1909. 
A FRIEND OF BEN DAVIS. 
An Illinois Champion Speaks Up. 
It seems to me that you sling a good deal of un¬ 
merited "mud” at the Ben Davis apple, and to cap 
the climax a woman comes forward with a canary 
bird that has such fine discriminatory sense that it 
will not cat a Ben Davis, but greedily devours a 
Baldwin. Now if there is an apple that “trots in 
the same class” with the Ben Davis it certainly is the 
Baldwin. If this statement docs not appeal to you or 
the canary bird, it is either because I have not made 
the acquaintance of a respectable Baldwin, or you 
and the canary of a typical Ben Davis. Now I do 
not say the one is as good as the other, but I do say 
that the Baldwin is much farther below the Grimes 
Golden or the Jonathan in quality than the Ben Davis 
is below the Baldwin. Hence neither people nor 
canary birds that dote on Baldwin apples, in my 
opinion, know what good apples are. While the Ben 
Davis is not an apple to eat out of hand, for culinary 
purposes it lacks “a whole lot” in being 
among those who “ran also.” The 
trouble with you people who have so 
much to say about the demerits of that 
king of apples for profit, Uncle Ben, is 
you don’t know how to make use of it. 
Get acquainted with it. Learn its char¬ 
acteristics, learn how to use it and you 
will think more of it. Certainly, where 
one can grow Grimes or Jonathan with 
equal success, it would be very foolish 
to grow the Ben Davis. Besides this 
you are not consistent. I believe you 
grow the Kieffer pear. Now if there • 
is any fruit in existence that disgraces 
the name it bears it is the Kieffer pear. 
1 had a number of fine trees a few 
years ago, and after fruiting them sev¬ 
eral years I cut them all down. A Ben 
Davis apple is a gentleman any day 
alongside the Kieffer pear. 
I have often said we have the Ben 
Davis represented in almost every 
class of fruit we grow. For instance, 
the Elberta peach, in comparison to 
the Champion, would make a worse 
showing than the Ben alongside the 
Grimes. In potatoes we have the same 
classes. Take the Sir Walter Raleigh 
potato. There is apparently every¬ 
thing that is good in that potato, yet I 
see you make a specialty of growing 
Irish Cobbler, a potato not at all in the 
class with Sir Walter. The Early 
Ohio, also, is very popular, but a very 
poor potato. I also notice in the list of 
strawberries cultivated, there are many 
representatives of the Ben Davis class. 
'fhe Haverland, for instance, is ranked 
in some respectable catalogues as a 
good berry, and thousands of crates 
are sold to unsuspecting victims every 
year. Of all the representatives of the 
Ben Davis class about which I know 
anything the Haverland strawberry is 
the worst, yet it is grown and sold, 
because it is an immense yielder and 
sells, and hence makes money for the 
fruit grower. It is just so with all 
the Ben Davis class, and hence they‘all 
fill a place that so far would be void 
without them. In the process of evo¬ 
lution they will drop out, just as other 
things of low grade have dropped out, 
which will be just as soon as their 
places can be filled with better things 
of the same kind. We have lots of 
"Bens” among men, yes, and women, 
too. and they would be sadly missed if 
dropped suddenly out of their places before there 
were others of better quality to fill them. They are 
the commonplace, the utility, the everyday affairs of 
fife and its experiences. a. w. foreman. 
Illinois. 
R. N.-Y.—We have sampled what were called the 
best Ben Davis apples to be obtained, and came back 
to Baldwin with a sigh of relief. If we “don’t know 
how to use it” what is the use of further education 
while we grow good Baldwins? We have about 50 
Kieffer pear trees. We would not eat one out of the 
hand, but when preserved properly there is no fruit 
that we prefer. Neighbors grow Kieffers with great 
profit. I he Italian and other workers in Paterson 
and other manufacturing towns buy Kieffers to eat 
raw. Some years ago we saw a peddler going about 
with an inferior grade of Ben Davis apples for sale. 
He was short of the name, and wanting to have 
something characteristic, had made up the following 
sign, which, while somewhat misleading, showed a 
the: rural nkw-yorker 
distinct appreciation of values unusual in distributors 
of his class. It read: 
KEAFFYR APPLES. 
We have customers who find fault if we do not 
bring them Marshall strawberries, and then demand 
the Elberta peach.. 
LIME FOR COW PEAS. 
An Encouraging Report from Tennessee. 
On page 394 I note an inquiry from J. B. S., of 
Maryland, asking what effect lime would have on 
stock peas, and your request for an actual experience 
by a southern farmer. I have looked for some one 
of your readers to give an experience, but so far 
have failed to note one if given. The subject means 
so much to the real soil builder that I will give my 
actual experience as an ordinary farmer. When 
we came on the Crowell Farm we found the soil 
poor, badly run down, yielding all farm crops un- 
profitably and of poor quality. We were forced to 
THE HAY LOADER IN ACTIVE OPERATION. Fig. 249 
A PRIZE TEAM OF AMERICAN LABORERS. Fig. 250. 
build soil fertility as cheaply as possible. We found 
by adding chemical manure we could grow fine top 
growths of stock peas. On examining the root 
growth, we failed to find the nodule deposit we had 
expected. Information was sought and we found 
that many authorities held that almost all annual 
legumes would (if given plenty of phosphorus) grow 
in soil that was acid, differing in this respect from 
clover and Alfalfa and all perennial legumes usually 
cultivated for forage crops, while they would not 
make satisfactory nodule deposits in acid soils. This 
led us to make side by side experiments, liming lib¬ 
erally this and leaving off lime on that plot. The 
growths in each case were about the same, so far as 
appearance goes, only we could note a yellow tinge 
to the foliage on the unlimed plants. Then we went 
beneath the surface for the real value, and on exam¬ 
ination we found, in some individual p’ants, on the 
unlimed plot there were no nodule deposits and on 
others a very few, poorly developed. On the limed 
571 
plot we found the reverse, and on an average 75 
per cent greater nodule deposit. This proved con¬ 
clusively that Prof. II. J. Wheeler, of Rhode Island, 
was correct. (See Bulletin 96, Page 35, R. I. Station, 
Kingston, R. I.) All soils may not need lime but 
when you say “My soil has been long in cultivation, 
is of limestone origin, has a stiff clay subsoil, washes 
badly,” that means it packs close and tight, fails to 
absorb the rain, but allows it to flow off, carrying 
soil and fertility. Then lime is the medicine. When 
asked if lime will injure stock peas, the writer’s an¬ 
swer is, what legume, either annual or perennial, has 
any reader of The R. N.-Y. found lime in reasonable 
quantities would injure? o. p. r. fox. 
Tennessee. 
TREE FAKERS AND THEIR WAYS. 
I have little faith in the so-called tree paints put 
upon the market by manufacturers, which are claimed 
to destroy insects and diseases. To one who has 
studied methods of combating and controlling these 
various bacterial, animal, fungus and 
insect troubles, such advertisements 
sound like humbugs, as the claims made 
are much too large and the material ad¬ 
vertised could only be effective against, 
one or two of the troubles named. For 
the past few years I have kept close 
watch of the work being carried on by 
different experiment stations and have 
yet to hear of one of these tree paints 
that was tested and made good all its 
claims as to efficiency, whereas records 
show many that have proved worthless. 
These materials should be put to a 
practical test by the experiment station 
and results published. By skilful ad¬ 
vertising of an untried panacea for all 
fruit tree ills, the uninformed horticul¬ 
turist is often swindled. This business 
of tree medicine, doctoring, surgery, 
etc., that has been built up the last few 
years has some good, sound, profes¬ 
sional men and firms engaged in it, who 
are devoting much time and study, and 
also experimenting and accomplishing 
results. But at their heels and keeping 
pace with them there arc a lot of frauds 
and fakers overrunning the country 
who should be jailed for obtaining 
money by false pretenses. To illus¬ 
trate, the past Winter there operated in 
the city of Lockport a man who saved 
the shade trees belonging to a number 
of residents. His plan of operation 
was to call and tell the owner that his 
shade trees were not looking right and 
would shortly die if not treated. He 
would pull off loose pieces of bark and 
show the insects that are always found 
passing the Winter in such places, and. 
say,that they were killing the trees. He 
would then tell of the wonderful prep¬ 
aration he had which, inserted at the 
base of the tree, would destroy all the 
insects and guarantee the fife of the 
tree for five years. Price of treatment 
50 cents to $2 per tree, based upon size 
of tree, size of pocketbook, or gullibil¬ 
ity of victim. Treatment consisted in 
making a hole underneath base of tree 
with a bar and inserting something in 
the ground that looked very much like 
a moth ball. I recently noted another 
at Batavia treating and pruning shade 
and apple trees, claiming to be an ex¬ 
pert from Pennsylvania. His charges 
were from 50 cents to $1.50 per tree, 
and his treatment consisted of scraping 
the rough bark from the trees until 
the green live tissue was exposed in many places, and 
then painting the trunks with linseed oil with some 
secret preparation added. Asking him in what way 
this treatment helped the tree he unfolded to my ears 
a most wonderful tale about the destructiveness of 
Oyster-shell scale on trees which this treatment effec¬ 
tively destroyed. Saying that I would like to be 
shown one of these scale insects, he lifted a rough 
piece of maple bark and called my attention to a 
small white cocoon, which was not Oyster-shell scale 
at all, but the immature form of some insect passing 
the Winter in this protected spot. In fact, a few 
minutes’ conversation showed that he knew but little 
of the subject, upon which he claimed to be 
an expert. The treated shade trees looked anything 
but beautiful with the scarred trunks the first eight 
to 14 feet from the ground, with as much more rough 
natural bark above. If the rough natural bark of the 
shade trees should have been scraped whv set the 
limit at the top round of a short ladder? This faker 
also pruned trees, and when I saw the many stiibs 
that were two, four and even more inches long it was 
easy to see that he had not learned that first principle 
of pruning. R. D. v. 
