4l2 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 19 
BOOK TRADE NOTES. 
The following note was sent from Cali¬ 
fornia : 
The American Fruit Culturist, by John J. 
Thomas, that you sent me has come to hand all 
right and, so far as I have examined it, I am 
well pleased, for the work certainly exceeds my 
expectation. You will please accept thanks for 
favors. s. o. s. 
National City, Cal. 
We venture to say that the more our 
friend examines the hook, the more he 
will be pleased with it. It is a complete 
thing. Every fruit student ought to have 
it. The price is $2.50—worth every cent 
of it. 
A woman up in Erie County, N. Y., 
sends this helpful little note : 
I take a few minutes’ time each day to look the 
papers over and mark those In which I think the 
head of the house would be most interested when 
he is through work for the day, and rest both 
mind and body. We raise more than double per 
acre what we did when we bought subject to the 
mortgage which the farm has had to pay, besides 
all new buildings and other improvements, such 
as clearing the farm of stumps and stones. We 
keep as much stock as neighbors with double the 
number of acres, yes, twice as much as some. I 
think that our best results are due to knowledge 
acquired bv reading and knowing what is going 
on outside our own neighborhood. Success to The 
R. N.-Y. m. A. R. 
That is as true as can be. That woman 
is a real help to her husband. If she 
were to read The Fertility of the Land, 
by Prof. Roberts, and half a dozen other 
books we might mention, she would 
mark every page for his reading. It 
doesn’t pay to read trash. We want 
farmers to put meat into that “ food for 
reflection.” That is why we talk about 
good farm books. You need them on 
your farm. We can supply them. 
Here is a man who wants The Fertil¬ 
ity of the Land. He sends for it and 
writes: 
Of my last order, I found Greiner’s Practical 
Farm Chemistry well worth the price of the whole 
five. It makes very plain many points respecting 
soil and plant food that the majority of farmers 
would never know without just such a clear and 
simple explanation. In a larger and more pre¬ 
tentious work on chemistry, I failed to discover, 
in a careful study, one-half the information, 
applicable on the farm, that I found in an hour’s 
perusal of Practical Farm Chemistry. 
ALBERT R. BELLWOOD. 
That’s right 1 Farmers are just begin¬ 
ning to find out how useful some of 
these little books are. This Farm Chem¬ 
istry will open a new line of thought to 
you—right on your own farm. Why, 
you will be surprised to see how much 
there is to think about in one acre of 
poor soil. Another great little book is 
The Story of the Plants, by Grant Allen. 
It costs only 40 cents, and tells a story 
of botany that reads like a novel. In 
fact, there are dozens of books ready for 
you—they cover every department of 
farm life. Write and tell us what you 
want, and we can give you advice—and 
take your order ! And now, then, read 
the following : 
Buy a Book. 
One of the best things The R. N.-Y. has done for 
a long time is going into the book business. Farm¬ 
ers need books, but many of them do not know it. 
So farmers generally buy few books. The man¬ 
ager of one of the great publishing houses told 
me that farmers, as a rule, buy very few books. 
But they need books, they ought to buy books, 
and anything that will help them do so is a bless¬ 
ing. 
Farmers need books on farming. Let me tell 
you a secret. The most successful farmer is the 
one who puts the most brains into his work. 
Again, no man has brains enough of his own to 
make the greatest success in farming. He must 
use the brains of other men. He can do this in 
four ways: Seeing what other successful farmers 
do, hearing them tell what they do, reading what 
they have written, and using other men’s inven¬ 
tions. Of course, thealectures and writings of 
scientific men are to be included in this list. The 
man who only sees and hears may learn a good 
deal, the amount depending on the opportunities 
he has and the use he makes of them, but his 
field of knowledge must be a limited one. The 
man who reads papers will get a great deal, but 
he who does not read some of the books on agri¬ 
culture cannot do his best; he cannot make the 
greatest use of other men’s brains. The modern 
farm paper is a marvel of condensed information 
but no farm paper can take the place of the books 
which are now being issued for farmers. Agricul¬ 
ture has now arrived at that stage which calls 
for discussion and elucidation of its foundation 
principles. The farm papers, by their very na¬ 
ture, are compelled to print short articles, mostly 
of a practical nature. Once in a while, they dis 
cuss principles as, for instance, The R. N.-Y.’s 
articles on Primer Science. But these had to be 
continued, the discussion had to be prolonged, 
and any adequate discussion of principles must 
far exceed the bounds of the ordinary farm paper 
article. Hence the need of books. You can get 
from them what you cannot from the very best of 
the papers. If you buy books and your neighbor 
do not, you will get so far ahead of him. 
I do not say that you do not need other books; 
I do say that every progressive farmer needs 
books on farming. Two objections at once will 
present themselves to most readers: “I haven’t 
time to read books,” and “I can’t afford them.” 
Now see here ! How many hours are there in a 
day ? Twenty-four. You sleep, probably, eight, 
take from 1 to 154 to eat. How many hours do 
you work ? What do you do the rest of the time ? 
Looking at your day in this way, can you not see 
that you have time to read a little each day in 
some book which will make you a wiser farmer ? 
You certainly should not work more than 12 
hours a day. Better not work so long and take 
time to read. Then as to the cost of books, do 
you use tobacco ? How much does that cost you 
a year ? Many people buy tea and coffee to drink 
and give the nice, sweet skim-milk to the pigs. 
Let me tell you that there is no better beverage 
(except pure water), than nice skim-milk. Or 
drink it cream and all, but don’t pay out dollars 
and dollars for tea and coffee, and then say that 
you are too poor to buy a few books on farming 
which would be worth many dollars to you and 
yours. J. W. NEWTON. 
HALF-SWEET, HALF-SOUR APPLES. 
On page 176 of The R. N.-Y., H. E. Van Deman 
said that he bad never seen an apple really half 
sweet and half sour. We now present notes from 
some of our readers who say that they have 
known of such fruit. 
Sometimes Sweet, Sometimes Sour. 
There is, or has been, an apple grown part 
sweet and part sour. I was as incredulous as 
yourself when I first heard the report, but a 
neighbor who told me, offered to get a scion from 
the tree if I would graft it into one of my trees. I 
did so, and in time, it bore fruit. The apples pro¬ 
duced for a year or two, were, in all respects, like 
a Rhode Island Greening; then it bore a crop 
of mixed quality. A part of an apple would 
be sweet and a part sour, but the portion sweet 
varied much in size, some apples being nearly all 
sweet, and some only a small portion. The line 
of demarkation was distinct, usually a slight 
ridge and a decided difference in color; the sour 
portion having all the appearance and flavor of 
a Rhode Island Greening, while the sweet part 
had yellow skin and yellow flesh. The sweet 
flavor was as decided as in the Talman Sweet. 
The difference in quality did not depend on ripen¬ 
ing, but was apparent in the green condition. 
One year, the tree bore, to all appearances, only 
Rhode Island Greenings; the next year, some 
were part sweet and part sour, some all sweet 
and some all sour, and all these different kinds 
might be growing on the same branch. 
I took a small branch to Dr. E. L. Sturtevant; 
this branch, hardly more than a twig, bore seven 
apples, some of which were all sweet, some all 
sour and some mixed. The quality could readily 
be told at sight. A year or two after, the tree 
bore a heavy crop of fine sweet apples; not one 
sour or mixed apple could be found. I never 
knew what the tree would produce until the crop 
presented itself. I have seen the statement made 
that the tree was produced by joining halves of 
buds from sweet and sour apple trees, but I can¬ 
not credit it. I imagine that it must be a sport. 
I can certainly assert that the tree was greatly 
addicted to sporting. Observations on this tree 
suggested some thoughts. Where and when is 
the distinctive quality of the juice of an apple 
produced ? I had supposed that the leaves did 
the work, but observation here would point to 
the change taking place in the fruit itself. When 
I bought my present farm, I sold my old place in 
Franklin, Mass., and a year or two afterwards, 
when I sought to get some scions from the freak¬ 
ish tree, I found that it had been destroyed by the 
present owner, so I have no living tree of the 
kind now. The scions from which the tree grew 
came from Cumberland, R. I. m. morse. 
Massachusetts. 
Mostly All Sweet or All Sour. 
I am glad that my friend, Mr. Van Deman, puts 
in the qualification, ‘‘so far as I know,” because 
I do not want flatly to contradict him by saying 
that such a thing as an apple part sweet and part 
sour has been really grown, and that, too, on my 
father’s farm in the town of Pawling in Dutchess 
County, now owned by my brother. The sour 
apple that grew upon this tree was a Rhode Island 
Greening. The sweet apple was one of the rich¬ 
est, sweetest apples I ever tasted, but matured 
earlier than the Greening. The bulk of the apples 
were either all sweet or all sour, but very many 
of them were mixed. Sometimes all sweet except 
a strip on one side the width of one finger or two 
fingers, and again one-half of each, and the flavor 
would be so pronounced that, if a strip one-half 
inch in width was taken out at the line of division, 
the part left on one side would be sugar sweet, 
and that on the other side of the cut would be 
very sour. So, you see, there is not a misguided 
belief in this matter, but another evidence of the 
fact that old things may become new, even to 
those who have had the extensive experience of 
Mr. Van Deman. My justification in this case 
must come from the fact that I am a little older 
than he. How the production of this mixed fruit 
was accomplished, I cannot say, as this tree was 
probably, 25 years old when I first knew it, which 
was about 60 years since; but it is supposed to 
have been accomplished by splitting the buds of 
the two varieties and joining the halves of each. 
I think it would be a nice thing for some of our 
horticulturists in our experiment stations to try. 
New York. Walter f. taber. 
Knows What He Affirms. 
I know that such a thing exists. A neighbor 
about half a mile from my house has such a tree 
in his orchard that bears apples one-half sweet 
and the other half sour. I have eaten the apples 
and know whereof I affirm. This was brought 
about by inoculation, taking one-half of two buds 
-one-half of the sour Greening and one-half bud 
of the Paine Sweeting—and uniting them, which 
makes a plain distinction both in appearance 
and taste. biram cole. 
New York. 
Sweet Ripened Earlier. 
On the old homestead farm, my father grafted 
part of a tree with the sweet-and-sour apple. I 
have eaten many of the apples that grew on those 
grafts. The sour part was Rhode Island Green¬ 
ing, the sweet part was said to be Golden Sweet. 
The. apples containing most sweet would ripen 
first, and drop off. Those first to ripen would 
have several ridges which would be as sour as 
any Greening; the hollows between would be 
quite yellow, and as sweet as a Golden Sweet. 
They were governed by no apparent rule, as 
some would have several sweet and sour streaks, 
others would have one large side which would 
always be green and sour, the small side always 
yellow and sweet. Some of the apples would re¬ 
main on the tree much later than the general 
crop, and these were all sour. In some of the 
apples, the flesh would be very sweet up to a given 
line, and very sour just adjoining. In others, the 
sweet and sour were so blended that you could 
not tell where one began or the other ended. It 
was of no value, only as a curiosity. 
Canada. w. w. hilborn. 
Ripen at Different Times. 
We have on our farm several trees bearing 
such apples, the variety being known as Half- 
sweet-half-sour. It is a variety closely resemb¬ 
ling Rhode Island Greening, except that part of 
the apples ripen in September, this part being, 
as a rule, very sweet, as sweet as Early Bough. 
Those that fall next, are usually very sweet on 
one side and very sour on the other; the sweet 
part being colored yellow and the sour part like 
Rhode Island Greening. Very often there is a 
distinct line shown on the apple, marking the 
dividing line between sweet and sour. The latest 
portion of the crop would pass as Rhode Island 
Greening, and is sold as such. This variety has 
been grown in this vicinity for more than e 0 
years. People here believe that the growing 
together of two split buds was the manner of its 
origination. w. a. potter. 
Ohio. 
Caused by Splitting the Buds. 
On the farm where I was born and lived for 28 
years, there was a tree which bore such fruit. 
The “ blood,” so to speak, of a Greening and Tal¬ 
man Sweet seemed to be mingled in a peculiar 
way. Some of the apples were all Greening, some 
all sweet, some one-fourth, one-third or, perhaps, 
two-thirds sweet. Sometimes the first apple on 
a twig or small limb would be sour, the next two 
sweet, the fourth sour, the fifth a mixture of the 
sweet and sour. I have often cut a quarter out 
of an apple which would be all sweet and the re- 
yAMDARD Of WOP 
l 
CLE$. T0Ali 
ALIKE 
One secret of Columbia superiority lies 
in the infinite care taken to bring all the 
features into harmonious relation. Well 
rounded and thoroughly adjusted in its 
smallest details it may be examined with 
minute scrutiny, 
with certainty of 
finding construc¬ 
tion that is not 
equalled nor even 
approached. There 
is beauty and 
strength in every 
line. «•«•«« 
1896 Columbias, $75. 
Hartford Bicycles, 
$60, $55, $50, $10. 
POPE MFG. CO., 
Hartford, Conn. 
Catalogue 
free from any 
dealer; by 
mail for one 
2 -c. stamp. 
xneir natneg 
are in the paper 
every day. In the 
obituary Column. 
The names of men 
killed by neglect 
of their health 
combined with 
overwork. They 
should serve as a 
warning to others 
who are fast fol¬ 
lowing in their 
footsteps. No man can 
stand the strain of modern business com- 
f etition who wilfully neglects his health, 
t is not good policy to overwork, but the 
man who looks after his health can stand a 
great deal of it. The man who neglects his 
health is soon unfitted for work. When a 
man’s digestion is disordered and his bow¬ 
els are irregular, his blood becomes impure 
and the body is badly nourished. The vic¬ 
tim of these conditions suffers from brain 
fag, nervous prostration, and debility, and 
eventually falls a victim to consumption. 
Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery 
corrects the digestion, invigorates the liver, 
improves the appetite and regulates the 
bowels. It is the best blood-purifier, blood- 
maker, flesh-builder, and nerve tonic. It 
makes a man well, strong, clear-headed and 
fit for business. It enables him to stand a 
reasonable amount of overwork. All good 
druggists sell it. There’s nothing ‘‘just 
as good.” 
Chas.Faulhaber, ofBrownlee, Cherry Co., Neb., 
writes: “I have used Dr. Pierce’s medicines, 
especially the * Golden Medical Discovery ’ with 
much benefit. Some time ago I was troubled 
with great distress in my arms and hands. It 
rot so bad I could not sleep at night. I thought 
it was the muscles of my arms that caused the 
trouble. I began taking the * Golden Medical 
Discovery.’ Soon I felt a decided improvement, 
and before I had taken the second bottle the 
aching was all gone, and it has not returned. I 
have a copy of your ‘ Common Sense Medical Ad¬ 
viser’ and would not do without it for any 
money.” 
Knowing how to take care of health is half the 
battle against illness. Dr. Pierce’s great book, 
“Common Sense Medical Adviser" is the educa¬ 
tor of the age. This book reached a sale of 
680,000 copies at $ 1.50 each. Within its 1,008 pages 
is compressed the best that Dr. Pierce has gath¬ 
ered by study and practice in thirty years. It 
is illustrated with over 300 drawings, some of 
them colored. Its 90 pages addressed exclusively 
to women are worth the original price of the 
hook. A new edition in paper covers is now 
ready for free distribution. By sending 21 cents 
in one-cent stamps, to pay for mailing, you will 
receive this great book. For cloth binding, send 
10 cents extra, Address, World’s Dispensary 
Medical Association, Buffa’o. N. Y. 
Farmers, 
Gardeners and 
Fruit Growers 
To economize should freely use the time 
tested reliable brands of FERTILIZERS 
we manufacture. The goods Increase 
quantity and improve quality of Grain, 
Grass, Vegetables and Fruit, and make 
healthy Trees , Vines and Shrubs. 
Rrands for all soils and all crops. 
tW Some prefer making their own “ home 
mixings,” for such we always keep in stock the 
Chemicals and crude materials required. 
THE CLEVELAND DRYER CO., 
No. 130 Summit Street, Cleveland, Ohio. 
WHEAT 
Will probably bring good prices 
next Fall—now for a big crop. 
NITRATE OF SODA 
Applied in the Spring, 50 to 100 
pounds per acre—will greatly in¬ 
crease the yield. It can be ob¬ 
tained of any enterprising fer¬ 
tilizer dealer. 
Please ask for pamphlet with full instruc- 
tions for using NITRATE on Wheat and 
other crops and instructions for MIXING 
FERTILIZERS at home. Address 
S. M. HARRIS, Moreton Farm(P.0,)N,Y, 
$20 Phosphate for Wheat and Grass 
Sold to farmers direct. We have no agents. Smp 
for Circular. Low prices for car-load lots. 
YORK CHEMICAL WORKS. York, Pa. 
We Sell Direct to Farmers ! 
Save Money ! 
Why not economize ? You save $10 to $12 on every ton of Fertilizer you buy from us. Per ton 
Pure Raw Bone Meal. 95 Ammonia, 4 to 0 p.c. Phos.Acid, 22 to 25 p.c.$22 
Scientific Corn & Grain Fert... 5J Ammonia, 2 to 3 p.c. Phos.Acid, 8 to 10 p.c. Potash, H 6 to 2)6 p.c. 16 
Scientific Economy Fertilizer . 6 * Ammonia, 2>4 to 3)6 p.c.Phos.Acid, 10 to 12 p.c. Potash, 3 to 4 p.c. 20 
' Ammonia, 3 to 4 p.c. Phos.Acid, 10 to 12 p.c. Potash, 316 to *14 P-c. 22 
Ammonia, 3 to 4 p.c. Phos.Acid, 10 to 12 p.c. Potash, 5 to 0 p.c. 25 
Ammonia, 414 to 516 p.c.Phos. Acid, 13 to 15 p.c. 18 
for samples and book write 
Scientific Tobacco Fertilizer..^ 
Scientific Potato Fertilizer.... £ 
Bone and Meat Fertilizer.^ 
THE SCIENTIFIC FERTILIZER CO.. P. 0. Box 1017,708 Bingham Street. Pittsburg. Pa. 
