138 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
February 25, 
years to take a little more rest, as T am obliged to do 
myself. Yet they are still doing very good work. 
Younger trees are not always equally loaded with a 
crop. Trees that excessively overbear and are not 
thinned out, as they should be, are not likely to overbear 
CROSS SECTION OF AKIN APPLE. Fig. 56. 
the following year, and some varieties are not such 
abundant bearers; this accounts for the variation of 
10 to 20 bushels on the 16-year-old trees. 
F. P. VERGON. 
WIRE AND CUT NAILS COMPARED . 
Being a practical carpenter, perhaps my experience 
with cut steel and wire nails may be of use to others. 
I he composition of the two nails is not to be spoken 
of in the same day. The wire nail, on being pulled apart 
and put under a powerful glass, is shown to be full of 
holes lengthwise, just as a piece of molasses candy is. 
I find the smaller the wire nail the more porous it is. 
I have reshingled many roofs that were laid with wire 
shingle nails, where the nails were completely rusted 
through at the end of five years on square pitched 
roofs, and on piazza and shed roofs in as short 
as three years, where the pitch was three and four 
inches to the foot. I have had wire spikes, 30-penny, 
rust out in four yearswhere driven into plank walls, while 
cut steel spikes driven in like conditions were sound 
three years later, and how much longer they lasted 
I am unable to say. Our cheap jobbers, in Boston, 
where 1 work, use wire nails, as there are a few more 
to the pound of the same weight, but no reliable builder 
uses them in his outside work. I find that all outside 
work done with wire nails is very much shorter lived 
than that done with the cut steel nails; I would say 
from 25 to 50 per cent shorter. No farmer can afford 
to use wire nails in any capacity; at best they are but 
about two-thirds as strong as cut steel, and in places 
where great strain is apt to come they are not as 
holding by one-fifth as the cut. Our masons will not 
work on stagings constructed with wire nails. 
Millis, Mass. g. a. y. 
Old Fashioned Nails Stand Forty-six Years. 
I noticed your request on page 106 for experience 
with the cut steel nails that were in use before the 
steel wire nails came into use. Eighteen years ago I 
shingled a new barn with the Jefferson cut steel nail, 
which was considered the best nail on the market at 
that time. About seven years later I noticed the shingles 
coming off, and on examination found the nails de¬ 
stroyed by rust, only the head and about one-fourth of 
an inch remaining. Since then I have been obliged to 
go over the roof and renail it every year, and find where 
I used the steel wire nails my roof is coming off right 
along. My house was built over 46 years ago, and has 
the same roof that was put on when built; there has 
never a shingle come off except when worn out. Where 
I have mended it I have found the nails in such good 
condition that I could draw them and drive again, these 
being the old-style cut nail. I do not think the timber 
has anything to do with rusting of nails, my shingles 
being pine on barn, and part pine and part cedar on 
llOUSe. JOHN H. KUNE. 
Niagara Co., N. Y. 
Steel Nails Failed 
On page 106 is a communication from J. M. Drew, 
asking information in regard to duration of cut steel 
shingle nails in particular. I am prepared to give facts in 
reply to his question. In the early Spring of 1890 I 
built a barn 40x54; it was about this time that cut 
steel nails were being used and recommended by car¬ 
penters as being superior to iron, better, and not so 
brittle. Of course, I took the suggestion, and bought 
steel nails all around, large and small. I presume they 
are all right for the large sizes, where they are kept 
dry, but the shingle nails prove to be very unsatis¬ 
factory. In just 10 years I began to pick up shingles 
around the barn that the wind had blown off, with the 
head of the nail sticking fast to the shingle. The older 
the barn the more they blow off. Sometimes I gather 
up quite an armful and put them away, so when the roof 
gets too much daylight through it I go over it and 
put them back, and wait for another crop, which is 
sure to come. The shingles I used are pine. I have 
no doubt but what you will get a similar experience from 
many others. d. l. angle. 
New York. 
Will Salt Water Injure Nails? 
This matter of shingles and nails is getting to be an 
important one in this section of the country. On new 
roofs that have been built not over five years the shin¬ 
gles are blowing off one at a time, or occasionally in 
large patches. Ten years ago I had a roof shingled 
with cedar shingles brought from Maine. Steel wire 
nails were then thought to be the best, and the car¬ 
penter who did the job used them. Five years later the 
building was torn down, both shingles and nails still 
sound. The nails were so tough that it was difficult 
to tear the shingles away from the roof boards. Five 
years’ use of steel wire nails on other roofs in the vicin¬ 
ity proved so unsatisfactory that the carpenters advised 
patrons to buy cut nails instead. Many roofs were losing 
their shingles on windy days, and the blame was always 
laid to the wire nails. About that time I had occasion to 
have another roof shingled, and cut nails were used, 
presumably made of iron, but of that I am not sure. 
The shingles were cedar from Maine, as before. In 
less than five years they began to blow off, and an 
examination showed that in some parts of the roof the 
nails were rusted entirely off. Last Fall I had the roof re¬ 
shingled, with the same shingles turned the other side up. 
The nails were so near rusted or rotted off that few of 
F. r. VERGON, A PIONEER IN MULCII CULTIVATION. 
Fig. 57. 
the shingles were split or injured by removal. This 
time I was advised to buy galvanized cut nails, pre¬ 
sumed to have been made of Swedish iron, as they 
were malleable enough to be bent double without break¬ 
ing. 1 he carpenters about here are now arguing that 
some of the cedar shingles that come from Maine by 
vessels get so much salt water dashed over them when 
piled on deck that this is the cause of the rusting 
of the nails, whichever kind may be used. Some are 
so sure this is the explanation that they will use no 
shingles that have been shipped by water. Doubtless 
much of the lumber used on the Atlantic coast has been 
sprayed with ocean brine on its way to market, but not 
all of it is as much exposed to the weather after it 
goes into buildings as are the shingles. There is surely 
need of an improvement in wire fencing, as I find a 
great difference in lots bought at different times. 
Massachusetts. _ a. w. cheever. 
A FARMER'S RECORD WITH LIME. 
I have been using lime, 14 years; I tried one load 
first; having good results from that, the next year I 
used 30 tons; I have altogether used nearly 200 tons. 
Before using lime the hay crop was very light; manure 
seemed to do but little good, the newly seeded lasting 
but two years. Since using lime I have fields that have 
been seeded four or five years, which still cut the heavi¬ 
est kind of Timothy. My rule the first seeding is a peck 
of Timothy and a peck of clover seed to the acre, cut- 
ing a heavy crop of Timothy and clover for two years; 
after that the clover rots, then the finest kind of Tim¬ 
othy for several years before reseeding. I use 50 bush¬ 
els, or about two tons to the acre; if land is very 
heavy or clayey more can be used. Plow and har¬ 
row ground once; have lime well slaked; then spread; 
sow grain, harrow in with grain. Lime is better not 
plowed under, as it works down instead of up. The 
purpose of lime is to sweeten soil that is sour, and 
make hard soil mellow. I could not raise clover until 
I used lime. Clover roots enrich the soil. Lime is 
good for grain or corn as well as hay, but not for 
potatoes, as it is apt to cause them to be scabby. We 
usually draw our lime in Winter, as it is shipped from a 
distance. The proper way is to have a platform of 
boards a few inches from the ground, on which to 
put the lime, as putting it on the ground causes it 
to become sticky. If one lives in a lime country he 
can draw as used, putting a bushel in a heap, as it will 
slake quicker; if it does not slake quickly enough it can 
be slaked with water. Where I have used lime, then 
used manure, the manure does much better. I use ma¬ 
nure with crops one year, the next seed with lime, using 
no manure. _ t. j. pomeroy. 
RAW OR ACID PHOSPHATE. 
Why not use fine S. C. rock or floats instead of acid phos¬ 
phate? I think I have read that it contains 50 to 60 per 
cent of phosphoric acid, and can be bought for from $3 to 
$6 per ton. Tell all about it and if the phosphorus will 
not become available in time. b. g. 
Shickshinny, Pa. 
For much the same reason that you would prefer green 
corn fodder to dry hard stalks, or green rye or oat fodder 
to dry straw of these grasses. Yet, look at the analyses. 
Pounds in a ton : 
Protein Fat formers. Fat. 
Green corn . 1.7 12 0.5 
Dry fodder . 5 88 1.5 
Rye straw . 3 46.5 1.2 
Green rye . 2.6 7 0.6 
Oat straw . 4 42 2.3 
Green oats . 3 19 1.4 
If you were to go by analysis alone the corn fodder 
and the straw would be your choice, but you know that 
the green fodder will make more milk, and you would 
use it from choice. Why? Because it contains food that 
is available to the cows. It is easily digested, the cows 
prefer it, there is less waste, and we know from experi¬ 
ence that if we want milk we must feed digestible food. 
Now the “floats” are chunks of S. C. rock ground to 
a fine powder. Remember that this phosphate rock comes 
from the remains of animals which died many years ago 
in swamps or low places. Their bones have through long 
ages petrified or changed to a form of soft rock, retain¬ 
ing their phosphoric acid and lime. These pieces of 
phosphate rock are dug out of the earth and ground 
fine—then being called floats. This ground rock is of 
little more use for plant food than so much dust. It 
might give up some of its phosphoric acid very slowly, 
but our object in putting plant food into the soil is not 
to keep it as long as we can, but to supply the plant 
at once. In order to make the phosphoric acid in the 
rock available the “floats” are cut or dissolved by mix¬ 
ing them with sulphuric acid. Thus you can see that 
while the ground “floats” might contain 28 or 30 per 
cent of phosphoric acid, after the sulphuric acid is added 
there might not be more than 12 or 14 per cent in 
the mixture, which is called acid phosphate. Yet this 
smaller amount of phosphoric acid would be more useful 
to the crop because it is available. 
Why is it available? In the rock either entire or 
ground to a powder, the phosphoric acid is found united 
with lime in the proportion of one part of phosphoric 
acid to three of lime. This combination is too strong 
for the plant to break up. The finest of grinding will 
not break apart this chemical combination, but the sul¬ 
phuric acid does so. It “dissolves” the rock by taking 
away first one part of lime and then another, until each 
part of phosphoric acid is combined with only one part 
of lime. In this form the phosphoric acid will dissolve 
in water, whereas in the floats it would not do so. Scat¬ 
ter the “floats” on the ground and under most condi¬ 
tions it would remain like road dust—still out of reach 
of the crop. Scatter the acid phosphate, and being soluble 
the phosphoric acid is carried all over the soil, where 
it is prepared for plant feeding. You will notice on 
many fertilizer tags mention of three different forms of 
phosphoric acid; “insoluble,” “water soluble” and “re¬ 
verted.” The insoluble is the form in which one part 
of phosphoric acid combines with three parts of lime. 
The “soluble” is the insoluble form, “cut” by sulphuric 
EVIDENCES OF EARLY SPRING. Fig. 58. 
acid until the phosphoric acid combines with one part 
of lime. “Reverted” means that this soluble form has 
taken in one more part of lime. It is no longer soluble 
in water, but is soluble in weak vinegar, which is about 
the strength of the acids secreted by the roots of 
plants. We would not advise you to buy “floats.” While 
some farmers report fair success on wet soils or in 
apple orchards we believe in using soluble fertilizers. 
