1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
pollination. My advice to A. J. M. and any one else 
who is interested and able to make experiments with 
these nuts is, to get from some of the nurserymen the 
hardiest varieties of filberts obtainable, and give them 
a fair test. Plant them in moderately rich, moist but 
well-drained soil, such as the quince likes, and care¬ 
fully observe the-matter of pollination. I believe 
that the Puget Sound region will produce filberts 
abundantly, and of the best quality. h. e. v. d 
R. N.-Y.—Any one interested in nut culture should 
get Fuller’s Nut Culturist, the only complete work on 
the subject. It will be sent, postpaid, from this 
office for SI. 50 . 
Value of Fruit Crops ; The Bismarck Apple. 
S. , Luzerne County , Pa.—What is the usual estimated value per 
hill of raspberries when the price averages from $3.20 to $3.50 per 
bushel crate ? The hills are 3x7 feet. What is the value per tree 
of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees for each year till in bear¬ 
ing 7 The trees are supposed to be well cared for. Is the Bis¬ 
marck apple worth a trial, or are its wonderful qualities all on 
paper, like the Japanese Wineberry, Crandall currant and several 
other wonderful plants I could name ? 
Ans. —It would be useless to try to give an estimate 
“ per hill” of raspberries, or of any other fruit which 
varies so greatly under different methods of treat¬ 
ment. A fair crop at full bearing age is 3,000 quarts 
per acre, and 6,000 quarts are rarely reached under 
tne most advantageous conditions. Taking the coun¬ 
try over, the average for a series of years is not above 
1,500 quarts. Apple, pear, plum and cherry trees 
•‘for each year till in bearing” would be of no “value” 
except for the consumption of surplus elbow-grease 
that the owner might have. After six to ten years 
from planting, the trees ought to yield from $1 to $3 
per tree per year net profit above expenses. I have 
known very much larger returns from large orchards, 
but it is well not to expect too much. The Bismarck 
apple, so far as I have tested it, is very poor in qual¬ 
ity. It is a novelty that has to be tested in this 
country and proved to be better than I now think it 
is, before I would recommend any one to plant more 
than a tree or two for trial. The fruit I have seen 
and eaten was from England, where they cannot 
grow as richly flavored apples as we do here. 
h e. y. D. 
Whole or Piece-Root Graftinq. 
A. IF. F., White Hall, III.— Much is being said pro and con 
about apple trees grown on whole roots or piece roots. What 
are the actual facts In the case ? It has been shown that, in 
transplanting apple trees, the roots may be cut off almost to the 
crown without detriment to the future growth of the tree. If, 
therefore, the whole-root graft makes the better tree, is it not due 
wholly to the fact that it contains the crown of the root ratner 
than the whole root? Does anybody know wherein the virtue or 
the vice of these systems of grafting lies, or is every one guessing 
at it? Our scientific fruit growers ought to be able to tell us. 
Will The R. N.-Y. do it? 
Ans. —There is no such thing in reality as root¬ 
grafting on whole roots. What is meant by this term, 
as it is applied to the common practice of “whole- 
root” grafting, is the use of about six inches of the 
upper part of a one-year apple seedling. This is 
better than a small piece of root with a scion set in it, 
as my experience goes. As a rule, I think that such 
trees are better rooted than the ordinary run of root- 
grafted trees. I have made almost as good trees from 
second cut, where the root was very large and vigor¬ 
ous, but I do think that the upper or crown cut makes 
a better tree. As I have repeatedly stated in public 
talks and writings, these conclusions are deduced, in 
my case, from a series of experiments made on my 
Kansas farm years ago with Ben Davis scions of all 
lengths, from two inches to three feet long, and on 
roots from one inch to one foot long. H k. v. d. 
Strawberries and Cherries. 
8 . 8. P., 81. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.— 1. Wbat variety of 
strawberry would you recommend to fertilize Haverlaud? 2. 
Will you give a description of the Grand Duke and Wickson 
plums ? 
Ans. —1. Parker Earle, Sharpless, or Brandywine. 
2. It is a late plum, the same color as Bradshaw, and 
as large. It is said to be entirely free from rot, and 
is regarded as one of the best kinds for market. It 
ripens in late September. The Wickson plum is one 
of Luther Burbank’s many creations. The plums are 
obconical and of large size, whitish when nearly 
grown, then pinkish, and finally, crimson-purple. The 
flesh is yellow, firm, juicy and of excellent quality. 
The pit, which is small, clings. It ripens after 
Burbank. 
Wax and Comb Honey. 
C. S., Gunslon, Va.—l. How many pounds of wax are there 
In 100 pounds of comb honey? I mean, free from everything not 
produced by the bees ? 2. Comb honey being quoted on an aver¬ 
age, say 13c., how much should one get for extracted honey to 
realize an equal profit, taking into consideration jjackiug, selling 
and refilling of the comb by the bees and the value of the wax ? 
1. The amount of wax in a given amount of honey 
varies under different conditions. Ordinarily, natural 
comb, made entirely by the bees, will hold about 20 
times its weight in honey ; that is to say, there would 
be five pounds of wax to about 100 pounds of comb 
honey. If the comb itself were drawn out by the 
bees from comb foundation, the proportion of wax 
would be much greater. 2. Under the conditions 
named, when comb honey sells at 13 cents, an equal 
grade of extracted should sell at about six and seven 
cents in barrel lots, and eight and nine cents in 
smaller lots. 
Field Beans for Green Manure. 
J. H. It., Schoolcraft, Mich .— What do you think of sowing field 
beans to plow under for wheat? Clover has been a total fail¬ 
ure in this section of late. Beans make a pretty full growth, and 
they are worth only 30 to 40 cents. I have been thinking of trying 
them for that purpose. 
Ans —Without doubt, field beans of a large grow¬ 
ing variety might be used to advantage as a renovator 
of land, though I know of no case where they have 
been used for this purpose. Last year, at Cornell 
University, barley, one bushel per acre, and Canada 
field peas, two bushels per acre, were sown late in 
the season with very satisfactory results. Where 
oats were used with the peas (and were put in at 
about the usual time of sowing these seeds), a very 
large growth was secured. It was found in the in¬ 
vestigations that barley stood the hot weather rather 
better than oats, and wherever late sowing had to be 
practiced, the barley was substituted for oats. It 
would be most interesting if you would try an ex¬ 
periment along these lines and report another year 
the results. Farmers receive much valuable informa¬ 
tion from the agricultural papers, and they should 
help these papers in every possible way to dissemin¬ 
ate facts. I. P. ROBERTS. 
Seeding Lowland for Pasture. 
J. A. FT., Jonestown, Pa .—1 have a piece of lowland — potters’ 
clay and loam—it is wet only in a wet season. It has not been 
farmed in 20 years. I would like to get it in grass for pasture. 
What shall I sow that won’t freeze out in winter ? When and 
how should it be sown ? Have you had any experience with 
Italian Rye grass ? If so, what are its qualities ? 
ANSWERED BY PROF. I. P. ROBERTS. 
Plow the last of May and give frequent surface till¬ 
age during the summer if the grasses now present are 
largely composed of wild, tenacious species. If the 
surface of the land is now measurably void of plants, 
plow as recommended above, roll and harrow, and re¬ 
plow in 30 or 40 days, roll and harrow thoroughly 
again, and re-plow for the third time about the 
middle of August. Roll and harrow. During 
the warm weather, aim to bring the land into 
good tilth, hasten nitrification, liberate mineral 
matter and keep the land so that capillary attrac¬ 
tion will bring moisture near to the surface dur¬ 
ing the entire season. The seeds given below 
might be distributed on the fresh harrowed ground 
during the last of August or first days of Sep¬ 
tember. The ground might be used for a crop of 
oats or, better, barley. In that case, sow early- 
ripening varieties, early. Remove the crop from the 
land as soon as harvested, or shock in wide rows that 
the intervals may be prepared at the first possible 
moment. The objection to raising a spring crop is 
that there is not sufficient time between harvest and 
the grass seeding to fit the soil properly. Full suc¬ 
cess will depend very largely on the thoroughness 
and skill shown in the preparation of the soil. The 
first method, that is the summer fallow, will be likely 
to be the most satisfactory. The following amounts 
of grass seed might be sown per acre on the freshly- 
harrowed soil : Four to five pounds Timothy, two 
pounds Orchard grass, two pounds Alsike clover, four 
pounds Red-top After the seeds are sown, the 
ground should be rolled to bring moisture to the sur¬ 
face. If the ground be quite dry, it might be advis¬ 
able to run over the land with a light harrow before 
the roller and after the seeds were distributed. 
Treatment for a Sick Soil. 
F. B. T., Visalia, Ky.—l have a field of second bottom land in 
which I am told the manure “ sinks ”. The soil is light colored, 
and sometimes, after a rain, clear sand may be seen on the sur¬ 
face. The subsoil is much the same, but of a color somewhere 
between yellow and “ red ’', and, I suppose, allows too free drain¬ 
age. The land works nicely, and I wish to make it rich for small 
fruits. A heavy application of damaged tobacco made four years 
ago on part of the field, was not as effective as it should have 
been, or indeed other applications of manure, except for a short 
time. 
Ans. —The class of soil mentioned is one of the most 
difficult to treat successfully. I should say, in a gen¬ 
eral way, that the soil would have to be brought up 
by very thorough and frequent cultivation. It should 
be constantly stirred and should be as constantly 
cropped. Plenty of organic matter should be added 
to the soil, preferably in the form of green crops, 
such as cow peas or some of the clovers. Care should 
be taken to add lime in case any large amount of 
vegetable growth be turned under. The organic 
manuring could well be supplemented by liberal ap¬ 
plications of potash and phosphoric acid. I cannot 
let the occasion pass without pointing out the neces¬ 
sity of understanding more thoroughly the actual 
conditions in such a soil. The treatment I have rec¬ 
ommended is merely the result of general experience. 
We know little about the soil conditions, or about the 
conditions necessary for the growth of plants, or about 
the effect of fertilizers and methods of cultivation on 
these conditions. When our crops are unhealthy, and 
24i 
our soil conditions are evidently unsuited to their 
proper development, it is necessary to study the con¬ 
ditions under which the plant is grown, and to under¬ 
stand fully what control we have of those conditions, 
before the best and most rational development of agri¬ 
cultural practice can be obtained. I wish the farmers 
themselves could appreciate this. I am satisfied that, 
with a few simple methods, they could study their soil 
conditions and determine for themselves to a very large 
extent whether the conditions in any particular soil 
are unsuited to their crops, and they could test prac¬ 
tically the change in these conditions affected by dif¬ 
ferent methods of cultivation and different kinds of 
fertilizers. mii.ton whitney. 
United States Department of Agriculture. 
Inoculating Trees to Kill Insects. 
D. L. P'., Pittsburg, Pa .—Are any of our entomologists or scien¬ 
tific horticulturists trying to combat diseases in fruit trees by 
means of the injection of drugs or chemicals in the circulation of 
the trees ? If not possible, why not ? Man and beast are inocu¬ 
lated against disease, and why not trees ? I have read in some 
agricnltural papers that a certain doctor in Hobart, Tasmania, 
had had some measure of success in eradicating the Oyster-shell 
Bark-louse by the injection of oil of eucalyptus into the sap of 
apple trees. It seems to me that this way of fighting fruit-tree 
diseases has not had the attention it deserves at the hands of 
our government and State experiment experts. Millions of dol¬ 
lars would be saved our fruit growers and farmers, and an Im¬ 
perishable name and fortune await the discoverer of some drug 
or chemical which, infused in the circulation of the tree, plant or 
shrub, would be death to insects, spores, fungus and curculios, 
while at the same time, not harmful to the growth and vigor of 
the tree itself. Is not this subject worthy of attention, and some 
editorial expression in The R. N.-Y. ? 
ANSWERED BY M. Y. SUNDERLAND. 
I do not know that any entomologist or scientific 
horticulturist anywhere is trying to combat the insect 
and fungous foes in the manner described by D. L. P. 
However, there are others who claim to destroy in¬ 
sects in this manner. A “ Tree Inoculation Com¬ 
pany ” in the eastern States, claims to render a whole 
tree safe from the attacks of many insects, more 
especially the Elm-leaf beetle, by the aid of a won¬ 
derful compound which they insert into a hole bored 
in the trunk. They have made thousands of dollars 
by charging 75 cents or more to treat each tree, and 
they realized $6,000 for the right to use the compound 
in New Jersey. A chemical analysis of this secret 
and mysterious substance showed that it was nothing 
but sulphur disguised in color by the addition of a 
little carbon or soot. It was thus simply a variation 
of the old “ sulphur-plug remedy,” so commonly 
recommended in the early history of insect warfare 
in this country. Another similar treatment to de¬ 
stroy enemies of the tree was to drive nails into 
various parts of the tree ; the rust from the nails was 
supposed to be taken up in the sap, and being thus 
carried to all parts, dealt out destruction to all foes. 
Although it was demonstrated many years ago, that 
there was just as much sulphur in the hole at the end 
of a year or more as was put in, still this idea pre¬ 
vails to some extent, and the recommendation periodi¬ 
cally appears in secular publications. 
So far as I know, the above account comprises all 
of the experiments thus far carried on in this country 
along the line of inoculating trees to destroy insect 
foes ; I do not know that any claim is made to pre¬ 
vent fungus attacks in this way. It seems almost 
needless to add, that there is no reliable evidence 
to show that any of the above treatments have re¬ 
sulted in the death of any insect. I have not seen an 
account of the experiments mentioned by D. L P., 
as having been tried in Tasmania. So far as our 
present knowledge goes, there is nothing which 
proves or disproves the feasibility of combating the 
enemies and diseases of our plants by inoculation ; 
that is, there seems to be no experimental evidence 
on either side. We know that plants will take up 
available substances from the soil through their root 
hairs, and these substances are slowly carried 
through the tree in the sap. But it is doubtful 
whether anything injected or introduced into the 
plant by artificial means, either above or below 
ground, would be absorbed into the circulation of the 
plant, and thus be distributed to all its parts ; yet, 
there seems to be no evidence that such a thing 
might not take place. The fact that man or beast 
can be successfully inoculated in this manner is no 
argument that the same treatment may be success¬ 
fully applied to plants; for the circulation in plants 
is very different from that in man and beast. One 
would scarcely expect to kill lice or other parasites 
working on the outside of the body of man or beast 
by prescribing medicine to be taken internally. In 
plants the sap does not flow in streams through 
tubes, but slowly passes from cell to cell by osmotic 
action through the cell walls. This and other very 
important differences between a tree and a man 
would seem entirely to preclude the hone of ever 
being able to introduce sufficient amounts of any 
substance into the circulation of a plant to cause the 
death of any insect or fungous disease which might 
attack any part of the plant, without, at the same 
time, killing the plant itself. Yet there seems to be 
no experimental evidence to disprove this theory of 
the inoculation of plants to destroy their enemies. 
No one can gainsay the statement made in the query 
that a fortune awaits the one who may discover the 
magic substance. 
