6io 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 7 
cumbers should be picked by the end of May, and the 
crop Is practically continuous until lettuce is again 
planted in September, though the profits are small 
after July, when the local outdoor product reaches 
market. Only the best are then shipped, though all 
cucumbers must be cut to keep the vines producing. 
The effort is made, during the latter part of the sea¬ 
son, to make the product of the houses pay running 
expenses, and is not always successful. A very lib¬ 
eral application of manure is worked in before the 
cucumbers are planted, as they are gross feeders, and 
if the market warrants top-dressings of fertilizer are 
given as growth proceeds. Water is given by a sys¬ 
tem of surface Irrigation after the vines get on the 
trellis, and wetting of the foliage is avoided as much 
as possible to lessen risk of sunscald, to which cu¬ 
cumbers are liable under glass In hot weather. Lice 
and other insect pests are controlled by liberal appli¬ 
cations of dampened tobacco stems to the soil, and 
the same remedy is used on the heating pipes for let¬ 
tuce in Winter. Fumigation by burning tobacco Is 
highly injurioiis to both cucumbers and lettuce, and 
the cautious grower has learned that his only salva¬ 
tion as regards aphids and other insect pests lies in 
preventing them from gaining a foothold. 
The cucumbers are marketed in wooden half-barrel 
baskets, and are picked when six or seven inches long. 
The Arlington White Spine is the only type grown, 
and the effort is made to perfect a strain of the neces¬ 
sary vigor and productiveness, of thick symmetrical 
form, with few spines, retaining a rich dark green 
color under a faint bloom. A basket holds just about 
100 cucumbers of the most perfect type, and early In 
the season $5 or even $7 does not seem too much for 
100 such beauties. Mr. Becker has tried the best Eu¬ 
ropean forcing cucumbers, and while he can grow 
them perfectly, finds they will not sell. He thinks 
their fiavor is much Inferior to a properly-grown 
White Spine. w. v. f. 
ADVICE TO “MOON FARMERS." 
The following quotation Is from a county paper of high 
repute, published In the western part of this State; It Is 
a model county paper, ably conducted and edited. They 
have a column, "Farm Notes," made up of brief extracts 
from agricultural and other papers. This particular 
clipping surprises us. Does It state an actual fact, or is 
It an echo from the Middle Ages? “All things that grow 
out of the ground, such as peas, corn and the like, must 
be planted In the Increase of the moon, from new to full; 
all things that mature In the ground, like potatoes, must 
be planted In the decrease or waste of the moon, from 
full to new.” o. f. o. 
New York. 
As the note reads it Is utter nonsense. To say that 
crops vwst be planted “In the moon” is folly, for the 
best of crops are grown by farmers who never think 
of the moon at all. This echo goes back past the 
Middle Ages and will probably never die out. Many 
farmers are sincere In their belief that the moon In¬ 
fluences vegetation. The scientific men are unable to 
prove that the "full” or the "waste” does not have a 
direct bearing upon the growth of plants. There Is, 
probably, no experiment that would settle the matter, 
for half a dozen other things would make a differ¬ 
ence with the crop, and no one could tell how much 
of this difference the moon was responsible for. It Is 
safe to say that the best scientific men and farmers 
pay no attention to the moon in planting their crops. 
When the ground is ready they plant and let the 
moon run its regular course. Personally, we would 
just as soon Imagine that it would make a difference 
in the digestion of supper if we ate it in the moon¬ 
light or In the shadow as to think that the moon could 
Influence plant growth. We once pinned one of the 
moon farmers down to some definite reason for his 
belief. He said that bright moonlight deceived the 
plants. They thought It was still day, and kept at 
work, thus doing double duty! There was a time 
when such moon farmers would be called “ignorant.” 
That word is not used as much as It was once, for as 
men gain In true wisdom, they realize how little they 
know. Any paper, however, that would use the word 
"must” In connection with the moon Is too musty for 
live farmers! 
CITY MEN ON FARMS. 
Quite a number of farms In this vicinity have been 
bought and occupied during the past two years by 
city people, and most of their owners have been rare 
picking for the natives. The apparent trouble has 
been that these men knew absolutely nothing of the 
business, and what few ideas they had could be 
gained by reading one or two copies of a farm pai)er. 
There are a good many men like them, who seem to 
carry the opinion that farming requires no capital 
save the bare amount invested in the land and build¬ 
ings, and no experience except what may be gained by 
reading a few farm papers for a month or two. Their 
ideas of the value of farm animals may be illustrated 
by one man who wanted to buy cows at |50 each. 
Whether they were worth or |76 cut no figure; 
$50 was the price, and it is hardly needful to say 
that he got the $25 kind. They were told fairly good- 
sized stories by the real estate agent, and knew noth¬ 
ing of the soil and the crops suitable for it or for 
that region. One man told his neighbors he should 
be satisfied if he cleared $4,000 the first year on a 
small dairy farm. He hasn’t the money yet, but quite 
a lot of experience. Some have depended on ignorant 
hired help, and have made a dismal failure. 
I should not advise a city man to give up a sure 
thing in the city for an uncertainty in the country, 
unless he had sufficient capital to stand it a year or 
two without an income. The better way would seem 
to be, if possible, to make some arrangement with a 
good farmer and work for him a year, doing with his 
own hands all the different kinds of work possible, 
and keeping his eyes wide open. This may seem hard 
advice, but the experience will be gained much 
cheaper than going it yourself or depending on hired 
help. A man who knows nothing as to how work 
should be done, or when done, or how fast it can be 
HOW THE LADYBIRD EATS. FlO. 266. 
done, is a poor man to handle hired help. He ought, 
like the teacher, to be head and shoulders above the 
pupil in knowledge. Diversified farming, which is 
more suited to this locality, requires more experience 
and a longer head to make it successful than where 
one particular crop, such as onions, potatoes, cabbage 
or one or two kinds of fruit, are all that are raised 
in a section. Some of the city people who had good 
business heads, studied their branches thoroughly, 
starting them on a small scale, until they got their 
experience, and they have done fairly well; in fact, 
better than the old timers, as they had no ruts to get 
out of, or no false ideas, which sometimes are never 
eradicated from the country born and bred. Success 
to the city farmer, but go slow. Use your eyes, get 
your advice from successful farmers, and above all, 
don’t brag; then you will have leas to regret. 
Connecticut. h. g. m. 
SOME INJURIOUS LADYBIRD INSECTS. 
I wish that Prof. Slingerland would describe the 
Epilachna borealis referred to in your reply to J. S. B. 
on page 632. Hitherto I have looked upon all the “lady- 
bugs” as my very best friends, and have, of course, 
treated them accordingly, and am desirous of being able 
to detect the "wolf In sheep’s clothing” and treat him as 
he deserves. j. r. 
Pennsylvania. 
Of the more than 150 kinds of ladybird beetles In 
the United States, so far as we know of their habits, 
nearly all of them are beneficial to man in that they 
feed upon other insects that usually injuriously af¬ 
fect man’s crops. But at least three of the ladybird 
beetles are vegetarians and have attained a place in 
the rogue’s gallery of insect pests. The species which 
THREE FORMS OF LADYBIRD BEETLE. Fie. 267. 
is commonly injurious to vegetation in the East is 
known as the Boreal or Squash ladybird (Epilachna 
borealis). The four stages of its life—the egg, larva 
or grub, pupa, and adult or beetle—are shown much 
enlarged in Fig. 267; and in Pig. 266 is shown its 
characteristic manner of working on a leaf. In feed¬ 
ing it “stakes out a claim” in the form of a circle or 
semicircle, sometimes of great regularity, inclosing 
the portion of the leaf on which it is about to feed. 
The leaf is then eaten within this mark, and nowhere 
else. It is thought that this marking out of its feed¬ 
ing grounds is for the purpose of securing the wilting 
of the tissues of the leaf previous to Its consumption. 
The Squash ladybird beetle is about a third of an 
inch in length (see hair line beside the beetle in Pig. 
267), ochraceous in color and prominently marked 
with the rounded black spots as shown in the figure. 
Its eggs, deposited in clusters on the under surface 
of a leaf, are yellow, and the spiny grubs and the 
pupae are also yellow. With these coloration details 
and the excellent illustrations, one should be able 
readily to determine this “wolf in sheep’s clothing” 
among the ladybirds. In the West and Southwest 
beans are often seriously injured by another member 
of this same genus—Epilachna—of ladybirds, and it 
is said that the remaining third species of the genus 
in the United States is also a vegetarian. It is re¬ 
markable that all of the injurious members of the 
great family of Coccinellidae or ladybird beetles so far 
as known, should belong to the single genus Epi¬ 
lachna. There seems to be but one brood of these in¬ 
jurious ladybirds in a season, and they readily suc¬ 
cumb to the arsenical poisons, m. v. slingerlakd. 
KEROSENE AND SAN JOSE SCALE. 
There seems to be a feeling among some fruit grow¬ 
ers that it is a disgrace to have It known that their 
grounds are infested with San Josd scale. This, it 
seems to me, is a very great mistake; still, it is a dis¬ 
grace to have this minute thief on your place without 
making some practical attempt to dislodge him. I 
had heard lectures, seen pictures of him, had heard 
those scientific fellows tell how rapidly he would mul¬ 
tiply, and how easy it was to get him and to get rid 
of him; but until last Spring never dreamed that I 
should be compelled to fight this scale in person. It 
had all appealed to me about as the reading of the 
accounts of the English-Boer war in South Africa; 
something a long way off. But about the first of last 
April it became a reality with a vengeance. In prun¬ 
ing my lower orchard of about 300 trees I discovered 
a peach tree badly infei^ed. I at once sent for a team, 
pulled it out and burned it, and felt easy, thinking 
that that settled it with me, but not so. I very soon 
found the scale scattered here and there throughout 
the orchard. Then at once began running through 
my mind what I had heard and read—fumigation, 
kerosene, whale-oil soap, etc., but I did not know how 
to go to work. I finally decided to seek assistance, 
and at once wrote to Prof. Britton, of the Experiment 
Station. He said that all the above remedies were 
good, but he would hardly dare recommend any of 
them, for by that time tne trees were in full leaf and 
fruit set, but finished his letter by saying tuat he 
would come and look the orchard over, which re¬ 
sulted in his sending down his spraying tools. June 
19 the orchard was sprayed as follows: 225 trees with 
15 per cent kerosene, 85 trees with 15 per cent crude 
oil, and a few trees with 20 and 30 per cent crude oil, 
also a few with common soap and water, one pound 
to two gallons. 
The kerosene did no injury to leaf or fruit and 
killed about 90 per cent scale. The crude oil stripped 
off all foliage and fruit touched, and killed about 95 
per cent of the scale. 'The soap and water had fully 
as bad results as the crude oil. The 20 and 30 per 
cent crude oil killed everything It touched, even the 
young twigs for several inches, and practically all 
the scale, but the trees have since leafed out, and at 
this time look vigorous. June 29 the first young scale 
were seen. I feel quite sure that if the spraying had 
been delayed until about July 1 a much larger per 
cent of the scale would have been reached and killed. 
While this one experiment does not establish the fact 
If looks as though 15 per cent kerosene was safe to 
use all over the peach tree. a. c. innis. 
Connecticut. 
WHAT TO 00^WITH THE APPLES. 
The apple crop of the United States and Canada is 
very much below the average. The result will be 
that the highest prices will rule, and a great many 
fruit growers and apple buyers will market almost 
everything that is grown, which will prove to be a 
very serious mistake While the crop is short, if this 
practice is carried out, there will certainly be a hard 
break in prices later on, as when the consumers find 
a large quantity of poor apples packed In with a few 
good ones, they will stop buying and turn their at¬ 
tention to other fruits. It will be particularly im¬ 
portant this year to make strictly honest grades In 
packing. No. 1 apples should be strictly No. 1, en¬ 
tirely free from worm holes and other blemishes. A 
good No. 2 should be made, which will not be ex¬ 
pected to be as fine as No. 1, though in this grade 
anything that is really bad should be excluded. All 
apples of medium size may be Included In this grade 
If fair. It would be expected that they will not be 
entirely free from worm holes, although where badly 
affected, i. e., containing a worm hole in the side of 
the apple, rather than at the blossom end, such should 
be excluded even from the No. 2. If this practice Is 
strictly adhered to the apple crop will bring a large 
amount of money to those who are fortunate to have 
this fruit, but if the poor are mixed In with the good, 
the reputation for this most desirable of all fruits 
will be seriously Injured. Fruit growers cannot af¬ 
ford to jeopardize their future by taking advantage 
of the short crop to run in all the trash that grows In 
their orchards this year. People will pay good prices 
for good apples, but when the market la abundantly 
supplied, as it now is with many kinds of foreign 
fruits, they will not be imposed xipon by poor apples 
put upon them at high prices. It Is expected In the 
market that the heads of barrels will be faced up 
with the finest specimens, and while this may be per¬ 
missible, they should follow right through every 
barrel, so faced, with good quality. The practice of 
facing with fine specimens, following with a half 
bushel of good apples and then filling in with culls 
is dishonest, and Is nothing short of fraud. Honesty 
is always the best policy, and will be particularly so 
in packing apples this Fall. geo. t. powkll. 
