878 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 31 
mulch seemed to bold the heat very well, the frequent 
steaming 1 keeping up fermentation in the mulch. 
Missouri Experiment Station. J. c. whitton. 
(To be continued.) 
GRAFTING BRANCHES ON APPLE TREES. 
Building 1 New Branches. — In an orchard that I 
set out three years ago, I have a number of Akin and 
Duchess apple trees. Last Spring, I decided that 
there were more of these two varieties than was de¬ 
sirable, or likely to prove profitable, so I set about 
grafting some of them with Gano and Mammoth Black 
Twig. While doing this, I found two trees without 
any strong branches on the southwest side, the side 
that is most liable to sun-scald. As I couldn’t turn 
the trees about, and could think of no system of prun¬ 
ing that would bring out branches where I wanted 
them, I decided to try putting some in, by way of 
experiment. A number of scions, about six inches 
in length, were cut from the tip ends of strong 
branches on the Gano and Mammoth Black Twig 
trees, and tapered off as shown in Fig. 400. I then 
opened the bark of the Akin trees, exactly as is done 
in budding, wherever I thought it would be desirable 
to have a branch, inserted the scions as buds are in¬ 
serted, waxed them in, and wound a strip of cloth 
about tree and scion to make all secure. 
How They Acted.—All united with the stem 
and, with two exceptions, grew finely, some of them 
reaching a length of 18 to 20 inches. The two ex¬ 
ceptions were two scions made from second cuts from 
the same branch, and they had no terminal bud. The 
growth of these two was unsatisfactory, being scraggly 
and covered with short side branches. In drawing hay 
out of the orchard, a careless driver brushed his load 
hard against one of the trees before the new branches 
had become securely attached to the stem, and broke 
some of them out, but enough remain to prove the 
experiment a great success. Hereafter, when I have 
a tree that is not headed properly, I shall set in 
enough to round it out just as I want it. I feel quite 
satisfied from the way those I set in last Spring have 
grown, that the scions and stocks will unite so firmly 
that there will be no danger of breakage when they 
become large enough to bear fruit. In putting in 
these buds or scions, I shall always make it a point 
to use the tip ends of branches; they start quicker and 
grow much better than second cuts. 
Hunting - Borers.— One thing that I neglected to 
do last Spring cost me two nice trees, and that was to 
examine the trees, as soon as the weather became 
warm and the leaves came out, for borers that might 
have been overlooked at the last round in the Fall. 
Occasionally one will overlook a borer, especially if 
there happens to be more than one in the tree, and 
unless he is gouged out pretty early in the Spring, he 
will have the tx - ee about ruined by midsummer. 
When I go borer hunting, I carry with me a garden 
trowel, a sharp-pointed knife, a piece of No. 18 wire, 
and a good chunk of grafting wax. With the trowel, 
I remove the earth from the base of the tree so that 1 
can easily follow the borer if he has gone downward. 
With the knife, I cut open the bark, taking out a 
small piece, so that I can feel around for him with the 
wire, and end his career. After he is done up, I pack 
the hole and cover the wound with the wax. I like 
to have the tip end of the piece of wire bent at right 
angles—just the very tip only, so that it will catch 
the skin of the borer, after I have punched the stuff¬ 
ing out of him, and draw it out. One can tell when he 
has slaughtered a borer by the juicy appearance of 
the end of the wire, but I like to see his hide, so that 
1 can make affidavit to his decease. fbicd gbundy. 
Christian County, Ill. 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Breakage in Glass Bottles. —Few realize the great 
expense attached to delivering milk in bottles ; those 
companies which have been in existence for sometime 
have found that their yearly expense has been much 
greater since the advent of bottled milk. All have 
been forced to use bottles in the place of the canned 
milk, because of the demands of the customers, on 
account of its sanitary superiority. The life of a milk 
bottle is, on the average, 19 days. There are about 
1,700,000 milk bottles in daily use in New York City, 
and the loss from breakage is about 90,000 daily. 
Many bottles are simply chipped at the top, and ren¬ 
dered useless without being broken. A small percent¬ 
age is also broken in the washing, and where the 
bottles are sterilized as at the Walker-Gordon Labor¬ 
atory, at the New York Condensed Milk Company 
stations, and a few other places, there is an additional 
loss; but this need not be very great when proper 
care is taken to heat the bottles gradually. 
Recently there was a movement in Philadelphia to 
do away with milk bottles entirely ; those favoring 
this, held that disease is conveyed from house to 
house by this medium. This no doubt may be so 
where the dealers do not properly cleanse the bottles, 
but when proper precautions are taken, especially 
when the bottles are sterilized, there is no danger 
from this source whatever. e. nelson ehrhart. 
The Use of Muck. —We have found it profitable to 
use dry muck as an absorbent. It is drawn out in the 
Winter or whenever other work permits. In the Sum¬ 
mer, a load or so is spread out in the barnyard and 
raked over occasionally. Two days of good weather 
will dry it so that it can be used in the stable and 
pens, or stored for Winter use. We do not' consider 
the muck of much value in itself, but it saves that 
which would otherwise go to waste, and thus makes a 
very valuable addition to the manure pile. For us, it 
is the cheapest absorbent we can use. A. N. bliss. 
Vermont. 
Death to Chicken Lice. —I use bisulphide of car¬ 
bon in preference to anything else for killing chicken 
lice. I have used it four years, and I think it the best 
thing yet discovered for that purpose. Before I used 
PLAN FOR STEAMING ASPARAGUS. Fio. 399. Ske Fihht Page 
a a , end of tunnels; b b, crowns of asparagus. 
it, my chicken house was literally alive with mites, 
but in 24 hours after I applied the carbon, I could not 
find one. I fill several three or four-ounce vials one- 
half full of the carbon, have them uncorked, and tie 
a string to the neck of each long enough to let it 
hang from 12 to 20 inches below the perches. I have 
enough vials to hang about six to eight feet apart, 
and refill the vials about every week or as often as 
the stuff evaporates. One must not open a can of 
carbon near the fire or any open light, and must use 
it just as carefully as he would gunpowder, j. f. d. 
Canby, Oreg. 
Kieffer Pears in Europe.— I tried the experiment 
this Fall of shipping Kieffer pears to Glasgow and 
Liverpool. This clipping from a local paper shows 
that the venture was not a success : 
Representative James T. Sliallcross has heard from the 175 bar¬ 
rels of Kieffer, which lie sent to England. They netted him only 
18 cents a basket, when at home they were worth 28 cents. He 
lost by the experiment $87.50, or 50 cents on each barrel. The 
freight was 75 cents a barrel. 
The Delaware and Maryland Peninsula seems well 
adapted to the Kieffer pear. I have about 5,000 trees 
planted; the oldest are 11 years old, and from that 
down to yearlings. They are not affected thus far 
with blight; I have lost but one Kieffer tree with the 
disease, and that the present year. I have one lot of 
trees that have borne four crops in succession, and 
have more than paid for the land thrice over. 
Delaware. J. t. shallcross. 
A Cement Stable Floor. —I have noted what Mr. 
J. M. Jamison has to say in regard to cement floors, 
page 799. On the whole, I agree with him that, where 
water lime is used, it must be kept away from the 
frost; in walks, this is practically impossible, as is 
obvious, but in floors situated in a basement barn, the 
SCION FOR GRAFTING IN BRANCHES. Fig. 400. 
case is quite different. Three years ago we put a 
cement floor in our horse stable ; it has stood the test 
thoroughly, and is satisfactory in every way. The 
floor is so situated that the frost never reaches it to 
do any harm; and, of course, I am unable to say 
what would be the result in such a case. In construct¬ 
ing the floor, a course of cobblestones was laid firmly 
in the clay, and all crevices were thoroughly filled 
with gravel. On the top of this, we put a course of 
water-lime cement about two inches thick ; after this 
had become sufficiently dry so that it would bear a 
man’s weight, about an inch of Portland was put on. 
Within a week or 10 days, the floor was sufficiently 
dry for use, and has been in active service ever since. 
So far as I can see, it is satisfactory in every respect. 
There is, also, a cement floor in our calf stable, laid 
at the same time, where no Portland was used. This 
is also satisfactory, and shows no signs of giving out. 
Shiawassee County, Mich. c. p. b. 
Blackberry Tip Plants. —The answer given by 
Frederic Cranefield to C. A. D., December 17, I do not 
consider correct, by making it appear that a tip plant 
produced from a blackberry could be called a sport, 
or would produce any change, or make a new variety. 
Varieties are produced, as a general thing, only 
through seeds. It is not uncommon to produce tip 
plants from stalks that trail on the ground. The 
Agawam blackberry will produce tip plants when the 
conditions are right. Every such plant will bear fruit 
the same as its parent, as is done by the raspberry. 
The past season, I grew a fine lot of blackberry plants 
from root cuttings, in a very simple manner. In the 
Spring, while digging some blackberry sucker plants, 
I saved 100 or more pieces cut in lengths about three 
inches long. I placed them in a box four inches deep, 
covered them with sand, and set the box in the cellar. 
All of them sprouted readily. They were transplanted 
in June when the ground was damp. Nearly all of 
them grew. Next Spring, they can be set where 
wanted. A tip-bearing blackberry would be of no 
special value, if it produced suckers at the same time. 
Onondaga County, N. Y. ciias. mills. 
Carrots for Horses —I have just read your note 
on feeding horses, page 851, in which you rightly say 
that a small farmer in the East cannot afford to grow 
grain for this purpose. There is one crop, however, 
which he can afford to grow that will materially aid 
in making up the Winter’s bill of fare for the horse ; 
that crop is carrots. I used to find them very satis¬ 
factory for this purpose when growing small fruits 
and vegetables with only 10 acres of land at my dis¬ 
posal. I think that horses not doing heavy work will 
thrive fully as well if, for one feed of grain each day, 
there is substituted a feed of carrots. I can testify 
to the value of sweet-corn stalks which you find so 
useful. c. 
The Hackney Horse. —In a recent issue of the 
New York Sun, Mr. Randolph Huntington tells how 
the English Hackney horse was produced : 
The English Hackney is simply the Norfolk cart horse, a result 
from breeding Norfolk trotter mares to the old English draught 
horse—this, after the Norfolk trotter was suppressed as ruinous 
to general husbandry. The farmers, farmers’ sons and yeomanry 
at large neglected all kinds of agricultural duties to train and 
trot horses, and when the noblemen, after 25 years’ effort to culti¬ 
vate trot in their Anglo-Arab (English racehorse now known as 
Thoroughbred), in hopes to beat the Norfolk trotter, found it im¬ 
possible to get trotting speed better than 8*4 to 4 minutes to the 
miie, and rarely to get better than 8 to 10 miles to the hour, while 
the Norfolk trotter did his mile better than 2:30, and in some 
cases better than 20 miles within the hour, an act was passed 
prohibiting trotting races. 
The heavy cart-horse stallions were crossed on the 
trotting mares, and the resulting horses were first 
used for plow teams. They were heavy and beefy, 
but the trotting mares had given them the high knee- 
action, which was made excessive by weighting the 
front feet and checking. The tail was docked, and 
the horse was “ boomed ” in America, for Mr. Hunt¬ 
ington says that no nation in the Old World will buy 
the English Hackney except for farm purposes. With 
our American trotting mares, and a well-shaped Coach 
stallion, better and more stylish horses could be pro¬ 
duced at home. 
Feeding Our Friends. —A novel sight fh Bronx 
Park, N. Y., a few days before Christmas, was that 
of a man climbing trees for the purpose of nailing 
bits of fat pork to the uppermost branches. He was 
not a lunatic, but a park employee, and the pork was 
intended to furnish food for the birds. When food is 
provided, a great many more of the native birds will 
remain during the Winter, and the parks try to en¬ 
courage them. The birds in New York’s parks also 
receive rations of cracked corn and wheat during 
Winter and the squirrels fatten on the same ration. 
In Central Park, the squirrels are so tame that 
they beg food from the visitors, and skip around 
the lunch parties without fear. Certainly country 
birds have equal rights with those of the parks, 
and during the Winter, especially while there is 
snow upon the ground, we should remember the 
claims of our feathered friends. It is the custom, in 
many parts of Europe, to elevate a bundle of un¬ 
thrashed wheat, oats, or barley upon the barn for the 
birds’ Christmas dinner, and this kindly custom seems 
worthy of importation. 
Facts About the Grip. —The disease popularly 
known as the grip, sometimes as influenza, seems to 
be almost epidemic in this city, Philadelphia and 
some other places. It has been officially pronounced 
contagious by Dr. Cosby, of the New York Board of 
Health. The pronouncement is not concurred in by 
all medical men, though it is popularly considered to 
be infectious. These two terms are often used inter¬ 
changeably, but medical men say that, strictly, an in¬ 
fectious disease is one which is transmitted by inhaling 
the bacilli, or taking them into the alimentary canal, 
while a contagious disease is spread by actual contact 
between persons. According to Dr. Cosby, grip is as 
contagious and as infectious as scarlet fever, though 
not so dangerous ; any one having had it is practically 
immune for six or eight years. The disease is sup¬ 
posed to have come to us originally from Russia. Ac¬ 
cording to statistics of the Health Board, the number 
of deaths from grip in this City the past year, was the 
smallest of any in the last decade, probably partly 
