878 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
DEC. 20 
“ The Patent Is a Tax.” 
W. S. Delano, Custer County, Ne- ’ 
braska —On page 571 of The Rural some 
remarks are made with regard to a revision 
of the patent laws. There is no question 
that the present patent regulations favor a 
few at the expense of the many. Pullman 
and Westinghouse are prominent examples. 
These two men have accomplished much 
for the comfort and safety of the traveling 
public, yet who will truthfully say that 
the exclusive use of their inventions should 
be accorded them any longer? At the re¬ 
cent session of the National Farmers’ Con¬ 
gress I introduced a resolution memorializ¬ 
ing Congress to amend the patent laws so 
that the exclusive use of an invention to 
the inventor should be limited to 10 years. 
The resolution was unanimously adopted; 
and as a committee of the body was elected 
to visit Washington this winter and urge 
upon the National Congress the adoption 
of the resolution passed by it, something 
may be done in this matter. I do not know 
whether this is the best thing to be done 
with the patent laws; but the proposed ar¬ 
rangement is better than the monopolies 
for 17 years created by our present patent 
laws. Would it not be well for The Rural 
to thoroughly discuss this subject, so that 
this committee may have as much light as 
possible on it ? As the delegates to the 
National Farmers’ Congress are all com¬ 
missioned by the Governors of their respect¬ 
ive States, their recommendations will be 
likely to rfeceive more attention at the 
hands of Congress than those of any other 
farmers’ convention in the country. 
Another Grape Report. 
E. Williams, Essex County, N. J.— 
I was much interested in Mr. Powell’s 
report on grapes in a late Rural. Such 
reports are especially valuable, giving, as 
they do, the behavior of different varieties 
in different soils and climates, and as they 
tell the results of actual experience in 
growing the fruit (and not the vines for 
sale) they are removed from any suspicion 
of the “booming business.” 
I indorse all Mr. Powell says of the 
Worden save that “ only by the taste can 
the bunches be distinguished” from the 
Concord. With me the bunches are larger 
and longer, and the berries so much bigger 
that the most inexperienced novice can 
quite frequently detect the difference. If 
the Concord rarely ripens, according to his 
statement, as far north as Oneida County, 
it probably does not do bo further south, 
else a large proportion of those that find 
their way to Eastern markets are picked 
before they are fully matured, for they do 
not compare favorably in quality with 
those matured in this State. 
I am glad to see his indorsement of the 
Niagara after all the hard things that have 
been said about it, and probably his esti¬ 
mate of its quality would be higher could 
he taste fully matured specimens such as are 
grown here. Our markets have been flooded 
this fall with N. Y. Niagaras that were a 
libel on the grape and a disgrace to the 
growers, and they have not only de¬ 
pressed the prices but given purchasers a 
false impression of the real merits of the 
variety. Fifteen to twenty cents for five- 
pound boxes or baskets, after deducting 
expenses, don’t indicate a very “ booming 
business” for the grower. 
The Brighton is not over-praised. It is 
excellent, one of the very best, but if my 
knowledge and opinion were based on its 
behavior this year, I’d condemn it. Un¬ 
seasonable weather at the time of fructifica¬ 
tion rendered it nearly a failure. Many 
other varieties suffered in the same way, 
showing the importance of not carrying all 
our eggs in one basket. 
Mr. P.’s remarks on the Herbert’s need of 
neighbors to help to pollenize it will apply 
to all of Rogers’s Hybrids. Wilder, Barry 
and Aminia I rank fully as valuable as 
the Herbert; Merrimac a little less so; 
but they all vary more or less according to 
the character of the season. 
Agawam is not the only one of Rogers’s 
Hybrids that has been duplicated. Aminia 
was one of two kinds sent out as 39, and it 
was so much the better of the two that Mr. 
Bush, of Missouri, gave it this name to 
prevent confusion. It may or may not be 
the original 39, and whether one would get 
it under that number of the various nur¬ 
serymen, is a query difficult to answer. My 
own experience, after receiving many of 
Rogers’s Hybrids from different sources, is 
that they are so badly mixed that I am not 
sure that any of them is true till I fruit it. 
Agawam never makes a good bunch with 
me; its musky flavor, however, is much 
relished by many, who think it the best of 
Mr. Rogers’s productions. Bindley I like 
much better, though it is very liable to set 
poorly. Jefferson is a poor grower and the 
fruit mildews and rots so as to be worth¬ 
less. My 18 vines are marked for grafting 
next spring. 
Woodruff Red is no better with me than 
with Mr. Powell. In vine and foliage it 
looks as wild as the wildest. The vine is 
vigorous and productive, but fully as 
liable to rot, mildew and anthracnose as 
any. The clusters are medium in size and 
so compact as often to crowd off some of 
the berries, and it is not unusual, when 
ripe, to find half the berries on the cluster 
cracked and rotten. At its best it is hand¬ 
some, but in quality it is little better than 
the Champion, and most of my vines are 
doomed for new heads. It should be much 
better elsewhere to deserve the “booming ” 
it has received. [The R. N -Y. was sharply 
criticised for condemning this grape about 
four years ago.— Eds.] Early Victor, 
White Delaware, White Pearl, Missouri 
Reisling, Grein’s Golden, Elvira, Noah, 
Montefiore and several of Ricketts’s seed¬ 
lings are worthless. Pocklington, Ver- 
gennes, Empire State, Martha, Lady,Salem, 
Massasoit and Goethe have merits enough 
to entitle one to tolerate a vine or two only. 
Among the new sorts on trial and to 
come there may be some worthy of reten¬ 
tion. A single plant or tree of a kind is 
hardly always a fair test of its merits. 
There is often such a difference in the 
growth that a single one might not prove a 
fair sample of the variety, so that I gen¬ 
erally plant two or more of a kind. There 
are numerous instances on my place of the 
wisdom of this course. I have two vines of 
Early Victor, one of which is twice as 
vigorous as the other, and a comparison of 
the two affords me a much better oppor¬ 
tunity to judge of the merits of the variety 
than if I had only the weakling. It is 
sometimes impossible to account for this 
difference in growth, and a verdict rendered 
under such circumstauces is likely to be as 
erroneous as if based on one season’s trial 
under peculiar circumstances, or a taste of 
a single strawberry, grape or other fruit. 
Tests must be repeated more than once 
to avoid unintentional injustice. I ex¬ 
pect the above estimates will be crit¬ 
icised ; but I have mentioned none I have 
tried less than three years, which is a long- 
enough test to satisfy me. 
The season just past has been very nearly 
as unfavorable as the two preceding. Fre¬ 
quent and abundant moisture afforded 
favorable conditions for mildew, rot and 
anthracnose, so that the latter was more 
abundant than ever. Thanks to the dis¬ 
coveries of recent years, we can head off 
and subdue mildew by the application of 
copper sulphate, and rot by baggin , but 
we are at the mercy of the anthracnose. 
In spite of these troubles, I secured a fair 
and satisfactory crop from the Niagara, 
Cottage, Wilder, Worden, Moore’s Early, 
Barry, Telegraph, Ives, Aminia and 
Rogers’s 32. The rest of some 50 odd 
varieties were little more than miserable 
failures ; yet among them are several that 
under favorable conditions are so very de¬ 
sirable that I would be very reluctant to 
part with them. 
The Rot of Potatoes, 
W. C. Steele, Providence County, R. 
I.—I was much interested in Dr. Halsted’s 
article on the potato rot, in The Rural of 
November 15, page 771. In one place he re¬ 
marked that of course no one would attempt 
a second crop upon an area already charged 
with the germs of disease from the previous 
season’s crop. This was the advice of 
writers in The Rural last year, and we 
were also told to procure seed from localities 
where the potatoes were free from rot. 
Now I am not a believer in everything I see 
in print, and I could not see why a potato 
that was sound and bright would be any 
more likely to produce rotton potatoes in a 
favorable season than an apple tree would 
produce rotten apples because the seed 
from which it grew had come out of a rot¬ 
ten apple; therefore I planted my own seed 
saved from three varieties three fourths of 
which at least had rotted very badly last 
year, namely the Rural No. 2, Thorburn’s 
Early und Great Eastern. I planted a plot 
140 feet long, 50 wide, with 18 rows on the 
same ground in which the crop grew last 
year. Six of the 18 rows were Pearl of 
Savoy which grew on a plot that was free 
from rot last year. I dug 03 measured 
bushels from the plot; three tubers of the 
Thorburn, one of the Pearl Savoy and five 
of the Rural No. 2 were rotten. They were 
dug between July 14 and September 4, and 
had been planted April 22, and were ripe 
before the wet weather in September set in. 
The Rural No 2 were very large, many of 
them weighing one pound and upwards 
apiece: the largest weighed 1 % pound and 
was as perfect as one not weighing more 
than one half pound. Now I do not mean to 
say that potatoes from seeds that rotted bad¬ 
ly last year and which were planted in the 
same ground will not rot; but I do think 
that if the season is favorable from the time 
the vines are in bloom until they become 
ripe and begin to die, there is no more 
danger from rot than there would be on a 
plot in which potatoes had not been grown 
for a long time. I have plowed the same 
ground this fall and shall plant it again with 
potatoes next year and note the result. 
A part of the plot is very moist, lying but a 
little above the level of a swamp meadow, 
with a black sandy loam. In another field, 
I planted some of the Rural No. 2 and 
Pearl of Savoy the first week in May. 
This field slopes to the west and is much 
drier than the first until it reaches a pond 
on the west side. The Rural No. 2 rotted 
quite badly on the highest part of the field, 
but as the rows reached the pond where the 
ground was not more than 18 or 20 inches 
above the water, not a rotten potato was to 
be found; all were just splendid. The Pearl 
of Savoy were also free from rot ; they 
were the last dug and grew on the lowest 
side of the field. Now can any one tell why 
these potatoes came out as they did on both 
plots ? I have always observed that the 
potatoes nearest the top of the ground are 
affected soonest and those deep down in the 
hill will very often be sound while all the 
rest will be affected, and from this observa¬ 
tion I think that those potatoes that came 
(Continued on next page ) 
Itti-sreUancou.s gUmtising. 
In writing to advertisers please always 
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