i52 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MARCH 8 
mixture consisting chiefly of dissolved raw 
bone, ground tankage and muriate of 
potash. The following are the results ob¬ 
tained; crop No. 1, wheat, yield 12 X bush¬ 
els per acre; crop No. 2, wheat, yield 30 
bushels per acre; crop No. 3, wheat, yield 
35 bushels per acre; crop No. 4, corn, yield 
85 bushels of shelled corn per acre. Some¬ 
thing of this gain was due to careful 
tillage ; but it would seem that the soil of 
that plot had stored up an increasing 
amount of fertility from some source, and 
I affirm that most of this fertility has been 
derived from the fertilizing ingredients 
used thereon. During the past eight years 
I have used over 300 tons of various ferti¬ 
lizing materials. I endeavor to buy them 
in car lots and on guaranteed analysis. 
The best I can find is always the cheapest. 
I am sure all I have paid out for fertilizers 
has already been returned to me with lib¬ 
eral profit, and my land is greatly im¬ 
proved. G. H. M. 
Viola, Del. 
POTATO FERTILIZERS PAID HIM. 
Some time ago I adopted the plan of 
keeping an account with each crop, and 
followed it till satisfied that I had obtained 
a fair average of expenditures and receipts. 
Some crops, I found, would pay a profit only 
under very favorable circumstances, while 
others caused a loss. The potato crop for 
five years gave me an average profit of $32 
per acre, failing to give a profit only one 
year, the yield being 150 bushels and the 
price 25 cents per bushel, still it paid ex¬ 
penses. All this was without a fertilizer 
of any kind. I tried superphosphate and 
soluble Pacific guano without getting any 
benefit from them and became nearly dis¬ 
gusted with fertilizers, till seeing the R. 
N.-Y.’s reports of complete fertilizers, I 
bought a bag of complete potato manure 
and applied it at the rate of 800 pounds per 
acre. This was three years ago, and it gave 
me an increase of 64 bushels per acre, which 
sold for 75 cents per bushel, so that while I 
mad e a profit of $20 without it, with it I made 
an additional profit of $28. I purchased more 
in ’88, which, while increasing the yield 
very largely, failed to give a profit, owing to 
the low prices of potatoes, but the increase 
in the oat crop following was as marked as 
that in the potatoes. I tried it again this 
year, and in spite of the blight, by selling 
my potatoes early, I made a fair profit. I 
have grown strawberries for some time, 
and I think that with proper treatment 
they would give as satisfactory results as 
potatoes. G. A. p. 
Columbia x Roads, Pa. 
GROWING TREES AND SHRUBS 
FROM SEED. 
WILLIAM FALCONER. 
Raising trees and shrubs from seed is 
easy enough in some cases and very diffi¬ 
cult in others, and when we take into ac¬ 
count the amount of time and anxiety and 
labor incurred in raising tree seedlings in 
limited quantity, say a few thousands, and 
the cheapness at which they can be bought 
from large wholesale nurseries, I am not 
sure but it is cheaper to buy the more deli¬ 
cate and troublesome sorts than to bother 
with raising them. Maples, walnuts and 
the like, however, are so very easily gotten 
up, that it is cheaper to raise them at home 
if we have the seed at home. Indeed, it is 
a fact that some of our more prosperous 
nurserymen about large cities find it 
cheaper to buy their young stock from the 
wholesale growers than to raise it them¬ 
selves ; but after receiving it they plant it 
out in rows for a year or two to get it into 
good shape for the retail trade. 
Only true species, as Sugar Maple, Red 
Oak, Black Walnut, White Spruce and Red 
Cedar, come true from seed. Select garden 
forms, as Rivers’s Purple Beech, the Fern, 
leaved Alder, the Eagle’s-claw Maple, 
Young’s Weeping Birch and Maxwell’s 
Golden Spruce, are increased by grafting 
or budding and not from seed. 
Now, look around in the woods and lanes 
and think of the millions of tree seeds that 
are ripened and scattered about every year, 
and of the comparatively few that ever 
germinate, and of the very few of those 
that do germinate that ever grow up to at¬ 
tain the proportions of trees. And why f 
First, because the conditions required for 
successful germination are often unfavora¬ 
ble ; second, for the same reasons regarding 
the welfare of the seedlings, coupled with 
the fact that the first year of a seedling’s 
life is the most precarious. And these rea¬ 
sons are often as pronounced in horticul¬ 
tural practice as in Nature’s woods, and it 
is for them, mostly, that suburban and 
small nurserymen find it more profitable to 
buy one or two year-old seedlings from the 
wholesale growers than to bother with 
raising them themselves. The large grow¬ 
ers make a specialty of this seedling-raising 
business and understand it, but only by 
doing it on a large scale can they make it 
profitable. A visit to Robert Douglas’s 
nurseries at Waukegan, near Chicago, or 
the Phoenix Durseries at Bloomington, Ill., 
will well repay any one interested in rais¬ 
ing forest trees from seed. 
Seeds of Deciduous Trees.— There is a 
great deal in saving and preparing the seeds 
of trees for sowing. White Ash ripens its 
seeds in the fall. Gather the seeds as soon 
as ripe, mix them with moist sand and keep 
them over-winter in a box in the cellar, and 
sow in spring. Beech, treat like ash. 
Birch, keep dry in boxes or paper bags till 
spring. Catalpa, keep in the same way as 
birch, but do not sow till the ground warms 
up a little in spring. Cherry, wash off the 
pulp, and then bury in moist sand or earth 
and keep till spring ; or sow in the fall and 
mulch the ground with litter or leaves to 
keep the seeds from heaving. Chestnuts, 
both horse and sweet, keep in moist sand 
or earth over-winter, and sow in wide-apart 
rows in spring. Elms ripen their seeds in 
May ; gather the seeds as soon as ripe and 
sow them at once. Hickory, treat like 
chestnuts. Linden or Basswood, gather 
the seeds as soon as ripe and mix them with 
moist earth ; winter them in this way, and 
sow in spring. Locust seed may be kept 
dry over-winter, but the seeds should be 
scalded in hot water before sowing in 
spring. 
The Soft Maples, as well as the Silver¬ 
leaved Maples and the Red Maple ripen 
their seeds in spring, and these seeds should 
be gathered and sown at once. But as the 
Sugar Maple and Norway Maple do not 
ripen their seeds till fall, these seeds should 
be gathered and mixed with moist earth 
over-winter and sown in spring. Gather 
oak tree seed (acorns), as soon as they fall; 
mix them with moist earth and keep them 
till spring, and then sow ; or, if convenient, 
sow in the fall as soon as you gather them, 
because, as they sprout so very early, often 
before sowing time in spring, we are apt to 
hurt a good many of them if the sowing is 
late. Black Walnut seeds are gathered in 
the fall and laid in a shallow heap—say six 
or eight walnuts deep—and covered with a 
layer of dirt over-winter; by spring, the 
husks will have rotted off and the nuts are 
ready for sowing, and it will not hurt them 
if part of the husks still adhere to the nuts. 
Some Observations from Nature.— 
Most tree seeds are very hardy and some have 
great vitality. Under the hickory trees in 
the open lawns, the nuts may lie upon the 
ground in great quantities, but very few will 
ever germinate there. And why ? Because 
the nuts shed their husks very soon after 
falling and lie bare and loosely upon the 
surface of the ground all winter, and are 
there kept dry for weeks and months. But 
in the mixed grove close by, hickory seed¬ 
lings come up plentifully. Why? Because 
when the nuts fall upon the ground they 
are mulched over by tree leaves, and in this 
way kept moist till spring; and this is the 
case more surely still when they are tram¬ 
pled into the ground by cattle. The Black 
Walnuts, on the other hand, fall upon the 
ground and lie there on the surface of the 
bare sod all winter, and next spring grow 
up among the grass in hundreds or thou¬ 
sands. And why ? Because when the wal¬ 
nuts fall to the ground, the husk, instead 
of separating from the nut, clings to it 
tightly, even toughens and sticks the hard¬ 
er to it, till the frosts and snows of winter 
partly rot it away; then the moist grass 
in spring comes up and shades it till it 
strikes root into the ground, when it soon 
endeavors to outgrow the grass that foster¬ 
ed it. Acorns, chestnuts, wild cherry and 
others show this same disposition—that is, 
great vitality in spring if they have been 
mulched with fallen tree leaves over-winter, 
and inertness if left unprotected upon the 
surface of the ground. But Norway, Sugar 
and Sycamore Maples are not so particular, 
for seedlings grow up around these trees in 
spring in immense quantities and under all 
circumstances—on the hard road, in the 
tilled ground and among the grass on the 
lawn. 
Garden Shrubs from Seeds.—W e raise 
very few of our shrubs from seeds, and 
mostly for two reasons, namely: first, be¬ 
cause many of our finest shrubs are garden 
varieties, and there is no certainty that they 
will come true from seeds; second, because 
of the great ease with which most ot them 
can be raised from cuttings, and the diffi¬ 
culty attending raising them from seeds. 
Althaeas, deutzias, syringas and some others 
come very freely from seeds; but there is 
nothing gained by the method. But from 
seed is the proper method of increasing the 
stock of Exochorda grandiflora; and Rosa 
rugosa also comes well from seed. So, too, 
does that lovely.new-comer Styrax Japoni- 
ca; but it is with this as with many others. 
If the seed is sown as soon as ripe in the 
fall, it will germinate the following spring ; 
but if not sown till spring, it will not come 
up for another year. While it is well to 
sow the exochorda and rose in boxes and 
winter them in^a frame, the styrax should 
be sown in rows in the open field. 
(To be Continued.) 
(&MXyw\)£X£. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Colorado. 
Pueblo County.— We have much more 
to contend with here than in the rainy 
country. By extra perseverance and close 
application of time, money and brains, 
however, farming can be made to pay when 
butter will bring 40 cents per pound and 
Alfalfa hay six tons per acre and $11 per 
ton baled and delivered. A few of us have 
orchards well started, and as we have no 
one’s experience to go by as to the varieties 
that succeed well here, we have all to make 
our own experiments, etc. This will make 
it much more expensive to get a start here. 
But the Western farmer seems to have 
much more pluck and go-aheaditiveness 
than the farmers seemed, to have back in 
Vermont, or we would all be bankrupt long 
ago. [Suppose they stayed in Vermont 
and showed the same energy there I —Eds.] 
In many instances here it costs more to 
get water on the land than many a farm is 
worth in Vermont. In many cases the 
supply costs $25 per acre and the out¬ 
lay for repairing a ditch each year. 
Again, our merchants seem to think we 
can raise garden truck as cheap as the 
farmers in Kansas; but we cannot possibly 
compete with them in cost of production, 
and if we can’t get a fair price we shall 
have to go back to the old haphazard way 
of keeping cattle on the range and let half 
of them starve each winter. Taxes are 
higher, the interest on borrowed money is 
higher, and all kinds of merchandise are 
higher here than farm produce. The fine 
weather and the certainty of a crop (where 
one can irrigate) can alone induce a man to 
settle for a lifetime on a farm in Colorado. 
w. F. w. 
Michigan. 
Hart, Oceana County, February 18.— 
We have had a very mild winter for this 
part of Michigan. There have been only 
four days of sleighing thus far. The prin¬ 
cipal money crop of ourcounty for the past 
two years has been fruit, and it is likely to 
become more so in the future. We raise 
apples, pears, plums and peaches to perfec¬ 
tion on account of being so near Lake 
Michigan. We also raise potatoes of the 
very best quality, having a sandy soil, and 
also wheat, rye, barley and oats; but our 
money crops are mostly fruit and potatoes. 
I. H. F. 
Vermont. 
North .Clarendon, Rutland County, 
February 14.—1 have a farm of 100 acres, 
and for cash returns for 1890 I shall rely 
upon the following products : Two and a 
half acres of potatoes, raised for seed pur¬ 
poses, consisting of Polaris and Touhoeks 
for early, and Rural New-Yorker No. 2 and 
Brownell’s Winner for medium and late. I 
shall have IX acre of the New Golden- 
Eyed Wax Bean, and a small area under a 
new extra-early sweet corn to be intro¬ 
duced in 1891. I shall milk 18 cows, and, be¬ 
ginning with May 1st, the milk will be car¬ 
ried to a cheese factory IX mile away for 
6X to seven months. After that butter 
will be made and sold to private custom¬ 
ers. I raise only a part of the grain fed to 
the cows, pigs and farm team; but I sell 
from six to 10 tons of hay. I raise small 
fruits for home use, and some years have a 
small surplus for sale. My apple, plum 
and pear orchards are small though I usu¬ 
ally have a small surplus to sell. I am well 
located as regards local markets, and all 
products of the farm, except seed potatoes, 
beans, etc., are sold there and bring fair 
prices. The following are the current 
prices at this date: hay $10 to $12 at barn ; 
oat-straw, $6 ; rye, bound, $12 ; potatoes 60 
cents per bushel; apples $2.50 to $3.50 per 
barrel; butter 18 to 25 cents per pound; 
eggs 23 cents per dozen ; pork $5 50 per 100 
pounds. Corn-meal can now be bought 
for $16 per ton. D. C. H. 
Wisconsin. 
Menomonee Falls, Waukesha County 
—My first and most important dependence 
for “ cash ” for 1890 will be the dairy. Next 
come pigs, and I shall turn off my fall pigs 
in June and the early spring pigs in the 
fall. Then will come wheat and barley; 
next potatoes, then poultry and eggs; then 
the orchard and next three beeves, the culls 
of the dairy. Then will come the surplus of 
the small fruits and products of the garden 
which find a ready sale among my butter 
customers, because they are always fresh. 
When the grass income from these various 
sources is footed up I do not expect to be 
forced to utter the dismal moan “ Farmin’ 
don't pay.” 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
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is not answered in our advertising columns. 
Ask only a few questions at one time. Put 
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GLANDERS AND FARCY : INFECTION FROM 
CITIES, ETC. 
G. D. E., (No add7ess .)—I have a 12-year- 
old mare that came from the city last sum¬ 
mer. She did well till put up in a barn, when 
she began to run down. She had some 
cough and indications of slight distemper. 
Some weeks ago her near hind leg was 
swollen one morning to twice its usual 
size. The only soreness was a small, tender 
spot on the outside of the hock. The 
swelling gradually disappeared in course 
of a fortnight, but a few mornings ago the 
place became swollen again, and the inside 
and front of the hock joint, also above, were 
quite tender for about a day. The swelling 
has never been accompanied by lameness. 
She has been driven for several years on as¬ 
phalt pavement and her hind legs have 
stocked more or less, this one a little more 
than the other. She was fed oats—from 
eight to 12 quarts per day—up to Jan. 1st. 
Since then, she has had one quart of West¬ 
ern corn-meal, three pints of ground oats, 
and three pints of bran, well mixed, three 
times per day. What can be done for her ? 
ANSWERED BY DR. F. L. KILBORNE. 
I suspect the trouble is due to a mild 
case of chronic glanders and farcy, which is 
not uncommon in many of our larger 
cities, especially where many horses are 
stabled together as for street car, omnibus, 
herdic or transfer purposes. The chronic 
form of this disease which may run a course 
of several months or even years, is much 
more common than the acute, rapidly fatal 
form. Frequently the disease will assume 
so mild a type as not to be recognized for 
months. It is a common practice with 
most of these large city stables to send to 
the country horses which are out of condi¬ 
tion, lame or “sore’’from continual use 
on the pavements. While this practice is 
in many respects a mutually profitable one, 
there are certain horses which the farmers 
will do well to avoid as suspiciously likely 
to be affected with glanders, because among 
the horses that are sent out there are quite 
frequently cases of chronic glanders. All 
horses from the city or other unknown 
stables with the following symptoms should 
be regarded with suspicion and not pur¬ 
chased at any price : 1. A chronic discharge 
from the nose, and especially if it is thick, 
sticky or glairy, or mainly from one nos¬ 
tril and said to be due to a “cold,” “distem¬ 
per,” or nasal gleet. 2. Any ulcers, sores 
or scars on the mucous membrane within 
the nose, and especially if the horse also 
has £ nasal discharge. Sunlight reflected 
up the nose by a small hand mirror, will 
aid materially in the examination of the 
nose for such ulcers. 3. An enlarged gland 
just within the angle of the - lower jaw on 
one or both sides. This symptom is not 
so important as 1 or 2, but it be- 
