846 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 26 
Geneva. There will be equally careful work in every 
department. There are over 3.100 varieties of large 
and small fruits on the farm. Some critics complain 
that variety testing is cheap work which the experi¬ 
ment stations should leave for others. Yet it is evi¬ 
dent that there must be some place in the country 
where fruit-growers can study the habits of new 
varieties by the side of the standard sorts. This vast 
array of varieties will prove useful in other ways. If 
one is to conduct experiments in grafting, pruning, 
spraying or cultivating, an orchard containing 50 
varieties is better than one with only one or two, for 
it will not do to say that the habits and requirements 
of a Baldwin tree are the same as those of all other 
varieties. The fact that Geneva has such a 
wide range of varieties in the trial grounds is 
a double advantage, for it will enable the ex¬ 
perimenters to show not only differences in 
yield and appearance, but also differences as 
the result of fertilizing or treatment. Orchard 
experiments have been made to determine the 
best mulching or green manure crop. Peas 
and buckwheat have given excellent results. 
In the greenhouse, Prof. Beach has under 
way some very interesting experiments with 
tomatoes and lettuce. Among other things, 
it is proposed to test home-raised tomato seed 
from selected fruit compared with purchased 
6eed. All sorts of soil combinations, from al¬ 
most pure sifted coal ashes to rich garden 
loam and manure, will be tried. Hundreds 
of potted strawberries are being grown with 
different combinations of chemicals, and Dr. 
Van Slyke will make many analyses in the 
hope of learning something about the effect 
of different fertilizers on the quality of berry. 
In fact, there is an evident desire on the 
part of all connected with the station to serve 
the farmers of New York State. Prof. Jordan 
will try to make a feature of the bulletins. 
His ambition is to make them accurate, forci¬ 
ble and so clear and simple that farmers can 
readily understand them. Of course, if the 
station is to succeed, it must receive the hearty sup¬ 
port and cooperation of the farmers of the State. 
An experiment station, must be, in one sense, a 
cooperative affair. It needs advice and suggestion 
from farmers, or otherwise the director cannot tell 
how he can best serve them. The R N.-Y. urges the 
farmers of New York State to make use of their ex¬ 
periment station. It is entering upon a new career 
of usefulness. It needs you —your questions, your 
suggestions and your influence if it is to accomplish 
the greatest amount of good. The Geneva Station is 
well worthy of support, and we shall 
follow its work with great interest. 
_h. w. c. 
OATS AND PEAS FOR SUMMER 
ENSILAGE . 
AN EXPERIMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. 
I am asked by a R. N.-Y. reader in 
the State of Washington to give fuller 
particulars regarding our use of oats 
and peas for summer ensilage. Until a 
few years ago, little was heard of soil¬ 
ing except in a theoretical way, but the 
depletion of pasture fertility and the 
tendency towards snugger business 
methods among dairymen have greatly 
increased the practice of soiling. 
We have hardly come to an under¬ 
standing of a suitable rotation of soiling 
crops and the methods of handling 
them, before the summer silo offers 
itself as a rival to the soiling system. 
This new method obviates some of the 
objections to soiling. It is cheaper to 
handle a whole crop at once than in 
fragments every day in all weathers. 
The handling of the crop is concen¬ 
trated and, therefore, cheapened. The 
ground is promptly cleared for the next 
crop. If spring-grown crops can be matured and 
harvested into the empty and idle corn silo in time to 
meet the midsummer drought, we are saving expense 
in several directions. Under our conditions here, I 
believe that this can be done. We may make some 
failures in learning how, but I think that enough can 
be saved as we go along to pay the traveling expenses 
of the experiment. 
The oat and pea crop here is prepared for and sown 
in the same manner as oats are alone. About 1% 
bushel of each per acre is sown. As far as the stage 
for cutting is concerned, I understand that there is 
but one right stage for cutting any crop for the silo, 
and that is at the point when growth from the soil is 
stopped and the seed begins hardening with the nutri¬ 
ment in stalk and leaves. Having fixed the point, 
vpe must average up all the possibilities, and harvest 
as near to the right time as possible. In oats and peas, 
I look for the time when the oats are going out of the 
milk, and the peas are pretty well podded, although 
the matter is more often decided by the lodging 
of the crop. When considerable of the crop goes 
down, the sooner it is cut the better. 
Our silo is 15 feet square and 20 deep. In winter, 
we feed 22 or 23 cattle from the top of it, and in cool 
weather, this does well enough. But in summer, we 
feed some half dozen less, and with the hot weather, 
one-half the above surface would be plenty large 
enough. For a summer silo, I would say, therefore, 
get as much depth as possible, and not more than six 
or seven square feet per animal of top surface. If a 
silo is air-tight and frost-proof it will exclude warm 
air as well as cold, and the only point of attack and 
of resistance will be from the top. 
We have put in oat and pea ensilage whole as it 
was cut in the field, and cut into 1%-inch lengths. 
In either case, the ensilage was as palatable as the 
best corn ensilage. We lost considerable on the out¬ 
side from dry mold because we had not sufficient 
pressure to pack it tightly. If there is a prepond¬ 
erance of oats in the crop, it should go into the silo 
very wet, as the hollow straw carries so much air. If 
peas predominate, not so much exterior moisture is 
necessary. Generally speaking, the crop should be 
carted as fast as cut. 
If we feed immediately while filling, in about a 
week, we are feeding ensilage although the changing 
process will go on for some time longer. We have 
put oats and peas into our empty corn silo four or five 
times, and while there is yet much to learn, I believe 
that the practice will, before many years, have as 
firm a hold as the corn silo. This year, our oats and 
peas turned out largely oats at cutting time, the peas, 
although coming up well, seemed to disappear. We 
were afraid that the crop was too strawy to trust in 
the silo and, therefore, cured what was not fed 
immediately, and put it in the hay mow. The drying 
process soon reduced the green feeding value, so that 
we were obliged to look elsewhere for succulent 
milk-making food, and the time occupied in curing 
the slow-drying peas was so long that we could not 
clear the land till July 17, thereby losing two valu¬ 
able July weeks for the following crop. The oat and 
pea hay is good fodder now, of course, but mice have 
damaged it much in the mow. e. c birge. 
Connecticut. 
NEXT SEASON’S CROP OF ARMY WORMS. 
WILL IT BE A FAILURE ? 
Will the Army worms come again next year ? This 
is the question uppermost in the minds of many farm¬ 
ers who suffered severely from the ravages of this 
insect the past summer. Of course, no one can answer 
the question definitely. Many of our insect 
foes come one year in very destructive num¬ 
bers, but it often happens that the next sea¬ 
son we see or hear very little about them. 
The prevalence of insect life maybe likened 
to a pendulum that swings irregularly in re¬ 
sponse to some of Nature’s other forces ; in 
the case of insects, we count among these 
forces the parasitic and predaceous enemies 
among their own kind, and the variation in 
the supply of food especially suited to their 
development. Like many another of Nature’s 
laws, man has, as yet, been unable to formu¬ 
late these variations so that we can predict 
with any degree of certainty whether a cer¬ 
tain insect will appear in injurious numbers 
at any time, even though it may have ap¬ 
peared in very destructive numbers only the 
year before. This is especially true of the 
Army worm. No one can predict when we 
will or will not have an Army-worm year. 
The record of the destructive appearance of 
Army worms in this country goes back to 
1743, and since then, and since 1817, the in¬ 
sect has been injurious somewhere nearly 
every year. But (and here is an important 
historical fact) rarely has it ravaged the 
same locality during two years in succession. 
Thus, from the historical record of this pest, 
we might justly conclude that 1897 will not be an 
Army-worm year. I feel quite sure that we shall see 
or hear very little about Army worms next year in 
the localities where it was numerous this year. 
Aside from the historical data just given, there are 
other reasons for this prophecy. At least three broods 
of the worms occurred in New York and adjoining 
States this year. In some localities in New Jersey, 
the first brood in May and June was the destructive 
one; in most localities in New York and the other 
States, the most destruction was wrought by the 
second or July brood of worms ; but in 
some localities in New York, nothing 
was seen of the worms until September, 
when the third brood was quite in¬ 
jurious. I was much interested in the 
appearance of this September brood of 
worms in our State, for I had said in 
July (R. N.-Y. for July 25): ‘•Judging 
from the many worms which we have 
seen, Nature will see to it that the next 
brood of worms which might naturally 
be expected later in the season, will not 
appear, for a majority of the larger 
worms bear on their backs the eggs of 
an enemy—a parasitic fly.” 
Fig. 281 well represents this little 
friend, to which many farmers owe the 
exemption of their fall crops from the 
attacks of a third brood of hungry 
Army worms ; this little Tachina did 
valiant service in July in many sections 
of the country. Careful inquiry revealed 
the fact that, in every case, so far as I 
can learn, where the worms appeared 
in injurious numbers in September, 
they had not been injurious in the same 
locality at any time before during the 
year ; so that my prophecy regarding 
the work of the little fly was not nulli¬ 
fied by the appearance of another brood 
of worms in September in these few localities. The 
history of the insect further shows that, while the 
second (July) brood of worms is, usually, the most 
numerous and destructive one, it may be the first 
or third brood in some localities; but rarely, if 
ever, have there been two injurious broods of the 
worms in the same locality the same year. There¬ 
fore, the fact that the third brood of worms were 
practically unnoticed in many localities, shows that 
the little fly took care of most of the July or 
second brood; and as many of the worms we re¬ 
ceived in September (the third brood) also bore the 
telltale eggs of this little foe, I believe that the Army 
worm will be a scarce article of diet for the birds in 
1897 in those localities where it was injurious this 
year. I think that farmers whose crops suffered 
this year need not lose any brain matter worrying 
WORLD BEATER POTATO. Fig. 279. 
KING OF THE EARLIES POTATO. Fig. 280. 
