i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
169 
poBure to sun and frost. Early-sown wheat 
is looking well, but the late sown is going 
the way of the newly seeded meadows. Po¬ 
tatoes are on the rise, selling at 50 to 60 
cents per bushel. Seed potatoes will prob¬ 
ably be still higher. Butter 30 cents per 
pound; eggs, 15 cents per dozen; maple 
sirup $1 per gallon; maple sugar 12% cents 
per pound. C. H. F. 
Pennsylvania. 
SCOTTSVILLE, Wyoming County, Febru¬ 
ary 24.—We have had the warmest winter 
ever known in this section. Scarcely any 
ice has formed in the Susquehannah and we 
are without an ice crop and have given up 
all hopes of one this winter. The warm 
weather has been very disastrous to all 
branches of businass, the coal trade being 
so badly depressed that miners are out of 
employ most of the time, and in consequence 
there has been a terrible depression in mar¬ 
ket prices, and there are to-day in the com¬ 
mission houses of Wilkesbarre and Scran¬ 
ton tons of tub butter that can find no 
buyers. Prices of produce are as follows: 
Wheat, 75 to 80 cents; corn, 36 to 40 cents; 
oats, 30 to 32 cents; potatoes, 60 cents; but¬ 
ter, 18 cents; eggs, 12 cents; hay, per ton, 
$6 to $8; and everything is very slow of 
sale at any price. With this terrible de¬ 
pression on one side, and on the other the 
high tariff, trusts and combines, the farmer 
is placed, according to the old, old phrase, 
“between the d-1 and the deep sea.” 
J. G. F. 
SAEGERTOWN, Crawford County, Febru¬ 
ary 22.—This has been a remarkable winter 
—no snow, but any amount of rain and mud. 
We have had only three days’ sleighing. 
Our crops last season were all reasonably 
good, except potatoes, which were a failure. 
We never had better prospects for a potato 
crop until the blight struck them. Every¬ 
thing is low in price—hay, in the barn, $6; 
oats, 25 cents; wheat, 80 cents; corn, 35 
cents; potatoes, 40 cents (and dull sale at 
that); butter, 18@20 cents per pound. 
D. K. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
(Every query must be accompanied by the 
name and address of the writer to insure atten¬ 
tion. Before asking a question, please see if it 
is not answered in our advertising columns. 
Ask only a few questions at one time. Put 
questions on a separate piece of paper.1 
THE SQUASH BORER. 
A. P. S., Boston, Mass.—Is there any¬ 
thing better than a weak solution of cop¬ 
peras to kill borers that attack the roots of 
squash vines ? Some of my neighbors 
claim to have been quite successful with it 
in their kitchen gardens, using about eight 
table-spoonfuls to a five gallon watering- 
pot. 
ANSWERED BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 
The squash borer—Melit«ea Cucurbit®, 
Harris—is a very difficult pest to combat 
successfully. We do not know of its pres¬ 
ence till the vines commence to wither and 
then it may be at the root or in the stem, 
some distance from the root. The parent 
of this borer is a fine, blue, wasp-like moth 
which Is related to the peach borer and 
currant borer moths. The posterior legs 
are broadly fringed and bright orange. 
This is one of the largest species of this 
family. All of the moths of the family are 
wasp-like, all fly iu the hot sunshine, and 
all are borers, while in the caterpillar 
state. The squash Algeria comes forth as 
a moth early in July, and continues to 
appearand lay its eggs through the month. 
This varying period of the emergence of 
the moths is not peculiar to the Squash 
Algeria, but is also observed in the peach 
borer. I think it doubtless due to the fact 
that the ground varies. In sand or near 
the surface the pupa* which are always 
formed in the earth, are quicker to 
develop than when iu clay, or deeper iu the 
earth. The fact that the Currant Algeria 
which pupates in the cane, does not strag¬ 
gle so much, strengthens the above theory. 
The moths lay their eggs on the vines near 
the grovind. The larva or caterpillar bores 
iu and so nearly gird.es the stem that the 
vine withers. The larva is white, and has 
16 legs. In late summer or early autumn, 
the insect pupates in the earth, where it 
remains till the next summer, when the 
moth comes forth again to lay the eggs. 
It is quite necessary to understand this life 
history, to appreciate the difficulties in the 
way of destroying this—one of the worst of 
the garden insect pests. Covering the 
vines with earth in early July or the last of 
June,'to protect them from the eggs, is 
recommended. The supposition is that the 
moths will not lay eggs if the vines are 
covered. The main stem should be cov¬ 
ered for some distance. If this remedy is 
effective, it is quite easy and practical. 
Another method is to wet the vines in July 
with an emulsion composed of soap, water, 
and carbolic acid, so weak that it will not 
harm them,but will prevent the egg-laying. 
I think this remedy might be efficient if 
thoroughly applied; but it is hardly prac¬ 
ticable. People will not usually think of the 
insect till the vine commences to wither; 
then the horse is stolen, and locking the 
door does no good. I have known this 
remedy to work very well in warding off 
the attack of the related peach borers. If 
then the copperas solution mentioned is 
satisfactory, it is a valuable fact, and 
should be widely circulated. 
CROSSING TOMATOES AND BEANS: CROSSING 
AND HYBRIDIZING. 
H. G. IF., Elm Grove, Ohio .—1 and 2. 
How can different varieties of tomatoes 
and also of beans be crossed ? 3. Will dif¬ 
ferent kinds of tomatoes “ mix” if planted 
alongside of each other ? 4. What kind of 
tools are used in crossing ? 5. What is the 
difference between crossing and hybridizing 
and what chance of success would an ama¬ 
teur gardener have in trying to do either ? 
Ans. —1. As soon as the flower partly 
opens, remove the stamens from around 
the pistil with the point of a sharp knife. 
Apply pollen to the stigma (the top of the 
pistil) from the plant with which it is 
desired to make a cross. Cover the flower 
with tissue paper and tie it about the stem 
to protect against other pollen. 2. With 
beans it is best to cut off the top of the bud 
and remove the anthers before they have 
ripened pollen, carefully avoiding injury 
to the pistil. Crossing beans is a delicate 
operation. 3. Yes. 4. It depends upon 
what flowers are to be crossed. We have 
crossed hundreds of wheat flowers with a 
piece of wood as large as a pocket knife, 
sharpened at one end. The pollen may be 
gathered in a little box and applied with 
the point of a knife. Some use little camel’s 
hair brushes. 5. The process is the same. 
We cross two flowers, one of a lilac the 
other of a privet. The seeds, if any form, 
will be hybrids because the two plants are 
of different species and genera. If we cross 
a raspberry upon a blackberry, a Tea-rose 
upon a Hybrid Remontant, the seeds will be 
hybrid seeds, because the two classes are of 
different species. Now, if we cross one 
kind of Tea-rose upon another, the seeds 
will be cross-bred seeds, because the union 
is simply between varieties of the same 
genus and species. This is a general an¬ 
swer. Some kinds of crossing may be as 
easily effected by a child 10 years of age as 
by an adult. For example, it is a very 
simple matter to cross corn or the castor- 
oil plant, because the sexes are in different 
flowers. So, too, it is the simplest thing to 
cross lilies, gladioli, pelargoniums, straw¬ 
berries, etc. But to cross beans, peas, 
wheats, rye, currants, etc., requires 
patience, experience and some skill. 
BUTTER NOT COMING: DROPPING THE CUD. 
S. L. T., Fairfield. Neb. —1. When cream 
has been churned several hours, and the 
butter does not come, is there any way to 
make it do so ? 2. If a cow drops her cud 
two or three dozen times in a night, 
what should be done for her ? 
ANSWERED BY HENRY STEWART. 
1. After cream has been churned several 
hours, the butter is spoiled and is hardly 
worth saving. The long churning produces 
rancidity. The cause of this difficulty 
varies. It may be that the cream has been 
kept too long and is too sour; or it is too 
warm, in which case it foams, and the but¬ 
ter, too soft to gather, is beaten into a 
frothy emulsion ; or it is too cold and the 
butter is too hard to adhere, and appears 
like sand in the milk. The remedy neces¬ 
sarily varies with the causes. Excessively 
sour cream should be mixed with water of 
a temperature of 50 degrees. Cream that 
is too warm (65 or 70 degrees) should be 
cooled with cold water, and if it is too cold, 
warm water should be added. This diffi¬ 
culty is easily avoided by regulating the 
temperature by the use of a thermometer. 
The right temperature is 60 to 62 degrees. 
2. The cause of dropping the cud is diseased 
teeth. The teeth of cows are not placed 
exactly over each other, and the upper ones 
are apt to be worn on one side, leaving 
sharp edges on the other, which cut the 
cheeks or tongue and interfere greatly with 
the mastication ; or the animal’s throat or 
tongue may be sore and occasion difficulty 
in swallowing. The mouth should be 
examined, and whatever defect is found 
should be remedied, either by rasping 
defective teeth, or treating inflammation 
or swelling with chlorate of ^potash finely 
powdered and mixed with molasses and 
applied to the parts. 
A FIGHT WITH LICE ON CATTLE. 
J. C., Town Hill, Pa. —This winter I 
purchased some thoroughbred Jersey calves 
and when they reached me I discovered 
they were very full of lice. One of my 
neighbors said coal oil and butter-milk in 
the proportion of one to four would kill 
them. I applied the mixture which was 
a very tedious job and succeeded in taking 
about half the hair from one and nearly all 
from the last one treated. Now, nearly 
every one of my neighbors, who sees the 
calves has a remedy for the lice. Those 
calves are still lousy although not nearly 
so badly so as at first. The following are 
some of the remedies that have been sug¬ 
gested : snuff, lard, calomel, sulphur to be 
fed to them, or applied externally, Persian 
Insect Powder and feeding linseed-oil meal, 
and now comes a paper in which some man 
says to mix turpentine often with their 
salt. I decided not to experiment any 
further until I heard from the RURAL, as I 
have too much money invested in the calves 
to use them for experimental purposes in 
this line. I think scrub calves would an¬ 
swer for this purpose. 
Ans. —In every community there are sev¬ 
eral favorite methods of killing lice on cat¬ 
tle. The R. N.-Y. has never found any¬ 
thing better than tobacco water to which a 
little sulphur has been added. Keep the 
tobacco and sulphur in water near the boil¬ 
ing point for 12 hours, stirring it occasion¬ 
ally. Apply the decoction to the poll of 
the head, along the top of the neck and 
spine, on the brisket and under the legs; of 
course the animals must be kept in a warm 
place when treated in this way. 
GRASSES FOR PASTURE. 
H. C. H., Rouse'8 Point, N. Y.—I have 
a 60-acre somewhat stony pasture from 
which the wild grasses have been driven by 
pasturing; would Orchard Grass and Blue 
Grass do well on it ? 
ANSWERED BY PROF. I. P. ROBERTS. 
It is difficult to tell in this case exactly 
what should be done, as it is not known 
why the wild grasses have run out or what 
varieties of grasses formerly occupied the 
land. The strange thing is that Kentucky 
Blue’Grass has not already appeared, or is 
it possible that it has appeared and that it 
is one of the “ wild'grasses” that have run 
out ? In the latter case It would be use¬ 
less to sow'Blue'Grass. Orchard Grass and 
Poa pratensis (Blue Grass) should both do 
well on a fairly fertile soil in your climate. 
I suggest that you mix with the grasses 
one-half pound of Alslke and one pound of 
Red Clover with a sufficient quantity of 
the other grasses to seed an acre ; not more 
than one-tenth of the seed will probably 
produce plants if the pasturing is continued. 
Sow the grasses in April and if the stones 
are not too numerous, try to brush the seed 
in. I judge that there is considerable 
freezing weather yet in April in Clinton 
County; if not, then sow earlier. Since the 
land cannot be plowed, the next best thing 
is to use clover roots to bring the fertility 
in the subsoil to the surface. If a dressing 
of bone-meal and cotton-seed meal could be 
applied after the seeding, it would be very 
beneficial. In after years manure the pas¬ 
ture by feeding grain to the cows in the 
summer. 
CUTTING OFF STRAWBERRY VINES. 
“ Subscriber ,” Oswego Falls, N. Y.— In 
a late RURAL'J. A. Pearce speaks of cutting 
off strawberry vines close to the Rround 
with a sharp hoe as soon as the crop was 
gathered. Is there any other beneficial re¬ 
sult aside from ease of cultivation ? 
ANSWERED BY J. A. PEARSE. 
Here is my experience with a patch so 
treated for six years. The plants were 
Wilson, set in hills 2% by three feet apart. 
I practiced cutting them off from year to 
year, expecting to reset them as soon as 
they began to fail; but instead of doing so 
they still continued to improve till they be¬ 
came simply enormous, so that from the 
street the plot was mistaken for a potato 
patch. The sixth year they averaged from 
40 to 60 large stems of large berries to the 
hill. I simply gave them surface cultiva¬ 
tion with plenty of wood ashes from the 
house; they were on light sand. An old 
hunter of my acquaintance used to cut his 
berries off in this way, then go to the 
woods, and he was never troubled with 
runners as it took the plants till fall to 
make up a new hill and consequently they 
did not have time to throw out runners. I 
would unquestionably recommend this 
method to the grower who would like to 
have a nice patch occupying the same 
ground from year to year. 
MANURE QUERIES. 
L. IF. R., Benton Harbor, Mich.—l. 
What elements does manure lose by heating 
or “ flre-fanging” in the pile and’what are 
they worth ? 2. How can this heating be 
best prevented f 3. Does manure spread 
on light sandy soil during the fall and 
winter lose from leaching ? 
ANSWERED BY PROF. I. P. ROBERT8. 
1. Manure loses by heating or flre-fang¬ 
ing, ammonia, which commercially is worth 
about 13 cents per pound. 2. First by 
adding water, but not enough to cause 
leaching; in addition to this, packing or 
tramping will arrest the rapid fermentation; 
third, land plaster or gypsum may be used 
in the stables or earth or German potash 
salts. It would be well to mix the man¬ 
ures from the horse and cow barn and let 
the animals tramp them down. 3. If 
there is a plant present there is no danger 
of loss; if not, the nitrogen will be leached 
into the subsoil beyond the reach of most 
cultivated plants. 
THE AGAWAM AND ERIE BLACKBERRIES. 
A. IF. B., Ashby, Mass.—l. Is the Aga¬ 
wam Blackberry a good market variety ? 
Is it any better than the Wachusett Thorn¬ 
less or Snyder ? 2. The catalogue pictures 
the Erie Blackberry in glowing colors; 
wbaV does the R. N.-Y. think of it ? 
Ans.— 1. The Agawam is a berry of me¬ 
dium to large size, and of excellent quality. 
It has proved quite hardy at th e Rural 
Grounds, but other varieties are far more 
productive. The Agawam is variable. In 
some of the Eastern States it is praised 
highly for productiveness, size, quality and 
hardiness, while in most other places it 
is not valued highly. It needs high cul¬ 
ture. A few plants should be tried before 
setting it out extensively. The Wachusett 
is very hardy, of good quality, but unpro¬ 
ductive. 2. Yes, we have grown the Erie 
since its introduction and find it resembles 
the Lawton in most respects. It seems a 
little hardier while the berries are 
broader. 
CHEAP CHAMPAGNE. 
IF. M. H., (No address) 1. Where can 
an amateur get a good book on wine-mak¬ 
ing ? 2. Where can one learn how to make 
the cheap champagne wine sold in New 
York at $12 per case ? Is this wine made 
from the ordinary local grapes or is it 
brought from California ? 3. If the latter, 
can our grapes be utilized for making this or 
any other sparkling wine? If so, where 
can I get a recipe or learn the process ? 
ANS.—1. The best book on wine-making 
(from grapes) is by George Husmann. Ap¬ 
ply to the American News Co. Price about 
$1.50. 2. This wine is charged with car¬ 
bonic gas by machinery. The wine is 
bought in California or Ohio generally and 
charged in N. Y. or other cities. 3. The 
California grape makes the best sparkling 
wine, but local grapes (hardy natives or 
hybrids) may be used. Our friend might 
visit one of several firms which manufac¬ 
ture wine and thus learn the process. 
COW PEAS AND BEANS. 
R. E. G., Lawrens, Iowa— In the Farm¬ 
ers’ Club of January 18, Henry Stewart says 
of cow-peas: “ They contain all the ele¬ 
ments of nutrition found in milk.” 
Would our common field peas do as well 
for pigs ? 
Ans. —Cow-peas are beans, a variety of 
the genus Dolichos: but beans and peas 
differ very little in their composition, as 
these figures will show. 
COMPOSITION 
PEAS. 
COW-PEAS. 
OF BEANS. 
Albuminoids.25.5 
22.4 
57.6 
Carbohydrates.45.9 
52.5 
45.2 
Fats. 1.6 
2.0 
2.5 
It is seen that the difference is small be¬ 
tween all these, and for feeding one will 
answer as well as another; but beans are 
not eaten well unless ground or cooked. 
Pi.sccUancousi Advertising. 
“Herbrand” Fifth Wheel for Buggies. 
