fed hogs on hotel garbage for a number of years 
in the following manner: The clear garbage was 
dumped into large kettles ; to each barrel of garbage 
I added about one barrel of water, and boiled all to¬ 
gether until it became of the consistency of a thick 
soup. Frequently I added to this mess, in season, 
vegetables and any other refuse unfit for market, 
thus making a boiled mess of the whole. The hogs 
did very well on it, and when dressed, were quite as 
good, as to quality, as any hogs could be. Just be¬ 
fore marketing, I rounded them off with two or three 
weeks of yellow corn on the ear, to harden them. 
Swill-fed hogs are usually soft in flesh, and need some 
hardening before killing. 
“ If it is desired to feed the clear swill, a platform 
is the very best way, instead of troughs. But clear 
swill, if from hotels, is very rich and, in my opinion, 
is more profitably fed by being diluted or thinned. It 
is impossible to state how much a load is worth. I al¬ 
ways made a yearly contract, and took all the gar “ 
bage for a certain sum. It is policy to buy it as cheap 
as possible. Some hotels will gladly give away the 
swill if some one will haul it regularly, and keep the 
boxes clear and clean. 
“ Raising hogs on garbage is, at best, more expen¬ 
sive than the western method. The hauling and pre¬ 
paring of the feed, besides the price paid for the raw 
material, all add greatly to the cost of producing 
pork, therefore, hogs fed in this way cannot compete 
with western stock. I always sold my hogs on the 
foot for so much a pound, waiting usually for high 
prices.” _ 
INDIVIDUAL TAGS FOR MILK BOTTLES. 
NOT CONSIDERED A GOOD PLAN. 
Two weeks ago, a reader-spoke of having aluminium tags made 
for his milk bottles, with each patron’s name stamped on several 
of these tags, so that customers would be sure to receive the 
same bottles from day to day. He thought this would satisfy 
customers by showing them that the bottles did not pass from 
house to house. The following notes are from milkmen who use 
glass bottles. 
The metal-tag idea is not practicable. The way to 
remedy this objection is to sterilize the bottles. This 
is my practice, and has been for three years. My cus¬ 
tomers do not object to bottled milk, in fact they 
want it bottled. h. b. gurler 
Illinois. 
It Is Unnecessary. —I am not in favor of putting 
metal tags on milk bottles. It seems to me that it is 
not only unnecessary, but laborious, and adds another 
item of expense. Unnecessary, because if the bottles 
are properly cleaned and sterilized (for this purpose 
use a sterilizing chest) as they should be, there will 
be no danger from disease germs. Laborious, because 
it would require extra labor in cleaning, and on a re¬ 
tail route of ordinary size, the milkman 
would have to hunt for each customer’s 
label among 150 or 200 bottles, thus re¬ 
quiring more time in delivery. Then 
there would be the expense of the labels 
and putting them on. All metal about 
milk bottles should be avoided, as it is 
a source of contamination unless kept per¬ 
fectly clean. For this reason, if for no 
other, I would not use the metal tags. 
The plain sterilized bottle with a clean 
paper cap is the ideal, and we find that the 
majority of customers like this method. 
The only objection they make is that they 
don’t want the bother of cleaning the 
bottles. Some, however, prefer dipped 
milk, because, as a rule, they receive bet¬ 
ter measure. Where bottled milk is prop¬ 
erly handled, it is growing in favor, as 
it should. We have an example of this 
in our own dairy. One year ago one- 
half of the milk on the College Farm 
route was delivered in bottles, and the 
remainder as dipped milk; to-day 75 per 
cent of the milk is sold in bottles, and 
only 25 per cent as dipped milk, an in¬ 
crease of 50 per cent for the bottled milk with the 
same customers. c. B. lane. 
New Jersey Exp. Station. 
A Sterilizer Cheaper, —We have had only one cus¬ 
tomer who raised any objections to milk in glass 
bottles through fear of disease germs being carried 
from house to house, and he is a doctor ; but when he 
came to the farm and saw how our empty bottles are 
washed and then sterilized under 10 pounds steam 
pressure, he went away convinced that there was 
absolutely no danger from that source. He afterwards 
told a good many of our customers not to sterilize 
White Farm milk, as they were only spoiling it, as he 
knew from personal inspection that it was perfectly 
pure, clean, and wholesome. I don’t know how the 
metal-tag arrangement your correspondent proposes 
would work. I asked our drivers, and they declare it 
would be a nuisance, and so many bottles get broken 
that I fear his tag system'would cost more than a 
good sterilizer, and not be nearly as effective in pre¬ 
venting the spread of disease through his bottles. 
The White Farm. A. mackellar. 
More Danger in Tickets. —The scheme appears 
to me to be one of no value—a lot of expense and 
bother, and would do little good. You would have to 
keep tied up many more bottles than are actually 
needed. Customers do not take the same amount of 
milk each day, and here would come in more trouble, 
as it would be a brainy man who could anticipate the 
exact wants of 100 or more customers each day. If 
you thoroughly wash each bottle returned daily, no 
matter if it has been washed by a customer who is 
the essence of cleanliness, then advertise and push 
the fact that all bottles are perfectly cleaned by you, 
there ought to be no gi’ound for suspicion of con¬ 
tagion. We have never had trouble of this kind, but 
we bottle only cream in the Summer. We prefer the 
