1909. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
601 
FINE MASSACHUSETTS ASPARAGUS. 
The fine stalks of asparagus shown at Fig. 256 
were grown by C. W. Prescott, of Concord, Mass., 
well known for his active work in connection with 
the Massachusetts Asparagus Growers’ Association. 
They are shown natural size; they weighed about 
four ounces each. They were grown on a bed set 
with one-year-old plants in 1907, and cut four times 
last year. These stalks were cut May 12. They 
were green; we believe Mr. Prescott does not grow 
white “grass.” We have tested the quality of Mr. 
Prescott's asparagus, which confirms us in our pref¬ 
erence for the unbleached stalks. 
FIGURES OF A NOVA SCOTIA ORCHARD. 
Last year I gave you four years’ figures with ma¬ 
ture apple trees. The Fall of 1908 was the fifth year 
of my notes. The queerest feature of all is the pe¬ 
culiar results from the use of fertilizer on two neigh¬ 
boring Ben Davis rows. In 1902 or 1903 this or¬ 
chard was fertilized at rate of 400 pounds complete 
potato fertilizer and 20 tons of manure per acre. 
May was cut in 1903 or 1904, mostly clover, and a 
heavy crop. 
Table 
No. 
i. 
Row 5. 
Bbls. 
Row 5. 
No 
fertilizer 
or 
ma- 
nure 
• • • • < 
, . ..... 
28.25 
Row (>. 
nure 
No 
fertilizer 
or 
ilia- 
1905—Row 5. Same treatment; good 
cultivation and cover crop.. 10.00 
Row 6. Same treatment; good 
cultivation and cover crop. 
1 llOG—Row 5. 100 lbs. complete po¬ 
tato fertilizer to row; good 
cultivation and cover crop.. 19.25 
Row 6. No fertilizer or ma¬ 
nure; good cultivation and 
cover crop . 
1907— Row 5. 100 lbs. complete po- 
talo fertilizer to row; good 
cultivation and cover crop.. 35.15 
Row 6. No fertilizer or ma¬ 
nure; good cultivation and 
cover crop . 
1908— Row 5. 225 lbs. low grade 
basic slag; good cultivation 
and cover crop . 31.15 
Row 0. No fertilizer or ma- 
* nure; good cultivation and 
cover crop . 
Row 6. 
Bids. Trees. 
10 
33.75 
10 
10 
9.50 
10 
. 
10 
25.00 
10 
10 
35.50 
10 
10 
10 
Roughly, the unfertilized row started trial at a 
ratio of 43 barrels to 38 barrels. Its total during last 
three years was 98 to 85 barrels, but at its first ra¬ 
tio its yield should have been only 96 barrels to 85 
barrels. In 1908 trees 1-4, inclusive, in rows 5 and 
6 had a light dressing of manure put around them, 
as that end of the orchard was always lighter in 
bearing than the other end at tree 10. Trees are set 
30 feet apart and in center of a similar orchard.. 
In 1908 they were 24 Summers out. 
Table No. 2. 
Row 5. Row 6. 
Bbls. Bids. 
1908—Tree No. 1. 0.75 Tree No. 1. 1.00 
2 . 0.25 2. 0.00 
3 . 3.90 3. 4.25 
4 . 5.00 4. 4.50 
5 . 4.75 5. 5.00 
6 . 6.50 6. 4.00 
7 . 3.75 7. 5.35 
8 . 3.00 8. 5.15 
9 . 2.75 9. 6.20 
10. 0.50 10. 2.00 
Total .31.15 Total .38.05 
Unfortunately I felt unable-to pack those apples 
separately and see how the quality compared. In 
previous years the pickers could not see any differ¬ 
ence in quality or color, but this year they were 
much in favor of row 5, both on account of color 
and freedom from nubbins—mostly deformed— 
which the other row possessed in great plenty? I 
hear our granite soils do not need potash, and as the 
potato fertilizers were 8 to 10 per cent potash, they 
have been actually detrimental to the crop. My soil 
is also deficient in lime, and lime is needed by the 
apple, and is used up by the muriate of potash. A 
point comes up here. Row 4 is mostly Kings and 
row 7 is Spy and Ben Davis. Would that affect 
rows 5 and 6? 
I found basic slag being sold for cash with a 
profit of about $5 per short ton, so sent to England 
for a couple of cars and cut the price to a much 
more reasonable figure; 2000 pounds .testing 20 per 
cent phosphoric acid (Wagner’s test), sells at $17.50 
cash on or before delivery. Nitrate of soda 16 per 
cent nitrogen, delivered from England to the port of 
Halifax, Nova Scotia, $46. 
To return to the fertilizing of apple trees, another 
series of experiments showed a distinct loss of one- 
half barrel per tree per year, where I did not use 
fertilizer with Baldwin and Gravenstein, but showed 
a loss of .02 of a barrel per tree per year on Kings, 
caused by the fertilizer. I intend trying 1000 pounds 
to 1500 pounds of this high-grade slag per acre, and 
will tell the results. 
Here are the net prices, counting all expenses, 
such as labor, insurance, interest on capital. Rebates 
(capital R please), etc., realized for 1908-9 in our 
Cooperative Fruit Packing Company, Berwick, Nova 
Scotia, of which I am a member. The barrels hold 
96 quarts and are sent to warehouse with the heads 
pressed in, but upside down, which gives an extra 
half-inch bulk of apples: 
Table No. 3. 
Bbls. No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. 
126 Davis .51 <41®$2.67 30 % (a 82.12 30 ft; 81.23 
142 Gravensteins. ...59 (a 1.63 28 >/.(?/ .87 42 '4 (a .50 
19 Ribston . 2.11 4%(a 1.62 2%(S 1.02 
114 Kings .64 (a 2.48 IS (ft 1.82 18 & 1.46 
52 Baldwin. 25 No. 1 (a 2.74 12 @ 1.96 7%<b 1.28 
114 fancy (a 3.26 
36 Spy . 9%@ 2.81 3%@ 2.10 16M>@ 1.30 
Barrels around here cost 25 cents delivered at 
farm. Our company prices are low considering the 
quality of pack. Plenty of individual packers got 
just as good and better prices for a far poorer pack. 
Canadian law makes Fancy, Extra, No. 1. No. 1 is 
good-sized and almost perfect; No. 2 is slightly 
smaller and almost perfect; No. 3 are wormy No. 
HIGH-GRADE GREEN ASPARAGUS. FIG. 250. 
Is and No. 2s or good small, but not worthless ap¬ 
ples. Color and shape are also taken into account, 
and inspectors enforce the law. No. 2s rarely sell 
lower than 75 cents off No. 1 price. Last Spring I 
saw Grant Hitchings’s orchard when the snow was 
all off the ground, and will say I could scarcely be¬ 
lieve it possible, for he was getting about as good a 
growth of trees by his system as I got at 10 times 
the cost, and I could see where the fruit had been 
on the trees. I am trying about one-half acre this 
year, only Mr. Hitchings mustn’t grumble if I do use 
a little mulch, basic slag (for the lime) on some of it. 
I would ask you to try apple trees cut back as 
Stringfellow advises and planted 18 inches deep. I 
tried one tree last year; will try more this. Nova 
Scotia is growing some very good apples for export. 
Nova Scotia. john buchanan. 
“BIG STORIES” AND ANTIDOTES. 
Now and then some of our friends complain that 
we do not tell enough of the “big stories” of great 
success on farm or garden. There are plenty of 
them floating about, but we let most of them float on. 
Some of them are true, yet the plain statement of 
the facts they give would usually do more harm than 
good. The theory is that they would stimulate am¬ 
bitious people to take up new ideas and methods 
and work them out. Our experience is that for every 
one such result there are likely to be a dozen failures 
by people who are led into new things for which they 
are unfitted. That is the way it was with ginseng, 
mushroom growing and a dozen other things. In 
the early history of ginseng culture we went to a suc¬ 
cessful garden and saw the plants growing. It was 
easy to see that this one man was doing well, but it 
was still easier to realize that nine out of ten persons 
who tried ginseng were doomed to failure. Some 
years ago The R. N-Y. told about the business of 
growing rhubarb in Winter. The details were given, 
and as a result hundreds of people tried it. We 
have had all sorts of reports. Here is one from an 
experienced Connecticut gardener: 
I bought 300 rhubarb roots. The cost with the freight 
was 835. I got the roots the 1st of February. I made 
a bed with hot manure under a shed, put the roots in, 
pulled the first rhubarb February 22, and kept pulling 
until the latter part of March; sold it all in local market, 
and got 8140, which I think is doing very well. 
It certainly is doing well. This man had every 
advantage in experience, a good market and ability 
as a salesman. We have heard from others who 
grew a small crop of the rhubarb and then found it 
very slow of sale in their local market. We have 
had people come and argue with us for half an hour 
trying to get a few words of encouragement for 
some such scheme as ginseng, or mushroom growing. 
Some one had half promised to put up money for 
the venture if they could get definite evidence that 
the scheme was practical. It needed but a few min¬ 
utes conversation to show that the plan was vision¬ 
ary and not well conceived. It would have been a 
great unkindness for us to endorse it. It is not an 
agreeable job to act as frost in this way, but some one 
must perform the duty. In telling “large stories” 
that we know are true we shall try to mix in a sure 
antidote The trouble is there are some people so 
strong in confidence that the antidote cannot affect 
them. 
WINTER AND SUMMER FARMING. 
I think it was 50 years ago I first read The R. 
N.-Y. published in Rochester. I have learned many 
things from it since. Truly it is the farmer’s friend. 
I will send you a picture of our place showing most 
of the buildings, also the ice pond as it is in Winter. 
This picture was taken January 13. We were cutting 
ice at this time in the distance. I will also send you 
two other snapshots taken the same day, from dif¬ 
ferent points, both showing cutting and loading. We 
were filling Camden milk station that day. The ice 
pond is within the corporation of Camden village. 
We began cutting about January 8, furnishing ice for 
many private ice houses and hotels, probably 1200 
or 1500 tons. Later in March, ice being a light crop 
in some places, we took a contract from an ice com¬ 
pany of Syracuse, N. Y., for 500 tons, more or less. 
We cut logs for sills and 17-foot poles for studding 
and soon had an ice house or “stack” on the bank of 
the pond about 50x60, holding nearly 1000 tons; af¬ 
terward we put up about 200 tons against one side of 
the stack until the warm weather put a stop to cut- 
ing March 31. This ice is to be loaded on cars this 
Summer. I have already sent three carloads. I 
will also send you another photograph showing you 
how we have used this same land in the Summer for 
some years past, for it is a muck swamp or flat, free 
from stones, with a sandy subsoil, well underdrained. 
The dam holding this reservoir was first built to 
keep this muck from going down stream during 
heavy rains. It covers about six acres. We often 
use the water as a feeder for a pond just below, 
where we have a mill and grain barn with an eight 
horse-power iron turbine water wheel, where we 
thrash, grind and saw wood and other jobs. The 
picture shows some weeds (heartsease) in the corn. 
Last season heavy rains kept us out of this field when 
we ought to have been killing them. I think this 
season we will try raising potatoes on part of this 
land in place of corn. So you see we get a Summer 
and Winter crop. h. w. sanford. 
Oneida Co., N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—The photographs are such that we can¬ 
not make clear engravings from them The first 
show a gang of men and horses at work cutting ice 
on a large pond. The last shows a team of three 
horses hauling a corn binder in a fine cornfield. 
Thus we see that this swamp is “farmed” twice a 
year. In Winter the water is let in to make an ice 
pond. In Summer the water runs out and the bot¬ 
tom of the pond is plowed and planted to corn! As 
we see, the water is also put at work driving a tur- * 
bine wheel. 
