1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
633 
GEO. M. CLARK’S ALFALFA. 
Mr Clark, the Connecticut grass man, 
who grows five tons or more of Timothy 
hay to the acre, has been sowing Alfalfa 
on a dry upland soil— V/ acres. He 
made the soil as fine and soft as possible, 
using 800 pounds of a fertilizer containing 
equal parts by weight of ground bone, 
muriate of potash and nitrate of soda. 
Seed at the rate of 25 pounds per acre 
was harrowed in lightly four times, and 
then rolled. Result: 
This work was completed June 3. July 25 
I cut the first crop, 52 days from the time 
of seeding. Height at the time of cutting 
was 12 to 22 inches, average 16 inches or 
more. One-tenth of the plants were In blos¬ 
som, which is the rule for cutting Alfalfa. 
In one corner of the field there was a little 
purslane, and scattered' over the field there 
was some June grass: otherwise the Alfalfa 
was quite clean. The first four days after 
cutting were clear sunshine, the next four 
partly cloudy with some very light rain, the 
next four days were bright sunshine; 12 days, 
eight perfect, four not bad, with four to fin¬ 
ish August 5. It was carefully heaped every 
night. Result was 10,500 pounds of dry hay 
in barn, 3,000 pounds to the acre in 52 days. 
I carted the Alfalfa off the field as soon as 
possible after cutting, then sowed half as 
much more Alfalfa seecT and harrowed it In 
with double act-ion Cutaway harrow in two 
directions, set at a light angle. My object 
in doing this was to reset it and improve the 
stand. 
What happened then? This is Mr. 
Clark’s report: 
1 am just in from the field, the thirteenth 
morning after cutting. To my surprise I 
find some of the Alfalfa eight inches high. 
Its average height is fully six inches. Neigh¬ 
bors said I would kill it, others said it would 
turn yellow and die without bacteria. No 
grass will die when it has anything to live 
for. I now expect quite a large second' crop 
before frost. 
“Nitro culture” and soil inoculation do 
not trouble Mr. Clark. He says: 
Scientific men say that certain bacteria are 
necessary to start a new field of Alfalfa. 
They say that they go down into the roots 
and aid the plant to gather nitrogen. I think 
they are correct, but I have none. I have 
been hunting among the roots for bacteria 
a month or more; hereafter I shall hunt for 
tops and let the roots take care of them¬ 
selves. In this dry weather the roots are 
hunting for water: looks as if they were find¬ 
ing it. Six inches growth In 12 days, Tim¬ 
othy stubble a month old side by side not yet 
started __ 
Action of Fire on Cement. 
,/. TF. M., Greenwood, Va. —I wrote you a 
year or so ago in regard to using concrete for 
chimneys. I am building now, and have been 
told by several persons that concrete fire¬ 
places will not. stand/ the heat. Do you know 
anything to the contrary? How would It do 
to line the fireplaces and flues with common 
brick, that is, if the concrete will not stand 
the heat and crack? I have to have a well 
dug, and wish to have it walled with some¬ 
thing better than common rough stones. 1 
have been thinking of using terra cotta sewer 
pipe, say 24 inches in diameter, for the first 
eight or 10 feet at the bottom of the well, 
then reduce the pipe to six inches and use 
six-inch pipe to top of well ; then finish off 
with concrete platform. Please give me your 
opinion of it. As large terra cotta sewer pipe 
is expensive here, cannot I make molds and 
make the large pipe of concrete, cement and 
sand? If so, how thick, and will two parts 
sand, one cement, be right proportion to use? 
A ns. —About two years ago I looked 
up the matter of the fire-resisting quali¬ 
ties of cement and made a report in 1 he 
R. N.-Y. and in the columns of the Engi¬ 
neering News found that a concrete 
building had safely passed through a 
heated conflagration in Bayonne. N. J., 
coming out without a crack. 1 his, of 
course, meant not only intense heat, be¬ 
cause the iron structural work in other 
buildings surrounding this building was 
warped and twisted out of form, but it 
had to stand the streams of cold water 
while heated. At the same time I con¬ 
sulted a well-known concrete engineer of 
our section, who told me he had turned 
cold water upon blocks of heated concrete 
without breaking. I might give more evi¬ 
dence. To show my own confidence I 
have two buildings with concrete foun¬ 
dation and floors, and I am carrying in¬ 
surance only upon the property valuation 
above the concrete. As for the well, why 
not use concrete? It will be cheaper. If 
you can leave an opening where the 
stream runs in that supplies the well the 
remainder of the space can be made tight. 
You could get a piece of sheet iron, rivet 
it together the size circle you want, and 
fill in the space around with rough stone, 
sand and cement. Raise the form as fast 
as the cement hardens. You will have 
a fine curb, and the work can all be done 
without expensive labor. You can even 
go further, and put a concrete platform 
cn top, leaving a hole for the pump, and 
if of iron, cleaning out the well would 
almost be out of the question. Portland 
cement one part, sand five parts, using all 
the small stone you can work in, will be 
all right. h. e. cook. 
Pear Blight. 
11. J. T., Mishawaka, Ind .—I have 40 or 50 
pear trees, four years old, most of them in 
fruit, very badly struck with the blight; 
leaves all turned black; fruit is withering up. 
Is there any remedy for it? 
Ans.— Pear-tree blight is a difficult dis¬ 
ease to handle. Cultivated and highly fer¬ 
tilized trees are more readily affected. 
L rees in sod are as a rule less troubled 
with :t. You do not name the variety of 
pear, but from the fact that most of your 
trees are bearing at four years we infer 
they are Kicffers. There is no certain 
remedy now that the trees are affected, 
but the trouble may be reduced by cutting 
off and burning all blackened branches, 
taking care to cut well below the diseased 
part in the sound wood. Next Spring be¬ 
fore the buds swell spray very thorough¬ 
ly with lime, sulphur and salt wash. Any 
experiment station will tell you how to 
make and apply this wash. The address 
of your State Experiment Station is La¬ 
fayette, Indiana. 
Tomato Questions. 
X. Y. X. (.Vo Address ).— I see that stress 
is laid upon the compactness of Spark's Ear- 
liaua, also some growers direct pinching off 
the ends of branches to insure earliness of 
fruit. Which gives the earliest goodi fruits, 
a compact plant, or one trained to one stem? 
What is the cause of dropping off of blos¬ 
soms and settings of fruit? What can he 
done to prevent Tomato blight in a small 
garden where tomatoes must ba grown year 
after year In the same place? It has not yet 
appeared. What can be done to prevent To¬ 
mato rot? The tomatoes are trellised, hut 
green fruit will rot at blossom ends and sides. 
Ans. —The Earliana is not a compact 
growing variety, and requires as much 
space as any older sorts, (at least 3Ms feet 
each way.) Pinching back the ends of 
branches will induce the plant to throw 
out laterals, .which of course, makes the 
plant still denser, keeping the fruit in the 
shade, thus retarding its ripening. Train¬ 
ing the tomato to a single stem will pro¬ 
duce earlier fruit, because of the expos¬ 
ure of the fruit to the sunshine, but at 
the expense of yield. Checking the 
growth of the plant either by transplant¬ 
ing or very dry weather or deep cultivat¬ 
ing will cause the bloom to drop, and 
sometimes the fruit. Bordeaux Mixture 
has been used to some extent to prevent 
blight, but is not always a success. 
Tomato rot is a disease that is preval¬ 
ent in dry weather, and I know of no 
remedy. Some varieties are more sus¬ 
ceptible to rot than others. The old 
Acme has been discarded on that account. 
Purple varieties are more susceptible than 
the red kinds like Earliana, Stone, etc. 
I will wager a wooden toothpick against 
anything of equal value that X. Y. Z. has 
done as most amateurs do, set his to¬ 
mato plants too close. More and earlier 
fruit can be grown from a dozen plants 
set four feet each way, than can be grown 
on two dozen plants on the same amount 
of land, no matter how we fertilize, prune 
or trellis. john jeannin, jr. 
A Few Potted Plants. —My experience 
strawberrying does not, like that of your 
correspondent, H. H. B., page 568, extend 
back through 30 years; scarcely one year 
has elapsed since I took the work in hand. 
Moreover, my time every-day is entirely 
occupied with undertakings far removed 
from the culture of my garden. Never¬ 
theless, having heard and read somewhat 
about the advantage of using potted plants 
I determined, about a year ago, to make 
trial of them. So, snatching from slumber 
an early morning hour each day, and an¬ 
other hour at evening by lantern light, I 
worked with spade, hoe and rake, and 
thoroughly prepared a plot in my garden 
to receive into its embrace 50 potted straw¬ 
berry plants of the variety Glen Mary. 
These were received and set out last Au¬ 
gust 10 in the ground above described, it 
being slightly sandy, and well manured. 
They were set 15 inches apart in rows two 
feet apart. They were kept well hoed and 
free from weeds until December, when 
they were loosely covered for the Winter 
with leaves and rye straw. Upon remov¬ 
ing the covering in the Spring, a single 
plant only had failed to live; all the rest 
were in excellent condition. They grew 
thriftily and blossomed abundantly. On 
June 10, I began to gather the fine, ripe 
berries, which at the table were pro¬ 
nounced of excellent flavor. The yield 
was from one to two quarts daily for 17 
days. June 23 they yielded two full 
quarts, dry measure. After the fruiting 
was over, I mowed the whoie plot closely, 
supplementing the work with the garden 
shears, having first selected and saved 
(from the runners) 20 new plants. These 
I set out adjacent to the others, and then 
filled the spaces between all the rows 
with horse manure. With the exception 
of being well watered with a common 
sprinkler two or three times during the 
late severe (hot and dry) weather, they 
have had no further attention than to clip 
off the runners and pull an occasional 
weed. They are now all looking fine and 
promising. m. n. h. 
Glen Ridge, N. J. 
“Why don’t you try to win the confi¬ 
dence of the people?” “Not now,” an¬ 
swered Senator Sorghum. “The people 
have been gold-bricked so much of late 
years that every time they see a man try¬ 
ing to make himself agreeable, they get 
suspicious.”—Washington Star. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
It. N.-Y. and you'll get. a quick reply and 
"a square deal.” See guarantee, page 8. 
TUBULAR 
Starts Fortune 
If you had a gold mine would you 
waste half the gold? Dairies are 
surer than gold mines, yet 
farmers without separators only half 
skim their milk. Tubular butter is 
worth 25 to 35 cents. Cream is worth 
one cent fed to stock. Are you 
waiting creaml 
Like a Crowbar 
Tubulars are regular crowbars— 
get right under the trouble. Get the 
cream—raise the quantity of butter 
—start a fortune for the owner. 
Write for catalog XJ-153 
THE SHARPLES SEPARATOR CO. 
WEST CHESTER, PA. 
TORONTO, CAN. CHICAGO, ILL. 
THE WORCESTER 
KEMP MANURE SPREADER 
THE SPREADER WITHOUT AN EQUAL! 
Built by the oldest concern making MANURE 
SPREADERS in this countiy. Twenty-eight 
years of expedience behind it. 
Is built to stand hard knocks. 
Spreads every kind of barnyard manure. 
Leads all others in Improvements. 
Built in different sizes, to meet all demands. 
Let us send you our booklet, “ A Savings Bank 
on Wheels,” free to everybody, 
THE RICHARDSON MANUFACTURING CO. 
Worcester, Massachusetts. 
WE HIKE THE RIGHT KIND. 
Send for catalogue. 
Boomer & Boschemt Press Co., 
118 West Water St., Syracuse, N. Y. 
fisminmirs 
THE 
American Line 
combines highest quality with lowest price. Most 
work with least power. All sizes Portable Mills, Geig¬ 
ers, Trimmers, Planers, Lath and Shingle Mills, etc. 
▲ complete storehouse of wood workers’ machinery 
Fine book, telling all, FREE. 
Am. Is* Mill Msch. Co., 810 Enginnrlng Bide. Rtf York. 
pKKTILIZKR 1,1 ME cheaper than Phosphate. 
1 Manufactured by Walton Quarries, Harrisburg, Pa. 
A KALAMAZOO 
DIRECT TO YOU 
At Lowest Factory Prices. 
We will sell you, freight prepaid, direct from our fac* 
tory any Kalamazoo Stove or Range on a 
360 Days Approval Test. 
We guarantee, under a $20,000 bank bond, 
there is no better stove or range made, and 
save you from $5 to $40 on every purchase, be¬ 
cause we save you all middlemen’s, jobbers’ and 
dealers’ profits. We’re manufacturers, not “mail¬ 
order dealers;" we own and operate one of the 
largest and best equipped stove factories in the 
world; we guarantee the high quality of our 
product and ship on trial. 
I yyF SEND A POSTAL CARO FOR CATALOGUE No. 
_____ Examine our complete line of ranges, stoves anti heaters, note the high quality and low pi 
Y from 'iQ% to 40%. All Kalamazoos are shipped F>.f ght Prepaid, blacked, polished anti ready for use. 
All out cook stoves and ranges are equipped with patent Oven Thermometer which makes baking easy, 
THE KALAMAZOO STOVE CO., Manufacturers, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN. 
■ H11U H I We probably can referyou to pleased customers in your own neighborhood. 
Oven 
Thermometer 
114 . 
rice tnd save 
Hubbard’s “Black Diamond” Fertilizers 
For FALL SEEDING use HUBBARD’S “BLACK DIAMOND” 
CRASS AND GRAIN FERTILIZER. 
THE ROGERS & HUBBARD COMPANY, Fertilizer Manufacturers ... Middletown, Conn. 
k 
