854 
I'HE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Uecember 21 
; Ruralisms ; 
^ 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS. 
SwKET Potato Trials. —Plants of the 
following varieties of sweet potatoes 
were forwarded for trial by F. S. New¬ 
comb, Vineland, N. J., and received on 
the Rural Grounds June 5. They were 
immediately planted in a suitable plot 
of sandy loam in ridges three feet apart, 
the plants being set 20 inches apart. 
Well rotted manure was incorporated in 
the ridge at the rate of one bushel to 
20 feet. The plants all made a strong 
growth, and the resulting crop was bet¬ 
ter than the average in the neighbor¬ 
hood. Tne potatoes were dug October 
9 on account of threatened frost while 
most of the vines were still growing. 
ViNEi.Ess Bush. —Short, stubby, but 
vigorous growth; rank foliage but true 
bush habit. Not one of the 20 plants 
showed any inclination to run. Large 
yield of long, light yellow, well-formed 
potatoes. Good table quality. A very 
desirable variety but a little late for our 
locality. 
V 1 .NKI.K.SS Goi-i) Coin. —Very heavy 
broad foliage; grows about one foot 
high. Not quite so compact as Vineless 
Bush. Large yield. 'lubers spindle 
shape, light buff, or creamy white in 
color. Evidently later than Vineless 
Bush anu less agreeable in quality. 
Big Stem. —Apparently a sport of Jer¬ 
sey Yellow, with enormously thick red 
stems. Large heart-shaped foliage, 
rampant grower. Moderate yield of long 
spindling, light yellow tubei'S, stringy 
and irregular in form. Apparently too 
late for us. Quality very fair. 
Eauuy Goudkn. —Moderately vigorous. 
Heart-shaped foliage, with slender 
creeping stems. Very heavy yield of 
long, smooth, well-formed deep yellow 
tubers growing compactly in hill. Easy 
to dig and store. High quality, cooks 
sweet and dry. One of the earliest and 
best. 
New Sweet Corey.—A strong but not 
rank grower. Fine yield of golden yel¬ 
low tubers, smooth and fair. Rather 
blunt and short in form. Set close in 
hill and dig easily. Medium early. 
High quality. Good in every way. 
Gi;.v. Grant. —Strong grower with 
rather small foliage. Good yield of 
large, bright buff, irregular potatoes 
growing in a scattering manner. Good 
table quality. 
Fi*-River.—S lender but a vigorous 
grower, ripens early. Probably the best 
yield of all. Smooth, fair, slender tu¬ 
bers of wonderfully even size, deep yel¬ 
low in color. Grows compact and digs 
well. Excellent quality. 
Pierson. —Vigorous, large, coarse, 
vines and heavy foliage. Good yield of 
large, light-buff tubers much scattered 
in hill. Long and rather irregular in 
form. Medium early. Quality very 
good. 
Red Bermuda. —Strong grower with 
heavy foliage. Good yield of long, large, 
dark-red tubers; set compactly and dig 
well. Medium early. Quality sweet but 
lather watery when boiled. Very good 
when baked. 
Br.vztuian. —Plants seemed to be ten¬ 
der. Several rotted at collar when half 
grown, apparently from excessive rain. 
Light yield of long, light buff, irregular 
tubers. Quality only moderate, though 
claimed to be the sweetest. Evidently 
too late for northern New Jersey. 
Jersey, Red. —^This and the next va¬ 
riety are much grown locally, and are 
market standards. Slender vine but a 
i-apid grower. Fine yield of deep red, 
smooth tubers; grows compactly. Late 
medium in season. 
.IKRSEY Yki.i.ow. —Slender but vigor¬ 
ous. Good yield of fair bright yellow 
potatoes, early and compactly set. Dig 
well. Most popular sort here, but di¬ 
vides honors with the preceding. Both 
are of excellent table quality, but we al¬ 
ways prefer the yellow sorts. 
All the varieties tested can be recom¬ 
mended with the exception of Brazilian, 
which appears to require a longer sea¬ 
son and less humidity than we had last 
Summer. The medium-sized early, 
bright yellow kinds like Up-River, 
Corey and Early Golden suit us best in 
manner of growth and table quality, 
while they would be very attractive in 
market. The large light sorts of the 
Gen. Grant and Pierson type probably 
yield better in deep rich soils, but are 
rather too slow in development for lati¬ 
tudes north of Philadelphia. The new 
Vineless Bush impresses us very favor¬ 
ably where sweet potatoes must be 
grown in narrow limits, but we think it 
should have as early a start as practi¬ 
cable. 
New Annual Sunflowers. —Sunflow¬ 
ers have long been conspicuous objects 
in country gardens, but the kinds grown 
have usually been conflned to the large- 
seeded, tall-stemmed type, varieties of 
Helianthus annuus. Although a native 
plant, occurring wild from Minnesota -o 
Texas, it is largely grown in all tem¬ 
perate countries for its seeds, which are 
used as food for poultry and also cattle 
after the oil is expressed. In Russia the 
seeds are much eaten as we use peanuts, 
but without roasting, and are freely sold 
by street vendors. The gigantic flowers 
of the single and double varieties are 
very striking but rather too coarse in 
outline for planting in near situations. 
Ihey come in splendidly for back¬ 
grounds and other places where tall 
vegetation is wanted. Another native 
annual species, the Cucumber-leaved 
sunflower, H. debilis, has been greatly 
improved by European plantsmen, and 
is now offered in many dwarf, free-flow¬ 
ering varieties. They are usually cata¬ 
logued under the name of Helianthus 
cucumerifolius, this name being just 
displaced by botanists undS'i- the rules 
of priority. The species grows wild in 
rich moist places throughout the warmer 
parts of the United States, and is gen¬ 
erally found three or four feet in height. 
The improved varieties are much lower 
and more spreading in habit. H. Per- 
keo, a novelty of the season, was said 
to grow less than 12 inches high and 
cover circles of more than 18 inches in 
diameter. Our trial plants proved quite 
variable, growing from 10 inches to two 
feet high, and branched profusely. The 
dwarfer ones were true miniatures, and 
were covered with very bright and hand¬ 
some flowers from late June until frost. 
When this low-spreading propensity be¬ 
comes thoroughly fixed the Perkeo type 
will be a very useful garden flower. The 
blooms are single, nearly three inches 
across, dark yellow with a blackish pur¬ 
ple “eye” or center. Among the taller 
types may be found quite extensive va¬ 
riations of color, from almos't clear 
white, through creamy white to yellow 
and deep orange. All have the dark 
eye. There is another class announced 
for the coming year imitating the Cac¬ 
tus Dahlias in the odd forms of their 
quilled, twisted and fluted ray florets, 
usually spoken of as petals. The colors 
run through cream and lemon to deep 
yellow, and there are both dark and 
light gray central disks. One of the best 
known of these “cut and come again” 
sunflowers, so-called from their con¬ 
tinuous bloom and usefulness as cut 
flowers, is sold as Stella. It is quite 
variable, and often comes fairly double. 
Planted as a background about two feet 
apart it makes a fine show throughout 
the long blooming season. Last year 
hybridization was effected on the Rural 
Grounds between a selected single bloom 
For the land’s sake, use Bowker’s Fer¬ 
tilizers. They enrich the earth.— Adv. 
of Stella and a large double-flowered 
Russian variety. The hybrid thus ob¬ 
tained bloomed profusely the past 
season, some of the plants growing 
nearly six feet high, forming well¬ 
shaped bushes four feet across. The 
semi-double blooms averaged more than 
six inches across, and were borne on 
particularly long stems. Altogether it 
made a fine plant and looked like a good 
thing, but turned out almost completely 
sterile, only three plump seeds being 
secured from the many hundreds of 
blooms. The graceful habit and spotted 
stems of H. debilis were retained. It is 
pussiole that further attempts may pro¬ 
duce seed-bearing plants having the 
same characteristics. w. v. f. 
J. H. Hale on Peaches. 
On page 804 1 notice a reference to 
peaches, which should be corrected. 
Matthews peach is almost a reproduc¬ 
tion of Smock and ripens fully as late. 
Emma is in no respect like Elberta (ex¬ 
cept it is yellow, but so is Triumph), 
and to suggest that it is will do great 
harm in tempting people to plant it, 
thinking to have a peach as fine as El¬ 
berta, only later. Emma is a very yoor 
yroiciuy tree of Early Crawford class; 
has sickly yellow foliage, is quite un¬ 
productive, has a few large peaches and 
more very.small ones. A few growers 
in the South have made some money out 
of it, as the few large peaches that were 
produced coming in just after Elberta, 
brought very high prices; all the same, 
it is a peach for planters to let alone. 
Elberta peach is being too largely plant¬ 
ed, and in Elberta season in future years 
you are going to see flooded markets, 
and no mistake. Consumers are going 
to be all right, while growers who like 
to work for fun will have their hands 
full, and most likely empty pockets. 
Georgia will piant from 2,000,000 to 3,- 
000,000 Elberta trees this Winter, and 
probably 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 more 
would be planted if the trees were to be 
had. For months now my nursery has 
had daily calls for Elberta in lots of 
from 5,000 to 50,000, while there is oniy 
a moderate call for more profitable ear¬ 
lier and later varieties. We nurserymen 
expect a picnic in the sale of Elberta 
trees for a year or two more, when a 
"busted” market will teach the orchard- 
ists that it is even possible to have too 
much of a good thing. j. 11 . hale. 
Hydrocyanic Acid Gas.— In some recent 
issues of The R. N.-Y., Prof. E. D. Sand¬ 
erson, of Delaware, explained how the gas 
spreads in fumigating- houses. He has now 
received the following note from C. P. 
Lounsbury, Entomologist, (Jape Colony, 
S. A.: “In our work here, we have often 
been puzzled by the behavior of the gas. 
For instance, on one occasion a caged i-at 
survived an hour’s exposure in one ounce 
to ISO cubic feet of gas, when a large dog 
tied in another part of the room succumbed 
in a few minutes; and again three rats in 
a cage left almost beside the generator 
were still alive (though they died later 
from the effects) after an hour in one 
ounce to 150 cubic feet of gas. We did not 
understand such vitality, when at other 
times we saw rats gasp their last in a few 
minutes—presuming as we did that the 
uniform di.^rsemination of the gas was com¬ 
plete in a few minutes. On principle I 
have had the government ‘fumigatoriums’ 
built with the ceilings highest at the cen¬ 
ter so as to throw back the ascending gas 
and placing the dish in the center of the 
space is practiced.” 
Fruit. 
Its quality influences 
the selling price. 
Profitable fruit 
growing insured on/j' 
when enough actual 
Potash 
is in the fertilizer. 
Neither quantity nor 
good quality possible 
without Potash. 
Write for ourbooks 
giving details. 
GERMAN KALI WORKS. 
93 Nassau St., New York City. 
Every Chicken Man Needs 
a green bone cutter. 
The Adam 
alone is ball bearing, it cleans itself, 
it cannot become ciogged or choked, 
it is fed at the pleasure of the oper¬ 
ator. You will want to know of it. 
Send for our Illustrated Catalogue 
No. 83, before you buy. Sent Free. 
W. J. ADAM, Joliet, Ills. 
THE PAYING HEN 
Isthe laying hen. Raw cut bone makes her' 
lay twice the eggs. Pays you double. 
Mann’s Bone Cutter Slod^cl. 
cuts al 1 bones. Including meat and gristle easier and 
quicker than others—if not, don’tkeepit. TRY IT 10 I 
No money in advance. Our free Cat’lg explains all. 
F. W. MANN CO., Box 15 , Milford, Mass. 
Howto urain Land Profitably. 
On every farm there is probably some land 
hat could be made more productive by under- 
rainage. Properly drained land can always 
■worked earlier, and more profitably. The 
- ' ■ ■ best and most 
I economical -way 
' to drain is ex- 
__ plained in the 
00 k, “Benefits of Drainage and How to Drain,” 
rni/.b (a BATlt. fTM bv JOHN H. JACKSON, 
MIETZ & WEISS 
Kerosene Engines 
Ckeapest and Safest Power 
Known. For pumping and 
electric lighting, grinding 
corn, separating cream, 
sawing wood, and all power 
purposes. Awarded Gold 
Medal Fan-Amerlcan Exp.. 
Butlalo, llHll. Send for Cat. 
A. 
128 Mott Street. New York. 
Gasoline Engine 
I T r* rv Any Place 
I I 11 By Any One 
y.* For Any Purpose 
Stationariea, Portables, Enyinea 
and Pumps, Boiaters 
Send for Illustrated Catalogue and 
Testimonials. State your Power Needs. 
Charted' Gas Engine Co., Box 26, Sterling, III. 
WHICH? 
OSGOOD 
SHORT ON CORN 
Or LONO; ON WHEAT! 
In either case you need a.scale this 
fall aud wiuter. Don’t putiloff. We 
can sell you an Ogi^ood Soule. 
High grade. Guaranteed. Built 
on honor and at reasonable 
prices and terms. Free Catalogue, 
('piilral St., Hlnghaniton, N. Y. 
BEFORE BUYING 
A NEW HARNESS alogue glv- 
ing full de¬ 
scription and prices of all kinds of single and 
double harness and save 25 per cent. 
King Harness Co. 510 Church SI., Owsgo.N.Y. 
I3 a large, strong, safe Combination Hand, Wall and Dash 
Lantern with large reflector, yielding a large, steady, white 
light that is-wind and jar proof. Each lamp supplied with 
strong spring to clasp over dash. Holds oil for 19 hours’ bnrm 
ing. Can bo filled, lighted, regulated and extinguished with¬ 
out removing globe. .. . . ii. , # 
If not sold by your dealer, write direct to the makers for 
special price (lelivered, and free catalog of lamps and lanterns. 
^R . E. Dietz Company, SyLaiglit St., New York City. 
^ Established i840. 
