1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
ill 
IS THIS THE BERRY RECORD? 
I was much interested in T. M. White’s 
story in your valued journal of his ex¬ 
perience with the Wilson strawberry. I 
grew this berry with good success and 
profit, 1870 to 1877. from a plot of 
ground less than six acres on.June 4 to 
June 20, 1874, the berries sold for $2,850; 
the best results in the shortest time were 
made on June 15, when in four hours we 
picked and put on steamboat Stockton 
leaving wharf at 9.15, 132 54-pint crates 
that sold for $712.80. Can any of the 
fruit men beat that four hours? I am 
trying Gandy, Success, McKinley, Wil¬ 
liam Belt and others; am not satisfied, 
I have some Wilson plants and if next 
year I should plant seeds from the best 
fruit might I get two or three plants 
from 1,000 seedlings, possessing the good 
qualities of the Wilson of 30 years ago? 
Maybe Mr. White of Monmouth or Mr. 
Hunt of Lambertville will show us the 
ideal berry. j. B. T. 
Ocean Grove, N. J. 
Cow Peas to Fertilize Potatoes. 
One oT our readers in New Jersey has a 
20-acre cornfield, which he wants to prepare 
for potatoes. The soil is a clay loam, well 
drained, but lacking in humus. lie is going 
to plant another 30-acre field this Spring to 
potatoes, and he thinks of putting the 20- 
acre field into cow peas through the Summer* 
turning them under in late Summer or 
TWO MELON LOVERS. 
Fall, and following with Crimson clover or 
rye. This in preparation for the next potato 
crop. He wants to know if it will prob¬ 
ably pay him to handle the field in this way, 
avoiding a money crop, but devoting the year 
to getting the field ready for potatoes the 
following Spring. Will the extra yield of 
potatoes, after such treatment, pay for the 
idle ground? 
Ans. —Permit me to say that this 
farmer made the mistake of so many in 
not seeding that cornfield witli Mam¬ 
moth clover, or perhaps better yet, with 
Crimson, if it does well, not less than 
eight quarts to the acre of Mammoth and 
proportionately more of the Crimson, -cov¬ 
ering at the last cultivating. Cultivator 
should be fitted with small blades so as 
to cover the seed about an inch deep, if 
the corn has been planted 3(4x3^ thinned 
to three stalks in a hill. We have never 
had a failure in 12 years with the Mam¬ 
moth variety. Previous to that time, we 
experienced some difficulty from failure to 
secure a stand, owing to lack of humus. 
When we began to apply a dressing of 
fertilizer to the corn, we had better corn 
and a sure catch of clover. The nitrogen¬ 
fixing bacteria had evidently not mate¬ 
rialized yet. The advantage of a good 
growth of clover in that corn stubble this 
Spring would be so clearly apparent that 
it is not necessary to speak further. But 
all this is somewhat irrelevant to the 
question at issue which, practically 
amounts to this: “What shall T do with 
that field to get a profitable crop of po¬ 
tatoes another year?” 
I presume that this man, like many an¬ 
other, will get a whole lot of opinions and 
do as he sees fit afterward. If the patch 
were mine this is how 1 would do it, 
in fact I do it right along. As soon as 
planting is finished, say the 15th or 20th 
of May, I would put that ground in with 
cow peas, Black, Clay, or better yet, Won¬ 
derful. Don’t be fooled by those who tell 
you to sow a bushel to the acre. That’s 
all bosh. Nor don’t let them make you 
believe that the best way is to sow them 
in drills and then keep the ground nicely 
cultivated between the rows. More bosh. 
You know how that goes; you’ll get a 
chance to send a chunk of a boy with the 
“old mare” about once, early in the sea¬ 
son, and then the other crops must be at¬ 
tended to whether or no. Two bushels 
per acre is the least I allow myself to sow, 
and that means not less than 2J4 of such 
stuff as the trade is offering just now. 
Put them in with a grain drill so as to 
insure uniformity of covering as well as 
seeding, as they are hard to cover with 
a harrow. The idea is to get a stand so 
uniformly thick that all weeds will be kept 
in subjection. To get the weeds started 
first, I have sometimes harrowed the sur¬ 
face nicely and delayed the sowing a 
week. But all these precautions may have 
been taken, and in my opinion they are 
all necessary—and yet the crop will un¬ 
doubtedly prove a most dismal failure, if 
no peas or other legumes have been grown 
on the ground recently (lack of the bac¬ 
teria again). Nine times out of ten cow 
peas are a failure in the North on that 
account. The remedy is easy. The man 
who intends planting 20 acres with pota¬ 
toes for commercial purposes expects to 
sell 300 bushels to the acre, therefore he 
makes calculations on applying one ton 
per acre or thereabouts of good potato 
fertilizer, running about 4-8-10. Now let 
him put as large a proportion of this fer¬ 
tilizer as he can afford, not less than one- 
half. I should prefer the whole thing 
broadcast over the whole surface, then go 
out there when everything else is drying 
up and just see them grow. Turn them 
under in the Fall, would you, and sow 
rye? Well now, that is a question that 
hasn’t been rightly settled yet. I wouldn’t 
if it were mine. Too much work; game is 
not worth the powder. You \yant all 
the cow pea growth you can get till the 
frost comes, and then until time to plant 
early potatoes it is a question whether 
you could get growth of rye enough to 
pay for extra work and two bushels seed 
per acre. I like to let the whole growth 
go down on the surface. Then in the 
Spring chop it all to pieces with a Cuta¬ 
way harrow. It seems to me the. planter 
works better on this kind of surface than 
on a rye sod. Of course this method of 
using fertilizer gives a chance to work in 
that old squib that we have heard so often, 
concerning the man who always chose the 
last seat in the rear car, that he might 
have the use of his money until the con¬ 
ductor reached him. M. garrahan. 
Pennsylvania. 
Grafting King on R. I. Greening. 
W. II. M., Waterloo, N. Y .—Will King 
apples do well grafted on Rhode Island 
Greening stock? I have been told they will 
not color on such stock. 
Ans. —The influence of stock on scion is so 
slight in most cases that it is not worth while 
to consider it in top-grafting apple trees. You 
may quite safely put your King apple grafts 
on the Rhode Island Greening stocks if they 
are in good condition. They are likely to 
color just as well as though grafted on red 
stock. 
Walnut Hybrids. 
IT. M. M., Vienna, Austria .—Have walnuts 
been successfully hybridized in the United 
States, and what methods are used? 
Ans. —The Persian walnut, .Ttiglans regia, has 
undoubtedly been hybridized in this country, 
and Luther Burbank, of Santa Rosa, Cal., 
has grown hybrids between this species and 
the common Black walnut of that State. They 
are said to be handsome, rapid-growing trees, 
but do not fruit with much freedom. The 
writer has attempted to cross the Fersian 
walnut with J. cordiformls from Japan. The 
method pursued was to strip all staminate 
flowers from the tree as fast as they ap¬ 
peared. When pistillate flowers came out 
and were receptive, pollen from J. regia was 
well dusted over the stigmas, repeating the 
operation daily until they withered. The 
result is a fine crop of nuts, presumably 
sound. They have been planted, but are not 
expected to germinate until next Spring. As 
there is no other tree of the same species 
within a mile or so, it is quite likely that 
the resulting nuts are true hybrids. It is 
generally supposed that the walnut does not 
directly pollenize itself, as the staminate 
flowers bud and fall before the pistillate 
blooms open. It is thought, however, that 
the pollen is caught on the leaves when it is 
shed and blown on the stigmas afterwards 
when they are in a receptive condition. 
=*\ 
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One packet of each of the above six novelties for 50 cents, postpaid, is an offer worthy the attention of every reader 
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Address WM. HENRY MAULE, 1773 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
