THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
927 
W06. 
DIPPING NURSERY TREES. 
As we have recently stated, the Oregon State Board 
of Agriculture has decided that hereafter in that State, 
instead of fumigating nursery stock, nurserymen must 
dip the trees in a mixture of lime and sulphur, such as 
is used in spraying. This is such a radical suggestion 
that we have asked W. K. Newell, President of the 
State Board, for further particulars, and give his state¬ 
ments in interview form: 
“What strength of lime and sulphur will be used, and 
how is the plan likely to work out?” 
I cannot answer you very fully yet as to how our 
plan of dipping nursery stock is going to work out, for 
we have only just undertaken it, and most of our 
nurserymen do not begin delivery of trees until the last 
of this month and first of next. We provide that the 
mixture shall be made of standard proportions, 15 
pounds lime, 15 pounds sulphur, to 50 gallons water.” 
“Would it not be possible for a nurseryman to use a 
simple lime-water whitewash to cover the trees without 
destroying the scale, and at the same time hide any 
defects of an inferior tree?” 
"Of course a dishonest man can evade this, but not 
so easily as he could the fumigation, and then with our 
efficient force of county inspectors we can keep pretty 
good watch of them.” 
“How is the work to be done?” 
“One large nursery has a boiling vat fixed up, and 
just enough lower, a dipping tank with pulley rope and 
windlass, so they can dip a large bale at once. It is 
quxkly done, and the expense is not heavy. I do not 
believe that there will be any trouble about passing in¬ 
ferior trees.” 
“What do your nurserymen say about it?” 
“The nurserymen them¬ 
selves welcome the change 
as a relief from the fumi¬ 
gation. The greatest diffi¬ 
culty is going to be in 
convincing outside buyers 
that the dipping is done 
as a safeguard and not as 
a means of covering up 
insects or disease. We 
are trying to induce 
Washington and Califor¬ 
nia people to adopt the 
same plan.” 
“We understand that in 
Oregon inspectors have 
the right to seize and de¬ 
stroy fruit found in mar¬ 
ket with scale on it. 
What is done with the 
fruit?” 
“In condemning fruit in 
the market, the inspector 
doses it liberally with 
kerosene and leaves the 
victim to get rid of it as 
he may. The farmer, 
peddling his own fruit, is 
on first offense given a 
chance to take it to a vin¬ 
egar factory, but next time is coal-oiled, and if per¬ 
sistent, fined. Car lots shipped in, if infected, are not 
allowed to be unloaded, and shippers are notified. This 
plan, adopted last year, has done more good than all 
the other plans put together.” 
“Have the courts yet settled whether you have the 
right to destroy such fruit, or to enter an orchard and 
destroy trees badly affected with scale?” 
“Yes, two cases have just been decided. The first 
was for cutting down fruit trees where the owner re¬ 
fused to spray. On examination we decided the trees 
were not worth trying to save, as the scale had nearly 
killed them, so ordered the inspector to cut them down. 
The owner brought suit for heavy damages, and a jury 
of farmers from the same county sat on the case and 
completely exonerated us. The judge (one of the best 
circuit judges in Oregon) upheld the law in all points, 
and roundly scored the plaintiff. The case has attract¬ 
ed wide attention, and the result gives us great satis¬ 
faction. The following day the other case was tried in 
another county before another judge. This was against 
the inspector for coal-oiling wormy and scaly apples 
found in a farmer’s wagon. The man had been fully 
warned, but persisted in selling anyway. We won as 
decisively here as in the other case, and I think there is 
little likelihood f an appeal, so we feel that we are now 
on solid ground, and can proceed to clean things up.” 
RAW PHOSPHATE ROCK AS FERTILIZER. 
I have 80 acres of prairie land rented that I farm in 
corn, oats and broom corn. I sow clover in the oats and 
plow up the next Spring for corn. My landlord has pur¬ 
chased live tons of raw phosphate to apply to this land as 
an experiment. When shall we apply it. and how? Shall 
we plow it under this Fall, or shall we wait until next 
Spring, and how much shall we apply to the acre, and what 
should we expect from this phosphate on land that will 
grow 40 to 50 bushels of corn to the acre after corn with¬ 
out any fertilizer of any kind? j. b. f. 
Mattoon, Ill. 
An appplication of raw rock phosphate will produce 
but little effect on the following corn crop, if it is ap¬ 
plied without organic matter, although, if the corn is 
followed by oats and clover, the phosphate usually pro¬ 
duces some benefit to the clover crop, and a still greater 
benefit to the corn crop which follows the clover. Raw 
rock phosphate is not readily available, and if a farmer 
makes use of phosphorus in this form it becomes his 
business to make it available, and the means by- which 
this is to be accomplished is decaying organic matter. 
If rock phosphate is mixed with farm manure, either 
as it is being made in the stable, or as it is being load¬ 
ed on the manure spreader, and thus placed in intimate 
contact with decaying organic matter in the soil, the 
fermentation of the organic matter markedly increases 
the availability of the phosphorus. Raw rock phosphate 
may also be applied to the land where there is a good 
growth of clover to be plowed under. It is advisable, 
after the phosphate has been applied, to disk the land 
before plowing, in order to mix the phosphate with 
the organic matter and with the soil, so that when it 
is plowed under it will be fairly well distributed in the 
stratum of soil where the roots of the following crop 
are fed. The addition of decaying organic matter to 
GROWTH OF AUSTRIAN PINE. Fig. 420. See Ruralisms, Page 930. 
the soil is an essential part of any system by which the 
productive capacity of the land can be maintained, and 
if we are to provide the decaying -organic matter, the 
information already at hand is sufficient to show that 
the addition of raw rock phosphate with the organic 
matter is not only profitable, but it provides a method 
by which the total phosphorus content of the soil can 
be profitably increased. The expense of purchasing 
phosphorus in acid phosphate, and especially in com¬ 
plete fertilizers, is usually so great that the common prac¬ 
tice of those who use such materials is to apply phos¬ 
phorus in smaller amounts than is removed in the crops 
grown, thus practising a system under which the total 
phosphorus content of the soil is gradually decreased, 
and which leads ultimately- to land ruin. This is in 
accordance with at least 90 per cent of the testimony 
of farmers who come to Illinois from sections in the 
Eastern States where commercial fertilizers have been 
used for many years. 
Til our own experiments, where , raw rock phosphate 
has been applied to corn stubble or oat stubble, without 
the addition of manure, and at the rate of from 1,000 
to 2,000 pounds per acre, it has produced an increase 
in the following corn crop amounting to only three or 
four bushels to the acre as an average of more than 
80 separate tests. The variation in increase is from less 
than one bushel to more than seven. We have been us- 
1906. 1 he average of the first nine years showed that 
rock phosphate, at $8 a ton, when mixed with manure, 
produced increases in a rotation of corn, wheat and 
clover, above the increase produced by the manure alone 
to make an average return of $0.97 for every dollar in¬ 
vested in raw rock phosphate, figuring the corn at 35 
cents a bushel, wheat at 70 cents a bushel, and clover 
hay at $0 a ton. Acid phosphates used in the same way 
have given a return of $4.59 for every dollar invested. 
I would advise mixing 100 pounds of rock phosphate 
with every load of manure, and applying the manure at 
the rate of eight or 10 tons to the acre, or I would ad¬ 
vise applying 1,000 pounds to the acre of raw rock phos¬ 
phate to the second growth of clover, and plowing this 
under for corn, either in a three-year rotation with two 
crops of corn, to be followed with oats the third year 
and clover the fourth year. So far as I have heard, the 
Illinois farmers who have used raw rock phosphate as 
it should be used, in connection with decaying organic 
matter, have obtained satisfactory results from it, and 
they have the satisfaction of knowing that their land is 
increasing in its phosphorus content, and is not growing 
poorer in that element. 
We have obtained in our own experiments some very 
marked results, but while they seem to be entirely re¬ 
liable, I do not feel that they are sufficient to justify 
final conclusions. Thus, we have six plots of very uni¬ 
form land, four of which are treated with phosphated 
manure, while the other two receive the same applica¬ 
tions of manure without phosphorus. Upon this land 
we are growing a four-years’ rotation of corn, oats, 
wheat and clover. These experiments were begun in 
1903, 1,000 pounds to the acre of rock phosphate having 
been applied that Spring, and not well incorporated 
with the soil, the land hav¬ 
ing come into our posses¬ 
sion too recently to enable 
us to get it in good 
shape. The average results 
of that season gave us 1.4 
bushel less corn where the 
phosphate had been applied 
than where no phosphate 
was applied. In the Fall 
of 1903 we made another 
application of 1,000 pounds 
to the acre of rock phos¬ 
phate on the same plots, 
which had received pliosr 
phate in the Spring, thus 
making one ton to the acre. 
This was well mixed with 
the soil and with the ma¬ 
nure, and the ground well 
prepared for corn in 1904. 
That year the four phos¬ 
phated plots produced an 
average yield of corn 14.0 
bushels larger than on the 
plots treated with manure 
without phosphate. In 
1905, 8.8 bushels increase 
in the oats crop was pro¬ 
duced on the phosphated 
land, and in 1906, the increase was 10.7 bushels of wheat. 
We now have clover on the land for next year’s crop. 
Illinois Exp. Station. [Prof.] cyril g. hopkins. 
In New Zealand, we understand that the laws relating i„g rock phosphate in Illinois only for a short time, and 
to infested fruit'are quite as drastic as these discussed 
by Mr. Newell, and they appear to have worked well 
for a number of years. British Columbia has similar 
laws regarding the confiscation of insect-infested fruit, 
and we believe that this practice of putting up the bars 
acts admirably. The best time to get rid of all these 
orchard pests is before they arrive, 
our regular system of experiments precludes the use of 
manure during the first rotation, so that we have not 
yet obtained sufficient data from our own experiments 
from which to draw final conclusions. The Ohio Ex¬ 
periment Station has conducted experiments with the 
use of raw rock phosphate in connection with manure, 
as compared with manure alone, for 10 years, including 
THE WISCONSIN FARMERS’ INSTITUTES. 
There will be no strictly new features introduced 
into the Wisconsin institutes this Winter. Slight 
changes will be made in the manner of discussion of 
some of the subjects. At Wisconsin institutes the talks 
have always been short and to the point, and this 
Winter we shall endeavor to boil them down still more, 
so as to give longer time for the questions by the 
audience and the general e discussion entered into by 
the leading farmers in attendance. We find the dis¬ 
cussions the best and most profitable part of the insti¬ 
tutes, therefore everything must give way to this dis¬ 
cussion. The conductor, who acts as chairman of the 
meeting, holds all the discussion strictly to the ques¬ 
tion. There will no doubt be more attention paid to 
the relation of legislation, both State and National, as 
relating -to the interests of the farmers, than at any 
previous series of farmers’ institutes in the State. I 
do not mean in a partisan, political sense, but in the 
general way. of better laws for the development of 
Wisconsin’s agriculture. The topics that will be fore¬ 
most on every programme will be such as soil condi¬ 
tions, rotation of crops, profitable crops, clovers and 
Alfalfa, the corn crop, silo and silage, dairy cows, 
care of dairy products, relating to the cleanliness and 
to manufacture; the State’s interest in the health of 
animals, better roads, the farmer’s garden, both vege¬ 
table and fruit; education of the farmer’s children, 
potatoes, small grains, and, in fact, all the crops grown 
upon Wisconsin farms, adapting the discussion to the 
the meetings are being held. 
localitv in which 
Supt. Farmers’ Institutes. 
GEO. M KERROW. 
