2t4 
THE RURAL HEW-YORRER. 
APRIL 5 
will be the result. The crop is dug as soon 
as the vines cease growing. 
WATER-MELONS. 
In growing water-melons a sandy soil is 
selected; a clover sod is preferable. About 
the last of March run furrows nine feet 
apart and check row at right angles with 
the furrows the same distance apart, plow¬ 
ing four furrows on each row, the remain¬ 
der of the land remaining unplowed until 
later in the season. Holes are then dug at 
. the intersections until the subsoil is reached. 
Into these holes three large shovelfuls of 
well rotted compost are placed and about 
one-half the soil that was removed is placed 
upon the compost. A handful of a com¬ 
plete fertilizer is scattered in each hole and 
the remainder of the soil is replaced just 
before the seeds are planted. It is safer not 
to plant the seeds before May 10 at which 
time the soil has become warm and the 
seed will vegetate in a very short time and 
continue to grow without any set-back. 
From 10 to 15 seeds are planted in each hill 
and finally thinned out to two plants; if 
very large melons are desired only one plant 
is allowed to remain. The soil around the 
plants must be carefully worked as soon as 
the vines appear above ground. After¬ 
wards cultivate about the plants with the 
hoe at least weekly and especially after each 
rain so as to keep the soil loose until the 
vines are one foot in length; then plow the 
land between the rows and apply broadcast 
from 400 to 600 pounds of fertilizers, then 
plow again, leaving the land between the 
rows without harrowing until after the 
weeds have started, when it can be har¬ 
rowed and all weeds destroyed. The melon 
vines must be handled very carefully, as 
they are very tender and it is very impor¬ 
tant that the leaves should not be broken. 
Not more than two or three sets should be 
allowed to remain upon each vine and only 
one if very large melons are desired. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
The Wild Cucumber.— Before I forget 
it, let me warn everybody not to plant the 
wild cucumber vine (Wild Balsam Apple, 
Eds.) in the garden or lawn. Echinocystis 
lobata is the botanical name, and I give it 
in order that none shall be deceived by this 
dignified and scientific title. I find this 
vine most attractively announced and 
illustrated among the floral novelties in 
one of the leading catalogues of the season. 
It looks well enough on paper, but let it 
once get established in a garden, and 
the owner will never cease to regret it. 
And yet it is merely an annual climber 
having to seed itself every year. Incredible 
as it may seem, for 10 years I have been 
trying to exterminate it from my garden 
and without success. 
The Caroline Raspberry is highly ex¬ 
tolled by the New York Experiment Sta¬ 
tion as the most productive raspberry in 
cultivation. I would add from a leaf in my 
experience that it is also among the best in 
quality for the family table. For market 
it is of less value than the red sorts. It is 
a vigorous grower, roots from the tips as 
well as suckers, and is long in fruit—from 
July till frost, at times. 
A Tariff on Bananas !—The wild talk 
on this subject is nonsense. Such a tariff 
could not benefit anybody. It would sim¬ 
ply deprive us of a very wholesome and 
luscious fruit that is now so plentiful and 
cheap that everybody may buy and eat. 
The banana cannot be grown to any extent 
for market successfully in Florida, or any¬ 
where else in the United States. It is 
planted mainly as a curiosity for Northern 
visitors in Florida, and those who have 
seen it there will recall its precarious ap¬ 
pearance, under protest as it were. It is 
strictly a tropical plant. Whom then 
would such a tariff protect? No, let the 
bananas come, the more the better. We 
can sell just as many strawberries and oth¬ 
er native fruits. Let nothing be done to 
curtail our supply of fruit either in variety 
or quantity. 
The Golden Self-Blanching Celery I 
like for family use. This and Henderson’s 
New Rose are very satisfactory with me, 
more so than the White Plume, which is a 
weak and tender grower and liable to rust 
on wet soil. The quality of the two first- 
named is excellent—none better—and both 
are good growers and keep well; the red 
celeries are probably the best winter keep¬ 
ers. 
The Early Puritan Potato disappoint¬ 
ed me somewhat last season, though the 
fault might have been due to the excessive 
rains. The quality was fair, but the size 
and quantity were unsatisfacto ry. In fact, 
I have never yet found a potato equal to 
the old Snowflake in quality, shape, size, 
smoothness and genera) good behavior, ex¬ 
cept as regards productiveness perhaps. 
Has anybody else ? h. h. 
“Kingston, N. Y. 
Puinj IjusliawjLi*. 
Brnfyg Cows is Cold Weather. 
Do you experience any difficulty in 
getting- your cows with calf in 
winter? With us the matter gives 
considerable trouble, yet cows 
must be bred in cold weather to 
keep up winter dairying. 
FROM A. L. CROSBY. 
I never had any difficulty in getting my 
cows in calf until this winter, and I have 
been inclined to think one cause of the 
trouble at this season is due to the circum¬ 
stance that the bulls have not had grain 
enough—they are too thin in flesh—and it 
may be that some necessary element is 
lacking in the hay and fodder owing to the 
extremely wet season in which it was 
grown, as the bulls, though they have had 
some grain all winter, do not look as if they 
had had any. Out of ten cows served, so 
far, four have returned for service; but the 
worst feature of the business is that when 
they miss service they don’t come in season— 
in 21 days—but may skip one period entirely 
or go for an indefinite time, so that there 
is no certainty as to whether they are in 
calf until the expiration of a couple of 
months, perhaps not even then. For in¬ 
stance: of the four cows that failed to 
breed, the first, served November 29, was 
due again, if not in calf, December 20, but 
she waited until January 7. The next was 
servpd December 3, and was due December 
24. but did not show until January 15. The 
third, served December 23, was due Janu¬ 
ary 13, and was in season February 13. The 
fourth, served December 27, was due Janu¬ 
ary 17, but was not in season till January 
22, so I am uncertain about them now, 
after their second service. It was never so 
before; a cow rarely varied more than two 
days in her periods and seldom missed 
service. It is too late to do much in the 
way of remedying the trouble except to 
feed heavier, but next season I shall feed 
the bulls more grain earlier in the fall. I 
think oats about the best feed for a bull in 
active service; if the weather was very 
cold I would give him plenty of corn also. 
My cows have had a good deal of ear corn 
this winter and a good part of it was more 
or less damaged by the wet weather, and 
this corn may have caused some of the 
trouble in breeding. 
Catonsville, Md. 
FROM H. S. WEEKS. 
As my business requires that I should 
produce a certain amount of cream the year 
’round, I aim to have cows coming in each 
month, and am reasonably successful 
though occasionally there are individual 
cases of non-breeding both in winter and 
summer. I try to make the conditions as 
nearly uniform as possible for all seasons 
by keeping my cows in the stable most of 
the year, feeding them soiling crops in sum¬ 
mer and silage largely in winter, with a 
varying grain ration all of the time so that 
their systems are relaxed and they are 
always in a breeding condition. I also try 
to have my bull so fed and handled that 
his vigor and activity may be maintained 
at all seasons. And this is sometimes 
quite a problem in winter when one has not 
trained the bull to some kind of daily labor, 
as in the cart or tread-power, and in this 
connection, the younger the training 
commences the better, as I have found that 
the adage about teaching “ Old dogs, hew 
tricks,” applies with as much force to the 
bovine as to the canine race. 
Oconomowoc, Wis. 
FROM GEO. M. ORRIS. 
Except in the present and one other win¬ 
ter, I have never had any trouble in getting 
my cows to breed; but this winter it seems 
impossible to get them to “ stick.” They 
come in heat regularly. I have beeD breed¬ 
ing since last fall, but as yet I have had 
no success. I cannot persuade myself that 
the fault is in the bull. There are others 
in the same boat, I have made inquiry but 
cannot get any light on the matter. I have 
sometimes thought that the excessively wet 
weather of last season, with its rust, smut 
and ergot, was the cause. At one time I 
thought I was graining my cows too high, 
so I reduced my grain rations almost one- 
half, but that has not altered the situation. 
Last week I attended the convention of the 
Pennsylvania State Dairymen’s Associa¬ 
tion and made a number of inquiries of the 
most successful dairymen and they report 
the same result this season, but cannot 
assign any cause for it. Abortions have 
never been so abundant as during this sea¬ 
son. There is hardly a herd which has not 
suffered more or less from this trouble. 
Some attribute it to the excessively rainy 
weather. 
Meadville, Pa. 
FROM J. W. NEWTON. 
I want my cows to come in about the 
first of September. Then I can dry them off 
in July. I should prefer to doit the first of 
July so as to have the milking out of 
the way in haying, but it is not easy to dry 
off Jerseys; consequently I aim to breed 
my cows about the end of November and 
the first of December. I have had trouble 
with individual cows as to getting them 
in calf at this time of the year ; but, taking 
all my fall cows together, I have as good 
success breeding at that time as in the 
summer. There is a great difference in the 
actions of cows in heat in cold and warm 
weather. They show it very little in cold 
weather. I have a cow that finds out very 
quickly if another cow is in heat. My main 
trouble in changing a summer to a winter 
dairy has been the fact that three pastures 
join mine in each of which a bull runs in 
summer. Half of my cows have got in calf 
in the summer so we make butter the year 
’round. But I am going to try to get a 
whole herd of winter cows, except one for 
milk to be used in the family in hot 
weather. 
Lamoille County, Vt. 
FROM M. MORSE. 
I do not think I have experienced more 
trouble in having my cows breed in the fall 
than in the spring. As the cows are usu¬ 
ally tied up in the stable at the time it is 
desirable to have them served, it is more 
difficult to tell when they are in heat. I 
think if cows are kept a little short for a 
few weeks and then fed more liberally 
awhile, when they begin to gain in flesh 
they will be likely to come in heat. That 
is about the condition most cows undergo 
in early summer, and mine go through 
about the same experience when I take 
them from pasture in the fall, and put 
them on good rations in the bam. 
Medway, Mass. 
FROM J. MCLAIN SMITH. 
Most of our cows are bred during the 
winter months. We never have found any 
trouble. Our cows seldom go a full year 
from one calf to the next. 
Dayton, Ohio. 
fkltr Crops. 
A STUDY OF MILLET— Concluded. 
A. A. CROZIER. 
Influence of Climate.— What effect, if 
any, has climate or locality on the appear¬ 
ance or value of the seed ? Will Western 
seed sell as well as Eastern seed in the 
market ? Is there any advantage in an 
occasional introduction of seed grown else¬ 
where ? A comparison was first made of 
the samples of seeds to note any difference 
in color. They were placed side by side in 
saucers upon a table and marked upon a 
scale of 100 as to brightness and percentage 
of dark seeds, as shown in the following 
table. A part of the record was lost, but 
the remaining figures, here given, indicate 
the general result. The samples are ar¬ 
ranged in the order of longitude, and it 
will be seen that those from the West are, 
as a rule, the lightest in color and contain 
the fewest dark seeds : 
PERCENTAGE OK DARK SEEDS. 
SEEDSMAN. HUNGARIAN. 
GOLDEN 
MILLET. 
COLOR. 
Wood and Sons, V&. 
1 
70 
Maule, Pa, 
50 
0 
50 
Johnson AStokes, Pa. 
40 
1-10 
70 
Burpee, Pa. 
50 
110 
70 
Wilson, Pa. 
50 
1 
50 
Dreer, Pa. 
50 
1 
70 
Thorburn, N. Y. 
Htnderson, N. Y. 
60 
50 
1 
60 
Vick, N. Y 
50 
1 
60 
Whitney-Noves, N. Y. 
5*1 
1 
70 
Ferry. Mich. 
45 
1-10 
60 
Livingston, Ohio, 
30 
1 
60 
Everltt, Ind. 
SO 
1 
60 
Vaughan, III. 
1 
80 
Salzer, Wls. 
50 
1 
80 
Cole & Bros., Ia. 
10 
1 
70 
Iowa Seed Co., Ia. 
10 
1-10 
90 
Iowa Seert Co., Ia. 
2 
0 
80 
Bouk. Nebraska, 
2 
100 
Lee. Colorado. 
0 
1-10 
100 
Lewiston Seed Co..Idaho, 
50 
1 
80 
The samples of Golden Millet from the 
Iowa Seed Company, the Lewiston Seed 
Company of Idaho, Bouk of Nebraska, and 
Salzer of Wisconsin, were nearer alike than 
the figures indicate, and were especially 
fine in appearance, of a light yellow—almost 
bleached. The sample from Ylck was of 
the typical “ Golden” color and was taken 
as the standard with which the other speci¬ 
mens of Golden Millet were compared. Sev¬ 
eral samples from Virginia and Maryland 
were all darker than any others, this being 
expressly stated in one instance to be due 
to the unusual amount of rain during 1888. 
The figures for color in the last column are 
intended to be only relative in their values, 
and they indicate the differences in most 
cases fairly well. In the central column, 
which shows the percentage of colored 
seeds in the Golden Millet, the figures are 
too high, the main object being only to 
show the relative amount in the different 
samples. 
In the Hungarian column the figures are 
as nearly accurate as it was practicable to 
make them. The samples were all careful¬ 
ly compared by the eye with that from 
Dreer, which contained 50 per cent, of dark 
seeds by actual count. It will be noticed 
that the percentage of dark seeds in the 
Hungarian decreases westward corres¬ 
pondingly with the decrease in color in the 
Golden Millet. No decided decrease, how¬ 
ever, is observable in the very small per¬ 
centage of dark seeds in the Golden Millet. 
The larger percentage of dark seeds as a 
rule in the Eastern samples of Hungarian 
is doubtless due to the cooler and moister 
summers, giving the seed more time for 
maturing. The dark seed is heaviest and 
most desirable for sowing. Five hundred 
dark seeds weighed 1.194 grammes, 
while an equal number of light-colored 
seeds weighed but 794 grammes. Two hun¬ 
dred seeds of each color were planted in 
adjoining rows in the green-house. Of the 
dark-colored 183 germinated, and of the 
light-colored 139. Both lots gave plants 
of about equal vigor. In a similar com¬ 
parison made out-of doors where the con¬ 
ditions were less favorable for the young 
plants, the plants from the dark seeds were 
clearly the more vigorous. These obser¬ 
vations would tend to indicate that millet 
seed from the West and Northwest, while 
of fine appearance, is liable, owing to the 
short, hot summers, to mature too rapidly 
for full development. 
JERSEY SWEET POTATOES. 
NO. 3. 
The plants should be hardened in the 
bed by leaving the covers open on warm 
nights, just before the potatoes are set out. 
In pulling the plants care should be taken 
to sort out all that have not a good healthy 
eye. To put the plants in the hills, we use 
the “puncher and tongs.” The plant 
having been dropped on the hill or ridge 
by a boy, the operator takes hold of it with 
the tongs held in the left hand, makes a 
hole with the puncher held in the right 
hand, with its top strapped loosely to the 
arm; the puncher is withdrawn, and the 
plant inserted at one operation. The soil 
is then “ firmed ” about the plant with the 
puncher. With these tools an experienced 
hand can easily set out 12,000 to 15,000 
plants a day in a first-class manner, often 
not over one or two per cent, dying, if the 
weather is suitable. 
If the soil is dry the plants should be 
watered: a quart cup of water will do for 
four or five hills. Having been set out, if the 
weather is warm and the ground moist, the 
plants will start growth at once; but it is 
best to wait a week before disturbing 
them, except replanting in the places of 
any “ missing,” or dead ones. 
The first thing to be done in tending the 
crop is to run the cultivator cross-ways. 
If there are ridges they must be torn away 
between the hills. A horse hoe, either the 
Planet, Jr., or some similar implement, is 
run the other way, and the crust is broken 
away around the hill with a hand hoe; 
fresh is earth pulled up around the plant 
and the hill re-formed. 
In case of many this is the only thorough 
hoeing given; but the horse hoe is kept 
running, and the hoe is used only to keep 
down all grass and weeds. Others hoe 
two, and a few three times, but if the 
ground is well stirred with the horse hoe, 
and no grass is allowed to start, no more 
work is necessary, and the three full hoe- 
ings formerly considered necessary in grow¬ 
ing a crop are now considered ' useless ex¬ 
penditure of labor. 
As soon as the vines are long enough so 
