454 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 10, 
are strung like smilax. The wires, however, are heav¬ 
ier than those used for smilax, and the strings arc a 
strong green and white flax twine, as the asparagus 
makes a very heavy vine. 
FURTHER CULTURE.—It will be understood that 
the solid bed is upon the ground, with about 10 inches 
of soil, instead of the four or five inches of the bench. 
There are no boards or concrete at the bottom; the 
subsoil is broken up to allow drainage, and the soil 
filled in. Asparagus strings are from 8 to 15 feet long, 
and some grow it in houses 20 to 30 feet at the ridge, 
but here the houses are only 18 feet. The very lofty 
houses are expensive to heat, causing waste of coal, 
which a factory florist cannot afford. Nicety in water¬ 
ing is required; if too dry asparagus gets red spider; 
if too wet or if poorly drained, it turns yellow. The 
solid beds run three to four years without replanting. 
ASPARAGUS SPRENGERI.—This plant forms 
graceful, drooping sprays, but does not run, so string¬ 
ing is not required, and it is carried on side benches. 
The seed is sown in Summer, as soon as it arrives, 
and in Fall potted off in two-inch pots. It is kept 
growing, and shifted as required so that by the follow¬ 
ing Summer it is in four or five-inch pots, when it 
is planted in the bench. Cutting starts in the Fall, 
about September or October. Sprengeri is a very gross 
feeder, and rrtust be highly fed. By the end of the 
first season it will need a mulch of cow manure, and 
after that it must be mulched twice in the season with 
the manure, with some light top-dressing of soil, as the 
roots come to the surface. The plants arc run for two 
to three years; they could be run four, with proper 
feeding, but by that time the hemlock boards of the 
bench are rotten, and it must be rebuilt. Thrips are 
troublesome in Summer, and Sprengeri must be care¬ 
fully watered; if too wet it rots. 
FLORISTS’ FERTILIZERS.—It will be noted that 
nothing is said about horse manure. Florists do not 
like it; cow manure is always their staple plant food, 
with blood, bone and sheep manure as tonics for 
the juveniles. The solid beds will need mulching the 
first Spring, sometimes the first IWinter. The sheep 
manure and blood and bone are used on Plumosus 
whenever the surface is stirred; probably a 100-pound 
bag on a bed 200 x 10 feet. Sometimes more than this 
is given, and at about two-week intervals, but the 
grower watches his plants as carefully as a poultry fat- 
tener watches his birds. With Sprengeri the surface of 
soil is not stirred, because there are too many roots 
there; the weeds are cut, and the mulching given. 
Liquid manure is excellent where a tank is arranged 
under pressure, so that it is applied through pipes 
and hose; without such arrangement it takes too much 
labor. Many growers top-dress their smilax, but at 
the place visited this is not done; the soil is made 
rich enough to last through the season. No chemical 
.fertilizers are used. Sometimes an asparagus bed will 
only last two years, as a result of the heavy feeding, 
forcing and constant cutting. At this foliage factory 
the effort is to reduce labor by every expedient, while 
running the place at fullest productive capacity. In 
other words, it grows foliage in the same systematic 
way that a cotton mill turns out textiles, and this 
accounts for remunerative returns at a time when many 
flower growers feel a certain anxiety over dwindling 
profits and increasing expenses. E. T. R. 
A VETERAN'S ARGUMENT FOR SILAGE . 
I have depended largely on silage as roughage for 
dairy stock for 15 years. I think my experience teaches 
that 40 pounds silage is equal to 20 pounds best clover 
hay, counting roughage onlv, but with silage corn 
planted as we do in this section, rows 3)Z feet apart, 
drilled in the row one stalk to 15 inches, we get fairly 
good ears if season is favorable. This very much en¬ 
riches the silage, so that dairy cows fed 40 pounds such 
silage will not require more than one-half as much 
grain as those fed on 20 pounds clover hay, and I feel 
confident that cows so fed with four pounds grain to 
balance will keep in better condition and give more milk 
than those fed 20 pounds clover hay and eight pounds 
grain. Owing to the more protein needed to balance 
silage I estimate that four pounds -protein feed will 
cost five cents and eight pounds of the more carbona¬ 
ceous will cost eight cents. Counting clover hay at $10 
per ton, 20 pounds cost 10 cents on this basis; then 
allowing 10 cents for 40 pounds silage this will equal 
$5 per ton value for silage. In addition to this, if we 
add to the value of silage the saving in the cost of 
grain feed, three cents per day, we save over clover 
hay in feeding a ton of silage $1.50, thus giving the 
silage a value of $0.50 per ton as compared with clover 
hay at $10 per ton. With this system of silage feeding 
I believe that we can produce milk during the Winter 
season, with good warm stables, as cheaply as we can 
on grass during the Summer, thus better equalizing the 
milk production throughout the whole year, giving the 
dairymen much better prices for milk. With my own 
herd I get as much milk during the six Winter months 
as I do during the Summer. I have endeavored to 
bring out two points that I think all should be interested 
in: First, the value of silage; Second, what does it 
cost to produce milk during the Winter season com¬ 
pared with the cost during the Summer. 
Belmont Co., O._ l. p. bailey. 
IOWA EXPERIMENTS AT COUNTY POOR 
FARMS. 
Two years ago this past Winter the Farmers’ Insti¬ 
tute of Sioux County requested the Board of Super¬ 
visors to appropriate $300 for the carrying on of exper¬ 
iments with corn, oats, Alfalfa, potatoes, etc., on the 
County Poor Farm. The Board of Supervisors granted 
AN EAST TENNESSEE MOUNTAIN CABIN. Fig. 190. 
$250, and instructed the steward to use more, if it was 
necessary. The following year five other counties in 
the State took up the work in a similar manner, and 
this year there are a dozen or more counties in line, 
with the prospect of as many more another year. I 
have just returned from visiting two of the counties 
where they are doing the work for the first time, and 
the other count}' mentioned above, which was the first 
county in the United States to take up this kind of 
work. The people seem to take an interest in this 
movement, and, in my estimation, it is really one of the 
most important in the agricultural movements, and is 
bound to spread rapidly in the United States, first, be¬ 
cause the people take a great deal more interest in 
these things at home, and second, there is such a great 
difference in soils and crops grown in the different 
parts of the State, that the experimental work must be 
extended to these different sections. This, of course, 
must be carried on in co-operation with the State Ex¬ 
periment Station, so that the work may be done in a 
definite way, and the results available. Last year two 
of the counties invited the farmers and their families 
to visit the county experiment station and bring their 
lunches so as to spend the day. Two or three from the 
college were present to help in explaining the work 
and to give talks on these occasions. In one county 
there were something like 2,000 present, and in the 
other more than 2,500. We are planning a considerable 
extension of this work for another year. The plan is 
to confine the experiments in a given county to the 
things of greatest importance to the people of the 
vicinity. Our plan is to send a man from here to start 
the work, during planting time, and as much of the 
other time as is necessary. lie stays through the plant¬ 
ing, and will again take charge of the work of harvest¬ 
ing, weighing and recording of results, etc. These re¬ 
sults will then be published in the local papers and in 
pamphlet form for distribution. Where it is of value to 
the rest of the State it will be included in the exper¬ 
iment station publications. p. g. holden. 
Iowa Exp. Station. 
R. N.-Y.—As indicating the line of experiments 
suitable at such poor farms we give extracts from a 
letter written by Prof. Holden to the Jefferson Co. 
(Iowa) Board of Supervisors. This county has just 
appropriated $200 for such experiments: 
I would suggest that you arrange to carry out two or three 
lines of work which I consider important. One of them is 
the testing of the different kinds of corn grown in your 
county. Our experiments have shown conclusively that 
there are many kinds which are yielding eight and ten and 
even twenty bushels less per acre than certain other kinds 
grown in the county, and yet the farmers have no way of 
finding out how their corn compares with that of their neigh¬ 
bors. Samples of corn should he gathered from over the 
county and planted side by side, repeating the experiment 
three or four times in order to insure accurate results. In 
order to make the conditions absolutely the same for each 
variety they would have to be planted by hand in most cases, 
although it would be well to repeat them with the machine, 
planted so as to determine how well they are adapted to 
the planting by machine. It would also be important to 
test the number of kernels to the hill to determine, if we 
can, about what thickness the corn should be planted to 
give, one year with another, the best results. This would 
have to be repeated a number of times,, I would also sug¬ 
gest that the different varieties of corn that have been bred 
in Illinois and other places be tested to determine whether 
they are in any way superior. I would also arrange for a 
test with the growing of some Alfalfa, as it is bound to be¬ 
come one of the crops of the State sooner or later. A small 
field of this, say two or three acres, can be put. In in the 
Spring, but I would suggest that you make an experiment 
with Alfalfa sown In August, after the oats are removed. 
I would also suggest that you prepare a test with Fall and 
Spring plowing. _ 
WHICH FIELD FOR ALFALFA ? 
If the land lying next the river referred to on page 
42.3 is not frequently overflowed so as to drown out 
the Alfalfa it might seem that this is the best location 
for it. Alfalfa requires a porous subsoil, and a gravelly 
loam soil is one of the best. Sand does not seem to 
be so desirable, although if a top-dressing of manure 
or straw can be supplied there is usually little diffi¬ 
culty in securing a stand on the sand. When once 
well established in the sand it seems to do very well. 
He speaks of light soil on high ground, but does not 
state the character of the subsoil. If it is a porous 
subsoil, no doubt it would grow Alfalfa to good ad¬ 
vantage, but if hardpan then it likely would not. He 
certainly cannot grow Alfalfa on the swamp land until 
after it has been drained, and even then the probability 
is that he would not reduce the water table sufficiently 
low to make the growing a success. I have not ob¬ 
served many instances where Alfalfa has grown well 
on muck land. j. L. stone. 
Cornell University. 
PLAN FOR A NEW ENGLAND ORCHARD. 
On page 354 I notice a plan for planting a Connecti¬ 
cut orchard in which it is proposed to set permanent 
apple trees 33 feet apart in squares, place a quick¬ 
growing variety of apple in the center of the square as 
a filler, and fill in to 16 l / 2 feet apart with peach trees. 
While we are not familiar with conditions in Con¬ 
necticut, we cannot advise definitely for that locality'-, 
but the plan struck us as having considerable merit. 
This may be because the writer has just finished setting 
a Michigan orchard on the same plan, except that the 
permanent apple trees were placed 36 feet apart instead 
of 33, leaving the peach trees 18 feet apart. Like the 
writer, we have never seen a plan just like this 
recommended, but thought it combined features of 
merit from several plans. The peach trees should 
pay for cost of setting and caring for the orchard be¬ 
fore they are ready to come out; after this the tem¬ 
porary apple trees should produce some profits; and 
when they are gone we have a bearing orchard of per¬ 
manent trees with all previous expense cancelled. We 
have no experience with a bearing orchard of this 
kind, but have made orchard plans a subject of some 
study and believe that this plan is as desirable as can 
be followed. 
For Michigan conditions we would prefer planting 
the trees farther apart than 33 and 16'4 feet unless the 
land be quite valuable, though we have seen peach 
trees as close as twelve feet in the high-priced fruit 
belt land. Our apples are intended for a general mar¬ 
ket like Chicago and are about equally divided among 
the four following varieties: King, Grimes Golden, 
Jonathan, and Wagener. Our peaches are intended for 
a home market and comprise a succession of varieties 
from early to late, including Dewey, St. John, Elberta, 
Kalamazoo, Crosby, Fitzgerald, Gold Drop, Engels 
Mammoth, Smock, Marshall’s Late, and Salway. We 
should also like to hear criticisms of the plan and 
varieties. s. b. h. 
Athens, Mich. 
