44o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 3 
The Rural New=Yorker. 
THE BUSINESS FARMERS' PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Elbekt S. Cabman. Editor-In-Chief. 
Herbert W. Colling wood, Managing Editor. 
John J. Dlllon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
PRICE, ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 
8 s. Od., or 8*4 marks, or 10*4 francs. 
ADVERTISING RATES. 
Thirty cents per agate line (14 lines to the inch). Yearly orders 
of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per line. 
Reading Notices, ending with “ Adv.," 75 cents per 
count line. Absolutely One Price Only. 
Advertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
Be sure that the name and address of sender, with name of 
Pcst-offlce and State, and what the remittance is for, appear in 
every letter. Money orders and bank drafts on New York are the 
safest means of transmitting money. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay¬ 
able to THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
Corner Chambers and Pearl Streets, New York. 
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1897. 
Sound books, by cool-headed people, make good 
reading for hot weather. Keep track of the soil and 
the crop. 
|- 
Send for Our 
New Book List. 
That will give you an idea of what you want! Then 
write us for prices ! Come now ! It is time to start 
that farm library ! Others are ahead of you 1 
O 
Reports from those who tried to keep fruits in 
cold storage last winter, plainly indicate several im¬ 
portant things. Cold storage cannot make good, 
salable fruit out of poorly picked and bruised speci¬ 
mens, No fruit can improve in the cold room—it will 
be sure to fall off more or less. The cold tempera¬ 
ture is a preventive and not a cure. Only smooth and 
perfect fruit should ever be put into storage. It is 
not designed for culls and specked apples. Use 
the best fruit or none at all. 
Q 
In this season when insect and fungous pests are so 
prevalent, the man who has sprayed carefully for the 
past few years has the advantage. Last year, some 
fruit growers who did not spray got as large a crop as 
their neighbors who did, and some of them at once 
concluded that spraying does not pay. This year, 
they will tell a very different story. In sections 
where Canker worms, Tent caterpillars and similar 
pests abound, the orchard that has been thoroughly 
poisoned for the past few years will stand the attack 
far better than those that have not been sprayed. 
Spraying is like life insurance. This is the year when 
the policy ought to be paid up. 
© 
Last week, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., Prof. Slinger- 
land found in an apple orchard only three miles out 
of the city, 40 or 50 trees infested with the San Jos6 
scale. Many of these scales were alive, with good 
promise of a big future crop of young scales. Most of 
these trees were set within the past few years. As 
the crop of scale insects grows larger, the crop of 
fruit will grow smaller, and the insect will certainly 
spread all over the valley if it is not fought and killed 
at once. In fact, it now seems evident that the Hud¬ 
son River Valley is pretty well infested already. This 
shows how rapidly the insect spreads, and ought to 
urge growers on to fight the scale while it is possible 
to fight it cheaply. 
O 
The report on the food and habits of the Ameri¬ 
can toad, which appears on another page, gives some 
idea of our indebtedness to this little policeman, who 
patrols the farm and garden to protect our crops. 
Florists are well aware of the value of this humble 
batrachian, and many large greenhouse establish¬ 
ments can show a corps of semi-domesticated toads 
that, in return for the protection given them, devour 
sow-bugs, myriapods, slugs, ants and earth-worms. In 
a palm house, ants are a great nuisance, because they 
carry scale insects from plant to plant, while among 
orchids and ferns, sow-bugs, myriapods and slugs are 
very destructive; but the greenhouse toads soon 
lessen their numbers to a surprising degree. One 
florist used to maintain, in addition to a number of 
toads, several of the common gray wood lizards and a 
number of Box turtles, the lizards being valuable on 
account of their agility, which enabled them to climb 
the benches in search of insects. They all grew very 
tame, and it was no uncommon sight to see a man 
washing palms, surrounded by an interested audience 
of toads, lizards and turtles, watching expectantly 
for any stray insect which might be thrown to them. 
The London market-gardeners m the region of Dept¬ 
ford will pay a shilling each for toads, and especially 
encourage them around their strawberry beds. 
O 
A singular story has been going the rounds of the 
press of late about the use of the famous X-rays in 
locating the eggs in a hen. It is stated that a Cali¬ 
fornia ranchman became convinced* that a fair pro¬ 
portion of his hens were sterile. He had them ex¬ 
amined with X-rays, and located the “unborn eggs”! 
The story goes on to say that about 40 per cent of the 
hens “ had no eggs.” We regard this as a silly fake. 
Possibly five per cent of our hens are sterile or nearly 
so, but we have no idea that the X-rays would prove 
of any value in detecting them. There are, un¬ 
doubtedly, robber hens in every flock—birds that do 
not lay eggs enough to pay for their board. How 
can we detect them ? That is a hard question, and 
some of our leading breeders will try to answer it in 
a coming issue of The R. N.-Y. 
G 
Last week, we visited a strawberry farm on Long 
Island, and noticed particularly the work in the pack¬ 
ing shed. A large patch of Gandys was being picked. 
The yield was not large, as is usually true of this 
variety, but the fruit was large and fine and of a 
rich, dark color. The fruit might have been sold just 
as the pickers brought the boxes from the field, but 
this did not satisfy the packers. Every box was ex¬ 
amined, and all small fruit was taken out. The top 
was neatly packed with the largest and finest berries 
to be found—nine to eleven of such berries filling the 
top. This took time, but it improved the appearance 
of the package by 50 per cent. It paid, too. The 
grower has kept this practice up for years. There is 
most profit in it in seasons when ordinary fruit is 
most abundant and low in price. 
Q 
Two years ago, the meat-eating public was startled 
to learn that serious efforts were being made to sell 
horse flesh openly as human food. There was no 
effort to disguise the business. Young and healthy 
western horses were used, and everything about the 
trade was as clean as it could be. It did not prosper. 
Americans do not want to buy horse meat. Europeans 
who use it seem to prefer cheap meat from broken- 
down old hacks to higher-priced meat from sound 
animals. The experiment failed, but it served to 
show that a few old knackeries in this country were 
actually turning out horse meat and attempting to 
palm it off as beef. These have now mostly been 
closed, and it is said that the Oregon slaughter houses 
are now feeding the horse meat to hogs. These hogs 
make a rapid growth on boiled horse meat, and when 
finished by about six weeks’ feed on corn, will produce 
cheap pork. It seems a shame that such a noble ani¬ 
mal as the horse should be used as hog food, but that 
is but one of the industrial changes that modern times 
have forced upon Americans. If the present slaugh¬ 
ter of horses keep on, there must be an increase in 
their value—in spite of electric lines, bicycles and 
horseless carriages. 
© 
In the semi-arid region of Kansas and Nebraska, 
tests are now being made in thorough tillage as a 
substitute for irrigation. The work is being done 
under the “ Campbell system,” adapted by W. H. 
Campbell of Iowa. The process begins with a thor¬ 
ough pulverizing of the surface, for three or four 
inches, with a disk harrow ; the land is then plowed 
eight inches deep, the fine surface soil being turned 
to the bottom of the furrow. After this, comes the 
“surface packer”, a tool packing the lower subsoil 
firmly, leaving the surface loose. After this, a drag 
makes the surface perfectly smooth. Corn is planted 
with a check-rower, and such small grains as wheat 
and oats are drilled 20 inches apart. The crops are 
cultivated, at least once a week, to a depth of two 
inches, forming a mulch of loose earth. Some of the 
western railroads are trying this system on model 
farms, considering that, when properly carried out, it 
will add to the value of farm lands. Many farmers, 
not alone in the arid West, scarcely realize how much 
is added to the fertility of the land by constant till¬ 
age ; it will certainly be a necessary complement to 
irrigation. 
O 
From all over the country come reports of great 
damage from insects and fungi. In western New 
York, for example, many apple orchards have been 
stripped by the Tent caterpillars, and plant lice of all 
kinds were never so numerous as now. We receive 
dozens of samples of leaves that are alive with these 
lice. Many people are wasting time and energy in 
trying to kill the insects with a Paris-green spray. 
Every fruit grower should understand that insects of 
this kind do not feed as caterpillars or the potato beetle 
and other chewing insects do. The plant lice suck 
their food from the inside of the leaves or branch, 
and as it is impracticable to get the poison into the 
inside of the plant, necessarily the lice cannot eat 
Paris-green or other poisons. For all sucking insects 
(which include the plant lice, scale insects, stink bugs 
and others), we must use some solution which, when 
it hits the insect, will soak through its skin and kill 
it in that way. Entomologists are now recommend¬ 
ing a solution of whale-oil soap (one pound in six or 
eight gallons of water), for killing plant lice. It is 
easier to make than the kerosene emulsion which is 
often recommended for the same purpose, and, appar¬ 
ently, it is just as effective. 
o 
“ How often do you cultivate your crops ?” 
We have often asked that question of farmers, and 
the usual answer is, 
“ As often as I think the crops need it ?” 
Opinions as to when the soil needs stirring vary 
considerably. One man may have a big, blunt-toothed, 
barbarous cultivator that plows and gouges up the 
soil in big gashes. He cultivates to kill weeds, then 
hoes the soil in great hills around the corn or potato 
plants. Another man, with a cultivator with many 
small teeth cultivates to make what he calls a dust 
mulch or layer of fine soil on the surface, and he may 
give the corn six such workings during an ordinary 
season. Most of the arguments in favor of shallow 
cultivation fail in a wet and cold season when, on 
undrained land, there is a surplus of water. On soil 
that is well tile-drained, shallow cultivation may 
prove very successful, even in wet seasons. On low, 
flat land, without such bottom drainage, it is a mis¬ 
take to hold an excess of water in the soil. In a sea¬ 
son like the present one—wet and cold—we would 
put the cultivator teeth down deep into the soil for 
the early workings, and in this way warm the upper 
surface as much as possible. On heavy clay land, we 
would not do even this, but would let the land alone 
until dried out. If the weeds got the start, we would 
hoe them out of the hills by hand. 
© 
BREVITIES. 
Pedigree ! Pedigree ! Turn up your nose, 
If your great grandfather turned up his toes 
Over a portion of money or fame 
Which he had captured in life’s little game. 
Pedigree ! Pedigree ! Hail and all hail ! 
Though you but represent pedigree’s tail ! 
Why be content to be pedigree’s end f 
Why not improve on life’s chances, my friend ? 
Pedigree ! Pedigree ! What does it matter; 
If your old grandfather kicked up a clatter, 
If you knock all of his promise to batter. 
Making his money and manhood both scatter ?• 
Don’t take grandfather’s performance for bail, 
Don’t be content to be Pedigree’s tail; 
Don’t live a purposeless life, but instead, 
Start a new pedigree, stand at the head. 
Let your ancestors all rest as they ought, 
Give your descendants the best of your thought. 
How much is the plow’s share ? 
Get ready for Crimson clover seeding. 
This is the season for pasture ized milk. 
I want cut bone for my crop, says Mrs. Hen. 
The early bird has the coolest time for work. 
Mix some sympathy with your chickens’ feed. 
The breeding pen is mightier than the scrub. 
Irrigate the corn with sweat—horse and man. 
Sad— the lot of the man who still thinks he is a boy. 
The cockerel’s first effort is generally a crude crow. 
How does the apple crop in your neighborhood look ? 
The American toad is a square-toed friend of the farmer. 
The first hired hand to discharge is B. Hind Hand—page 437. 
Better be a first-class farmer than a second-class “ agricul¬ 
turist.” 
Ip you must pen the pig, give him green food anyway. Weeds 
make good pork ! 
Read Mr. Van Deman’s reply to the sweet-and-sour apple dis¬ 
cussion on page 436. 
The Tent caterpillar will not camp in the orchard that is regu 
lariy Paris-greened. 
The toad knows his business—and does it. Lots of men know 
their business—and fall to do it. 
The cement stable floor people have their innings this week, 
and they make some good base hits. 
In 1896, this country imported 55,380,520 pounds of cotton, valued 
at $6,578,212. It ought to be grown at home ! 
There is food in a fertilizer bag, even after the fertilizer is used 
—if you use it for a hay cap during a rain—see page 439. 
Put plenty of parental love into the home discipline. You can’t 
rear even incubator chicks without the warmth of a brooder. 
Rest the horse with heaving flanks—you will find him giving 
thanks in the shape of faithful work; overloading makes the 
shirk. 
No, the wheelman does not own the country road, by a long 
shot. He has rights, but that gives him no license to commit 
wrongs. 
There is, evidently, some skill needed in arranging a breeding 
pen of poultry, see page 446. It requires something more than 
merely selecting the best hens. We must also mate them. 
