6o6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 12 
all tbeir companionship to a wheel. Mr. Nash has 
been wise in concluding' that a good Shetland pony, 
furnished at the price of a first-class bicycle, will, at 
an early day, prove about the most popular piece of 
living flesh that can be packed inside a horse bide. 
Starting with a few animals direct from the Island, 
he has built up an excellent herd, without doubt one 
of the best in the country. The ponies on the Island 
are inferior stock, except where they are kept up and 
bred and fed with some regularity. Formerly, of 
course, when the ponies ran together in large herds, 
there was more or less inbreeding, and this with a 
diet of sea weed, coarse grass, and even fish, gave 
small and inferior animals, valuable chiefly for foun¬ 
dation stock. We have seen how, in a few genera¬ 
tions, the stock can be improved and increased in size, 
so that the American-bred Shetland is as much more 
desirable for practical purposes as is the high-class, 
American-bred Jersey cow superior to an imported 
Jersey. Mr. Nash’s herd is made up of several distinct 
families, so that there is no danger of too close inbreed¬ 
ing. In fact, he could furnish foundation stock for 
several distinct herds that are in no way related. 
Next week, we shall try to tell more about the herd 
and the care given an American Shetland. 11 . w. c. 
POISONING CUTIVORMS. 
DO THK SONG BIRDS SUFFER? 
Cutworms were very numerous in some localities in 
this vicinity during the cutworm season of 18%. A 
friend, who runs a fruit farm and market garden, 
called on me in the spring, and related his troubles. 
The ground was full of cutworms ; they had nearly 
destroyed his first plantmgs, and were busier than 
ever. “ Last night,” said he, “ they cut down 40 out 
of 300 tomato plants that we set yesterday.” 
“ But why don’t you stop them ? ” 
“We can’t; there are too many of them. All we 
can do is not a drop in the bucket.” 
“ Have you tried Paris-green ?” 
“ No. 1 never heard of using it for cutworms. How 
do you do it ? ” 
“Wet some bran, putting in a little molasses to 
sweeten it, and put the Paris-green in that. Scatter 
the bran on the ground infested by the worms. I 
have never had occasion to try it, but those who have, 
say that the worms will eat it in preference to the 
plants, and will be destroyed.” 
“ I will go right straight home and try it.” And he 
did. Ten days later, he called on me again. 
“ I have come to tell you that bran and Paris-green 
work to a charm ; they will save me hundreds of dol¬ 
lars this year. I went right home and fixed some as 
you told me, scattered it about among a part of my 
tomatoes and cabbages, and, having a little left, I put 
it on two rows of onions. It stopped the worms right 
then and there. Not another plant was taken where 
I used it, while the rest were just mowed down. The 
two rows of onions were left untouched, while those 
adjoining were taken. The only mistake was in not 
putting it on all my garden to start with. I fixed 
that as soon as I found out how it worked. I have 
time to get a crop yet, though, of course, the earliest 
and most profitable crop is nearly lost.” 
He has a farm of about 160 acres, of which about 
20 acres of low land are used for garden. All the 
song birds in the county in which he lives, if they had 
been encamped on his farm last spring, would not 
have saved his garden from the worms. I have yet to 
learn that his bran and Paris-green killed a single 
song bird. If it did, it works differently from the 
way it does on my place. I have repeatedly tried 
putting out Paris-green, both in bran and in corn 
meal, to catch English sparrows, and I never yet 
caught a sparrow or any other bird with it. 
As I look at it, there is a great deal of sentimental 
nonsense talked and written about saving the song 
birds. Nobody enjoys the sweet songs of birds more 
than I do, and I do not wantonly molest them ; but 
when it comes to a question of which of us is to 
gather the crops that I have sowed and cultivated, I 
prefer to do it myself. If the birds insist on taking 
the crops, the birds will have to go. In this vicinity, 
the birds (except the English sparrows and game 
birds) have never been interfered with to any great 
extent by man, and we have the normal number. 
Yet they have not shown their ability, even though 
they had the disposition, to save our crops from the 
ravages of the cutworms. 
If Fred Grundy, or anybody else, objects to our 
poisoning cutworms on account of the danger to birds, 
it strikes me that he should show, first, that the dan¬ 
ger is real and not imaginary ; and, second, if the 
danger is real, that the birds which are killed in pois¬ 
oning the worms, are of more value to the farmer 
than the crops that he saves by the process. I do not 
believe that either proposition is true. 
But I came near forgetting what seems to me a 
very important point regarding the use of Paris-green 
with bran and molasses, which I have not seen men¬ 
tioned elsewhere, and that is, that it is likely to prove 
equally effective against other insect pests besides 
the cutworms, if used at the proper time. This same 
neighbor about whom I have been writing, came to me 
recently and, while discussing his experience with the 
poison, said, “ There is another thing about that bran 
and Paris-green : We have lost a great many cabbages 
of late years, by a maggot in the root. You remem¬ 
ber that I told you about our putting it on part of a 
cabbage patch. Where we used it, we have not lost 
a cabbage by the maggot, and where we did not use 
it, they are nearly all destroyed. We think that the 
poison was put there just in time to catch the insect 
which lays the egg, with the result that she did not 
lay any eggs. Another year, we shall use it on our 
whole garden, and keep it there as long as necessary.” 
It seems to me that this man’s experience points 
towards a much wider field for the use of insecticides 
than has, heretofore, been considered possible. 
Michigan. f. iiodgman. 
BLACKBERRY CULTURE IN MARYLAND. 
With the advent of the Early Harvest blackberry, 
a new impetus was given the cultivation of this fruit. 
“ Double blossom ” and the attacks of the cane borer, 
had blasted not only the plantations, but the hopes 
of most of our blackberry growers, who had been 
accustomed to growing the varieties of the Wilson 
and Dorchester type. The Early Harvest was, also, 
found to be more hardy and fi*ee from rust than were 
those kinds. Although hardier, as I have said, I have, 
by no means, found it to be proof against such win¬ 
ters as were experienced in 1893 and 1895, when more 
than one-half the growth was killed almost to the 
ground. I have not, as yet, found it to be subject to 
any disease beyond a slight attack of rust; but such 
is its vigor, that it will often recover from such at¬ 
tacks of itself, something I have never known any 
other variety of the blackberry family to do. Its 
A RAKE AND SPUD FOR BLACKBERRY VINES. Fig. 190. 
habit of growth is such as to admit of easy cultiva¬ 
tion ; simply pinching back the new growth of cane 
at 2)4 feet causes it to grow in tree form, and does 
away with the necessity of staking. Trained in this 
manner, it needs only shortening in of the branches 
in the spring, to make it easy of cultivation. Grown 
either in hills or by the hedge system, it does equally 
well, if attention is given to the proper cultivation, 
thinning of superabundant canes, and cutting back of 
side growth. 
With my first venture with the Early Harvest black¬ 
berry, nine years ago, I was discouraged by the re¬ 
ports of several of my neighbors, who reported that 
it all went to growth of cane, that it overbore 
a lot of small, hard, half red berries, and took 
all summer and part of the autumn to ripen all 
its crop. But for a fortunate occurrence during the 
first winter of my experience with this variety, I, too, 
might have condemned it as worthless from the above- 
mentioned faults. Part of my patch extended to 
quite a depression in the field, between two prominent 
knolls. I noticed that the ends of the canes in this 
particular part of the patch were killed back, at least, 
one-lialf or more. I did not shorten back the side 
growth the first year, and the berries in the bot¬ 
tom were not only twice as large as those on the 
knolls, but ripened their crop in about one-half of 
the time. Here was a lesson in pruning of which 
I quickly took advantage. Next season, I cut back 
the side shoots to about six inches long, thinned the 
canes where too thick, and got an excellent crop of 
good sized berries, which all ripened within three 
weeks, except a few hills upon which too much wood 
growth had been left; these were loaded with an im¬ 
mense crop of small, hard berries which it took nearly 
all of August to ripen. 
For shipping and canning, the Early Harvest has 
no equal, but the berries are, by no means, large, and 
will never bring as much in market as larger varie¬ 
ties, which may also be far inferior to them in flavor. 
For dragging out the dead wood and canes, 1 use a 
contrivance made from an old horse rake, see Fig. 190. 
The bar to which the teeth are fastened, was sawed 
obliquely across, leaving as many teeth as would fit 
in between the rows in raking. A pair of old buggy 
shafts with the singletree left on, and nailed or bolted 
to the bar, answered for handles with which to guide 
the rake. The singletree faces the front ot the rake 
next the horse, which is harnessed to the machine far 
enough from the rake to admit of dumping its accumu¬ 
lations occasionally. This improvised rake enabled 
me to do the work of 20 men with forks and rakes. It 
takes a stout pair of arms to hold and dump the rake, 
but it does the work quickly and well. I have no 
doubt that it will answer in raking out grape and tree 
trimmings quite as well as some of the rakes shown 
in recent numbers of The R. N.-Y. r s. cole. 
Maryland. 
A NEW ENGLAND APPLE ORCHARD. 
THE “NEW” APPLE CULTURE. 
There Is Profit in An Apple Tree. 
( Concluded .) 
Last week, Mr. Edwin Hoyt told us about his new 
method of apple culture. He would plant the trees 
18 feet apart each way, and cut them out when they 
grew large enough to touch. He made some estimate 
as to yearly crops that, doubtless, seemed large to 
many of our readers. When his attention was called 
to the fact that most orchards have an “ off year ”, 
he said : 
“ In our new departure, we purpose to have them 
bear every year. Only two things are necessary to 
have annual crops of apples (aside from spring frosts) ; 
these are, first, plenty of food for the trees and 
second, thinning of the fruit. If the trees are relieved 
of from one-half to two -thirds of the fruit soon after 
it is set, we may be able to get more apples in bulk, 
which will sell at a higher price than the whole 
amount of fruit that sets, if left on, and without any¬ 
thing like the exhaustion to the tree. A tree will 
bear every year if it is given plenty of food, and is 
not allowed to ripen too much seed so that it cannot 
grow its full set of fruit, and at the same time lay up 
fruit buds for another year. How to manage this, 
the orchardist will soon learn after a little experi¬ 
ence.” 
“ But suppose that any large number of New Eng¬ 
land farmers were to follow your advice ! Where 
could they sell their apples ? They will say that they 
cannot sell what they now raise.” 
“It is true that they cannot—but why ? Who 
is there in your neighborhood now, who raises a 
sufficient quantity of apples to bother any buyer 
or shipper ? What few are raised are shoved into 
New York or nearby markets to be sold by commis¬ 
sion men, who pay us just what they choose. Busi¬ 
ness is done differently now from what it formerly 
was. Everything is done on a large scale ; buyers 
go where there is something to buy, and apple buyers 
and shippers like to go where they can secure, at short 
notice, 5,000 or 10,000 barrels (more or less) on the 
spot. If every acre of suitable orchard land in Fair- 
field County were planted to good varieties of apples, 
and the trees cared for as I have stated, the apples 
would find a readier market, and at better prices, than 
the few which are raised here now. 
“ Cooperation among our farmers in this fruit busi¬ 
ness, is what is wanted for best results. Then cold 
storage houses could be built on a cooperative plan, 
and apples held until it was thought advisable to ship 
them. If domestic buyers would not pay a price at 
which the growers thought best to sell', an agent 
could be sent to Europe to receive and sell the apples 
there. In this way, the farmer would not be at the 
mercy of the dealer or middleman, as he now is. The 
foreign market is almost unlimited. Distance is rap¬ 
idly giving way to time, so that American apples can be 
transported to more distant cities where the demand 
for them will increase faster than the production. 
Furthermore, we in Connecticut are living in one of 
the most favorable localities on this continent for 
apple raising. In the first place, our soil produces the 
best-flavored and firmest apples grown anywhere. We 
are near and between New York and Boston, the two 
most important and favorable shipping points for 
foreign markets, as well as home consumption, thus 
giving us a great advantage over the West, or even 
western New York. Buyers from Boston and New 
York City could come here and purchase a cargo of 
apples inside of 24 hours, which they would do if the 
apples were here, and money was to be made out of it.” 
“ What do you say about varieties ? ’’ 
“Foreign as well as home markets take more 
quickly to, and pay a higher price for, red apples than 
those of any other color. The choice of varieties 
would depend largely upon the soil and climate, as 
some varieties will do much better here than in other 
parts of the country, and some sorts which are popu¬ 
lar in the West, would be of very little value here. 
But as the matter now stands, the Baldwin is the 
most popular east of Ohio. The tree is a good grower, 
and the apples good sellers, they keep well, and the 
tree is a good bearer. There are varieties lor thus 
