1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
247 
"WHAT I SEE AND HEAR. 
Florida is sending us considerable celery this 
spring, and much of it appears to be of pretty good 
quality. It comes at a time when the regular sup¬ 
plies are running low, hence brings pretty good prices. 
California also sends us some celery, but it’s a long 
way to ship such goods, though other vegetables from 
that State are often seen in this market. 
X X X 
At the end of March, Catawba grapes in excellent 
condition are still offered in market. They must have 
been well kept in cold storage. This method of 
keeping fruit has been greatly improved in recent 
years. These grapes may be purchased at retail for 
about 20 to 25 cents for a five-pound basket—not a 
high price when we consider the time of year. 
t t t 
“ What we want is a patent barrel with one or 
more staves so arranged that they can be removed 
and allow us to see what is in the middle of the 
barrel,” said one produce dealer. Not a bad idea ; 
but I’ll warrant that the packers of some of the apples 
and other produce that we sometimes see in the mar¬ 
kets, would not be anxious to purchase such a barrel. 
X t X 
Bermuda produce is coming in considerable quan¬ 
tities, and seems to be in excellent condition. It is 
shipped in cold storage. The steamers go down with 
their refrigerators filled with good American beef 
and other meats, and bring back beets, parsley, 
onions, etc. These come into competition with our 
hothouse and southern vegetables, and the cost of 
transportation is so low that the latter are crowded 
hard. Still, Bermuda isn’t a very big place, and the 
whole vegetable product of the islands wouldn’t go 
far if this were the only source of supply. 
X X X 
A box of asparagus from the South, that gave evi¬ 
dence of having been of fair quality when cut, <was 
spoiled in the packing. From appearances, it had 
been tied up in bunches with the butts all even ; then 
the bunches being a little too long to pack in the box 
handily, enough had been chopped off the tops of the 
bunches to even them up, leaving some of the stalks 
(at least one-half) without any tips, the very best 
part. I asked the commission merchant how much 
he could get for it, and he said that he didn’t believe 
he could sell it at all. In putting up asparagus, the 
tops of the bunches should be made even, and the 
butts then be cut off squarely. A bunching machine 
is a great help in bunching this vegetable in attract¬ 
ive shape. 
X I t 
I saw a commission merchant sell a barrel of 
Spitzenberg apples to what seemed to be a very par¬ 
ticular buyer. I asked him the price. “Four dollars, 
but they were very choice.” I noticed the brand on 
the barrel “ XXXX”, which denotes pretty high 
quality. The top was covered with a circular piece 
of colored paper before the head was put in. Very 
good apples of the same variety might have been 
purchased the same day for $2 per barrel, but they 
had no charms for this buyer. It pays to please the 
particular buyer. The freight and cartage are no 
more on a $4 barrel of apples than on one selling for 
$ 2 , and the barrel costs no more. Which pays better ? 
X X X 
A wholesale egg dealer who does an extensive 
business in choice, new-laid eggs at higher prices 
than the usual quotations, says that he is having 
trouble in getting former prices. The market is 
literally swamped with western and southern eggs, 
and they are tolerably fresh, so that many unscrupu¬ 
lous dealers are buying them at the lower prices, and 
working them off on their customers as fresh, State 
eggs. This sort of thing can’t last long, for when 
hot weather comes, eggs can’t be shipped such long 
distances and still be in condition to aid in such a 
deception. By the way, how long does an egg remain 
fresh ? _ f. h. y. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
We get frequent complaints about the Scbwake Seed Company, 
of New York City. It is evidently a good bouse not to send 
money to. 
Don’t send any money to H. W. Gazley, Cortland, N. Y., unless 
you get the goods first. But it is better to buy such gooda of re¬ 
sponsible houses, anyway. 
A Poultry Annual and Book of Valuable Recipes foR 1897, is 
sent for 10 cents, by C. N. Bowers, Box 54, Dakota, Ill. It gives 
cuts and descriptions of a large number of the leading varieties 
of fancy fowls, and hints on the care of poultry. 
Those farmers who once use a land roller are seldom satisfied 
afterwards to do without one. Besides putting small stones out 
of the way it-pulverizes clods, perfects the seed bed and increases 
germination. Minard Harder, Cobleskill, N. Y., the veteran farm 
implement maker, will sell you one this season if you want it, 
and will send description of it if you ask for it. 
We have heard so much about weeders during the past few 
years that it seems as though the whole story had been told, and 
that these tools are about as good as they can be made. Our old 
friend, Mr. Warren Vreeland, has invented a new style weeder 
which appears to contain several new and valuable features. 
He calls it the “ automatic,” and the teeth certainly work more 
like the fingers on a man’s hand scratching in the dirt than any 
similar device we have examined. Mr. E. C. Birge, of Connecticut, 
and other good farmers, praise this weeder in the highest terms, 
and from what we can see Mr. Vreeland has hit upon a valuable 
addition to the mechanism of a weeder. 
We are receiving inquiries for the name of the manufacturers 
of the Superior cultivator and the Superior roller mentioned by 
Clarence J. Norton, in The R. N.-Y., page 151. These implements 
are made by the Standard Harrow Co., Utica, N. Y. 
We are frequently asked about an electric cluirn, advertised In 
most of the farm papers, from Cincinnati, O., and St. Louis, Mo., 
which is said to make butter in three minutes. It may be enough 
to say that we have repeatedly refused to put the advertisement 
in The R. N.-Y. It is another of the wonderful and good things 
that wise people leave alone. 
There have been several makes of weeders put on the market 
of late, and each seems to have points of merit. The one idea is to 
kill small weeds while the the plant is young without injuring the 
plant itself. D. Y. Hallock & Son, York, Pa., have an anti-clog 
weeder that they would like to tell R. N.-Y. readers about. They 
will do so if you send your address on a postal card. 
The Excelsior Wire and Poultry Supply Co., 28 Vesey Street, 
New York City, have issued a new catalogue of their goods. It 
contains 92 pages, and will be sent free to readers of The R. N.-Y. 
We believe that this firm carries the most complete line of poultry 
and supplies in the world. There isn’t a thing that is needed in 
any branch of poultry culture that they cannot supply. Write 
for this catalogue. 
The Eureka potato planter is a hand power machine with 
which, it is said, a smart man can plant three acres of potatoes 
in a day without bending his back. It can, also, be used to plant 
corn in the hill. The seed is dropped into a large tube which 
comes up to a man’s waist, and by means of an Ingenious lock, is 
left in the soil and covered. Pull particulars are sent by the 
Greenville Planter Co., Greenville, Mich. 
About noon on March 1, fire was discovered in the cellar of a 
packing house on the nursery farm of Chas. A. Green, near Roch¬ 
ester, N. Y. The house was destroyed with all the trees in that 
cellar. There are four other cellars, however, so that orders can 
still be promptly filled. A new building has already been com¬ 
pleted, two stories high and nearly 100 feet square. This is, prob¬ 
ably, the largest frost-proof packing house anywhere. Green 
has long been “ time-tried,” and now he has been “ fire-tested.” 
The pamphlets of the Mapes Fertilizer Co., 143 Liberty Street, 
New York, are always interesting and instructive. This firm 
have spent thousands of dollars in distributing books and pam¬ 
phlets that treated the general principles of farming with chemical 
fertilizers. The high character of the Mapes goods is evidenced 
by the testimonials from scientific men and experiment station 
workers. In these days of cut prices, many so-called “bargains” 
in fertilizers mean that the quality has been cut lower than the 
price. The quality of the Mapes goods is higher than ever. They 
offer several new brands this year. 
Hench & Dromoold, York, Pa., issue a very neat catalogue 
describing the various farm implements that they manufacture. 
Readers have often asked for a cheap, hand fodder-cutter. 
Hench <fe Dromgold sell one for $4.50. Their specialties are shovel 
plows, cultivators, both walking and riding, corn planters, 
spring-tooth harrows and cultivators, fertilizer distributers and 
grain drills, cider-mills, corn shellers, etc. They also manufac¬ 
ture saw-mills and thrashing machinss and engines for running 
them. The catalogue Is very complete, and would make a useful 
addition to your agricultural library. 
Last year we used the Defender spraying apparatus—made by 
P. C. Lewis, of Catskill, N. Y. The barrel lies on its side firmly 
supported by brackets at the bottom of a two-horse lumber 
wagon. A boy drives along the row close to the trees, and the 
man on the pump has no difficulty in forcing the spray to the top 
of the tallest trees. By turning and coming back along the 
opposite side of the row, every part is covered with the spray. 
The barrel being on its side brings the pump down low so that it 
does not catch on the limbs. It also makes easier work for the 
pumper. The agitator works automatically ana stirrs so well 
that at the end of a day’s spraying there is no sediment left in the 
barrel. The pump is made of brass—thus resisting the corrod¬ 
ing action of the chemicals. 
Agricultural Authorities on The Mapes Manures. 
MAPES POTATO MANURE. 
“ Under average conditions, and in far the greater number of cases, we do not 
hesitate to name the Mapes Potato Manure as the best and most profitable fertilizer 
for potatoes.”— American Agriculturist. 
The Mapes Potato Manure —“ Its action approaches certainty, or as near to 
it as any manure can be expected to do.”— E. S. Carman, Rural New-Yorker. 
The American Agriculturist, in commenting on these enormous yields with the 
Mapes Potato Manure, in comparison with other brands in the great Prize Contest, 
stated : “ Apparently, it is not so much the quantity, but the forms in which the 
plant-food is furnished that govern yield, provided a reasonable amount is supplied.” 
“ The advantage of the Mapes is that it goes in a straight line right to the 
spot. We never miss getting a car-load for our orchard.” 
“ We have been using the Mapes Potato Manure for eight years ; indeed, we 
do not care to use anything else for potatoes, and have never been disappointed 
yet. We do not have scabby potatoes as we used to with stable manure.”— Wilmer 
Atkinson, Farm Journal. 
[The Practical Farmer on The Mapes Potato Manure in the Prize Potato Contest ] 
“ During the past five years there has scarcely been a recognized authority on 
potato growing who has not stated as a result of practical experience that a 
commercial fertilizer like the Mapes Potato Manure excelled stable manure in 
Economy and in the Yield and Quality of potatoes.” 
Mr. Carman states in Rural New-Yorker, December 2, 1896, that he has used 
the Mapes Potato Manure for Seventeen Years. 
No Wormy Potatoes with the Mapes Potato Manure in 10 Years. —“ We 
have raised potatoes on the same piece of land for 10 years, using every year the 
Mapes Feitilizer. The last crop was as clean as the first. Our friend who says he 
used manure and fertilizer together, and found many wormy potatoes, will find 
it was the manure, not the fertilizer, that supplied the worms.”— E. S. Carman, 
in The Rural New-Yorker, 1892. 
FROM ONE OF THE FRUIT GROWERS IN FERTILIZERS 
AND FRUITS. ( 
Walter F. Taber, President of the Dutchess County Farmers’ Club, Lake 
View Farm, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., writes : I 
“ My strawberry crop (1896) was injured by the winter and the dry weather in 
May. My crops of Blackcaps and Red Raspberries and Blackberries were the finest 
I ever grew. I sold four-fifths of an acre of Souhegan Blackcaps, $425 ; from an 
acre of Marlboros, $350, and from an acre of Blackberries, $450. These crops 
show the possibilities under favorable weather and proper preparation and cultiva¬ 
tion. No stable manure has been applied to these vines, nothing but Mapes / 
Manures, sometimes using only potash and bone. ^ 
SEE ADYERTISEME 
FARMS STEADILY IMPROVED AND CROPS DOUBLED. 
[From the New England Homestead .] 
The actual statements from those who have used these high grade manures 
demonstrate the truth of the great claim made for the Mapes Manures, viz.: that 
by their continued use, in some cases for 10, 12 and 15 years, farmers, truck 
growers, and fruit growers report their lands as having steadily improved in con¬ 
dition, and their crops as double those formerly grown, while the quality of the 
crops has greatly improved, and their profits largely increased. 
“ Our own experience with various commercial fertilizers has convinced us 
that with judicious use of the Mapes Manures worn out lands can be restored 
to fertility quicker, and with less expense, than in any other way.”— American 
Agricultui'ist. 
“THE MAPES MANURES MIXED WITH BRAINS.” 
[From Farm Journal—Wilmer Atkinson.] 
Mapes Manures give surprising results to those who use them, and we believe 
the reason is that the ingredients are mixed with brains. It is said, besides, that 
the raw materials which compose them cost within 10 per cent of the cost of 
manure ready to apply to the soil. This latter statement is apt to be true ; the 
former we are certain is true. There is great skill shown in having the nitrogen, 
potash, and phosphoric acid just in the right proportion, in the proper forms, in 
the right fineness and solubility, so that action is prompt and certain. Often the 
elements in a fertilizer are present as shown by the analysis, but they are not in 
condition to act, and the benefit is not apparent, but Mapes seems to have every¬ 
thing just right, and his manures are perfectly sure to do the work intended of 
them. This is our experience. 
BEST FARMERS FEEL THEY CAN AFFORD TO BUY 
THE MAPES MANURES. 
“ The Mapes Manures are complete fertilizers of the very highest grade, and 
the success which has attended their use is the best evidence of their skill, ability, 
and the materials used in their manufacture. Prof. Mapes has been foremost in 
bringing the fertilizer trade to its present high standard. The most intelligent 
farmers and the largest consumers of fertilizers now feel that they can afford to 
buy the Mapes Manures because of their quality as demonstrated by results in 
the field.”— The American Agriculturist. 
“ As we have said repeatedly already, purchasers of the Mapes products may 
rely on securing goods of the highest grade, most skillfully prepared on a very 
large scale, with all possible appliances for thorough and economical work—and 
honestly sold with the purpose of retaining any chance purchaser as a regular 
customer when he sees the results on his own fields.”— The Country Gentleman. 
NT ON EAST PAGE. 
