1907. 
3 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PULLING USELESS TREES AND STUMPS. 
Always trim limbs from main body of tree, leaving 
stump from three to five feet high; clear the field from 
limbs and brush. We find it pays to trim out limbs 
fairly close; and then pull brush together with a horse 
rake; a rather tough job, but with a steady horse and 
a man to pile up and burn the brush is done much 
cheaper than with hand labor. We have no traction 
engines here, but once tried pulling up the stumps 18 
inches or so with a light hand stump puller, then with 
a man and boy and one horse they cleaned the field 
very quickly. We have also tried our tipcart rig, cart 
body taken off, chain hitched from front axle, over or 
once round cart axle; then make a short hitch 2'/ 2 to 
three feet high on the stump. With this rig a man can 
ride and make very short turns as compared with 
wagon. But'our cheapest and best way has been with 
a good pair of horses hitched to evener, then a short, 
direct hitch well up on the stump. When stump comes 
hard do not try to pull on first try, but give a good 
pull, then turn in opposite direction; then it will gen¬ 
erally come with less wear and strain on the team. 
A strong cable chain with a round hook (not fiat on 
sides) is much the best; then on good-sized trees give a 
twisting hitch. H. o. mead. 
Massachusetts. _ 
AN ICEHOUSE THAT FILLS ITSELF. 
I thought perhaps a little experience of mine might 
be of use to some of your readers in the way of secur¬ 
ing a supply of ice under difficulties, there being no 
ponds nor rivers for miles around where ice can be cut. 
Having a small stream of water piped to my creamery, 
which was located on high sandy ground, I built a 
lean-to, just a rough building of logs, plastered it up 
or daubed it, cleaned off the ground down to the gravel 
and commenced to fill it. We usually have a generous 
supply of cold weather here in Montana, so I put a 
nozzle on my hose, turned on a fine spray, hung it in 
the roof of the lean-to on cold nights and went and 
sat by the stove and read The R. N.-Y., and left Jack 
Frost to do the work of packing ice, which he would 
do in a thorough, solid manner. I could get a block of 
ice in that way from four to six feet thick and 8 x 10 
square; as soon as the cold weather was over, covered 
it two or three feet deep with sawdust and as the 
ice melted around the edges filled in and tamped it 
down and had ice to throw at the birds. I cut a door 
through between creamery and icehouse, kept cream and 
butter on the ice; when we wanted ice cream took a 
pick and went for a corner of it; rather a primitive 
way, but better than none. H. o. n. 
Bozeman, Montana. 
APPLE GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 
In the last 15 years the farmers of the Annapolis Val¬ 
ley have come to regard the fruit crop as the most pro¬ 
fitable branch of farming. Our valley is narrow, five 
to six miles wide and about 100 miles long. The rail¬ 
way whioh runs through it communicates at Halifax 
with Liverpool and London, and at Yarmouth with Bos¬ 
ton. Most of our apples—300,000 barrels a year—travel 
80 miles to Halifax. Our system is mainly individual 
shipments of five to 10 barrel lots through collecting 
agents in Nova Scotia direct to commission men in 
Liverpool, London or the Continent. We have neither 
co-operation nor Rockefeller—yet. Both are in sight. 
Our orchards, averaging only five to lu acres of mixed 
varieties, make co-operation mean too much talking. 
Soil is sandy loam with some heavy stretches. General 
farming is poor, 25 to 35 bushels oats, 125 to 150 bush¬ 
els potatoes. Hay is scarce and orchards arc being 
kept up bv green cover crops and commercial fertilizers. 
We have not had any experience with the scale, but 
spray for snot and insects. Our local men buy up or¬ 
chards both by the barrel as the apples come from the 
trees, and by the barrel sorted as No. 1 and No. 2. 
They bought Winter fruit at from $1.75 to $2, unsorted. 
I have returns from 200 barrels shipped direct to Lon¬ 
don in four different lots: Gravensteins sold in London 
on September 24, No. 1, 15 shillings; No. 2, 13 shillings; 
Blenheim, October 9, No. 1, 15 shillings and sixpence; 
No. 2, 13 shillings and sixpence; King, October 16, 
No. 1, 16 shillings, No. 2, 13 shillings, October 23, No. 1, 
14 shillings. No. 2, 12 shillings and sixpence. The 
freight both rail and ocean is four shillings; London 
cartage and tolls, ninepence; commission, eightpence; 
total expense, five shillings and fivepence. My Winter 
fruit averages $2 for what is sold and prices arc much 
the same. Now Kings in London sell round 16 to 17 shill¬ 
ings, $4 to $4.25. The speculators are helped by rebates 
from commission men for handling the barrels, amount¬ 
ing to about 25 cents or so. 
Setting out orchards is becoming very fashionable, 
five and 10 acre blocks being set all around us. I am 
in favor of close planting of many fillers with standards 
60 feet apart. To illustrate, my standards are Blen¬ 
heims, 20 per acre; fillers are used alternately, Ontario, a 
large growin" early bearing tree, and Wagener, a small- 
topped, earlv bearing variety. 
In close setting of apple trees some are bound to suffer 
and I think the fillers should. In seven years the On- 
tarios and Wageners should be paying the expense of 
cultivating, fertilizing and spraying. About 12 years 
the eipJit Wageners next to standards and then cen¬ 
tral Ontario came out. About 18 years the four corner 
Ontarios of the central scumre come out, and Wageners 
will be dying on their own account. At 25 years the 
ALFRED F. CONAKD. A VETERAN ROSE GROWER. 
Fig. 4. See Page 4. 
standards will he close to the Ontarios, which will be 
headed back on two sides; lastly the Ontarios come out. 
I choose Blenheims as a fine tree and an apple which will 
be shortly handled in the box package. 
Nova Scotia. _ john buchanan. 
THE DOG OR THE SHEEP. 
One of the most important questions affecting Maine 
farmers to come before the Legislature this Winter is in 
regard to the raising of sheep. There are thousands of 
acres of ideal pasture lands in our State, many of which 
would be utilized if adequate protection to the sheep 
could be given. This industry has dwindled steadily, 
owing in a great measure to dogs, until the old time- 
prestige Maine enjoyed for the high quality of its lamb 
and mutton had become a thing of the past. The heavy 
losses sustained by farmers from dog raids and the im¬ 
possibility of securing an effective dog law caused the 
abandonment of the business. Within a few years a 
few farmers have tried again and if favorably situated 
STARTING “A POUND OF BUTTER.” Fig. 5. 
reported such good profits others were encouraged to 
make the attempt, but the weekly complaints of losses, 
published in the Maine Farmer, together with the de¬ 
sire to see Maine once more make the sheep industry 
prominent, has induced leading agriculturists to take 
the matter under consideration with the view of having 
a new and effective dog law enacted. Maine now has 
laws holding dog owners responsible for damage to 
sheep, but as the killing is do'ne almost entirely at 
night it is impossible to fix the responsibility. The li¬ 
cense law is simply a dead letter, and thousands of 
absolutely useless dogs wander through our towns, hun¬ 
gry, emaciated and only too ready to raid a sheep pas¬ 
ture if there is one available. Different ooinions exist 
as to how the proposed change must be made, hut there 
seems to be two factors necessary to have it effective, a 
license of at least five dollars for every male dog owned 
in the State, and compensation sufficiently large to 
make it an object for the dog constables to attend to 
their duty. If they were paid $3 for everv unlicensed 
dog killed, the numbers of useless curs would be re¬ 
duced enormously. Then there arc those who contend 
that at night dogs should be shut into their homes and 
give authority to shoot at sight any dog running alone 
after dark. I he dog owners, of course, all deny that 
their animals are guilty. It is always some other dog. 
It seems now that public sentiment is becoming aroused. 
I he public, tired of western lamb, embalmed with poi¬ 
sonous boraeic acid, want the native product, sweet, ten¬ 
der and delicious, and there will be an effort to make 
some radical change in the dog laws to enable the far- 
Tners to furnish it. p < ^ curtis 
LIABILITY TO PEACH YELLOWS. 
1. Will nursery stock from the Southern States be less 
liable to get the disease than northern stock? 2. Is there 
any proof that the diesase is transferrable from one tree 
to another except by budding? 3. Will there he a tendency 
to eliminate Peach yellows by breeding from pedigreed 
stock, taking buds and seeds from trees which stood the 
longest period free from the disease? 
1. One of the chief means by which the yellows is 
spread is nursery stock propagated from buds taken 
from diseased trees. Since the yellows is not found 
south of Virginia and Kentucky, it would seem, there¬ 
fore, that it should be preferable to buy nursery stock 
that has been propagated from trees growing in this 
region. This might lessen somewhat the liability of 
buying diseased trees, and to that extent it might he 
an advantage. But the symptoms of the disease are 
so easily recognized, and northern nurserymen are, as 
a rule, so extremely careful not to take buds from 
any trees about which there is the least bit of doubt 
concerning their healthfulness, that I question whether 
much would be gained in this respect, especially when 
we consider the superior value of northern-grown 
nursery stock for the North. These southern-grown 
trees, moreover, though propagated outside the “yellows 
belt,’’ will be just as liable to contract the disease after 
being planted in the North as trees from northern 
nurseries. 1 he U. S. Department of Agriculture re¬ 
ports an experiment in which southern-grown trees 
which could not possibly have contained the virus of 
the disease in bud or stock, were planted in a locality 
subject to yellows. Many of them died of yellows in a 
few years. If southern-grown nursery stock were less 
likely to contract yellows than northern-grown stock 
we should have heard about it years ago; but no such 
evidence can be obtained from orchards that con’ain 
both. 
2. There is positive, direct proof that yellows is 
transferred from one tree to another by inoculation, as 
by budding; there is no direct proof, but there is indi¬ 
rect proof, which has far more weight than mere as¬ 
sumption or theory, that the disease is spread in other 
ways. In the first place the yellows behaves exactly 
like other contagious diseases that arc caused by a 
germ—like the fire-blight of pears for example. If not 
checked by man it often makes a clean sweep, not only 
of all the trees in an orchard, but also of all the orchards 
in a community or district. The almost total destruc¬ 
tion by yellows of the peach orchards near St. Joseph. 
Mich., about 1866, is a case in point. It is inconceiv¬ 
able that the thousands of trees that were swept off 
within a few "ears in that district all brought the 
disease with them from the various nurseries in the 
several States where they were propagated, some of 
them southern nurseries. In the second place, it has 
been proven, by numerous experiments, that the trees 
which arc apparently the healthiest in the orchard 
contract the yellows as easily as those that are weak 
and sickly from old age, borers, neglect, etc. If these 
unfavorable conditions do not make trees contract 
yellows, as is certainly true, then the only possible 
conclusion is that it is contracted from nearby trees 
that are diseased. This conclusion almost becomes a 
certainty when we remember that trees diseased with 
yellows do contain some sort of virus, that, when in¬ 
jected into a healthy tree, as by budding, causes it to 
become diseased. The yellows is apparently not spread 
by the pruning knife, nor by the pollen. No man who 
has seen the widening area of destruction from yellows 
when a diseased tree is not removed, and the com¬ 
parative safety of the remaining trees if it is promptly 
removed, can doubt that it is contagious. These are 
not direct scientific proofs, but they amount to that in 
orchard practice. 
3. There is little likelihood that propagating from 
healthy trees, even if persisted in for many generations, 
will develop resistant varieties. If there were any 
marked difference in the susceptibility of different varie¬ 
ties to yellows, when all are equally exposed to it, 
there would be some ground for hope; but no varieties 
appear to be immune. Prof. Erwin F. Smith, who is 
an authority on this subject, says that with our present 
knowledge the cure of Peach yellows appears to be 
impossible. No disease can be combated successfully 
until we know just what causes it. This we do not 
know about the yellows, except that it is not climate, 
soil, fungus, animal parasite, and probably not bac¬ 
teria. Personally I do not look for any improvement 
over the ax and fire method of fighting yellows until 
the virus germ or whatever causes the disease has been 
isolated. That there is a distinct germ of some sort, 
and that it will be discovered when the methods of 
pathological research have been perfected further, I 
have no doubt. s. w. fletcher. 
