THE RURAL? NEW-YORKER 
09 
1909. 
Hope Farm Notes 
Here is a man brought to trouble by 
the mulch system. This mice girdling 
and fire are the two worst evils of 
mulching. 
I am in trouble. The mice have got me. 
My mulched peach trees have been very 
nicely girdled, clean and clear. Is there 
any salvation for trees two to three inches 
in diameter with all bark off four or five 
inches above the ground, if treated at this 
season of the year? Would painting with 
thick white lead all around make an arti¬ 
ficial bark, and then banking with earth? 
IIow would it do to apply white lead mixed 
with red pepper, in the Fall, to ward off the 
mice—or arsenic? w. g. x. 
1 am afraid these trees are done. 
If they are eaten completely around 
into the heart wood there will be no 
way for the sap to rise. It would do 
no good in such case to paint the trees 
—in fact I think the paint will do 
more harm than good. If part of the 
sap wood is left, even a narrow strip, 
I would plaster the wound all over 
with grafting, wax and mound up with 
soil. Then I would cut the top of 
the tree back severely, so as to check 
the demand for sap in the Spring. 
Bridge grafting will sometimes save 
such trees. This is done by insert¬ 
ing three or four scions in the live 
wood below the wound, bending them 
over and fastening into the live wood 
above. Of course both ends must be 
securely fixed and well protected by 
wax. The principle of it is that the 
sap rises through these scions into the 
wood above the wound. We have had 
one case of success with this and many 
failures with peach. It works better 
witli apple. After the cambium or sap 
wood has been destroyed you cannot 
restore it by painting or waxing any 
more than you can make a third set of 
teeth grow by painting the gums! I 
am afraid of white lead on peach trees. 
We pull the mulch away in Novem¬ 
ber, and after digging out the borers, 
throw a mound of coal ashes or earth 
around the tree. Rarely, if ever, will 
the mice cross an open space to gnaw 
trees. They work under cover. 
Long Range Farming. —The Jersey- 
man who asks this question is much 
like dozens of others who own a piece 
of land but cannot work it. 
Could your readers help me solve the 
following, which is puzzling me? I work 
whore I can seldom get away in Summer. 
I also own a farm of 46 acres, which is 
over .30 miles from where I work. I have 
not been very successful in renting this 
farm. Could I. by paying some additional 
insurance, leave the buildings vacant, and 
cut the hay and grain from the place and at 
the same time make it pay? I would have 
to hire all help and teams. It would also 
be impossible for me to be with them at 
all limes. Last year the place cut 22 tons 
of hay. which sold in the city five miles 
away for $20 per ton. There is also some 
wheat on the place. D. tv. 
I doubt your ability to make such 
land profitable. It is a pleasant theory 
that since grass and grain grow with¬ 
out any particular rare between seed¬ 
ing and harvest they will nearly take 
care of themselves, but I have not 
found it so. When a man must wait 
for others to harvest his crops he will 
stand a good chance of losing a good 
share of them by poor and late hand¬ 
ling. I .think it likely you can arrange 
for the insurance, but with such labor 
as I find in most neighborhoods, with¬ 
out oversight, I do not believe you can 
make such farming pay. 
by using three parts of the ground 
bone and one part of muriate of pot¬ 
ash. On trees the size of mine I would 
use five pounds of this mixture scat¬ 
tered in a wide circle around them. 
This question is a liltle foreign to 
my understanding: 
One of the teachers in the high school at 
this place told some of the scholars that 
were born in Pennsylvania they were for¬ 
eigners. The children entered a protest, but 
the teacher said anyone who was not born 
in this part of the country was a foreigner. 
Who was right? j. m. b. 
Maryland. 
I heard a man say once that the 
people of the United States were di¬ 
vided into two classes—Americans and 
Jerseymen. As I belong to the latter 
class, I feel a little sorry for the Amer¬ 
icans. Of course anyone who reads 
the history of Maryland will under¬ 
stand what a fine pedigree the State 
has, yet “there are others.” It was 
certainly impossible for all to be born 
in Maryland. Among other definitions 
of “foreign” I find this, “remote, dis¬ 
tant; not belonging; not harmonious, 
not agreeable,” etc. Thus a foreigner 
may be an alien or a stranger that is 
“wholly different in nature.” " Why that 
teacher should single out Pensylvanians 
for banishment is more than I can say. 
Farm Notes.— We have begun 
work in the woods. We find a num¬ 
ber of large trees with crooks in them. 
This throws them out of the market 
for poles, but by sawing them up 
carefully we can get logs for plank 
or joist of varying lengths. The 
crooked part and the tops are cut up 
for cord wood. A good many of the 
younger chestnuts are dying at the 
top. The lumber trade seems dull, 
though we have to pay as much as 
ever when we buy, and I cannot get 
what I think the timber is worth. So 
we shall probably cut enough for our 
own lumber and let the large trees 
stand. The dead ones will be cut into 
cord wood. The open Winter thus 
far gives a good chance for work in 
the woods. The present price of cord 
wood is very low. The dealers tell me 
that last year people kept on cutting 
when there was but little sale at the 
brick yards. Thus there is now a large 
surplus on hand. The only figures I 
can get for four-foot wood is $4.50 a 
cord delivered at the yard some 12 
miles away. There is a small trade in 
stove wood, but I shall pile most of 
mine and hold it over. There is a fair 
demand for chestnut posts, though few 
fences are now put up in our country. 
We have not been able to haul out muck 
yet, for the ground froze early and is 
now mostly covered with ice. Before 
Spring we must get enough muck and 
wood soil out to give every apple tree 
a good coat. Then lime will be scat¬ 
tered over it. This is not the best way 
to use muck, I know. By rights it 
should be piled and fermented before 
using. While the lime will help it a 
better practice would be to work it 
under _ before using the lime, since 
there is quite sure to be some loss 
when lime is put with organic matter. 
h. w. c. 
NEVER WEAR OUT 
Here is one that comes so often that 
it ought to be made clear: 
Is ground bone as good as anything to 
scatter around my young apple trees? I 
haven’t very much manure to spare for 
them, or much mulching material. They 
all stand in sod now in a field where I 
cut most of my hay. IIow much fertilizer 
should I scatter to each tree? F. s. 
Good bone is excellent for fruit trees 
as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far 
enough. It contains nitrogen and phos¬ 
phoric acid, but no potash at all. You 
must remember that all the animal 
fertilizers—that is, those obtained from 
animal refuse—have no potash. That 
is true of groun ' bone, dried blood, 
tankage and dried fish. There is prac¬ 
tically no potash in the animal’s body. 
In 1,000 pounds of live ox there are 
nearly 50 pounds of nitrogen and near¬ 
ly 20 of phosphoric acid, but less than 
two pounds of potash. The reason 
for this is that the potash in the food 
after doing its needed work in the 
body is passed away and not stored up 
as the other elements are. The pot¬ 
ash is necessary in feeding the tree 
and whenever bone, blood or tankage 
are used some form of potash should 
be added. A good mixture is made 
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