m 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
NOV. iS 
FARMERS’ CLUB—DISCUSSION. 
Savings Banks Not Fully Satis¬ 
factory. 
W. H. Smith, Dakota County, Minn.— 
The question concerning what young men 
should do with their little savings is of 
great importance. The savings banks of 
this and other countries have not given as 
complete satisfaction as desirable. The 
cashiers too often run away with the funds 
or in some other way betray their trust. 
The officers of other banks are still more 
apt to do so. One way of making deposits 
in banks fairly safe is to place comparatively 
small amounts in different banks. If a man 
can save $50 each year, let him place each 
year’s savings in a different bank. This 
will answer very well except in thinly 
settled portions of the country, where banks 
are scarce. [But the more the deposits 
are divided, the more, proportionately, are 
the chances of loss of a part or parts — 
Eds.] Building and loan associations are 
a comparatively new thing, and are in too 
many intances managed in the interests of 
a few selfish, greedy schemers. They are 
based and operated on comparatively new 
methods which but few people understand. 
These facts present sufficient reason why 
young men in rural districts should not in¬ 
vest their savings in them. Another line 
of investment that deserves consideration 
is the endowment plan of life insurance. 
The old-established companies are undoubt¬ 
edly safe. Most, if not all of the States, 
require a deposit with the State Treasurer 
to secure policy-holders. These are like 
the building and loan associations in that 
they require that a certain amount should 
be paid in at stated intervals, and that in 
case of failure to make the payment at the 
time it falls due, the investor loses either 
all or a part of what he has already paid 
in. [In all or nearly all the large life in¬ 
surance companies the premiums already 
paid are not forfeited through default of 
payment after three to four annual pay¬ 
ments have been made. The strongest ob¬ 
jection to such investments of the early 
savings of a young man is that they can¬ 
not be made available until the end of the 
period of insurance—five, ten or twenty 
years. Now one of the greatest advantages 
of early saving is that the young man has 
a little capital handy for investment when¬ 
ever a good chance presents itself. More- 
ever, young men at such an early age are 
generally unmarried, and therefore they 
are, as a rule, not bound to insure their 
lives for the benefit of anybody in case they 
should die before the termination of the 
period covered by the policy. In endow¬ 
ment policies, however, the insurance com¬ 
panies always charge for this risk, so that 
instead of the deposits beiDg increased by 
interest, they are cut down by the premiums 
on the risk.— Eds.] The establishment of 
post-office savings banks is being discussed 
occasionally. These offer one very import¬ 
ant advantage over all other plans that 
have been tried or proposed. If the cashier 
or any one should steal the money the 
depositor would not have to stand the loss. 
All deposits would be guaranteed by the 
General Government: but money invested 
in this way would of necessity draw a low 
rate of interest. 
Two Sides to the Spraying Question. 
Ira J. Blackwell, Mercer County, N. 
J.—There are two sides to the question of 
spraying trees to preserve the fruit. It is 
as yet something of an experiment. While 
the advocates of the practice can give ex¬ 
amples of apparently great benefits derived 
from it, its opponents can point to failures 
of sprayed trees to bear well and to great 
crops where no insecticide had been used. 
There can be no doubt that all leaf-eating 
enemies of our fruit trees can be destroyed 
by spraying, if it is effectually done. The 
number of applications will necessarily de¬ 
pend very much on the amount of rainfall, 
and the kind of insect one may wish to kill, 
and also on the thoroughness of the spray¬ 
ing and the immediate surroundings. For 
instance, if we spray for the tent caterpil¬ 
lar, but neglect the wild cherry and some 
other trees, we must expect to have to 
spray often and not always quite satisfac¬ 
torily. For the curculio we must spray al¬ 
most before the leaves start in the spring, 
and if it rains the work will have to be re¬ 
peated. The codling moth is at work 
very soon after the blossom falls or before, 
and continues busy for some days. Spray¬ 
ing for the scab is a long and somewhat 
expensive operation for late varieties, and 
In summers like the past here, to make 
the work thorough, it should be done, on 
an average, every ten days. It is hard to get 
it done, as the majority of farm-hands and 
fruit-growers look on it as a humbug, and 
think it will make no difference how much 
it may be slighted. It took some time to 
teach farmers how to kill the potato 
beetles. The success of spraying for the 
apple and pear scab is not so obvious as 
that of spraying for the potato beetle. It 
may not be deemed a mark of much cour¬ 
age to practice what one’s neighbors laugh 
at, but it takes some nerve. There is no 
doubt that the codling moth can be 
killed, and it is to be hoped that the curcu¬ 
lio can also, by the use of the arsenical 
poisons. There is reason for thinking that 
the copper solution is beneficial in prevent¬ 
ing the scab, and also that the destruction 
of the cedar balls is a preventive of the 
rust. The main reason why orchardists do 
not spray is that, as a rule, they raise 
grain, and when spring comes help from 
some cause or other is not plentiful. Oats 
have to be sowed and corn planted ; rainy 
days come and horses are scarce, and atten¬ 
tion to the fruit trees is put off from one 
day to another, and finally they are given 
over as among the things that must be 
neglected. Spraying, therefore, will be 
left undone almost always unless especial 
provision has been made for the work. 
The injury is not apparent until it is too 
late to prevent it. In fact, the years in 
which the work pays best are those in 
which the fruit grower thinks he has no 
fruit to spray. I would advise all orchard¬ 
ists to get an inexpensive force pump be¬ 
fore spring opens, along with some Lon- 
don-purple, carbonate of copper and 
ammonia, and spray all the trees which 
time will permit, and keep spraying for 
the scab after every heavy rain until the 
fruit is fit for gathering, or, in case of 
most trees, until August 1. Last spring we 
failed to order our ammonia early enough, 
and after we had sent for it we didn’t get 
it for a week, and the delay started our 
orchards on the road to failure. 
Sub-Irrigation Again. 
Isaac Peaslee, Schoharie County, N. 
Y.—In a late Rural further information 
was asked with regard to what is known 
as “ Cole’s New Agriculture,” or system of 
sub-irrigation. Owing to a little friction 
between the owners of the patent the new 
system has not come to the front as rapidly 
as its friends expected. I fully indorse Mr. 
Cole’s theory, and claim that if lands are 
properly trenched the results claimed by 
him are not overdrawn. From a full in¬ 
vestigation of the system at the originator’s 
farm I have no doubt that in the near 
future farming by sub-irrigation will take 
a great step in advance of all other kinds 
of farming, and will fill the silo and enable 
farmers to soil their stock—the only true 
way of farming in this or any other coun¬ 
try. It will also enable the gardener to 
increase the products of his garden, and to 
the Southerner it will be a bonanza; for by 
its aid he will be able to grow a succession 
of crops the year ’round. Before long 
farmers will haul stones off their lands to 
\ 
fill trenches where they will do some good, 
and be forever out of the way. No longer 
will they make stone walls of them, or 
heap them in hedges where they are a per¬ 
fect nuisance. 
Some “Jaw-Breakers.” 
Jabez Jaulikins, Springfield, Ohio.— 
The comments on botanical nomenclature 
which have appeared in The Rural and 
American Garden would convey to the 
reader the impression that botany as a 
science is much obscured by unnecessary 
verbiage. In this connection allow me to 
cite the following passage from the Ar¬ 
chives of Troy: 
“ A certain accola one day sauntering 
about met a salamander which lived upon 
salmagundi. It was macrocephalous, macro- 
typous, macrurous and macrodactylous, 
salebrous, muricated and sabbatous, prog¬ 
nathous, saccate, macilent and multivers- 
ant. The accola, being deficient in myo- 
dynamics, allowed this wonderful specimen 
to escape him, and no other record of its 
genus is now preserved.” 
Hardiness of the Tong Pa Peach. 
Prof. J. Troop, Purdue University, 
Ind. —In The Rural of October 25, a cor¬ 
respondent asks about the hardiness of 
the Tong Pa Peach. It has been grown on 
the agricultural experiment grounds here 
for a number of years and several times, 
during severely cold weather, it has been 
injured. For two years it has set fruit 
buds which have each time been killed by 
freezing. It does not seem to be any 
hardier than other well-known varieties. 
Low-down Trees; Fighting Mice. 
A Subscriber, Mercer County, N. J. 
—Now that the planting season has again 
arrived it should be remembered that trees 
started low down are the best. It is not con¬ 
venient to plow among them, but their 
fruit can be easily gathered, they bear 
younger, and in sections where high winds 
prevail the danger of breakage is much less 
in their case. It may be possible to blow 
over a tree that branches close to the 
ground, but it is not probable. Some of 
our trees branch right at the ground, and 
others all the way up to a height of eight 
or nine feet from it. 
Where trees are in grass or are likely to 
harbor mice no time should be lost in 
banking up around the trunks with earth. 
The loss of trees throughout the country 
due to these pests is immense. Often they 
work under ground at the roots, and the 
trees are ruined before the owner suspects 
anything is wrong. Apple and pear trees 
do best here if planted in the fall; for most 
other fruit trees spring is preferable. The 
planting of apple and pear trees in this 
section is not keeping up with the increase 
of our population. 
Pruning and Thinning Grapes. 
E. Williams, Essex County, N. J.—The 
statement made at the Allegan County, 
Michigan Farmers’ Club relative to the 
value and effect of pruning and thinning 
grape vines (see page 641) coincides with 
my experience. I have for years insisted 
that the failure among farmers and ama¬ 
teurs to secure satisfactory crops and clus¬ 
ters was due chiefly to their failure to 
prune the vines properly or sufficiently. 
They are afraid to cut off “ all the wood; ” 
so they leave by far too much; though the 
clusters are small the vines are overloaded, 
and break down under their burdens ; the 
fruit and wood fail to ripen, the latter 
winter-kills, and the varieties are con¬ 
demned as not hardy. In pruning my 
vines I aim to leave but 20 to 30 buds on 
good, well developed wood of this season’s 
growth. I prune in the fall; by the end of 
this month I hope to have all the work 
done. I aim to get well developed and 
mature wood and buds by pinching and 
checking the growth in summer; in other 
words, I summer prune. By this means I 
get not only the buds and wood desired 
and where I want them; but also an enlarged 
leaf surface at the fruit, where needed, and 
I divert the sap from its natural tendency 
to useless wood-making to the fruit where 
it is needed most. Each of the 20 to 30 buds 
is liable to produce a cane that will give 
two or three clusters of fruit. Many of 
the buds are double, a smaller one starting 
out at the base of the larger. These base 
buds I generally remove, and this is my 
first summer pruning. I seldom remove a 
cluster unless it promises to be very small 
or the vine appears too feeble to carry all 
the fruit. I have never practiced thinning 
the clusters. With my practice, I get clus¬ 
ters weighing eight to sixteen and twenty 
ounces apiece—of Niagaras, my principal 
variety—and it is more satisfactory to me 
to sell clusters of this size than those 
that are larger or half as big, and I think 
they sell better. I cannot boast of 50 pounds 
or bushels of grapes from a vine. I have 
taken the past season as high as 30 pounds 
from one with this treatment, and from 
that down to three and five pounds accord¬ 
ing to the condition of the vine. If I could 
get a uniform yield of 20 pounds per vine, I 
would be well satisfied. In these days of 
fierce competition no one need expect to 
get the highest price unless he has a su¬ 
perior article. The past season has been a 
trying one for grapes in this vicinity, and 
out of 50 odd varieties, all but about a dozen 
wer-e nearly total failures. 
Our Italy.— Charles Dudley Warner, 
writing in Harper’s Monthly, of the im¬ 
pressions he received during a recent visit 
to California, in a most pleasing and in¬ 
structive way, says that it is still a wonder 
that a land in which there was no indigen¬ 
ous product of value, or to which cultivation 
could give value, should be so hospit¬ 
able to every sort of tree, shrub, root, 
grain, and flower that can be brought here 
from any zone and temperature, and that 
many of these foreigners to the soil grow 
here with a vigor and productiveness sur¬ 
passing those in their native land. This 
bewildering adaptability has misled many 
into unprofitable experiments, and the very 
rapidity of growth has been a disadvantage. 
The land has been advertised by its mon¬ 
strous vegetable productions, which are not 
fit to eat, and but testify to the fertility of 
the soil; and the reputation of its fruits, 
both deciduous and citrus, has suffered by 
specimens sent to Eastern markets whose 
sole recommendation was size. Even in the 
vineyards and orange orchards quality has 
been sacrificed to quantity. Nature here 
responds generously to every encourage¬ 
ment, but it cannot be forced without tak¬ 
ing its revenge in the return of inferior 
quality. It is just as true of southern 
California as of any other land that hard 
work and sagacity and experience are neces¬ 
sary to successful horticulture and agricul¬ 
ture, but it is undeniably true that the 
same amount of well-directed industry 
upon a much smaller area of land will pro¬ 
duce more return than in almost any other 
section of the United States. Few now 
expect to make a fortune by cutting arid 
land up into 20-foot lots, but notwithstand¬ 
ing the extravagance of recent speculation, 
the value of arable land has steadily appre¬ 
ciated, and is not likely to recede, for the 
return from it, either in fruits, vegetables, 
or grain, is demonstrated to be beyond the 
experience of farming elsewhere. Land can¬ 
not be called dear at $100 or $1,000 an acre 
if the annual return is from $50 to $500. 
The climate is most agreeable the year 
through. There are no unpleasant months 
and few unpleasant days. The eucalyptus 
grows so fast that the trimmings from the 
trees*of a small grove or highway avenue 
will in four or five years furnish a family 
with its firewood. The strong, fattening 
Alfalfa gives three, four, five, and even six 
harvests a year. Nature needs little rest, 
and, with the encouragement of water and 
fertilizers, apparently none. But all this 
prodigality and easiness of life detract a 
little from ambition. The lesson has been 
slowly learned, but it is now pretty well 
conned, that hard work is as necessary here 
as elsewhere to thrift and independence. 
The difference between this and many 
other parts of our land is that nature seems 
to work with a man and not against him. 
Southern California has rapidly passed 
through varied experiences, and has not yet 
had a fair chance to show the world what 
it is. It had its period of romance, of pas¬ 
toral life, of lawless adventure, of crazy 
speculation, all within 100 years, and it is 
just now entering upon its period of solid, 
civilized development. 
Women and Birds.— Wearing the skins 
of bird and beast is a relic of barbarism, a 
survival from the times when our savage 
ancestors were forced to use them for 
warmth and decoration, says Olive Thorne 
Miller, in the New York Herald. The 
nearer to savagery the people, the greater 
their use of feathers and furs. 
There is a moral side to the question. 
How can a thoughtful woman, feeling 
some responsibility in the training of her 
children or some desire to leave the world 
if not better—which should be her aim—at 
least not worse for her living in it—how 
can she reconcile her conscience to the con¬ 
stant object lessons in cruelty which the 
wearing of murdered birds holds up before 
her children ? How dare she thus indorse 
and tacitly approve the cruelty and bar¬ 
barity which she cannot but know are an 
indispensable part of this infamous trade ? 
How do honest Christian mothers and 
earnest Sunday school teachers reconcile 
their countenace of this cruel trade with 
the gentle teachings of Jesus Christ, which 
they labor to instil into the growing, and, 
let me assure them, reasoning minds under 
their care ? 
They may, indeed, shut their eyes to 
facts and harden their hearts against ar¬ 
guments, but the child does not. What 
his teacher is and what she does has far 
greater weight with him than what she 
says. 
“ Man could not live on the earth with¬ 
out the service of birds,” says a wise man 
and a thoughtful student. And the re¬ 
sults of experience and the studies of all 
scientific men confirm the statement. 
Putting entirely aside the responsibilities 
of people and the rights of animals, it is a 
simple, bare alternative that is presented 
to us: Shall the birds be allowed to live or 
shall the earth be reduced to a barren wil¬ 
derness ? 
One of the two is certain to be, for the 
bird is our only protector from the insect. 
To one who has not informed herself it 
may seem like a wild statement, but, 
nevertheless, it is true that the Insect is 
one of the most powerful forces on earth, 
and one against which man, with all his 
boasted ability, is helpless. It comes in 
innumerable armies, too minute to be 
handled; nothing can discourage, nothing 
can eradicate it. It multiplies by millions; 
it preys upon every vegetable and animal 
substance under heaven. In a world aban¬ 
doned to the insect not a green thing could 
