598 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 12, 
early varieties and dig them so as to seed to wheat and 
grass in September. Mr. Fagan must wait longer, as 
the season is later. He could find a good market for 
rye straw, and late seeding would not interfere with 
this grain. He does not want to raise grain, though he 
realizes its value. He wishes to confine his efforts to 
HYBRID OF KIBES CYNOSBATI. SMOOTH-FRUITED 
TYrE, NATURAL SIZE. Fig. 252. 
See Ruralisms, I’age 602. 
hay and potatoes, so as soon as the potatoes are out 
he seeds to Timothy and clover—using more fertilizer 
if needed. He does not believe in top-dressing grass, 
believing it wiser to use what fertilizer is needed at the 
time of seeding. Mr. Fagan believes that he has used 
too much seed as the result of G. M. Clark’s advice. 
The grass was too thick and short. When grass is 
seeded with grain and clover added in the Spring, the 
first crop of grass is usually nearly pure clover, the 
J imothy coming later. The reverse of this occurs when 
grass is seeded alone. The first year is pure Timothy, 
while the clover comes like a swarm the second year. 
The rowen or second growth of this second year is 
nearly pure clover, which is excellent for plowing under 
for potatoes. As stated before, Mr. Fagan does not 
sow Red-top seed, as that grass is not wanted by hay 
buyers. Clover is also a drawback to the sale of hay, 
though not as bad as Red-top, but the clover helps (he 
land and leaves it in fine condition for potatoes. 
A SIMPLE PROPOSITION.—It is easy to see how- 
simple Mr. Fagan's plan is, yet no one need think it 
is an easy job of child’s play to develop such a farm. 
The fertilizers make the plant-food problem easy. If 
they are put in properly and at the proper time the grass 
and potatoes cannot help growing, provided the rain 
falls and the weeds are kept down. There are, however, 
hundreds of little details which require nice judgment, 
and prompt, skillful action on the part of the farmer. 
Drought may come, and must be met by thorough cul¬ 
ture. Bug and blight may ruin the crop in a week, and 
spraying must begin before they start. The grass must 
be cut and cured at just the right time—plowing and 
fitting must be done so as to leave the best seed bed. 
These things come like instinct to the thorough farmer. 
The man without experience or energy cannot under¬ 
stand their importance. Mr. Fagan has reason to be 
proud of his farm. It is well enough to take a farm 
in good heart and tilth, and keep up its producing value. 
For example, a good farmer might take Mr. Lewis’s 
farm, and by continuing the use of fertilizers keep up 
or even increase the crops through the rotation. That 
would show skill and good farming, but there seems 
more of actual success in such work as Mr. Fagan is 
doing. Here is an old farm—thrown out of cultiva¬ 
tion, taking on new vigor and value and changing the 
character of a neighborhood. It is a great thing to save 
a farm and make it productive. 
Mr Fagan says that it seems hard to take an acre ot 
land which may cost less than $20 and put over $40 
worth of fertilizer and work into it. It is hard to 
see any money in such a deal, yet experience shows that 
this is the way to handle a farm in New England. It 
would be folly to advise a farmer on $20 land in the 
West to spend more than the value of his cultivated 
farm for fertilizers, yet such advice might be perfectly 
sound in New England. Soils in this section respond to 
the use of fertilizers in a remarkable way, and there is 
a steady market. While potatoes may be selling for 25 
cents a bushel in Iowa, they will bring 75 cents within 
two hours’ haul from a New England farm, so that 
high feeding pays, and the use of half a ton or more 
of fertilizer to the acre is not a gamble. The gamble 
comes later in not taking care of the crop. 
It would be interesting to see what Mr. Fagan’s farm 
would sell for now, as the result of his successful work. 
A neighbor made a sale of a near-by farm by bringing 
a customer to Mr. Fagan’s place to see the crops grow¬ 
ing. 
“There,” he said, “is what this soil will do!”—point¬ 
ing out the potatoes and grass, which made a striking 
contrast with the brush and weeds which occupied sim¬ 
ilar land on the other farm. The possibility of the 
crude soil as shown on the fertilized farm was the best 
argument the purchaser could ask for, because it showed 
him how he could make cheap land pay interest on five 
times its cost. On every farm there is a certain amount 
of stable manure. Mr. Fagan does not buy manure, but 
he uses his home supply on the light dry knolls or other 
places where the soil is naturally light. By always us¬ 
ing it on such places the fields are made more uniform. 
The interesting thing about this farming is the fact that 
after more than ordinary success in the milk business 
M r. Fagan is able to make more than he ever did in the 
dairy without milking a cow. Probably 20 years ago if 
a person had told him that a Connecticut farm could 
be made to produce such crops without stock to feed the 
land he would not have believed it possible. Much of 
the early prejudice against chemicals is now gone, for 
no prejudice can stand long against actual results. Mr. 
Fagan’s experience gives additional proof to the state¬ 
ment we have often made that many eastern lands are 
to-day the best farm bargains to be found in the coun¬ 
try. Many of them are old stock farms naturally 
strong and productive, but now rough and grown to 
brush. Different men will handle them differently. 
Some, like Mr. Cosgrove, will leave most of the farm 
in the rough, and keep hens or grow fruit on the 
most available ground. Others will keep stock, like Mr. 
Manchester, and others, like Mr. Fagan, will become 
fertilizer farmers. Whether the motive power of the 
farm be hen, cow, sheep, horse, tree or fertilizer bag, 
the man behind it must run the machinery. H. w. c. 
SOD OR CLEAN CULTURE IN ORCHARDS. 
Geo. T. °owell Opposes Sod. 
I note with interest the discussion upon insects and 
-our request for opinions from growers. At Orchard 
Farm we have been testing the sod system in orcharding 
HYBRID AND WILD GOOSEBERRY FRUITS. NATURAE 
SIZE. Fig. 253. See Ruralisms, Page 602. 
in comparison with cultivation. Our soil may be termed 
a heavy gravel loam, and being very full of small stones, 
it carries a good degree of moisture. Two orchards 
were set five years ago, and left in sod, the grass having 
been cut for a mulch, and the other has been under 
high, clean culture. The difference is so great that 
upon this soil and the conditions of this farm there is 
not the slightest chance for an argument in favor of 
sod treatment. The trees in sod have had a continual 
struggle. The foliage has been yellow and sickly, the 
trees have made very slow growth, and one-half has had 
to be reset. The cultivated orchard has forged ahead, 
setting fruit the fourth year, and more the present sea¬ 
son. It looks like a business orchard, and will pay one 
hundred cents on the dollar years before the other in 
sod. In regards to insects, trees that are in a vigorous 
growing condition are seldom injured by any class of 
insects. In 1003 the Apple aphis was unusually preva¬ 
lent. This really killed several trees in the sod, while 
in the cultivated block the trees grew entirely out of the 
trouble. Both were treated with whale-oil soap. In 
1004 the aphis appeared again in great numbers; neither 
orchard was treated. Those in the sod ground suc¬ 
cumbed, while those in the cultivated block went 
through, outgrowing the difficulty successfully. After 
five years the sod orchard is replanted and the ground 
put under cultivation, and in one season so far in the 
same soil under culture the trees have made more 
growth than in any two years in the sod and mulch. 
Both orchards have been sprayed regularly. 
We have been spending several days thinning peaches 
and apples. In one orchard where the harrow is being 
run every three days, in the face of a very protracted 
dry period, both apples and peaches are growing stead¬ 
ily, and the work of the curculio and Codling moth is 
slight in evidence. In another orchard, on account of 
currant bushes occupying the land between the trees, 
cultivation for several years has had to cease early in 
June. In this orchard there is 100 per cent more of 
trouble from the curculio and Codling moth, and half of 
the apples are defective, and are being taken off, and 
the same results are found with curculio on the peaches 
and apples. Last year the San Jose scale appeared in 
both of these orchards. Both were sprayed in the early 
Spring with kerosene-limoid mixture. In the or¬ 
chard that is receiving culture every three days there is 
very little evidence of the scale; in fact, as yet no fruit 
is marked, while in the other where the trees are not 
making the same vigorous growth, the scale is spread¬ 
ing, and the fruit becoming badly marked. The result 
of the study of these facts after 10 days of personal 
work and observation while thinning the fruit, is that 
10,000 currant bushes are being yanked out of the one 
orchard that it may be put under the most thorough 
cultivation, as one of the most effective means of con¬ 
trol of several insect pests. Trees that have to contend 
for existence against grass and weeds, that require a 
vast amount of the moisture of the soil to sustain them, 
even though cut, in our experience suffer far more from 
nsect attack. The sod and mulch system may do well 
n soil that is abundantly supplied with water, but on a 
.-erv large majority of farms cultivation will be far 
more profitable. george t. poweix. 
Columbia Co., N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.— In a later note Mr. Powell adds: “I am 
ust now trying an interesting experiment. Peach trees 
were generally hurt during the Winter of 1904. There 
s an immense set of fruit this year as the result. Many 
rees will not be able to carry through their crop, as 
tree and foliage are too weak. In addition to high 
culture, to give good foliage I am applying nitrate of 
soda, as a special stimulus to get the crop through. 
Many peach orchards will never live through to next 
Spring.” 
A Western View. 
This subject has been thrashed over in Iowa horticul¬ 
tural societies for many years. As usual, almost all 
agree to differ. In fact, if all would move to the same 
locality and soil, and grow orchards in the same con¬ 
ditions, they would be a unit in opinion. Across the 
south side of State three counties wide, going as far 
west as Red Oak and Clarinda, Iowa, two-thirds of 
the way the soil is black loam, tenacious clay subsoil. 
This is also true of northeast Missouri, joining that 
section. In this section the Winesap, Willow, Rome 
Beauty and Fameuse thrive equally well with Ben 
Davis, Jonathan and Grimes, three great leading west¬ 
ern commercial varieties. In that section the soil is of 
such a nature that after a series of rains it is held a 
long time up to roots of trees and it takes a long while 
for it to settle. In fact, in boyhood, we have in one of 
those counties waited three days for the soil to dry well 
enough in cornfield to plow corn. Here we find the 
greatest number of sod advocates in orchards. In case 
they are in high tilth the orchards make too much 
wood gro-wth, and at expense of setting fruit buds and 
getting trees ripe to winter well. This kind of soil is 
not confined strictly to county lines, or to that section, 
but reaches north to central Iowa in parts of east and 
south of State. In the strictly southwestern part of 
State there is some such soil, but not much of it. Sur¬ 
face is rolling, part hilly, part steep, and the orchard 
ection takes to hills, and added to this natural drain- 
,ge is a peculiar soil. It is light-colored, and after be- 
ROCK IN A NEW ENGLAND FIELD. Fig. 254, 
ing released from frost in Spring is very loose until 
settled by rains, so loose we have seen it drift before 
our high western winds like snow, though this is not 
usual now since the prairies have been planted. Here 
t can rain all afternoon and all night following, and the 
soil is so open and naturally loose that at 10 A. M. the 
lay following the corn cultivators can do good work and 
