1909 
^THJbC RURAL NEW-YORKER 
837 
Mellowing a Baked Soil. 
P. V.j Oxford, N. J .—I have had onions 
on the same ground for six years. The 
ground has become very much baked. What 
can I do to mellow it up? It will be the mid¬ 
dle of the month before I can sow anything 
on it, and I have to plow in the Spring as 
soon as the ground can be worked. Would 
Crimson clover be of any use? What will be 
best to do with it? 
Ans. —Two chief things are needed 
to cure a “baky” soil—organic matter 
and lime. You can plow under manure, 
but this will not always prevent lumps. 
A good dressing of lime will break up 
the lumps and make the soil porous. It 
is too late to sow Crimson clover. Rye 
is about the only suitable crop left. We 
should plow when the onions are har¬ 
vested and use at least one ton to the 
acre of lime. Harrow this in and sow 
rye. In the Spring plow the rye under 
and pack it d'6wn hard with a roller. 
Then fit the surface thoroughly and 
seed. 
Nitrogen for Small Fruits. 
J. /?., Iiir-Mandr, trash—I come for in¬ 
formal ion about,using commercial fertilizer 
as a top-dressing for small fruits. Nitrogen 
seems to be the only thing that our clay 
loam soil requires, ns all kinds of vege¬ 
tables, especially potatoes, while not large, 
are of the very highest quality. The same 
is true of berries, so that it seems to me 
dried blood would be the only thing neces¬ 
sary. Hen manure does well as a top¬ 
dressing. applied in the Fall and plowed 
under in Spring. Will dried blood be of any 
value applied as a top-dressing on straw¬ 
berries? 
Ans. —The fact that hen manure in- 
it. The argument used for the applica¬ 
tion of salt to asparagus is that aspara¬ 
gus is a sea marsh plant and therefore 
needs salt, but this is no more true of 
asparagus than of any plant that grows 
near the sea. Salt was used by the old- 
time farmers to kill weeds in the aspara¬ 
gus beds, but the farmer who resorts to 
this method of weed killing will not 
progress very rapidly. The application 
in the early Spring of muriate of pot¬ 
ash, which is the same as chloride of 
potash, will supply all the chlorides 
necessary for the asparagus. Kainit is 
not considered as good a form of potash 
for asparagus as the muriate. Use muri¬ 
ate at the rate of 300 pounds to the 
acre. vv. w. 
Bones in a Young Orchard. 
R. L. O., Ridge, W. Va ,—Would it pay 
to buy old bones at 50 or 75 cents per 
hundred to plow under in a young orchard 
on rotten limestone land? 
Ans. —Such bones if crushed fine 
would be worth about $30 per ton. The 
question is, what will it cost you to 
break or soften them? We have tried 
plowing under or burying whole bones 
near fruit trees. You get very little 
benefit from them handled in that way. 
Some of the softer bones will be helped 
by composting in the manure pile over 
Winter, but the hard leg bones are not 
softened by this. If you have power and 
can get enough of the bones it may pay 
to get a bone mill or stamp like a trip 
hammer and crush or grind. You can 
Never Needs Covering 
Air between glass better than boards or mats 
Plants need light, the more of it, the better. Sunlight Sash lets in 
light all the time. Almost every kind of vegetable or flower has been 
grown under the Sunlight in all sorts of weather and temperature. 
You can get better results than ever before—stronger earlier plants. 
The Sunlight is such a big improvement that gardeners, State 
Agricultural Stations and Colleges of Agriculture everywhere use 
and recommend it. 
It does away entirely with the hardest work, the covering and 
uncovering. Children can prop it open for airing. You can handle 
twice the number of beds. 
Write for catalog and get our freight prepaid proposition. 
Order early to insure prompt ship¬ 
ment. Fast freight, safe delivery 
guaranteed. Write today. Now is 
the time to prepare for cold frames. 
Sunlight Double Glass Sash Co. 
(Incorporated) 
924 E. Broadway, Louisville, Ky. 
creases the size of plant and fruit indi¬ 
cates the need of nitrogen. We should 
experiment with potash and phosphoric 
acid also, as these elements are very 
necessary in fruit culture. You can 
supply nitrogen by using nitrate of soda, 
dried blood, ground fish, tankage or 
bone, whichever you can buy most eco¬ 
nomically. Why not sow Crimson clover 
or other clover after cultivating the 
bush fruits and plow it under in Spring? 
That would give nitrogen. We should 
cultivate in all forms of organic nitro¬ 
gen. 
Fertilizers for Apple Trees. 
E. 8. \V„ Waterford, N. Y .—I have 150 
apple trees a-bout 10 inches in diameter, 
scattered over 10 or 12 acres, that I wish 
to make the most of. Trees are in sod, 
soil clay loam, not stiff, over a sandy sub¬ 
soil. For trees of about above size, a 
pamphlet advises the use of nine pounds 
six ounces Thomas ^lag, live pounds 14 
ounces nitrate of soda, and four pounds 
11 ounces muriate of potash. Will not 
this amount of nitrate of soda force a 
growth of new wood not needed, and, if 
applied in the Fall, would it not be wasted? 
Would the use of a Cutaway harrow to 
cut up the sod about each tree be desirable 
before or after applying fertilizer? 
soften the bones by packing them with 
wood ashes. Take a box or barrel and 
put a six-inch layer of broken bones at 
the bottom. Then a layer of unleached 
ashes, then more bones and so on to the 
top. Keep the mass wet with stable 
liquids and in three or four months the 
bones will be soft. They will not be 
equal to bone meal, but can be crushed 
reasonably fine, and will do to use as 
fertilizer. The fertilizer manufacturers 
crush the bones and then use sulphuric 
acid on them, but we would not advise 
a farmer to try that. 
The Entire Dollar.—S ome lime ago 
you had a note in your paper about farm¬ 
ers having their billheads. IIow do you 
like ours? We try to get 100 cents on the 
dollar for our goods ; sold our strawberries 
from 15 to 20 cents per basket; our rasp¬ 
berries 12 cents, $1.30 per dozen. We are 
getting 38 cents per dozen for eggs; 
dressed fowls 22 to 24 cents; sold my last 
chicken at 35 cents per pound. We expect 
to start September l and get seven cents 
per quart for milk, six cents this Summer, 
seven cents last Winter; 30 cents per peck, 
$1 to $1'.15 per bushel, for windfall ap¬ 
ples; 15 cents per dozen for corn, live 
cents per pound for tomatoes, etc. 
Manchester, N. II. u. t. c. 
R. N.-Y.—The billheads are about as 
neat as anything of the sort we have yet 
seen. The middlemen do not get much 
here. 
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Ans.— Do not use the nitrate of soda 
in the Fall. Wait until Spring for it. 
The slag and the potash might be used 
in the Fall if you like. In our own or¬ 
chard we should hesitate to use nearly 
fix pounds of nitrate of soda to a tree 
of that size. We should expect too 
much wood and soft apples. The Cuta¬ 
way harrow used around the trees will 
rive fair culture and benefit the trees. 
We should put the fertilizer on top and 
work it in with the Cutaway. If the 
grass and weeds are cut and piled 
around the trees we should expect as 
good results as with this cultivation. 
Salt or Kainit for Asparagus. 
E- S'. It., Rew York, R. Y. —An applica- 
; ion of common salt is often recommended 
for asparagus. Would not kainit, a pot- 
•sh salt, he much better to apply in early 
Spring? 
Ans.— Common salt should not be ap¬ 
plied to asparagus. There is no plant 
ood value in it for any crop; indeed it 
1S a positive harm to most growing 
'lings. Those who have been unfortu¬ 
nate enough to pour the salt water from 
a ice-cream freezer on a lawn well 
'■ now the result. The only reason that 
asparagus is not killed outright by the 
application of salt is that the roots are 
‘lown deep in the ground, and are not 
immediately affected. The root system 
°f asparagus is so extensive that no 
harmful substance can entirely destroy 
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