5oo 
July 20 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Jarmers Club. 
[Every query must be accompanied by 
the name and address of the writer to In¬ 
sure attention. Before asking a question, 
please see whether It Is not answered in 
our advertising columns. Ask only a few 
questions at one time. Put questions on a 
separate piece of paper.] 
Raspberry Root Gall. 
R., Degolia, Po.—Can you tell me what is 
the matter with my red raspberries? They 
are not doing well, and have lai’ge lumps 
on the roots. Is there any cure? Give a 
full description of the disease if familiar. 
Ans. —It is almost sure that root-gall 
is the disease which is preying upon 
the raspberry plants mentioned. It 
comes from spores which are in the soil 
where the berry bushes are grown. 
When the soil is so infested the roots 
are almost sure to become knotty from 
the galls which grow on them. There 
is no known remedy for the galls after 
they are once on the roots, except dig¬ 
ging up and burning the bushes. No 
other raspberry bushes should be plant¬ 
ed on the same ground until after sev¬ 
eral years of cultivation in other crops. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
Driving Nails into Apple Trees. 
a. L., Pittsfield, Mass.—Tell readers who 
are troubled with Apple tree-borers to drive 
a few nails in the trunk of their trees. If 
small trees use small nails. I discovered 
this several years ago, and have never 
published it in print. I cannot account 
for it, unless the rust of the nails in the 
sap of the tree does the business. It has 
worked with me in apple, cherry and plum. 
I discovered it by nailing a cleat on a 
cherry tree for my wife to put a board on 
for her plants. The tree was almost dead, 
but came to be a nice one. 
Ans. —^The plan of driving nails into 
fruit trees of various kinds, with the 
idea of preventing Pear blight, keeping 
off insects, and making them more pro¬ 
ductive, has long been tried by experi¬ 
menters in a small way. There have 
been various statements made concern¬ 
ing the results of some most remark¬ 
able claims as to the efficiency of the 
work. Everything has a reason, and 
when we get down to the bottom of this 
particular matter we find that the rust 
from the nails has no chemical effect 
whatever upon the sap of the tree aside 
from that part next to it, nor does it 
either kill insects, such as the present 
correspondent supposes, destroy or pre¬ 
vent Pear blight, nor otherwise advan¬ 
tageously affect a tree or its fruit in any 
way, except that the injury to the tree 
does sometimes cause it to bear earlier 
or more abundantly than otherwise 
would be the case. Apple tree-borers 
are only kept out by putting some cov¬ 
ering about the trunks near the ground, 
such as stiff paper, which prevents the 
laying of the eggs, and in the case of the 
cherry and the plum they do not have 
borers, so that the nails driven by our 
friend could not possibly have prevent¬ 
ed them from getting in. There is un¬ 
doubtedly some other reason for the 
borers not having attacked the apple 
trees mentioned. h. e. van deman. 
Chickens, Grass and Fruit. 
J. R. F., Dayton, Tenn.—\. I would like to 
ask whether incubators are usually a suc¬ 
cess. What kind is best? Is it necessary 
to have brooders? Would one brooder be 
sufficient for 100 chicks hatched at once? 
2. What are the best early apples and 
peaches for this climate? What is the 
best cherry for cooking? 3. The pasture I 
have for my cows is low land, and has be¬ 
come mostly wild grass. As the cattle do 
not like the wild grass, I have thought to 
put it in Blue grass. Does this thrive in 
low land? If so, what process will be best 
to get the wild grass killed and a stand of 
Blue grass? 
Ans. —1. Yes, incubators are usually a 
success, I would not be without one if I 
expected to raise as few as 50 chickens. 
They are economical and very satisfac¬ 
tory, judging by the experience I have 
had with them, after bothering with 
sitting hens nearly all my life. There 
are many good incubators and very few 
poor ones. It is with incubators much 
as with sewing machines—their success 
lies largely with the operator. Brood¬ 
ers are necessary when the chicks are 
hatched without hens to care for them. 
Brooders are perhaps more difficult to 
manage than incubators, yet I have 
never had any serious trouble with 
them. One great benefit is that they do 
not give lice to the chicks as do nearly 
all hens. Brooders are made to hold 
from 50 to 500 or more chicks. A 400 
size is the kind I have generally used, 
but the smaller sizes work just as well. 
2. Among the best of the early apples 
are Red June, Summer Rose, Fanny, 
Primate, and a iittle later Jefferis. Of 
early peaches the Triumph, Sneed, Wad¬ 
dell and Dewey are all good. I would 
avoid all of the Amsden and Alexander 
type of peaches, because of their poor 
quality and proneness to rot. The best 
early cherry for cooking, that will suc¬ 
ceed well in Tennessee, is Richmond, 
and for a late variety the English Mor- 
ello, or the common Morello in case the 
former is not easily procured. 3. Red- 
top grass succeeds better on low land 
than most other kinds, and I think it 
more likely to last in the situation men¬ 
tioned than Kentucky Blue grass. How¬ 
ever, I have seen the latter doing well 
on moist lands in many places. The 
way I would proceed to reset to either 
of these grasses is to plow and cultivate 
the land for one year, and then seed 
in the ordinary way. I would sow about 
Iff iMJunds of each kind, and let them 
fight for the supremacy. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
Using Paris-Green on Potatoes. 
II. C., Connecticut.—What can you say 
about the best method of applying Paris- 
green for the Potato bug? If applied 
mixed with water, wiii it burn the foliage 
more than if aitplied dry? 
F., Ilillon, N. Will you tell me how 
to spray potatoes, and what mixture to 
use for bugs and blight? 
Ans. —We use water spraying by 
means of the Eclipse pump and a set of 
nozzles which cover three rows at a 
time. This does rapid work and kills 
the beetles. The objection is that in 
showery weather the spray is easily 
washed off. It is hard to hit every hill 
or plant with any horse-power machine. 
We have used the Paris-green gun with 
pure Paris-green or with the poison 
mixed with fiour or plaster. This work 
is rapid and accurate, as the gun en¬ 
ables one to put the green where it is 
wanted. The pure “green” is easily 
washed off by a shower, and it cannot 
be properly placed when the wind is 
blowing. The best time to use it is in 
the morning, when the vines are wet 
with dew. The dry mixtures of Paris- 
green in fiour or plaster are most ex¬ 
pensive and slowest to apply, but they 
stick better and give excellent results. 
With us the water mixture does not 
burn the vines seriously, but the “best” 
way for one would not be best for an¬ 
other. 
How Much Growth for a Tree? 
IV. H. D., Midland, Mich.—We frequently 
see, both In farm papers and experiment 
station bulletins, a statement that or¬ 
ganic and nitrogenous manure should not 
be used on fruit trees that are making a 
satisfactory growth, but that if the growth 
is not satisfactory some form of nitro¬ 
genous fertilizer should be used. Nowhere 
have I seen a statement of what is con¬ 
sidered to be a proper annual growth, ex¬ 
cept in a book that was published over 50 
years ago. My .Tapan plums made a growth 
of about four feet besides the laterals the 
year they were set out, and the year fol¬ 
lowing Northern Spy apple trees made a 
growth of two to three feet, the Canada 
Red and some other slow growers did not 
grow more than one foot. Do these 
growths indicate an excess of nitrogen or 
a lack of it? All the trees have had all 
the wood ashes that it was safe to apply. 
How should the growth of a tree after it 
begins to bear compare with the growth 
prior to that time? 
Ans. —There is a imssibility of get¬ 
ting too much growth on fruit trees in 
cases where nitrogenous manures are 
freely used, whether they be organic or 
inorganic, but there is much oftener too 
little than too much of it used. The ef¬ 
fect of nitrogen is to make a rapid 
growth of the plant or tree and to in¬ 
crease the size and prolong the season 
of growth of the fruit. But it also 
makes the fruit softer and more watery 
than is normal, and sometimes injures 
the flavor. I have also known an ex¬ 
cess of nitrogen to cause the fruit to 
drop in its earlier stages. When a fruit 
tree is young it should grow' much fast¬ 
er than when at bearing age. From 
three to six feet on some of the branches 
is none too much for the first five or six 
years of almost any fruit tree, but a 
part of this should nearly always be cut 
back annually in order to give proper 
form to the tree. In the case of the 
peach this pruning back is very essen¬ 
tial, that there may be plenty of new 
bearing wood constantly on the tree. It 
is not so important with the plum, pear 
and apple. An apple tree that is not 
making an average of one foot on the 
terminal branches evidently needs 
stimulation. Good tillage and perhaps 
manures should be applied at once. 
Wood ashes make one of the very best 
of manures for orchards. I would think 
that apple trees making two or three 
feet of growth are not needing more 
nitrogen. h. e. van deman. 
Wood Acids in a Chimney. 
A. N. B., Marshfield, IT.—Who can tell us 
how to fix a chimney so that we shall not 
be troubled with creosote? Our chimneys 
come together in the attic, only one going 
out. One bricklayer tells us that the slant 
is the cause of the trouble, but a neighbor 
has a chimney which goes straight up, and 
he is troubled the same as we are. We 
must lay over our chimneys this Summer, 
and we are anxious to prevent the trouble 
if possible. 
An.s. —Wood consists of some com¬ 
bustible matter which is filled with cells 
or spaces in which water is held. The 
sap of wood is simply this wmter, hav¬ 
ing organic matter of which the new 
growth of wood is made dissolved in it, 
and the sap passes from cell to cell from 
'the roots until it reaches the top twig 
of the tree. Green wood, freshly cut, 
has more than half of its weight of w'a- 
ter in it, and when it is well seasoned, 
and as we call it “dry,” it still has one- 
sixth of its weight of water, so that 
when w'ood is burned this water is 
changed into steam, which goes off with 
the smoke into the chimney. Wood also 
contains a special acid known as pyro¬ 
ligneous, or burned-wood acid. This 
consists of some of the carbohydrates of 
the wood in solution in water. The fact 
is, that to a certain extent, in burning, 
the wood is distilled; and the smoke, 
with considerable steam and other va¬ 
por, in a condition of intense heat, goes 
up into the cold chimney. These are the 
facts as regards the wood. Now all va¬ 
pors are condensed by cold, anu changed 
to liquids. So the heated air going up 
into the cool chimney is cooled, and the 
vapors and gases in it are condensed. 
The pyroligneous acid, especially, is 
condensed, and along with the water in 
the vapor is deposited with some of the 
unconsumed but burned woody matter 
on the walls of the chimney or stove 
pipe, and, of course, this liquid matter 
—black and acrid in odor—must run 
down and find some way of escape, 
which is generally to the bottom of the 
chimney, where it fiows out and makes 
trouble. Or it will escape through the 
joints of the stove pipe, and run down 
dropping to the floor, and causing trou- 
AKMSTEONO & McKELVy 
I'ittshurah. 
BEYMER-BAUMAN 
IMtlsliurgh. 
DAVIS-CHAMBERS 
Pittsburgh. 
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Pittsburgh. 
ANCHOR 
■ Cincinnati. 
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Salem. Mass. 
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