698 
• THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 2."!, 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
The Battle With San Jose Scale.— 
Reports of the annual fight against San 
Jose scale are dropping in. There is no 
great cheer for fruit growers in these ac¬ 
counts, but the situation is not yet re¬ 
garded as without hope. Lime, sulphur 
and salt washes were sparingly used this 
season near the Rural Grounds, and arc 
proving anything but successful. Plenty 
of living scales, and active larvte during 
brood periods, can be found on trees 
sprayed in Winter or Spring with these 
compounds, even where the work ap¬ 
peared to be reasonably well done. Some 
very encouraging reports, however, come 
from the interior of the State; some peach 
and plum orchards are claimed to be al¬ 
most cleared of scale, and fair results at¬ 
tained even on apple and pear, though 
lime-sulphur' compounds appear less sat¬ 
isfactory in their action on these trees. 
We had much dry weather, amounting to 
almost a prolonged drought, in the months 
following March, which may account for 
the more satisfactory results. When 
properly boiled lime and sulphur is forci¬ 
bly sprayed by powerful machinery it 
seems reasonably effective against scale, 
and is surely a useful fungicide for peach 
and plum trees. We have yet to hear of 
any real successes with lime-sulphur 
washes made in a small way and applied 
by hand pumps. 
The kerosene-limoid treatment turns 
out very unsatisfactory in most places, 
though some occasional fair results were 
had. We are told certain large orchards 
in which it was used are now in worse 
condition than ever. Our personal expe¬ 
rience with K.-L. has not been happy. 
As told in past numbers of The R. N.-Y., 
most of our trees were sprayed last Octo¬ 
ber with whale-oil soap solution, two 
pounds of soap to the gallon of water, 
with almost entire cleaning out of scale, 
but with the loss of many fruit buds, 
some bearing wood and the tops of a 
pear tree or two. Several trees each of 
peach, pear, plum, apple and cherry were 
reserved for the kerosene-limoid wash. 
On March 15 and 25 following a fresh 
mixture of kerosene and limoid, diluted 
to 18 per cent kerosene, was most care¬ 
fully sprayed on these trees, well coating 
every portion above ground. The mix¬ 
ture was easily made, and sprayed in a 
most satisfactory manner. Dashing rains 
followed the first application, but the sec¬ 
ond was favored by dry weather for sev¬ 
eral weeks, permitting the trees to retain 
their white coating until near midsummer. 
Careful examinations showed a large per¬ 
centage of the scales dead, but enough 
live ones to more than keep up the stock. 
I he June brood of larvae on these trees 
appeared small and not particularly active, 
but the output in August was abundant 
enough to crust the trees as heavily as 
last year. We sprayed a number of these 
trees again with K.-L., 10 per cent, in 
June. Most of the larvae and some of the 
older scales were killed, but many leaves 
were blackened, especially on pear, and 
the trees appear to have received a worse 
setback than would have been given by 
the scale. A plum tree sprayed in Octo¬ 
ber and a peach in March following with 
pure petroleum are now vigorously grow¬ 
ing and appear entirely free from scale, 
though well crusted when treated. This 
has been our uniform experience with 
petroleum for several years, yet owing to 
the varying quality of the commercial 
product and the accounts of extensive in¬ 
jury from petroleum we shrink from 
using it largely. There are now some 
promising emulsions of petroleum on the 
market offered in concentrated solution, 
under the names of “soluble oil” and 
“resin and oil” insecticides. It is claimed 
that when properly diluted they may be 
safely used in Summer with but little in¬ 
jury to foliage, and at the same time are 
highly effective as scale exterminators. 
They are as yet in the experimental stage, 
and _ should only be tried in the most 
cautious manner. There can be no doubt 
of the insecticide powers of any solution 
carrying sufficient petroleum—it is a ques¬ 
tion of the resistance of the leaves and 
other plant tissues. Oils kill by smoth¬ 
ering the scales, old and young, while 
caustic soap solutions literally dissolve 
them. It is a disputed point how the 
lime-sulphur washes act on living scales; 
some are claimed to be destroyed by the 
first caustic effort, others slowly choked 
by the sulphur gases set free by prolonged 
exposure to the air. 
Household Scale Destroyers. —All 
tree cultivators do not depend on remedies 
suggested by the experiment stations. We 
know of several large old pear trees of 
favorite varieties well cleared of scale by 
a vigorous application of a broom 
charged with soapsuds made from com¬ 
mon yellow laundry soap, and a group of 
100 thrifty young peaches successfully 
treated by dashing hot suds from the 
family washing over the trees during 
Winter. Probably elbow grease played 
a more important part in these operations 
than the strength of the soap solutions, as 
they were put on as forcibly as possible, 
but these treatments show that household 
resources in determined hands may be 
made reasonably effective. The Rural 
Grounds, with its hand pump equipment, 
will again rely on whale-oil. using it at 
a strength of 24 ounces soap to the gallon 
of water, and will also endeavor to test 
some of the soluble oil preparations. 
Silver Thorn for Poultry Yards.— 
It has long been conceded that poultry 
yards should be at least partially planted 
with trees or shrubs to furnish shade and 
shelter during hot or stormy weather. 
Plum trees have been much used for this 
purpose with excellent results as regards 
promoting vigor and fruitfulness in the 
trees by the constant additon of fertiliz¬ 
ing matter to the soil, but the coming of 
San Jose scale and the great susceptibility 
of all plum varieties to this miserable pest 
has changed the situation. Scale may be 
fought in the open where there is a fair 
chance to get at the trees with spraying 
equipments, but it cannot easily be con¬ 
trolled in the cramped quarters of poultry 
yards. Kieffer pears are being planted 
for poultry shelter to some extent, as 
more resistant to scale, but the trees are 
inclined to overbear and break down in 
such stimulating situations unless the 
fruits are very carefully thinned, and are 
usually too upright in growth to cast good 
shade. It seems' best to plant fruit trees 
in more accessible situations while the 
scale plague remains so difficult to handle. 
As our plum trees die out from our poul¬ 
try runs we hope to plant clumps of 
privet and Silver thorn, Elaeagnus parvi- 
flora, a fruiting branch of which is shown 
in Fig. 295, page 694. Several species of 
Elaeagnus are referred to as Silver thorn, 
but the name is most commonly applied 
to E. parviflora, which forms a dense, 
compact shrub, eight to 10 feet high, as 
grown in this country. It blooms pro¬ 
fusely in May, and the pink mottled 
cherry-like fruits ripen in early Septem¬ 
ber This Elaeagnus makes a dense shade, 
is fairly hardy, and appears quite free 
from insect pests and other diseases. 
While not evergreen, it is ornamental at 
all seasons, in Summer from its dark foli¬ 
age, silver}’ beneath, and silvery-brown 
branches in Winter, but is particularly at¬ 
tractive when in fruit. The berries are 
too dry to be palatable to humans, like 
those of E. longipes, but are greatly ap¬ 
preciated by chickens, who clamber all 
over the branches to get at them. It is 
not to be supposed that the berries con¬ 
tain much nutriment, but they are cer¬ 
tainly more eagerly sought by fowls on 
the Rural Grounds than any other fruit 
of the season. We may well imagine 
these meaty berries a most agreeable addi¬ 
tion to the diet of yarded fowls, fed al¬ 
most exclusively on cereals. The crop 
of berries is so regular and abundant that 
a small clump of bushes in an ordinary 
poultry run would give a substantial addi¬ 
tion to the season’s diet. We have not no¬ 
ticed bad effects from the eating of 
EL'eagnus fruits; on the contrary, the 
fowls appear particularly lively at this 
season. The Silver thorn might be plant¬ 
ed in clumps, four feet or more apart, 
and would soon afford protection from 
weather and hawks, and in a year or two 
bear great crops of acceptable fruits. 
Plants two to three feet high are offered 
by nurserymen at :;3 cents each. This 
species transplants well and quickly be¬ 
comes established. A closely related 
species is E. umbellata, bearing scarlet 
fruits that do not ripen until late Octo¬ 
ber. It may well be planted with the Sil¬ 
ver thorn, but if fruits are desired care 
should be taken to order the female or 
perfect-flowered variety, as male plants 
flower abundantly, but seldom bear. By 
planting in our poultry yards fruiting va¬ 
rieties of mulberry for tree shade and Sil¬ 
ver thorn for shrubby clumps the problem 
of shade, wind protection and hawk 
cover would be solved, while a succession 
of agreeable berries for the fowls would 
be provided for many weeks in Summer. 
w. v. F. 
ODGING of grain is caused 
by weakness in the stalk. 
Complete fertilizers, rich in 
Potash, produce strong stalks 
(making lodging impossible) and 
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Address, German Kali Works, 93 Nassau Street, New York. 
THE FAMOUS “HAY MAKERS” 
“BLACK DIAMOND 
Before Seeding Down, consult us. 
THE ROGERS «Sl HUBBARD CO., 
Fertilizer Manufacturers, 
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT. 
XXX 
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