6o4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. . SEPT. i3 
FARMERS’ CLUB—DISCUSSION. 
Mulching Small Fruits, Double 
Crops. 
T. T. Lyon, So Haven, Mich.— I have 
never depended upon mulching as a pre¬ 
ventive of injury from drought. Although 
it may be in a degree beneficial in checking 
evaporation from the surface, it renders 
the use of the cultivator impracticable, 
leaving the soil to become compacted. I 
greatly prefer, even during the severest 
drought, to keep the soil well and deeply 
stirred, with no weeds to draw upon its 
moisture. Only in the case of strawberries 
would I resort to mulchiug during the 
growing season, and then only after shal¬ 
low cultivation in early spring, and I would 
use it quite as much to prevent, the fruit 
from being sandy, as for the conservation 
of moisture. I have never attempted to 
grow grain crops between the rows of small 
fruits, though I put in hoed crops during 
the first year after planting. It is difficult, 
if not impracticable, with rows' from four 
to eight feet apart, to plow under a sowed 
crop satisfactorily, without leaving the 
roots of the plants too deeply buried. 
S. S. Bailey, East Paris, Michigan.— 
Have I ever found any virtue in a heavy 
mulching with straw or hay as an aid in dry 
seasons ? Has it helped me this season; ami 
do I ever try to grow other crops among 
the berry vines f In answer to the first 
question I say emphatically “ No,” I have 
not tried it this season. Those of my friends 
who have tried mulching in previous years 
have suffered disaster from it, and pro¬ 
nounce it an utter failure. It has been 
apparently beneficial for a short time; but 
bad results follow. The canes become ten¬ 
der and are not able to stand cold weather, 
insects and blight. The roots are invited to 
the surface and the plant succumbs or is 
much weakened on slight exposure. Thor¬ 
ough cultivation, shallow and often, is the 
best and only “mulch” that should be 
given. If a very severe drought were an¬ 
ticipated when the fruit was ripening a 
heavy mulch of straw might prove a tem¬ 
porary benefit; but it should be removed as 
soon as the fruit is picked and cultivation 
should be resumed. Such mulchiug would 
be impracticable except on small areas. I 
often grow early potatoes, sweet corn or 
other small crops between the rows the 
first season ; but never afterwards. A 
neighbor mulched some of his peach trees 
to keep them back in the spring. On re¬ 
moving the mulch he found the ground 
dry as compared with that not mulched. 
F. W. Proctor, Worcester County, 
Mass. —I have not used a mulch among 
raspberries, but the experience of the sea¬ 
son just closed indicates the value of such 
an application. The lack of moisture 
during the first part of the season resulted 
in a diminished yield; and, later, when 
rains came abundantly, much of the fruit 
was spattered with mud and rendered un¬ 
fit for use. I would like to learn from 
those who have covered raspberry canes 
over-winter, what materials they used ; and 
whether the summer mulch would answer 
the purpose as well as earth; also, whether 
any, after such an experience, have 
abandoned the covering of canes as useless. 
The Cuthbert partially winter-kills in this 
locality, and although some canes seem un¬ 
injured I question whether calling certain 
varieties “ hardy,” and leaving them 
unprotected, does not cost the average 
grower at the North several times the 
expense of covering. It has been my cus¬ 
tom to leave the canes unattended until 
the development of the buds in spring has 
demonstrated what proportion of each 
should be trimmed away. I have found 
that with an unprotected cane the bearing 
spurs near the roots grow more vigorously, 
aud produce more and better fruit than 
those further up the cane. If this is not 
caused by inj ury from the cold of winter I 
am at a loss to explain it. Following the 
advice of some horticultural writers, in the 
summer of 1889 I nipped back the tops of 
the foremost canes when about three feet 
high, and these were the only ones that 
were killed to the ground. Even the 
suckers that came up late in the summer 
were injured less than these nipped canes. 
The distance between my rows of rasp¬ 
berries allows the planting of some other 
crop in alternate drills, leaving room for 
the passage of the cultivator. I raise early 
bush beans and parsnips, planted at the 
same time, at a depth of two inches. The 
beans furnish an agreeable shelter to the 
young parsnips, and both seem to take 
kindly to the shade of the canes. In Au¬ 
gust the ripening bean vines are pulled out 
with what weeds they have harbored, giv¬ 
ing the parsnips full possession until win¬ 
ter. These two crops make a good succes¬ 
sion, without the trouble of replanting, 
and pay all the expense of growing the 
raspberries. 
Bush Lima Beans. 
A. W. Smith, Americus, Ga.— Will 
Bush Limas run up a wire ? This question 
is asked in The Rural of August 16. 
Some years since I gave my experience 
with several acres of Henderson’s Bush 
Limas. I have grown them every year 
since on a more or less extensive scale. 
This year I grew about one-third of an acre 
of which only five or six plants were run¬ 
ning beans. The R. N.-Y.’s experience this 
year as to Burpee’s Bush Lima is altogether 
at variance with mine. The past spring I 
planted from 13,500 to 14,000 of Burpee’s 
Bush Limas, and of the whole number only 
four were runners. The foliage is lighter 
in color and larger than Henderson’s, and 
is like that of the regular Lima, whilst the 
growth of the bush is magnificent, averag¬ 
ing three times, or over, the size of Hender¬ 
son’s, some being five or six times the size 
cf the best of the latter. This afternoon I 
measured two of Burpee’s plants, one of 
which measured across three feet by three 
feet 10 inches and the other three feet nine 
inches by three feet four inches; the 
average hight of the two plants was one 
foot six inches; hight of the tallest branch 
one foot nine inches. The average size of 
the plants in the patch would be at least 
two feet in diameter. The plants are now 
crowded with blooms and ou one smaller 
than the two specified, I counted 46 pods in 
various stages of maturity, not counting 
the little fellows just dropping blooms; 
this was the only plant on which I counted 
the pods. The bean pods as well as the 
beans therein, are truly huge, and all that 
any one could ask. I think that the fact 
that there are very few runners in so large 
a number planted, shows that the variety 
is remarkably true. Many persons suppose 
both Henderson’s and Burpee’s will prove 
running plants, but if they are left alone 
they will prove true bush. I find that 
when planted late in the season when there 
is an abundance of heat and continuous 
rains, after germination, they shoot up at 
once to a hight of from 1% to two feet aud 
look like running beans, except that at the 
apex, upon close examination, bloom and 
not leaf buds will be found. 
“Give Immediate Attention.” 
Dr. G. G. Groff, Lewisburg, Pa.—I f 
the ground around the fruit and shade 
trees planted this spring is not dug and 
mulched with hay or grass, you will prob¬ 
ably lose a number of them. Loosen the 
soil with a spading fork, give each tree 
several bucketfuls of water and then cover 
the soil well, and you may yet save trees 
on the point of dying. This applies to trees 
in uncultivated ground. Dig the potatoes 
as soon as the tops are dead ; store them in 
a dry, cool place, or, better still, sell them, 
and there will be no danger of rotting from 
late rains. If the privy emits foul odors 
throw in a foot or more of earth, and then 
clean it out when the weather becomes 
cool. If the cows get their drinking water 
from a “ wet-weather ” pond, see that it 
does not become too foul for their use. 
Cows cannot produce good milk and butter 
from foul drinking water. Let the horses 
rest two or three hours in the heat of the 
day, and push the work in the cool of the 
evening. No time will be lost in the change. 
If the boys and girls have not yet had a 
vacation since harvest, it should be granted 
as soon as possible. The farmer and his 
wife, the boys and girls, and the hired 
help too, all should have some time for 
recreation. Let the time be granted freely, 
and it will not be lost, for all will come 
back with enthusiasm to accomplish the 
fail worK. 
The “Champion” Tomato. 
C. H. W., Rochester, N.Y.— This tomato 
was reported in The R. N.-Y. of the 23d 
ult., by I. J. B., writing from New Jersey, 
under date of July 25, as being “so far” 
upright, but from “ present appearances ” 
he says it is likely to be a “poor cropper.” 
As it is a new and recently introduced variety 
having very distinct and desirable quali¬ 
ties, The R. N.-Y. readers may like to learu 
how it has conducted itself elsewhere, aud 
I am glad to be able to make what I think 
a more promising report of my own ex¬ 
perience with it. In my garden, where it is 
growing, under by no means favorable con¬ 
ditions, the soil being poor and the plants 
crowded to within 30 inches in the row, be¬ 
tween a heavy crop of sugar beets within 
24 inches on one side aud a heavy growth 
of Stowell’s sweet corn 30 inches away ou 
the other, the plants have attained a 
hight of four feet six inches, and are still 
“upright,” although heavily laden with 
fruit. They must have been in a much 
more forward state than those belonging 
to the Rural’s correspondent at the date 
of his writing, and at that time I could 
have spoken in unqualified terms both of 
their growth, characteristics and produc¬ 
tiveness. The fruit is not only abundant, 
but perfect in shape, of fine color and ex¬ 
cellent quality. I have said that the plants 
are “still ” upright; but I should perhaps 
add that the weight of the fruits has made 
some supports necessary for the lateral 
branches. These, from three to five in 
number, start low down, on the main 
stem, which is self-supporting and per¬ 
fectly erect. 
A Western Farmer on Eastern 
Farming. 
E. D. Wheeler, Rock County, Wis.— 
Many of our Western farmers will soon 
have to follow the example of Eastern 
farmers and buy commercial fertilizers to 
bring their farms back to a good state of 
fertility. They have raised grain after 
grain, never seeding down to give the land 
a rest, until they are raising only one- 
fourth of the crops they used to. Others 
have seeded down, bought bran, and kept 
cows and other stock till their farms are 
like gardens, and their buildings show that 
they have made money by farming. Visit 
the grain farmer and you will find his 
buildings poor aud old; the rats have 
been to work at them for 30 or 40 years, and 
in winter most of his stock have to stand 
on the sunny side of a straw-stack for pro¬ 
tection ; while on the dairy and stock 
farms everything is well housed, aud the 
very best of stock is kept. 
R. N.-Y.—True. Unless the soil owned 
by those wheat-growers is different from 
any other soil that ever was made, the 
time will come when it will fail, unless it 
is reinforced in some way. But all Eastern 
farms are not gardens by any means. There 
are plenty of them that have been robbed 
and abused until those who did the evil 
have been obliged to run away from them. 
East and West, North and South, where- 
ever crops are grown : 
The man who cheats the earth 
And expects to «et the worth 
Of a dollar from Hi cents’ worth of manure. 
Will be »0 cents In debt. 
Lots havn’t learned it yet, 
But they will when pay-day comes, you may be sure. 
During the Revolutionary War, in 1778, a 
load of powder was carried from Boston to 
Plymouth, Mass., packed in a sloop-load of 
manure. It was so common to carry 
manure in this way in those old days, that 
the British never suspected that this cargo 
would give such a high percentage of nitro¬ 
gen. We thus see that there are many 
years of manuring in the pedigrees of good 
Eastern farms. 
That Dougal Gooseberry. 
Ubkr, Falls Church, Va.—T he proper 
thing to do with the seedling gooseberries 
(Dougal’s 2 and 7) is to propagate them and 
offer them as premiums to old subscribers 
of The Rural on such conditions as may 
seem proper. 
R. D. Dawson, Montrose County, Colo. 
—I was very much interested in the 
description of the Dougal Gooseberries No. 
2 and No. 7 in The R. N.-Y. of August 2. I 
think new fruits of merit should be intro¬ 
duced to the public. I presume it was 
Mr. Dougal’s intention to have all his 
worthy new fruits disseminated. I should 
like to have some of those gooseberries my¬ 
self, but how am I to get them ? 
Irrigation for Potatoes. 
W. B. Harlan, Missoula County, 
Montana. —W. H. R., of Frauklin County, 
N. Y., who writes in The Rural of August 
2 or 9, would have done well if he had run 
his spring water down the rows of pota¬ 
toes. The fact that the water was cold 
would have been no objection at that time 
of the year. He should have let a small 
stream run down between each two rows 
in the furrow left by the cultivator or 
shovel plow (the smaller the furrow the 
better), turning in just enough to reach the 
lower end in an hour or so, and let it run 
about 24 hours; then he should have turned 
it into other furrows if he had uot enough 
water to run through them all at once- 
But it will not do to water potatoes after 
they are nearly grown if they have become 
quite dry and stopped growing. If this is 
done, they will become watery and grow 
knotty or knobby. 
The Onion Maggot. 
C. H. Fletcher, Chautauqua County, 
N. Y.—After two years’ trial of Dr. Lint- 
ner’s burdock remedy for the onion 
maggot, I feel safe in recommending it as a 
sure antidote. It is simple and easy to 
apply. Pick a bundle of fresh burdock 
leaves; place them in a tub or trough ; 
pound them to a pulp with a mallet or 
sledge; theu pour in water enough to com' 
pletely cover the mass; stir thoroughly 
and let stand over-night; pour enough of 
the juice directly upon the plants, to wet 
them thoroughly. The application should 
be made as soon as the onions are up 
enough to be seen in the rows. I have tried 
this remedy for the maggots iu melons, 
cucumbers, etc. ; it proved a sure pre¬ 
ventive in 9very case. 
Arsenic Produced Pears. 
Ira J. Blackwell, Mercer County, 
N. J. —Will spraying with the arsenites 
pay ? This is a year of general fruit 
failure. Our prospects here were so poor 
for pears and apples that we had no hopes 
of much fruit. We sprayed a part of our 
pear trees—some of them twice—with 
London-purple and carbonate of copper 
dissolved in ammonia, using half a pound 
of “ purple,” two ounces of carbonate of 
copper and two quarts of ammonia to a 48- 
gallon barrel of water. Some of the pears 
were sprayed four times with the copper 
and ammonia. We have gathered about 
40 barrels of pears. The effect of the appli¬ 
cations is so plainly beneficial that I think 
we might have increased our crop value 
one-fourth, or, say, for this year, $100. 
The effect of the copper is not so positive as 
that of the purple, yet wherever scab is 
prevalent it should be used, as it costs only 
a small amount to add it to arsenites. 
The McKinley Bill; Allen Land¬ 
lordism. 
S. Mills, Allen County, Ind.— We are 
in favor of the McKinley bill here. We 
think it much better than Mr. Blaine’s 
plan. The fact is, every nation will buy 
where they can buy cheapest. If, in making 
treaties, they make promises to buy of us 
and afterwards find another place wnere 
they can buy cheaper, they will evade their 
promises as much as possible. 
I think the subject of aliens owning real 
estate in this country should attract our 
attention more than the tariff question. 
Nearly every paper I pick up tells of some 
English syndicate buying some of the best 
paying industries in the country, and of 
course the income from those industries all 
goes to England. It will be a continued 
drain on this country. That is what has 
ruined Ireland, and it will be a great dam 
age to this country if it is not stopped. If 
Englishmen want to own property here, let 
them move here and spend their money 
here. Let us keep America for American 
citizens. 
That Railroad King. 
Cassius M. Clay, Whitehall, Ky.— 
What is the use of our new plants, economy, 
currency, tariff and all that, when after 
the honey is gathered we are robbed at will 
by the railroad power, and left to starve ! 
A king has an interest in his subjects, but 
railroads have none I What is the only 
issue ? Every one sees it! Shall the peo¬ 
ple own the roads or the roads the people ? 
Caution ! 
E. H. C., (No ADDRESS). — About 18 
months ago The Rural gave a recipe for 
a wash for trees consisting of raw linseed 
oil and clay or cheap paint. I ap plied it as 
directed and injured a number of trees. 
R. N.-Y.— The R. N.-Y. has never recom¬ 
mended such a wash for the trunks of trees. 
Our recommendation was to paint trees 
with oil and any sort of cheap mineral paint 
from the soil surface up a foot or 15 inches. 
This will not harm them, and it is effective 
as it seems to disguise the tree in a way that 
the borer will not deposit its eggs. 
Stray Beauty and Bliss’s Triumph 
Potatoes. 
S. L. Albertson, Mineola, N. Y.—I 
gave these potatoes a test one season along 
with 100 other varieties. While resembling 
each other very much, I found that they 
were different. In the growth of the tuber 
as regards their closeness to the vine they 
are quite different. The Stray Beauties 
grew all over the ground, tubers being 
midway between the rows; while the 
Triumphs were close together in the hill, as 
close if not closer than any other variety. 
The Stray Beauties are uot quite so large 
as the Triumphs and are slightly different 
in shape and color, and the shape of the 
eyes is slightly diffexent. From the close 
resemblance of the two kinds it is probable 
that unscrupulous dealers have substituted 
one variety for the other, thus leading some 
to think they were testing two varieties, 
when in reality they were testing one. 
Monstrous Pippin and Lyman’s 
Pound Sweet Apples. 
C. A. Green, Rochester, N. Y.—Mon¬ 
strous Pippin is the only apple that bears 
a full crop of large, Hue fruit this season 
here. I have hever known it to fail to bear 
a good crop. It is a fall apple, very large, 
