686 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 17, 
Ruralisms - 
--y- 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
Eari.y Ripening Plums. —In this era 
of rapid transportation the time of ripen 
ing is a most important feature in deter¬ 
mining the value of home-grown fruits. 
No matter how good a variety may be in 
other respects, if it comes in at a season 
when the markets are flooded with showy 
products from distant localities, it will 
likely fail to give satisfactory commercial 
returns. Extreme earliness or lateness in 
ripening if accompanied by other accept¬ 
able qualities, may therefore become fac¬ 
tors of exceptional value. The physiolo¬ 
gical processes controlling early and late 
maturity are too subtle to be controlled 
by the plant breeder except in the most 
indirect way. Something may be done by 
growing seedlings from varieties having 
the desired quality, but heretofore chance 
alone has to be thanked for such variations 
in the time of maturity as we find use¬ 
ful. Unexpected breaks in the way of 
early ripening plums have been brought 
to our notice by several correspondents. 
• 'I'he very early Botan seedling Radiance 
raised in North Carolina, was figured and 
described in a late issue (Page 574). The 
new plums shown in Fig. 305, page 683, 
were received July 26, from Levi Bell, 
Sparkill, N. Y. Mr. Bell is a most suc¬ 
cessful grower, and has many seedlings 
just coming into bearing. His estimate of 
these plums is as follows: 
I send you samples of two new seedling 
plums grown by me from seed planted four 
years ago last Spring. Both produced fruit 
this season for the first time. It was a great 
and very agreeable surprise to me to find these 
two extra early plums, ripening with the Wil¬ 
lard, rather earlier if any difference, to be of 
such fine quality and so handsome as they 
are: they are easily distinguishable. The 
large one is evidently a pure Abundance seed¬ 
ling, as the flesh, flavor and appearance of 
both tree and fruit indicate; the period of 
ripening being so far ahead of the Abund¬ 
ance must make it valuable, as there are no 
others that compare with it in quality that 
are now ripe, that I know of. I have Cli¬ 
max, Red .Tune, Kerr, Willard and Fourth of 
July : the two last named are now ripe here 
and being gathered for market; but we all 
know that they are both too poor in quality, 
and tend to destroy the demand for extra 
early plums. The other one is probably the 
best of the two for market, as it has firmer 
flesh, and is nearly a perfect freestone, only 
clinging at one edge of the stone. The flavor 
is very good for a plum ripening so extremely 
early. As to the color and size, you can 
judge for yourselves, as they are all of about 
one size, like the specimens sent. I think 
this sort has some Ogon blood in it from the 
appearance of the tree and-its being a free¬ 
stone. It is probably crossed with the 
Abundance, Burbank, or some other sort. 
The plums were both of good red color, 
and much better in quality than any found 
in the market at the time. 
Get Ahead of the Rot. —A valuable 
feature of early ripening plums is then 
comparative immunity from rot or Monilia 
fungus, which is most harmful during the 
hot and humid days of August. If we 
grow varieties like the specimens illus¬ 
trated, or Burbank’s First, ripening from 
the fifteenth to the thirtieth of July, the 
chances are much in favor of harvesting 
the crop before conditions are favorable 
for the germination of the fungus spores 
that are always abundantly present. Com¬ 
ing soon after strawberries and cherries, 
and before peaches, these early plums are 
acceptable, and may do their share toward 
meeting competition with the insipid early 
varieties now received from the South 
and West. 
Good Year for Vine Fruits. —Mel¬ 
ons, cucumbers and vine crops generally 
have been distressful failures in our 
neighborhood for several years past. 
Cool, rainy weather retarded the growth 
and the blight fungus made great havoc 
at the ripening period. So disastrous is 
the effect of this disease in infected dis¬ 
tricts that growers began to fear vine 
crops would never again grow in a nor¬ 
mal manner, and to meet the demand foi 
these Summer products planted more ex¬ 
tensively than usual this Spring on the 
theory that enlarged acreage was needed 
to make up ior the expected fractional crop. 
The season, however, has turned out al¬ 
together favorable, cucumbers and melons 
growing and yielding quite in the old-time 
manner, with scarce a trace of blight up to 
the end of August. The cucumber crop 
has been so abundant that it has been 
practically unsalable at profitable prices. 
No dealers are so poor as to do the pickle 
grower reverence, and he has been forced 
to let his "cukes” run to seed or take 
what is offered. Glass grown cucumbers 
sold well until the outdoor product came 
in, but the demand so completely ceased 
that cutting was stopped and the re¬ 
maining fruits allowed to seed. Musk- 
melons are abundant and of better qual¬ 
ity than for the last decade. Less dif¬ 
ference is noted with watermelons, which 
were not so freely planted, but the yield 
is very satisfactory, and quality gener¬ 
ally good. Tnere is likely to be abun¬ 
dance of the various squashes and pump¬ 
kins. 
Melons Under Glass. —Oivr experi¬ 
ence with outdoor muskmelons for the two 
preceding summers was so unfortunate, 
the vines dying from blight just as the 
earliest fruits began to ripen, that we con 
eluded this season to grow them in the 
greenhouse, planting two young vines, 
•npril 20, in each box or large pot used 
for tomatoes throughout the Winter, and 
spacing a few 18 inches apart in a border 
containing eight inches of good soil also 
previously used for tomatoes. The pots 
are of standard form, 12 and 14 inches in 
diameter, and the boxes about 16x20 
inches, containing eight or nine inches 
of soil. The plants had been started 
a month before by sowing several seeds 
each in four-inch pots and thinning to the 
best plant after true leaves had devel¬ 
oped. Our glasshouse is not particularly 
adapted to such warmth-loving plants 
as the melon, as it is excavated deep in 
the soil, and has a large rain-water tank in 
the bottom. The soil used by a Winter 
vegetable crop cannot be considered ideal 
for the purpose, yet the growth of these 
melons was vigorous from the start, and 
the yield averaged three fine melons each 
for 40 vines. They ripened through a 
long season, and without exception wert 
of the highest quality. The varieties 
used were Petoskey and selected Netted 
Gem, sold as Rocky Ford. Each has its 
characteristic flavor as distinct as the 
color of the flesh, which is orange in 
Petoskey and cool green in Netted Gem. 
As grown under glass one is about as 
good and as productive as the other. We 
have always had best results from Petosr 
key outside, and regard it as one of the 
best for home use. The vines were 
trained up the wires used for tomatoes, 
the blooms pollenized by the use of a 
brush until bees found their way regularly 
through the open ventilators, and the 
melons supported in slings of mosquito 
netting as they increased in weight. 
Liquid manures were given twice a week 
while the fruits were swelling, and min¬ 
ute doses, half a teaspoonful to each pot 
or box, of sulphate of potash and nitrate 
of soda scattered over the soil before 
watering at intervals of two weeks. A 
small handful of ground bone and fresh 
wood ashes was also stirred in the soil 
two or three times during growth, the 
ashes being used more for the contained 
lime than potash. Close attention was 
needed during hot weather to keep the 
soil moist, the abundant foliage pumping 
the*'water from the pots so rapidly that 
they required soaking three or four times 
a day. The vines in the border got less 
attention, as the soil did not dry out so 
rapidly. As the season turned out we 
would have saved trouble by growing 
our melons outside, but it is not likely 
such uniform high quality could have 
been secured. Glass grown melons are 
usually very fine if ripened when sun¬ 
shine is abundant, but one does not care 
to bother with them if they can be grown 
outside. The crop is so precarious in 
average years, however, except in a few 
favored localities, that melons are likely 
to be grown under protection to a rapidly 
increasing extent. This is an off year for 
the blight which has invaded almost every 
county in the United States, but it is cer¬ 
tain to return, and as yet there is no 
practical way to combat it in the open 
air. * w. v. f. 
DRAIN TILE 
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money. Carload lots only. Write for prices. Address 
The H. B. Camp Co., 
804 Bessemer Building, - PITTSBURG, PA. 
Galvanized Steel Tanks 
Guaranteed to the user. Built to 
suit your particular needs at re¬ 
markably low prices. Also 
manufacture Corrugated Iron 
and steel roofing, etc. Write for prices to-day. 
GEDGE BROS. IRON ROOFING CO. do G«dge St., inderson, lad. 
Any farm hand 
can m a k e a 
good roof at 
half the cost 
of shingles or 
metal. 
Ready Roofing 
solves the problem. Cheap butgoodforauy and all 
buildings. Needs no repairs. We send booklet, 
prices and samples on request. 
Asphalt Ready Roofing Co., 80 Pine Street, New York 
Arrow Brand Asphalt 
The WAGON to BUY. 
. Properly con¬ 
structed. Save* 
lal»or, annoy¬ 
ance and expense of repair*. 
STEEL WHEELS ^Tolbh 
Your address on a postal will bring you free catalog. 
The Geneva Metal Wheel Co., 
Box 17, Geneva, Ohio. 
is as necessary to 
the healthy growth 
of grain as grain 
is to the health of 
man. 
Our valuable books on 
“Fertilization,” sent free 
to farmers upon request. 
GERMAN KALI WORKS 
93 Nassau Street New York 
Wills 
iffi 'MEND-A-RIP' 
Does all kinds of Light and heavy Stitching 
Does all lciiidf 
"e b * 
heavy riveting 
i Save thi Pbici or Itselt 
Many Tiheh a Year. A Perfect 
Hand Sewing Machine and Riveter combined 
To Show* it Mean* a Sale. Agenu 
make from $8 to $15 u <lay. One 
_ agent made |20 first day and writes to hurry 
more machines to him. Write for special agents’ prioe. 
J.C.Poote Foundry Co., Fredericktown, O, 
The Great Agents Supply House. 
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Handsome illustrated catalogue free for the asking 
We have transfer houses at many different points thus 
insuring prompt delivery to any section 
Vermont Farm Machine Co,, Bellows Falls, Yt. 
See the exhibit of U. S. Separators at the St. Louis Exposition, space 52, 
opposite working creamery, Agricultural Building. 
Take-Down Repeating Shotguns 
The notion that one must pay from fifty dollars upwards in order to get 
a good shotgun has been pretty effectively dispelled since the advent of 
the Winchester Repeating Shotgun. These guns are sold within reach 
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When it comes to shooting qualities no gun made beats them. They 
are made in 12 and 16 gauge. Step into a gun store and examine one. 
FREE: Send name and address on a postal card for oar large illustrated catalogue. 
WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO., NEW HAVEN, CONN. 
£ 
7 
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If you believe in Quality; 
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upon having 
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and will not take an imitation. Paroid is admittedly the standard 
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wear proof, contains no tar. Slate color. Complete roofing kit in each roll. 
Before you repair or build send for FREE SAMPLE and book 
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F. W. BIRD & SON, 
East Walpole. Mass. Monadnock Bldg., Chicago. 
Established, 1817. 
SEND FOR 
FREE 
SAMPLE 
