1965 . 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
715 
Hope Farm Notes 
Spraying Matters. —1 spoke last week ol 
using a new spraying mixture ol resin and 
kerosene. It comes in tile form of a thick, 
dark colored syrup which dissolves quite 
well in water. Th way we used it was to 
put nearly all the water we wanted in the 
spraying tank and then mix the syrup with 
about three times its bulk of water and stir 
up well. This mixture was then slowly 
poured into the water through the strainer 
while the agitator was turned rapidly. This 
stirring was kept up several minutes. 'While 
the syrup dissolves readily it is a wise plan 
to keep the agitator at work as much as 
possible while spraying. There was mot 
much left in the strainer when we poured the 
liquid through, yet I shall always strain. It 
is far better to lie on the safe side. It re¬ 
quires less power to take a hard lump out 
with a strainer than it does to blow it 
through a nozzle. I have found that mix¬ 
tures which contain resin require extra power 
to make a fine spray. We started one tank¬ 
ful at (10 pounds pressure, and made little 
more than a squirt-gun stream. When the 
pressure was raised to 100 pounds the spray 
came out like a mist. Yet I think it is 
worth all it means in extra work to. have the 
resin in the mixture. The stuff sticks better 
and, as I think, does better work. We 
sprayed one day in a fog after a long rain. 
The trees were wet, yet this mixture stuck 
to the scales like a policeman to a thief. 
trees. The orchard which I think needs 
plowing is on new, rough land covered with 
moss. Nothing grows there but golden rod 
and coarse grass with brush and briers. 
Practically all mulching material must be 
hauled in from some other held. Fertilizers 
and lime alone do not bring grass in. 1 am 
now willing to admit that I should have 
broken this field up in some way before plant¬ 
ing the trees, and given it fair cultivation 
before seeding down. Most of the complaints 
about the failure of mulching this year 
come from those who have let the grass 
grow in old orchards. The drought came and 
seems to have hurt the trees. Some did not 
cut the grass at all. while others cut 
and hauled out the hay. I can understand 
that a tree planted with long roots would 
suffer under such conditions. Practically 
all its loots are close to the surface. When 
the ground bakes hard of course the tree 
suffers. Under the same conditions a tap- 
rooted tree would not suffer for lack of mois¬ 
ture, since its roots are deeper in the soil. 
It would be much like clover growing strong 
and green, while Timothy was dried up at 
its side. One lias a tap-root and the other 
a surface root. I feel confident that you 
could dig up any one of my trees and find 
a deep tap-root. They were root-pruned, cut 
back to mere stubs and planted m small 
holes. I feel very sure that this induces 
deep tap-rooting and that it is an essential 
part of success with the mulch method. 
Some of the experiment stations are experi¬ 
menting with sod culture by seeding down 
parts of old orchards and comparing them 
with the other part, which will be welt 
cultivated. This is not a fair experiment, 
because the trees are all probably surface 
rooted. In wet seasons the sod will hold its 
own, but in a heavy drought I expect to see 
the cultivated orchards come out ahead, un¬ 
less manure or straw is spread on the sod. 
If you want a good cow you will do well to 
begin with her grandfather. If you want a 
good mulched orchard begin with the roots 
of the tree and cut them off. Mulching makes 
such a saving in labor and expense that its 
true economy ought to be pointed out and 
made dear. 
You are trying to hedge? 
Not by any means. I am after the truth, 
no matter what it is. The cultivators now 
begin to say that mulching “will work in 
some places"—so we are all getting together. 
Farm Electric Power. —A friend in Ohio 
has sent me this letter: 
"The remarks on page 65<> concerning the 
new Edison storage electric battery were 
of considerable interest to me. Two things 
I would like to know: viz., the cost of an 
outfit complete, and about its practical util¬ 
ity for farm work. 1 have the power (water) 
practically unlimited about three-quarters of 
a mile from the farm. Farm is level and 
easily cultivated. If an electric contrivance 
could utilize this power to plow, work crops 
and farm machines, you see what a snap 
I'd have in the saving of horseflesh.’’ 
A. L. C. 
After much correspondence T wrote Mr. 
Edison himself. It seems that while he has 
completed his experiments with the new cell 
so that he feels sure of it, nothing is yet on 
the market. It will be Spring before the 
special tools and machinery needed to manu¬ 
facture it can be built. It is not possible, 
therefore to tell what it will cost or just 
what it will do. I am promised these facts 
as soon as they are ready. I fear that our 
friend will be somewhat disappointed if he 
expects to plow and cultivate by electric 
power. Such things are possible, but we are 
not ready for them until the surface of our 
fields is like a macadam road. The object 
in plowing and cultivating is to get as fat 
as possible away from that. I think we 
shall have to be content with working sta- 
tionary power like cutters, saws or other 
turning wheels. Possibly farm wagons can 
be driven on good roads. The great merit 
of t(iis new storage cell is its light weight. 
As I* understand it. two men can pick ir up 
w.hen stored and carry it about from place 
io place. A great thought this that two 
men can carry in their hands the day's work 
of eight big horses or of a 4,000-pound 
steam engine! 
Preparing Peppers. —Several people have 
asked how our folks fix peppers for eating. 
Here is what Aunt Jennie says: 
"The peppers should be gathered for cook¬ 
ing when large and green, before commencing 
to turn. To prepare for stuffing, cut off the 
top for cover, using the stem for handle: 
remove seeds, using a few for seasoning, if 
preferred. Stuff the peppers with any kind 
of poultry dressing, minced meat or potato, 
onion, celery, etc., chopped fine, or any left¬ 
overs that make good hash. To cook, stand 
upright with covers on, in a shallow pan with 
a little hot water in it and bake in a brisk 
oven. Take large peppers of uniform size: 
make into baskets by cutting oft' top as 
desired (for shape and height) : remove seeds. 
These pepper shells make pretty holders for 
salads of various kinds —served without cov¬ 
ers. For instance, take raw, tender cab¬ 
bage and onion in proportion to suit taste, 
green peppers, a few pepper seeds and 
water cress. Chop and then add ripe, well- 
ilavoved apple, peeled, cored and cut in 
pieces. Chop all until fine, mix with boiled 
or mayonnaise salad dressing. Fill peppers 
and put an extra spoonful of dressing on 
top. Garnish or not with slices of boiled beet 
or ripe tomato." 
Our pepper crop this year has given us the 
cold shoulder. Just when the ground was 
right we ordered 2,000 plants. The express 
company lost them and hasn't found even an 
explanation yet. Then we hurried everywhere 
to find more plants. We finally ordered 500. 
wjiich were sent by mail. Most of the plants 
lived, but when they were ready for eating 
we found them hotter than any poker that 
ever came out of a fire. That was certainly 
a warm surprise. The market has been off 
anyway, and prices were never lower. I 
have a pig so lazy that he lies down to eat. 
I shall have to feed him a few of our smart 
peppers. H. w. c. 
Does it kill them? It evidently kills most of 
them, but I am not yet prepared to say that 
it kills them all. We see no sign of life 
through a microscope, yet living things be¬ 
fore now, all the way from microbes to men, 
have played ’possum and upset calculations. 
If comparisons have much value—which I 
often doubt—this stuff leaves the trees 
cleaner than any strength of K.-L. which can 
lie used while the leaves are on. No man can 
tell positively what the trees will do until 
next year—so what is the use of making 
positive statements until then? I know that 
most of the scales at least appear to be 
dead. After more than a week, including a 
hard rain, the trees are still smooth and 
oily. The foliage has not been hurt. We 
have learned something about nozzles. We 
started with a bunch of four at the end of 
the rod. On our small trees this is waste¬ 
ful of spray. With two or even one we can 
do better work, cover the tree more accurate¬ 
ly and save a good share of the spray. The 
trouble 1 spoke of in getting at the stem of 
low-headed trees is a real one. Winter 
spraying would not be so bad, but when the 
tree is in full leaf It Is hard to get at the 
scales near the ground. 
Farm Notes. —We began cutting corn fod¬ 
der September 15. While there is not much 
danger from early frost we wanted this work 
out of the way. Besides, the ground where 
some of this fodder grew is wanted for straw¬ 
berries. It was first seeded to oats, which 
gave a good crop of oat hay. A good coat 
of manure was put on the stubble, plowed 
under and planted to fodder corn In drills. 
Now this is off another coat of manure will 
be plowed under and the piece planted to 
Marshall and President strawberries—using 
strong runners from Spring-set plants. I be¬ 
lieve more and more in Fall setting of straw¬ 
berries. The condition up to November 15 
are usually better than we have here in 
April and May. The Fall-rooted plant starts 
vigorously in Spring and, as a rule, we have 
more time in the Fall. . . . Potato dig¬ 
ging and apple picking will now come to the 
front. Our potatoes are more than a fair 
crop. We have had little If any blight or rot. 
Prices promise to be high, and I shall sell 
what we have to spare before Christmas. 
This vear in digging we throw vines and 
weeds into piles, which will be hauled out 
later to throw around the young fruit trees 
on the hill. It seems to me best to get these 
vines out of the cultivated fields, for they 
are likelv to contain disease germs and in¬ 
sects. Everything on Hope Farm is ex¬ 
pected to wait for and on the orchards, and 
all trash, weeds or anything that will rot 
climbs up the hill and rests around the trees. 
The Prizetaker onions are not so 
large as usual this year—the long drought 
held them and the maggots cut them hard. 
There has been some discussion about the 
labor of transplanting. Mr. Greiner, who 
wrote “The New Onion Culture." says that 
he would consider it “just play” to set. out 
5,000 plants a day. We can give him a 
tine chance to play in our back patch next 
Spring. He would beat me out of sight. 
. . . Our Baldwin apples never were better. 
Most of them are already a brick red in color. 
On some specimens this color has crowded 
over the scale marks and nearly blotted 
them out. As I go about here and there, I 
find people who say this mulch method of 
growing fruit is a humbug. I do not find it 
so We have had the hardest test for such a 
method this year that I have ever known, 
as the ground baked hard as a brick for 
weeks at a time. I only know that my own 
apples, in an off year, are better than ever 
before, and I can see no reason why I should 
plow most of them up and cultivate. 
No Cast-Iron Role. —You will notice that 
I put in the word “most." I.ast week I met 
Albert Wood of Orleans Co.. N. Y. Mr. Wood 
is one of the most successful fruit growers 
in this country. lie asked me if I was 
willing to say publicly that this mulch_ meth¬ 
od, while good in some situations, will not 
prove much of a success in others! I reply 
to that just as quick as I can by saying 
Yes —icithout doiiht! I have a case on my 
own farm where I am satisfied that I must 
plow and cultivate a peach orchard before it 
will do its full duty. 1 have also orchards 
of the same age. where it does not seem that 
cultivation could possibly give me better 
How Lamps Eat the Life 
out of Air. 
H ERE is a Lighting Test worth 
trying! 
Take a common dinner plate. 
Pour half a glass of water into it. 
Then set an inch of candle upright in 
the water. 
Then light the candle wick. 
Nowr*turn an empty glass upside 
down on the plate, over the candle 
while it is still burning briskly as in 
picture No. 1. 
—And note what happens! 
The candle will 
die out a moment 
after the glass has 
been turned over 
it. Then the water 
will rush up into 
the glass, from 
oft the level 
plate, and it 
Fig. 1. 
will stay in the upside-down glass which 
you can then turn over, plate upwards, 
without spilling. (See Figure 2.) 
Now why does the candle die out so 
suddenly when the glass encloses it ? 
And why does the water rush up into 
the inverted glass after the candle has 
been lighted in it? 
Because, the flame has instantly burnt 
out all the Oxygen of the Air which was 
originally in the glass. 
That left a vacancy where the Oxy¬ 
gen used to be—a vacuum. 
And that vacuum caused a suction 
which drew the water upward into the 
glass, like a pump, to take the place of 
the burnt-out Oxygen. 
The candle flame died out so suddenly 
because no flame can live without Oxy¬ 
gen-just as no Animal nor Vegetable 
can live without Oxygen. 
You see. the Air is about one-fifth 
Oxygen. 
And, when you burn that vital fifth 
out of it with flame, or use it up in 
breathing, you take the very Life out of 
the Air. What then remains is chiefly 
poisonous Carbonic Acid. 
You couldn’t live five minutes in a 
room that had all the Oxygen burnt 
out of it. 
Nor could you light a lamp, a match, 
nor a fire, in a room that had not con¬ 
siderable Oxygen left in it to support 
the flame. 
If you want to prove this try the 
following experi¬ 
ment: 
Take the same drinking glass as in 
previous Test and throw a lighted 
match into it. 
That match will burn freely. 
Then light another match, breathe 
outward deeply into the glass twice 1 
with your face pressing against its 
edge closer than in picture. Then 
quickly drop the lighted match into it. 
The flame will, this time, die out 
instantly. 
What causes its sudden extinction? 
Well, here is the cause: The Oxygen 
you breathe inwardly, with the Air. to 
your lungs, goes into your blood to 
purify it. 
And, the Air you breathe ouhvardly 
from your lungs has therefore no Oxy¬ 
gen left in it to feed the flame of the 
match. It is full of Carbonic Acid—full 
of poisonous waste products, like the 
foul Air in a room from which the Oxy¬ 
gen has been exhausted through lamps 
or overbreathing. 
You see Carbonic Acid is death to 
flame, just as it is- death to Human 
Beings who re-breathe it too often 
without enough ventilation. 
As we breathe 16 to 20 
times a minute you will 
readily see what happens 
to our Lungs, Blood, and 
System, when we burn 
Kerosene Lamps, Gasoline- 
Gas. orCity Gas. year in and 
year out, in our living and 
sleeping rooms. 
These Lights burn a great deal of the 
Lite out of Air—its Blood-purifying and 
Germ-destroying Oxygen. 
And they leave behind an injurious 
excess of Carbonic Acid in the air we 
must breathe after it. 
* * * 
Now this excess of Carbonic Acid 
Gas, with want of Oxygen, in the foul 
Air of a room creates six injurious 
conditions: 
1st,—It causes the Blood to partially 
stagnate. 
2nd,—It causes the Muscles to feel 
Tired. 
3rd,—It causes the Heart to act slowly. 
4th,—It causes the Diges¬ 
tion to Delay. 
5th,—It causes Head¬ 
ache, through clogging of 
Blood in the Brain. 
6th,—It causes Catarrh 
of the Nose, Throat and 
Air passages. 
These are well-known, easily proved, 
Facts. Ask your Doctor! 
Of course, you may not have noticed 
these effects at the time the Lamps 
were burning, or if you did notice them 
you may not have known they were 
caused by want of Oxygen and excess 
of Carbonic Acid. 
But, you may rely upon this— 
In some degree these effects are pro¬ 
duced every lime you burn a Kerosene 
Lamp, or City Gas Jet, in the 
living or sleeping room, with¬ 
out wide open windows that 
create a draught to replace the 
burnt Oxygen. 
And that Lighted Lamp, or 
City Gas Jet, for 365 nights in 
the year, eats up, little by little, 
a large share of the Energy 
and Life you get from Food 
and Sunlight. 
That loss to your Health 
amounts to more than you 
probably think it does, year 
after year. 
Put a lighted Kerosene 
Lamp in a closed up room 
and it will indicate your loss. 
You’ll find that lamp will 
burn itself out in time, though there be 
plenty of oil in the bowl and plenty of 
wick in the burner. 
The flame will die -out for want of 
the very Oxygen it consumed. 
Now .this is where Acetylene Light 
comes into the story. 
Acetylene Light uses up only one- 
fourth as much Oxygen as Kerosene 
Light, Gasoline Light, or City Gaslight 
does. 
And, it leaves less than a tenth as 
much Poisonous Carbonic Acid in the 
Air that a Kerosene Lamp, a Gasoline 
Light, or a City Gaslight, of equal candle 
power leaves. 
Moreover! Acetylene Gas is not 
poisonous enough to give you even a 
slight headache if you left a jet 
turned on full pressure and unlighted, 
for a whole night in your bedroom 
while you slept there. 
Because, Acetylene is just pure, 
unadulterated Light, and nothing 
else but Light. Kerosene, Gasoline, 
and City Gas. are about ow<?-tenth 
Light, and wfw^-tenths useless and 
poisonous other things. 
Acetylene, because it is so pure 
and unadulterated, gives a beautiful 
White Light which is almost the 
same, in composition, as Sunlight. 
It is so much like true, natural 
Sunlight that plants and flowers 
grow under its rays (24 hours con¬ 
tinuously night and day) just as they 
grow under natural Sunlight during 
the day only. 
That has been proven at Cornell 
University this very year—double 
growth under Acetylene Light. 
And, the effect of Acetylene Light 
upon Human beings has been proven to 
be like the effect of Sunlight upon 
them, for the sell-same reasons that 
it makes plants grow night and day 
under its wholesome rays. 
That’s one of the wonderful things 
explained in a little book, called 
•• Sunlight on Tap,” which I want to 
send you free, it you write me tor it 
today. 
Tremendous im¬ 
provements have 
been made in Ace¬ 
tylene Lighting 
lately. 
It is cheaper now 
than even Kerosene 
Light — a third 
cheaper. 
Fig. 2- 
I’ll prove that for you too,—if you’re 
interested. 
Two million United States People now 
use Acetylene Light. 
They live chiefly in small Towns, and 
in the Country, where Acetylene is 
now found far more convenient, more 
economical, and infinitely safer than 
Kerosene or any other Light. 
No good Farmhouse, Country Resi¬ 
dence. Village Home, or Village Store, 
would be without modern Acetylene 
Light if their Owners knew what / 
know now about it, since its recent im¬ 
provement and reduction in cost. 
And I want everyone who owns 
a home or store, in Village, Town, 
or Country, to write me for my free 
book called “Sunlight on Tap,” which 
tells some mighty interesting facts 
about Reading Lights — and other 
Lights. 
Just tell me how many rooms there 
are in your house. Then, I’ll tell you 
about how much it would cost you to 
light them with brilliant Acetylene, 
instead of with murky, bad-smelling 
Kerosene, Gasoline, or City Gas. 
Think of all the daily Lamp-Cleaning, 
Breakage, and Risk you could save by 
getting rid of Kerosene alone! 
Just address me as — "Acetylene 
Jones.” 1 Adams Street, Chicago. Ill., 
and write today. 
