882 
One year set Soleil d’Or had one bud. Seven year 
set John Hopper had two open, one opening and two 
buds. Paul Neyron four buds. Gen. Jacqueminot, 
seven years set, had respectively three, two and five 
buds. Prince Camille de Rohan two, one and 38. 
Gen. Washington one, one and three. Eva Rathlce, one 
year set, had seven trusses with eight to 13 flowers 
each. Season has been extremely dry; a^nd unfavor¬ 
able. The only proposed change for next Spring’s 
planting will be to discard the Madame Charles .Wood. 
While it is faultless in form and highly perfumed it 
has here but one blooming period, consequently it 
must pay' the penalty, elimination—“Survival of the 
Attest.” 
The lawn soil is a filled in, gravelly subsoil, there¬ 
fore not ideal and often extremely dry. Unquestion¬ 
ably a heavy soil underlaid with clayey subsoil is well 
suited for roses. While moisture is desirable, free 
water in the soil is a deadly enemy, but can be readily 
controlled by tile drainage. Infertile soil will prompt¬ 
ly respond to an application of well rotted manure. 
Annually a pound or two of fertilizer per bush, well 
mixed with the soil, of four, eight and eight analysis 
is liberal and ought to bring good results. 
PROPAGATION.—Roses are propagated an two 
ways, by cutting and budding, or grafting. Cuttings 
of many varieties readily form «their own roots, which 
is preferable if the root system is a good one and 
docs not sucker except at base. However, many of 
the choice roses are budded, usually on Marietta stock 
that originally came from Italy. Most roses grown 
on this stock adapt themselves to new soil and climate. 
This 'stock develops an excellent root system without 
the objectionable features that some others have. 
Good, strong, well-rooted, two-year-old roses are best 
size and age to plant, and cost ordinarily 15 to 50 
cents each, depending on variety and quantity. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. t. e. martin. 
(To be continued.) 
“ A COMPOSITE WATCHDOG.” 
We notice that many farmers are improving the 
quality of their farm dogs—along with the other farm 
stock. There are still far too many “curs” at large, 
but well-trained specimens of the improved breeds 
are to be found on some farms. Such dogs are 
worth keeping, for they can be made useful in many 
ways. The idea of a “composite dog” was new to us 
until we received the picture and the following 
note:— 
Fig. 536 pictures a truly successful watcb dog. The 
bull terrier was all right i\hen ai home, but having been 
born and bred among a crowd of dogs and children, and 
even taken out rabbit bunting, ho was * rover. I had 
heard a spayed collie couldn’t be enticed from home, and 
that the suffering from the spaying operation (if done 
by a stranger) caused a never-dying distrust of all 
strangers. In this case Ihe added merit of reforming the 
rover is to her credit, and the best of It lies in tbe 
fact that her keener hearing, seent and inteliigenoe. 
joined to Tige’s “bull” reputation, has stopped our tosses 
by chicken thieves. J- S- T. 
Fredericksburg, Va. 
THE ACTION OF LIME. 
I notice that Mr. Wing, of 'Ohio, always advises the 
use of raw ground limestone in preference to the burnt 
stone. Please explain to me the advantage of tbe raw 
stone in sweetening the land. F. s 
Uidgeland, Miss. 
In regard to raw ground limestone versus burnt 
stone, the difference is this: Raw stone is the natural 
treatment; any quantity of it can "he used with ab¬ 
solute safety; it can be applied any time of the year 
without injuring the plants, and it benefits soils, 
never injures them. Its disadvantages are that it is 
a little slow in its action, and that it requires quite 
a good deal of it to accomplish the necessary results. 
Fresh burnt lime, on the ether hand, is very powerful, 
and will accomplish a great deal of work with only 
a small amount of lime. One ton of fresh burnt 
lime will accomplish as much as three or four tons 
of the ground rock; but it is so powerful, and - so 
quick in its action, that it destroys the humus of the 
soil, and will also injure plant life to a large extent. 
The air-slaked lime is between the other two. Tt 
will accomplish nearly twice as much as the unburnt 
stone, it is slower in action than the fresh burnt 
stone, hut quicker than the unburnt. It probably 
attacks the humus of the soil to a limited extent, 
but hv no means as much as the fresh burnt. We 
have occasional complaints that it injures young 
plants, especially when the lime is sown at just about 
the same time that grass seed is sown. This might 
be due to imperfect slaking of the lime before it is 
applied. I11 many parts of the country it is as yet 
impossible to secure the ground stone at a price in 
keeping with the results obtainable; in such places 
the air-slaked lime must necessarily be used. Ground 
limestone rock should be purchased for about $ 2.50 to 
$3 per ton at delivery point to make its extensive 
use profitable. At this price farmers can usually af¬ 
ford to use about four tons per acre. I frequently 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
have letters from people who state that the ground 
stone will cost them two-thirds or three-fourths as 
much per ton as the air-slaked lime, sometimes even 
more than the air-slaked lime; these people I always 
advise to use air-slaked lime in preference to the 
unburrat lime. chas. b. wing. 
Ohio. _ 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CHEAP LANDS. 
Tbe Use of Stable Manures. 
Part vra. 
HOW TO SAVE MANURE.— I do not intend to 
lay down rules, and insist that everyone must follow 
them. But I do say that if the farmer is to get the 
full value from his manure supply, and if he is to 
build up his impoverished fields, by its use, he must 
devise some means by which he can save it from loss 
in these three ways: First, the loss of the liquid 
manure; second, the loss from leaching, and third, 
the loss from what is commonly termed heating. I 
purpose to state just how manure has been handled 
on Maple Creek Farm for a number of years past. 
Our feeding is all done under coveT, the stock mostly 
running loose in large stables or box stalls. These 
stables and stalls all have cement floors, so that there 
is no chance for the loss of any of the liquid waste 
from the animals. Plenty of absorbent is used to 
absorb all the liquid manure, and to keep the animals 
dry and clean. These stables are not cleaned every 
day; sometimes they go a month without cleaning 
(this is, for stock other than milch cows). I know 
some readers will say that this is a slovenly way to 
care for stock, but remember absorbent is used in 
sufficient quantity to keep the animals dry and clean. 
I do not think there is anything unsanitary in this 
way of handling stock, and I am sure it is the best 
way to handle the product under consideration, for 
as long as it is in these stables and stalls, 1 think we 
have it saved as nearly perfectly as it is possible. 
None of the urine is lost, for it cannot get away 
through the cement floor. There is no loss from 
leaching, for no rain ever falls upon it, and again 
I believe there is very little if any loss from heating, 
for the animals, running on their own waste, keep it 
so thoroughly compacted that air is excluded and 
fermentation checked. There is no smell of decay¬ 
ing manure about these stables. Whenever there is 
a good time to get on to the fields with the product, 
we take it directly to the field with the spreader, and 
spread it evenly, thinly and upon grass land. I want 
to emphasize these four points in the application of 
stable manure; first, its use when fresh; second, its 
use upon grass land, or upon land that is filled with 
living roots; third, light application; fourth, even 
spreading. 
FRESH MANURE MOST V ALU ABLE. —Ma¬ 
nure is more valuable when fresh than aft any other 
time. As indicated above, there Is always a loss of 
plant food in the process of fermentation of the 
manure heap. There is also a large loss of organic 
matter. This is true not only scientifically and theo¬ 
retically, hut practically.. Numerous experiments have 
proved that fresh manure has shown almost uniform 
gains over rotted manure. That old phrase, “Well- 
rotted stable manure” has done untold harm, and 
must answer for more soil impoverishment than any 
other phrase that has ever been in the agricultural 
press. This is not meant as a criticism upon the gar¬ 
dener or trucker, for there are good reasons why 
they should use decomposed manure, and plenty of it. 
But for the general farmer, raising staple crops, and 
for whom the manure supply is limited, it is a had 
doctrine and a worse practice. As we travel over 
the country we still occasionally see manure hauled 
out and left in small piles to he spread at a more 
convenient time. Don’t do it. It is a waste of time, 
labor, and fertility. We are often asked at the in¬ 
stitutes if it is advisable to spread manure on rolling 
land in the Winter. The answer is yes, nearly al¬ 
ways. There may sometimes be a little loss, but on 
the other hand, unless one has good facilities for 
storing, there is always a loss in keeping it. If a 
rain is followed quickly by hard freezing and the 
ground frozen when full of water, and a laj^er of ice 
over the field, it would he foolish to apply the ma¬ 
nure. but under ordinary circumstances there will be 
little loss even on quite rolling land. 
It is my conviction that the most economical use 
of stable manure, is as a top-dressing for grass land, 
or of land that is filled with living roots, to take up 
the elements of fertility as fast as they are available. 
It seems to me that there is a very important point 
right here. Suppose manure is applied to a bare 
naked soil. What happens? The rains wash the sol¬ 
uble plant food down into the soil. There are no 
roots present to use it, and it must either he washed 
out of the soil by the rains, or lie unused. I am con¬ 
vinced that when plant food, from manures or com¬ 
mercial fertilizers, lies unused in the •soil, there is a 
November 13, 
large loss in availability. It becomes in part fixed by 
the soil, and is held there either mechanically or 
chemically, and is lost so far as immediate use is 
concerned. This is new doctrine and you de¬ 
mand a reason. Everybody is acquainted with 
the disinfectant and absorptive properties of clay. 
We use it to absorb odors and disinfect stables, 
and to fix ammonia from the manure heap. If 
a handful of clay proves so effective in fixing these 
noxious qualities in the stable, what can the result 
but be if a small quantity of the noxious material 
(manure), be incorporated in a large body of day 
(soil). Surely there must be a much more perfect 
fixation of the fertilizing principles. The great filter¬ 
ing plants in the cities, by which the feral river water 
is purified before it is delivered to the 'consumer, are 
a practical illustration of the fixing properties of the 
soil. We depend every day upon these properties of 
the soil to keep our wells pure. If the soil purifies 
the water that filters through it, what is that but say¬ 
ing that it absorbs, and holds these impurities? The 
refining of sugar by filtration through hone black is 
another illustration of this principle. It has been 
found impossible to recover all the plant food applied 
in commercial fertilizers, due it seems, to this fixing 
power of the soil. Director Thorne of the Ohio 
Experiment Station has been unable to recover more 
than 48 per cent of the phosphoric acid applied in the 
fertilizer. The remaining 52 per cent must surely 
have been fixed in and held by the soil. 
We may not be able fully to explain all of these 
phenomena. Some of them are undoubtedly due to 
physical absorption; that is, held mechanically in the 
soil, while others are due to chemical activities. 
From the standpoint of the chemist there can be no 
such thing as rest in so complex a material as a 
fertile Soil. Chemical compounds are constantly being 
broken down, and their elements thus liberated fly 
together in other chemical unions. Thus ldilgard 
says that “when a weak solution of potassic chloride 
or sulphate is poured upon a column of good 
soil several inches thick, it will be found that the first 
portions passing through are free from potash, but 
contain the chlorides, or sulphates of magnesium and 
calcium.” In this case the potash had taken the 
place of the magnesium and calcium. Illustrations 
might be given at length of this disp’acement of one 
element 'by another. Manure lying in the soil subject 
to all these chemical changes and counter-changes 
must he affected, and portions -of the available plant 
food contained go into chemical union with certain 
of the soil elements, and become unavailable, like the 
basic plant-food of the soil. All theory, l you say. 
Practice fully bears out the theory. At Rothamsted 
two plots were kept in barley continuously for 40 years. 
One plot received no fertilizer whatever during the 
whole 'experiment of 40 years, the other received an¬ 
nual applications •of manure (14 tons per acre) during 
the first 20 years. The last 20 years it received 
nothing. The following table giving the yields of the 
■last 20 years in five-year periods, shows the residual 
effect of manure: 
rnmamrred every Residual 
year for 40 years, effect of manure. 
First (five years- 13 39 
Secfxad daw years_ 14 29 
Third! .five years.-.,.--,- 14 30 
Fourth five years_ 12 23 
Tbe experiment showed that fertility from the 
manure was being locked up in the soil during the 
first 20 a ears, and that it was held for at least 20 
years after the last application, at which time it was 
being made available in sufficient quantities almost to 
•double the yield of the unmanured plot. 
Recently, a man from the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture who has been working in the South, told 
the writer that some of the southern cotton planters 
had been for years applying more plant food, by 
means of commercial fertilizers, than the crop re¬ 
moved, yet with diminishing crop, but when the soil 
was filled with humus by means of green manuring, 
they could raise abundant crops for a few years 
without fertilizers. The improved conditions rendered 
available the plant food applied years before, and 
locked up and held by the soil. 
Think back over your own experience—sometime 
after harvest you had a quantity of manure available, 
and you spread it along one side of a field intended 
for corn the following year. Perhaps in the Winter 
you manured another strip. Then in the Spring you 
hauled out some coarse manure and plowed it under 
immediately. Now, where did you get the best corn? 
Why, on the strip you manured the Summer before 
didn’t you, where the elements of fertility were taken 
up by the grass roots and preserved for the corn 
crop? Then again, -sometimes, not often perhaps, but 
sometimes, you have had this experience. Where 
you applied coarse manure and plowed it under im¬ 
mediately, without a rain to carry down the soluble 
plant food, you failed to receive any benefit from it. 
The reason of the failure is foreign to the discussion 
and need not now concern us. You put good manure 
—plenty of it—upon that land; the corn crop did not 
get the benefit, and you reasoned that the succeeding 
crop would be benefited by it. But did you ever see 
it? Were you not disappointed? From my own 
experience I can almost answer for you, that you 
were. Where manure lies in the soil unused, sub¬ 
ject to all the changes and activities of a fertile 
soil, there is surely a ICS's. As a general rule I advise 
applying the manure as a top-dressing to land that is 
filled with living roots, which will seize the plant food 
as fast as it becomes available, and build it up into 
plant tissues, and thus preserve it. r. t. allen. 
