666 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 7 
mind economically to solve the problems that arise. In 
the absence of the ordinary means of enriching the 
soil, as it is usually done by northern farmers and 
fruit growers who have stable manure at command, 
commercial fertilizers must be used. Indeed, there is 
very rarely any escape for the Florida growers from 
this necessity, expensive as it is. I am one of this 
number, and know of the perplexity and expense from 
experience. I have some land in that State that is rich, 
and would produce oranges and other crops for a time 
without additional plant food, but it is in heavy, hard¬ 
wood timber, and situated far from transportation, at 
present. But our large Citrus orchard is in the Bis- 
cayne Bay Region, where the soil is almost pure sand, 
and underlaid with coralline rock and which comes to 
the surface far too much for convenience in clearing 
and cultivating the land. There is some humus in it, 
but far less than we like and the growing of Velvet 
beans is our principle means of getting it into the soil. 
Humus • will hold nitrogen, and that is one of the 
main plant foods that is needed. The nitrogen may be 
applied in chemical form, but is more transitory in 
sand than in organic fiber; at least that is my opinion. 
The potash and phosphorus are not so difficult to 
handle nor are they so expensive, as we all know. 
The feeding roots of Citrus trees are mostly very 
shallow, but I do not believe that they naturally cluster 
near the base of the tree. They will go where the 
plant food is and if that is placed under the branches 
only, the roots would increase there more than else¬ 
where, because of the need of being there to get sus¬ 
tenance for the tree. And if the fertilizers are put in 
the space beyond those limits the roots will go there. 
Wherever the plant nourishment is there the feeding 
roots will lie or go. My plan is to fertilize over the 
entire surface of the ground under the trees about 
alike and a little beyond the radius of their branches, 
from the time the trees are planted to maturity. 
I do not believe that some roots grow and feed for 
fruit and some for wood. But I do believe that what¬ 
ever plant food is in the ground, either naturally or 
by application, goes to invigorate the whole tree, root 
and branch, and that when bearing age is attained, if 
the varieties are productive, they will bear, and the 
more they are fed of properly balanced fertilizers, 
judiciously, the more they will bear and the better the 
fruit will be. 
Some of the best paying orange and pomelo orchards 
that I know in Florida were planted on land that had 
been “cow-penned”; that is, cattle had been penned on 
it a year or more and the manure that contained all 
the elements of plant food was stored in and on the 
soil in abundance. And there was humus too, which 
to my notion is very important. I also know orange 
orchards that are very profitable that are never plowed, 
harrowed or otherwise tilled, but merely mulched all 
over with the stuff that grew there and some from else¬ 
where that was hauled in. In one such case that I 
know, there were only small amounts of fertilizers used. 
On the Bahama Islands I saw good orange orchards 
mulched with sponge clippings. Other good Citrus 
orchards that I know are kept clean, tilled thoroughly 
and well fertilized. As to ability to withstand drought, 
Citrus trees on land with a tough subsoil stratum pre 
not so enduring as where this hardpan stratum does 
not exist. It severs the capillarity. On rocky soils, 
in lower Dade County, where the porous rock under¬ 
lies the sandy surface, there is less suffering from 
drought than in most parts of Florida. The rock acts 
like a sponge to bring the water from below, and that 
is not far, for the level of the Everglades is not more 
than 10 feet lower than the average surface of the soil. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
GROWING ALFALFA ON RENTED LAND. 
Will it lie profitable for me to rent three acres of land that 
has not been plowed for 20 years, for $50 per year for the 
lot, the idea being to raise Alfalfa for 10 horses and three 
cows? Land all around this lot grows fine- garden truck. 
How and when shall I proceed to get the land into proper 
condition? The ground is very dry at this time, and all 
vegetation is suffering. H. B. 
Watertown, Mass. 
We should go slow about paying $50 a year rent for 
such land, although we hear of cases where dairymen 
pay $20 an acre rent for land to grow silage corn. 
How do you know that Alfalfa will grow on this land? 
The crop has not been very successful in most parts 
of New England—in fact some of the best authorities 
believe it a mistake to try to grow Alfalfa there in 
preference to Red clover. It is too late in the season 
now to expect to start Alfalfa on this soil. About all 
you could do this year would be to plow the land and 
sow about half of it each to wheat and rye. This can 
be cut in May or Early June and either fed green or 
made into hay. By using fertilizer or manure you 
might get five or six tons of this grain hay from the 
three acres. After the hay is cut you can manure the 
stubble heavily, plow at once and sow fodder corn 
thickly in drills. Such corn cut in September and well 
cured is nearly as good as Timothy hay for feeding 
horses if cut and fed with some oil meal and oats. 
When the corn is cut you can plow or disk the ground 
and sow rye or wheat with some Crimson clover or 
Hairy vetch seed for cutting the next Spring. In this 
way you will produce a large amount of good forage 
on the two acres and probably do better in your locality 
than you will by sowing Alfalfa. It might be well to 
experiment on a small scale with Alfalfa, but unless 
some one near you has made it grow successfully we 
should grow grain, hay and corn fodder until we were 
sure. __ 
HAIRY VETCH WITH RYE. 
In answer to the question on page 464 concerning 
vetches as green manure crops, I will say that as they 
have a high nitrogen content, greater than that of 
Alfalfa, they make first-class forage or green manure 
crops. The hairy, or sand vetch (Vicia villosa) is the 
best for green manure, sown in late Summer or early 
Fall. Winter vetch does not endure our northern Win¬ 
ters well. Spring vetch may be sown with oats or 
barley, but it does not endure drouth well and is not 
recommended as a manure crop, not only on that ac¬ 
count, but because it takes the place of a money crop. 
I sow hairy vetch with rye in August or September. 
It is best to use one bushel of vetch seed with one 
bushel of rye per acre, but the price of vetch has been 
so high—$4 to $6—that I have used but a half bushel. 
After the soil has been well inoculated with the vetch 
bacteria this gives a very good stand if the seed is 
good. But as in the case of Alfalfa, a partial failure 
may be experienced through poor seed or the want 
of bacteria in the soil. The vetch seed is chiefly im¬ 
ported and is quite liable to be old seed lacking vital¬ 
ity. It should not be over two years old. This and 
all clover seeds should be tested for germination before 
sowing. The rye and vetch may be sown in corn at 
a late working and will then furnish good pasture for 
CEMENT DAIRY HOUSE IN MICHIGAN. Fig. 327. 
two months in the Fall; or in September after the 
corn is cut, but in this case it should not be pastured. 
The best seed-bed would be an early potato field cleared 
in August. Under good conditions, by the first of 
May there will be as heavy a crop as one can well 
turn in. For a soiling crop for a dairy this is ahead of 
anything that can be produced at this season, and as a 
fertilizer it is superior to anything that can be sown 
so late. Generally I have been able to secure a stand 
of Crimson clover as a fertilizer; but when conditions 
made that impracticable the next best thing was rye 
and vetch vines, otherwise it is very difficult to har¬ 
vest or plow in. The rye should not be allowed to 
grow more than a foot or 15 inches tall, since, when 
approaching maturity it decays very slowly. The ad¬ 
vantages of this green manure crop are that it does 
better on poor soil, endures the Winter better, can be 
sown later and plowed in earlier than Crimson or any 
other clover, and can be produced without interrupting 
our rotation of other crops or taking the place of a 
money crop. I. A. thayer. 
Lawrence Co., Pa. 
OATS AND PEAS FOR DAIRY COWS. 
July and August are likely to be trying months on 
the dairy farm. For many years the more thrifty 
farmer has tried to provide corn for feeding at that 
season of the year. More recently, since the scarcity 
of hired help has been so much of a burden, something 
else that would require less labor has frequently been 
substituted. Millet has been successfully grown by 
many. Its growth from sowing to harvesting is at¬ 
tended with less of hand labor, and the horse is made 
to do a larger share. Millet may not produce quite 
so large an amount of feed as do some kinds of western 
corn, but so long as there is less labor required in its 
production the small difference in productiveness is of 
less consequence than it otherwise would be. The 
quality of the feed seems to be as good in the case 
of millet as with corn, and it is quite as readily eaten. 
Neither of these feeds equals in value good thrifty 
pasture grasses, but when the dry season comes on 
t<he pa&.ture beelines relatively unproductive. To se¬ 
cure a better quality of feed than either corn or millet 
considerable is being done with oats and peas. These 
are even less productive than the large Japanese millet, 
but the quality is certainly better. The oat and pea 
acreage is each year larger, the corn acreage smaller, 
and that of millet is not on the increase. On our own 
farm we have not entirely discarded corn, but we are 
planting only a very limited area of late years, and the 
same may be said of millet. Our field of oats and peas 
is each year a little larger, and is becoming so large 
that quite as much oat and pea hay is put into the 
barn as has been cut for soiling. The Canadian field 
pea is still the mainstay, but the larger growing mar¬ 
row-fat peas are coming to be used in somewhat larger 
quantities, in spite of the high price at which they are 
held for seed. Only for one or two years have we 
been troubled with pea louse. That insect seems to 
have such strong natural foes that it cannot long 
maintain its supremacy. H. H. L. 
BURNING OFF SAN JOSE SCALE . 
Having a small apple tree that is to be removed for 
a building, that was well covered with San Jose scale 
I tried burning the scale in the Spring while the buds 
were dormant. I took a common plumber’s gasoline 
furnace and passed the blaze along the trunk and lower 
branches. The furnace was too clumsy to go among 
the branches. Now in August I cannot find a scale on 
the tree for a distance of two feet above where the 
furnace was held and cannot detect any injury to leaf 
or fruit. I would like to know if this way has ever 
been tested, and if so, what is the disadvantage? With 
a proper gasoline apparatus T believe the scale can be 
held in subjection much easier than with the spray 
system. n. t. 
Scranton, Pa. 
R. N.-Y.—This flame method of killing insects has 
been tried. A torch for doing the work has been ad¬ 
vertised and several of the experiment stations have 
tested the method. In using it to kill the scale we 
should think the chief objection would be the trouble 
in reaching all the limbs and little twigs. With a tree 
as commonly headed it would be an endless job to 
pass the flame along all the wood. It will not answer 
to burn over the lower branches alone. If any of the 
scales are left the tree will soon be covered once more. 
A fine spray blown out under high pressure will quickly 
cover every inch of the tree. 
BUILDING SMALL GREENHOUSE. 
On my place is an old hothouse, now out of repair, that 
I am thinking of rebuilding. Will it be to the saving of 
coal if I use sash that will have two sets of glass? Will the 
interest on the cost of the extra glass be more or less than 
the saving in coal at $7 per ton? The glass area is about 
1,200 square feet. My idea is about as shown in the sketch 
below. J. h. h. 
Darlington, Md. 
I would not advise double glazing the roof of this 
greenhouse, as the extra cost would more than offset 
the saving in coal in such a climate as that of Mary¬ 
land. In addition to this there is the further disadvan¬ 
tage that the under glass soon becomes dirty, and thus 
obstructs the light. The glass should be well bedded 
in putty instead of having the putty placed on top as 
indicated in the diagram, the use of putty on top of 
the glass being more wasteful and less satisfactory 
than the other method for greenhouse glazing. 
w. H. TAPLIN. 
We have often asked for information about labor unions 
among farm hands. In Texas the negro cotton pickers 
formed a union to advance the price of a day's picking. The 
farmers caught eight “walking delegates,’’ gave them a whip¬ 
ping and ran them out of the country. The spectacle of 
walking delegates on the run broke up the union. 
So many questions about killing ants are coming in that 
we reprint the information. If you can find the hill or nest 
punch a hole down into it with a crowbar and pour in half 
a pint of bisulphide of carbon. Put a blanket over all. 
Be sure not to breathe the fumes or bring a light near them. 
In the house a sponge dipped in sweetened water will at¬ 
tract them. When it is full throw it into boiling water. 
