1008. 
635 
DISASTERS A PECAN GROVE WILL STAND. 
Planting Trees for Old Age. 
Every man and every tree Uiat wishes to live any 
length of time upon this glohe of ours must expect 
to meet with a good deal of what James Whitcomb 
Riley calls “Sorrow’s blighting rain,” and it is well 
with man and tree alike, if they are blessed with a 
sound, vigorous constitution, so that they are able to 
meet the blasts. Every man, while lie is still in his 
youth or middle life, should do some work that 
should give returns in his old age, and make his 
declining years independent and happy. Many of us 
remember Ruskin’s account of the beautiful old 
Greek custom of the “Crown of Wild Olives,” a 
period of rest and peace, even in this world, after 
the hard battles of life are over. And all of us, now 
while we are young, should prepare for our crown 
of wild olives. While still in my youth, I looked 
around me to find something to do that would bring 
independence and peace to my old age. My people 
were all cotton planters, and of all occupations on 
earth that are most filled with worry the calling of 
the cotton planter takes the lead. He is the victim 
of every storm and flood that comes along. Neither 
in his youth nor his old age docs he ever know 
peace. II is crop requires more labor than any other. 
His labor is of the most unruly class. I chose for 
my crown of wild olives a pecan grove, and planted 
it 24 years and some months ago, amid the ridicule 
of the whole community. Our people never planted 
for more than a year ahead, and anyone who was 
willing to wait 10 years for his returns was con¬ 
sidered nothing more than a fool. 
They prophesied every imaginary 
disaster. The disasters all came, 
but the pecan grove stood them 
all, and the “fool” who planted 
the grove was not such a big 
fool after all. For 24 years after, 
the very men who laughed the 
loudest are now planting groves 
for themselves. 
My father, mother and grand¬ 
mother all loved horticulture, and 
it was no wonder that I inherited 
the love to a very great degree, 
I had my little garden when I 
was hut five years old, and when 
I was sent off to Virginia to 
school, at a very early age, I 
spent all my spare time in looking 
over the catalogues and planning 
what I would do when I got 
home. My mother owned two 
very good cotton plantations in 
the Mississippi Valley, and it 
looked at one time as if I should 
plant them all in trees and vines. 
I planted peach, pear, apple, plum, 
cherry and apricot orchards, and 
vineyards of grapevines and 
patches of strawberry plants. 
They arc all dead and gone, with 
the exception of my pecan grove 
of a hundred acres, and six 
THE KUKAb NEW-YORKEK 
would have stood such a disaster with so much forti¬ 
tude. as this pecan grove. 
When I planted my grove, I planted the nuts out in 
the open cotton fields, in the cotton rows, and put a 
stake by each nut. The neighbors all said the little 
negroes would grabble down and get all the pecans 
and cat them, and what few they left the mules and 
careless plow hands would destroy in less than a 
year. The little negroes did get a few of them, and 
the mules and careless plow hands did destroy a few 
trees, but 1 had calculated upon this, and had planted 
thick enough to discount it. If anything my trees 
arc a little too close together even now. It looks 
very much now in spite of all the prophecies 
of disaster, and in spite of all the real disasters that 
my pecan grove was going to prove a real crown of 
wild olives, and that it would bring peace and happi¬ 
ness to my old age, after all the storms and floods 
of youth and middle life were past. And what seems 
strangest of all, it will not only prove such to me 
alone, hut to my old mother, who was more than 50 
years old when the grove was planted. The cotton¬ 
planting interest has gone all to . pieces now the 
Mexican boll-weevil has come, hut the pecan grove 
proves more and more remunerative each year. The 
people who laughed at me most 24 years ago laugh 
no longer. The whole South is planting pecan groves. 
They will all be needed. More nuts and fruits are 
being eaten each year. More people arc adopting the 
vegetarian habit, and they find that it brings them 
happiness and health. 1 know of nothing a young 
man in the South could plant with more certainty 
that it would stand the storms of life, than a pecan 
and then disk the land thoroughly for wheat. Then, 
if you have applied to the clover or mixed in the 
manure spread on the land a liberal amount of acid 
phosphate and muriate of potash, you can look for 
a good crop of wheat after the corn without fer¬ 
tilization, and would have no expensive nitrogen to 
pay for. The best wheat growers in Kent, Queen 
Anne's and Talbot counties, Md., have bought no 
nitrogen for 20 years or more, and have seen their 
yields run up to an average of 40 bushels of wheat 
per acre and the corn to 75 bushels per acre. Feed 
the legume crops liberally with phosphoric acid and 
potash, and they will do the rest. A farmer whose 
interest is in wheat need never buy an ounce of 
ammonia or nitrogen in any form, if he farms right, 
raises legume forage, and feeds stock and makes 
manure. Good farming is needed more than gam¬ 
bling with fertilizers, but this docs not mean skimming 
the land without returning plant food to it. 
Rustproof Oats in Virginia. 
Wltat about sowing rustproof oats in tidewater region of 
northern Virginia, Alexandria and Fairfax counties, Instead 
Of rye? It . 8 . I,. 
Ballston, Va. 
we I 
Kicffcr pear trees and one old lien Davis apple which 
supplies apples for the whole community. The blights, 
and insects, and storms, and overflows, and “sor¬ 
row’s blighting rain” were too much for them. 
The man who farms (or plants as we call it) in 
the Mississippi Valley, while he has the richest lands 
in the world, has more disasters to meet than others. 
We find these compensations all through nature. In 
11)07 we had an overflow from the Mississippi River 
which covered our plantation for seven whole weeks. 
It came while the pecan grove was in full leaf. In 
some portions of the grove the water stood 10 feet 
deep. What were the results? Only one tree out of 
more than a thousand died. It seemed to do the 
others good. Had they been any other kind of fruit 
or nut trees, with the exception of figs, nearly all 
would have died. The first Sunday in May last 
year (1907) there visited this community the worst 
storm or cyclone of hail and wind ever known in 
the State of Louisiana. Corn was two feet high in 
the fields and cotton was chopped to a stand. After 
the storm was over not a vestige of corn nor cotton, 
nor any living thing could be found in the fields. 
I he hail came so hard and fast that it unroofed 
houses, killed all the smaller animals, and the wind 
blew down oaks and cedars in great abundance and 
left havoc and destruction on every side. What was 
the effect on the pecan grove? Every leaf and nut 
vas knocked off the trees (they had been in full leaf 
for two months), but only two trees were totally 
destroyed, and now just one year afterwards, as I 
look out: upon the grove, 1 can scarcely see any evil 
effects from the storm. Surely nothing that I could 
have planted to bring ease and peace to my old age 
-BLOOM'S OF BECHTEL’S DOUBLE-FLOWERING CRAB. 
Fig. 244. See -Ruralisms, Page 538. 
grove. But don’t believe those whose only object is 
to sell trees. It is no get-rich-quick scheme. It re¬ 
quires care and labor and waiting, but if you give 
these the results will be sure to come. But of these 
things I shall speak more fully in some future 
numbers. sam. h. james. 
ANSWERS BY PROF. MASSEY. 
Questions About Wheat. 
Why does late wheat stand thinner than earlier sowed 
wheat, and though I sowed for late wheat one-half bushel 
more wheat than for the earlier? Wheat was sown very 
late in November. I sowed only fit) pounds nitrate of 
soda per acre, and it showed such a strong effect on wheat 
that I didn’t think advisable to put more on. Wouldn’t 
another dose of 50 pounds hurt? p. h. 
Snow Hill, Md. 
Wheat, sown early, has a longer Fall growing 
season, and tillers or sends out runners that root 
and thicken the growth. Late-sown wheat has a 
shorter season to do this, and thus makes fewer 
plants. I have had good results from sowing 100 
pounds of nitrate of soda per acre on wheat in 
the Spring, just as growth begins. But the wheat 
had had a liberal supply of phosphoric acid and 
•potash in the Fall, and the vigorous growth the 
nitrate caused enabled it to make more wheat. But 
nitrate of soda alone, applied to poor land, while 
it will make an increased growth, will not greatly 
increase the yield. I he economical way to increase 
tile wheat crop in your light land will he to have 
a crop of peas or Crimson clover or both preceding 
the corn crop, and on the clover spread the manure 
made and turn all under for the corn crop. Then 
cultivate the corn shallow and level and cut it off, 
If sown early in September, so as to get 
established and tillered before cold weather, I have 
no doubt that the Red Rust-Proof oats will do well 
with you. 1 hey should he put in rather deeply with 
a hoc drill, so that the ridges will feed into them. 
’I he only danger of the rust-proof oats is that if the 
seed comes from I exas they arc apt to be mixed with 
Johnson grass seed, and you may get a nuisance in 
your land, for while Johnson 
grass has undoubted value as a 
hay crop, its aggressive charac¬ 
ter makes it troublesome. I 
would prefer a grass that I can 
control rather than one that con¬ 
trols me. I have always pre¬ 
ferred the Virginia Grey Winter 
I urf oats for Fall sowing. An¬ 
other oat has been highly recom¬ 
mended in the South; this is 
called the Appier, but I have 
never grown it. Those who have 
say that it is superior to others. 
The Burt is also a good oat. I 
found in the upper Piedmont 
country of Virginia, on a granite 
red clay soil, that I could make 
good Blue grass pastures, by get¬ 
ting the humus content of the land 
improved and using lime. I be¬ 
lieve that in tidewater Virginia 
good Blue grass can be grown by 
a liberal use of pulverized oyster 
shells. Here where I now live 
we have a very sandy soil. The 
truckers have used large quanti¬ 
ties of city manure and the Blue 
grass has come in in a most won¬ 
derful manner after liming. Our 
roads are made of oyster shells 
(and fine roads they are, too,) 
and on each side of the roads, 
where the pulverized shells arc washed from the 
road, there is a broad belt of Blue grass. Pulverized 
limestone or pulverized shells applied heavily will 
make limestone conditions in the soil that will favor 
not only Blue grass but any grass. w. f. massey. 
SOME WONDERFUL WHITE CLOVER. 
I enclose sample of White clover that grows here 
rampant. We have a pasture field of about 15 acres 
in green grass and this clover. The root system 
covers the entire surface of the fields and from the 
roots shoot up the leaf and blossom stems. Our 
neighbors have the same quality of soil. The White 
clover on their farms seldom gets over hand high. 
We commenced to pasture stock April 1 and at this 
date it looks as if 50 head would not keep it down. 
It has been here about 15 years. It will spread over 
adjoining fields in two years after we set them in 
grass. I sent sample to our agricultural college. 
'Their report was “common White clover grown 
under very favorable conditions.” I have known 
this clover to grow profusely, during a rainy spell 
in August. One of my neighbors hauled a wagon 
load of sods, to set in spots on his pasture fields; 
all of his pasture is green grass. All of the clover 
roots are full of nitrogen nodules. 
Harford Co., Md. geo. w. m'comas. 
R. N.-Y.—The sample sent is evidently common 
White clover. The tops measured over 18 inches. 
We never before saw such a vigorous growth of 
this plant. Evidently the soil was just exactly right 
for it. The roots were well covered with the no¬ 
dules. We shall be glad to learn how that experi¬ 
ment with resetting the sods comes out. That would 
he more likely to help thy crop than to cut seed on 
the first field and scatter it over the pasture. 
REDUCED IN SIZE. 
