694 
TUB RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 23, 
of damage by mice to unpainted trees in neighboring 
orchards. But after snow had disappeared, we were 
very much disappointed to find that we could not 
issue a “clean bill of health,” as we had hoped. Where 
snow was very deep, many trees were gnawed more 
or less, although we only found a very few that were 
completely girdled. The damage was undoubtedly 
much less than it would have been without paint. Our 
trees seem perfectly healthy, and have made a splendid 
growth this season; some of them three or four feet 
of new wood. We aimed to paint 18 inches to two 
feet. A few trees that were badly infested were 
painted up past the crotch and out on to limbs. These 
trees are still alive, and have made a good growth. 
Where there is paint there is no scale. We have not 
examined trees for borers, so cannot say whether paint 
has kept them out. We want to do that soon. The 
question is, shall we go over trees with paint again 
this Fall? We cannot afford to run any risk of killing 
trees. How old are Mr. W. G. Stevens’s trees, and 
how many times have they been painted and what has 
he to say as to protection against mice, rabbits and 
borers? We shall be glad to hear from any who have 
painted trees for a term of years sufficient to demon¬ 
strate value, and whether harmful to trees or not. The 
few bearing trees we have (about 150) are loaded with 
the finest fruit we have ever grown, mostly York 
Imperial. c. j. tyson. 
Pennsylvania. 
The Connecticut Man Talks Back. 
I have read on page 617 the article from H. L. Price 
of the Virginia Experiment Station, and it seems that 
some of the questions asked are intended for me to 
reply to. He asks why I painted in the Fall instead 
of the Spring. Simply for the reason that 1 had more 
time to do it in the Fall, and I did not suppose a 
medicine that was of benefit to the tree in the Spring 
would be death to it in the Fall. He says he has never 
advocated painting any farther up on the trunks than 
about one foot. Perhaps he has not, but if any of your 
readers will look up page 155, Feb. 27. 1904, they will 
read this from W. B. Alwood: “Recently 1 have had 
opportunity to examine several thousand trees that 
have been painted under my direction with white 
paint, from the time they were set, and some of these 
are painted not only over the entire trunk but several 
inches up on the limbs.” He also says on page 770, 
Nov. 7, 1903: "In my opinion there would be less 
danger from the use of the paint in the Northern States 
than in the South.’’ Mr. Price does not think it was 
the paint that killed the trees! If not, how is it that 
of the 130 trees that were painted all but four or five 
are dead—for the 20 or so that were called unthrifty 
in Prof. Britton’s article have since died—while in 
another part of the orchard where the trees were not 
painted, every tree is alive and making a thrifty growth 
this season? Also, how is it, if the paint did not do 
the mischief, that the trees were alive above the paint 
and also below it? A large number of the smaller 
trees in particular have put out vigorous sprouts below 
the paint, and I have sawed off the trees just above 
these sprouts and waxed them over, and some of them 
are over four feet high at the present time. In some 
cases where the trunks were painted well down to the 
ground the sprouts came up from the roots, but these 
I have not allowed to grow, preferring to dig them out 
and set new next Spring. I have some of the oil and 
lead used, and would like to know if it is impure, but 
1 think not unless all linseed oil is impure, for I have 
used it more or less since a boy, and this looks and 
smells all right. My candid opinion is that however 
good white lead and oil may be for Virginia apple trees, 
it is worse than a failure in Connecticut. At any rate, 
not any more of it for your Uncle Zenas. I believe in 
mulching, and have had all my trees well mulched all 
this season; have put all the clover that has grown 
between rows 42 feet apart, around the trees. The 
past week I have been mowing the second crop of 
clover, which was over one foot high, and it has all 
gone around the trees. Twenty-odd years ago I began 
setting my orchard, working in a shop 10 hours a day 
and driving three miles to my home. At that time I 
was raising early potatoes for the nearby market, and 
usually had them ready to begin digging about July 6, 
the tops at that time being rank and heavy. As fast 
as we dug we would fork up the tops and spread them 
around the trees, often a foot thick,’ and in a circle not 
less than 10 or 12 feet, and within that circle never 
trying to raise any other crop besides the tree. Those 
trees grew, and although I have since been 10 years 
away from the place, and they have had lots of abuse 
since, they are fine looking trees now, and for the next 
few years, or as long as I have the care of them, they 
are going to have as good treatment as I know how to 
give them, but no more untried experiments. 
Connecticut. z. c. bowen. 
Farm crops in north part of St. Joseph Co., Ind., are im¬ 
mense this year, wheat thrashing 20 to 38 bushels per acre; 
hay crop heavy. Oats, ditto, and prospects for a bumper 
crop of corn. h. r. v. 
BRIEF FERTILIZER TALKS. 
Chemicals for Grass Land. 
Can you tell us how to top dress meadow land to increase 
our hay yield? That is, what can we buy that will do this? 
Stable manure is all right, but we cannot produce enough of 
that, and live too far from town to haul it from livery 
stables. Our soil is a rather heavy clay, and I would rather 
keep it. in grass, but the grass runs out, some of my 
meadows cutting less than one-half ton to the acre this year, 
where, when new seeded, a few years ago it cut tjvo tons. 
TIIE PEACH SEASON. Fig. 294. See Page 697. 
I have 70 acres of mowing and keep 50 head of stock: make 
butter at home, and keep also a dozen or more hogs. I 
probably have 15 acres, out of the 70 under the plow each 
year, but i would like to keep the rest up reasonably, and 
would like to learn some way of doing so that it would not 
cost more than the hay would be worth. Could lime or 
ashes he used, or anything else, either alone or with stable 
manure? At what season should meadow land be top- 
dressed? y, i,, x. 
West Goshen, Conn. 
Without doubt grass land can be kept productive by 
the use of chemical fertilizers and lime or wood ashes. 
Of course it must be well seeded at first, and the 
weeds and foul stuff killed out. The fertilizer manu¬ 
facturers make various mixtures of chemicals which 
give good results on grass. Whether a farmer can do 
better to buy the chemicals and mix them at home 
depends upon his knowledge of the special needs of 
his soil. The great advantage in buying chemicals is to 
get what the soil lacks and leave out what it does not 
need. The heavy clays are usually rich in potash, but 
lacking in phosphoric acid and nitrogen. They are 
quite likely to be sour, and thus need lime. Some¬ 
times wood ashes and nitrate of soda on such soils will 
give fine crops of grass, but we must know what such 
soil needs before we can safely leave out any fertilizing 
FRUITS OF ELAEAGNUS PARVIFLORA. TWO-THIRDS 
NATURAL SIZE. Fig. 295. See Ruralisms, Page 698. 
element. It is the safest plan to use a complete ferti¬ 
lizer; that is, one with fair amounts of nitrogen, potash 
and phosphoric acid. A mixture that is sure to make 
the grass grow is 400 pounds nitrate of soda, 400 
muriate of potash, 400 fine ground bone and 800 acid 
phosphate. By using 500 pounds or more of this mix¬ 
ture per acre meadows that are well seeded will surely 
respond. We would not use it on poor seeding, nor 
would it pay where hay brings less than $14 per ton. 
These things must be considered in using fertilizer. 
Most of the hayfields in New England that fail need 
lime in some form. Chemical fertilizers will not give 
best results on sour land. The best time to use the 
lime is in seeding. While top-dressing with lime often 
increases the yield of grass this method is not by any 
means as effective as that of working the lime thor¬ 
oughly into the soil at time of seeding. Old meadows 
often respond to top-dressing; that is, broadcasting 
chemicals on the surface, but they would do far better 
if they could be reseeded with lime. Wood ashes 
furnish potash and lime, there being over 600 pounds 
of the latter in a ton. We have no doubt that the great 
popularity of wood ashes in New England is due to 
results obtained by the action of this lime on the na¬ 
turally acid soil. We should think it a good plan to 
plow some of the old sod each year, putting all the 
stable manure on the plowed land. Reseed a fair num¬ 
ber of acres each year, using lime or wood ashes when 
seeding. Give the meadows a fair top-dressing each 
Spring of the mixture we have named, or some good 
standard mixed brand. 
Questions About Lime and Phosphate. 
Is it n good thing to put in lime with phosphates and 
other fertilizer? Would it be a good plan to use lime in the 
Fall, raise a crop of clover in the next place to get nitrogen, 
and then use potash and phosphates? Would there he dan¬ 
ger of getting the lime on so thick that way that insoluble 
phosphates would he formed? Would a ton of lime per acre 
he enough for land into which no heavy crop has been turned 
for several years? Would not the cheapest lime be as good 
as the more expensive for such land, since it is but slightly 
acid? Does lime liberate salts of potassium in sufficient 
quantity to make a noticeable difference in the amount of 
that fertilizer needed on run-down land? If clover were 
turned under in the Fall and wheat or corn planted in the 
Spring would it be necessary to use nitrate of soda? Unless 
nitrate of potash costs as much as the combined cost of 
nitrate of soda and. chloride of potash would it not be better 
to use nitrate of potash? w. a. n. 
Granger. Ind. 
Wc have explained this action of lime and phosphates 
several times. Phosphoric acid is used as a fertilizing 
material in combination with lime. One part of phos¬ 
phoric acid with three parts of lime makes an insoluble 
combination—that is, one which plants cannot feed upon. 
Two parts of lime to one of phosphoric acid is a form 
soluble in weak vinegar and available to plants. One 
part of each is a soluble phosphate—that is, it will dis¬ 
solve in water. Fine ground bone and raw ground 
phosphate rock are both “insoluble”—that is, three 
parts of lime combine with one of phosphoric acid. 
I he bone is more soluble than the rock, and will decay 
quicker, because it is porous—organic matter, while the 
rock is a mineral. What we call “soluble phosphates” 
are usually this insoluble ground rock cut or dissolved 
with sulphuric acid. This “dissolving” means breaking 
up the combinations with lime. While the raw rock 
had three parts of lime to each part of phosphoric acid, 
the acid takes away two parts and makes a soluble 
form. The lime has an “affinity” for phosphoric acid; 
when they are put near each other they combine, and 
instead of the soluble form we have the others; thus 
often defeating the very purpose for which the rock 
was cut by the acid. We would not use lime and 
“phosphate” together, though many farmers do so, as 
they think, without injury. Fine ground bone is a 
better form of phosphoric acid to use with lime. There 
would be less danger in using the lime in the Fall and 
the phosphate the following Spring. A ton of lime well 
broadcast and worked into the soil, ought to be ample. 
The “cheapest” lime is sometimes very poor stuff. There 
is no great demand for so-called “agricultural lime.” 
We have been told that in some cases the refuse near 
the kilns has been scraped up and sold as “lime.” It 
contains considerable sand, and is not by any means 
equal to the better class of prepared limes. Lime has 
ability to set free certain forms of potash in the soil, 
but this power is limited. In some cases, especially 
on heavy soils, the use of lime will for a year or so 
provide ample supplies of potash, but after that the 
effect is lost, since the forms of potash which make a 
chemical charge with lime have been used up. 
It would probably not pay to use nitrate of soda for 
the corn, yet it might for the wheat. The corn has 
its greatest need of nitrogen in late Summer. Then it 
makes its most rapid growth, and at that time the 
clover sod decays and furnishes nitrogen rapidly. On 
the other hand the wheat starts early, and usually makes 
its full crop before the nitrogen in the clover is fully 
available. The young wheat plant needs soluble nitro¬ 
gen, which the clover cannot supply while the ground 
is wet or cold. A small quantity of nitrate of soda 
used just at that time may keep the wheat growing 
until it can feed on the clover sod. We must remem¬ 
ber that the organic forms of nitrogen must be changed 
to nitrates before the crops can use it—and this can 
only be done in warm weather. When nitrate of 
potash costs less than nitrate of soda and muriate of 
potash—that is, when the cost of a pound of nitrogen 
and a pound of potash is less—it will pay to buy it. 
Small quantities of phosphate of potash are used in 
greenhouse culture, but it would not pay for field work. 
