6-48 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 3, 
Hope Farm Notes 
AN ASPARAGUS EXPERIMENT. 
No. in. 
In order to realize fully what this aspara¬ 
gus experiment means we should understand 
how the plant grows and what the rust is. 
Asparagus belongs to the lily family. There 
is a fleshy crown or rootstock, long, tough 
roots and a number of stalks or shoots 
above ground. The shoots which we eat 
grow from buds which start from the ends 
and sides of the crowns. When these shoots 
are cut off new buds keep coming out, and 
stalk after stalk will grow so long as the 
crown of the plant has power to send 
them out. At the end of the cutting season 
the last stalks are left to grow. These 
form a top which enables the plant to store 
up new supplies in the crown so as to be 
ready to send up new shoots another year. 
Thus asparagus culture means year after 
year growing a large, strong plant through 
the Summer and forcing it to give up its 
strength in the Spring through its shoots 
or edible stalks. If the plant cannot make 
a strong and prolonged growth above 
ground the crown cannot receive the 
strength and nourishment needed to send out 
the next crop of shoots. In another way it 
is not unlike the common problem of killing 
out brush or young trees. We arc often 
told to cut such brush in the “old of the 
inoon” in August The moon has nothing 
to do with it, but at this time the season’s 
growth above ground is done. The root is 
exhausted after its long work of growing 
the top, and in the course of nature it 
would stop and store up nourishment to fit 
itself for next season’s work. But if the 
tops are now cut off nature prompts the 
root to send up new tops. This still further 
weakens the root and having no time to 
recover it usually dies in Winter, or sends 
but a feeble growth in Spring. If the top 
of the asparagus plant is interfered with 
the crown cannot develop properly, and that 
of course means that the shoots cannot 
form. Those Concord growers use over a 
ton of fertilizer each year, and give thor¬ 
ough culture in order to produce a great 
top, and through it develop a vital crown 
for next year’s crop. 
Now that is where the rust gets them. 
This disease docs not affect th“ asparagus, 
which is cut and sold, but it gets in its 
■work on the green tops which grow after 
cutting ceases, and which are to fit the 
crown for another crop. By killing those 
tops the rust prevents the crown from re¬ 
covering so that the next crop is reduced, 
and in time the plant dies. There are 
three forms of this rust, which appear in 
Spring, Summer and Fall. Anyone who 
has ever seen the disease would recognize 
it. In a bad case you could not pass 
through a field without shaking up a red 
dust or powder which will color the hands 
or face or clothing. The disease was de¬ 
scribed more than a century ago as a para¬ 
sitic fungus of much the same character 
as the rusts which attack grain, flower and 
fruit. The dust which rises when you 
brush through the rusty tops represents in 
each fine particle the spores from which the 
fungus starts. Let one of these tiny par¬ 
ticles fall upon an asparagus plant in a 
moist, warm time and almost immediately 
it starts its development. A mass of very 
fine threads start out from it, and force 
their way into the plant. There they grow 
and steal nourishment which ought to go 
to feed the plant but which they carry to 
the fungus. As they grow in this way they 
stunt the plant by stealing its nourishment 
and split or bore open the skin so that the 
asparagus top dries out and dies. Thus as 
we have seen the crown or root cannot store 
away food for the next season, and if the 
rust attack is severe for two seasons in 
succession a field of ordinary asparagus will 
be practically ruined. 
Many of the fields at Concord were thus 
ruined when the asparagus growers started 
out to save their industry. Evidently one 
of two things must he done—find some way 
of spraying the tops so as to prevent this 
fungus from getting in its work, or find 
varieties which would resist the fungus. 
As we have seen, these growers rejected 
the spraying plan. In California a dust of 
dry sulphur put on the plants had been 
helpful in delaying the growth of rust 
fungus. The California climate and con¬ 
ditions were very favorable to such work. 
In a few localities thorough spraying with 
Bordeaux mixture had held the disease 
somewhat in check, and enabled the plants 
to make a fair-sized top. When we con¬ 
sider how rapidly the rust fungus grows 
and what a multitude of spores are floating 
about it will be seen that spraying to pre¬ 
vent rust is less of a sure thing than fight¬ 
ing other forms of plant disease. It cannot 
be compared with spraying to combat potato 
blight, and the Concord growers decided at 
once not to put faith in spraying, but to 
strike boldly out after varieties or strains 
which would resist the disease. 
We have told how after hunting over the 
earth for suitable plants and seed, Prof. 
Norton finally found one seedling out of 
about 200,000 which is called “commercially 
immune,” with others that are nearly so. 
Those plants may show a little rust in a 
particularly trying season, but not enough 
to stop their full growth. This one immune 
plant is a male. In the asparagus plant the 
female plants alone bear seed—the male 
flowers furnshing pollen. Prof. Norton’s 
work has been crossing this one male plant 
with the most resistant of the female plants 
and then selecting the resulting seeds for 
planting. In doing this work a bag of trans¬ 
parent parchment paper is put over the fe¬ 
male flower after pollen from the male flower 
has been dusted over. When he started this 
work he was not sure whether the wind or 
insects did the work of crossing. lie now 
feels sure that the wind plays no part at 
all. The paper bag over the flower prevents 
the bees from carrying pollen from other 
male flowers. In 1908 a few seedling plants 
were found superior to the rest. These were 
selected for crossing wita the best males 
that could be found. This lot of seedlings 
were grown in 1910 and exposed to the se¬ 
verest attack of rust that could be organ¬ 
ized. It is upon the result of this test that 
Prof. Norton bases his faith in this one 
great male plant. Whenever pollen from 
this plant was used the seedlings show a 
remarkable increase in both rust resistance 
and vigor. They give promise of living 
through any attack of rust, while 99 per 
cent of ordinary seedlings of Palmetto and 
Argenteuil stock planted near by were killed 
to the ground. There have been in the 
history of most breeds of horses and cattle 
animals so sturdy and prepotent that they 
have marked a wide track down through the 
breed of color, shape and ability to work 
or travel or make milk or butter. As for 
the power to resist the attack of disease we 
may take the common case of ivy poisoning. 
It is well known that some persons are 
“immunethat is, they may handle the ivy 
vine without being poisoned. Call in the 
first 100 persons you meet and set them 
at work pulling ivy out of a field, and 
probably 90 would be in great agony, the 
remaining 10 more or less, affected. Yet it 
would be possible to select from 50,000 
people 50 or more who could clean out that 
ivy and never show the poison. It is not so 
improbable, thei’efore, that out of 200,000 
seedlings one has been found capable of 
resisting the rust and transmitting its good 
qualities to its seedlings. In this case I 
believe there is no question about it. Prof. 
Norton and these asparagus growers are 
fully justified in their claims for this plant. 
It has, of course, been known for some 
years that certain strains (there are no true 
varieties) of asparagus resist attacks of 
rust better than others. For instance, Con¬ 
over’s Colossal has been wiped out by the 
disease. The rust disease is not as preva¬ 
lent in Europe as in this country. It has 
been there so long that certain strains of 
asparagus have developed a strong resistance 
to the disease. As the scientist would put 
it, “a balance between the host and the 
parasite has been reached.” When the dis¬ 
ease started in this country it was found 
that while our American strains generally 
went down certain strains brought from 
Europe resisted the rust—as was to be ex¬ 
pected. This famous male plant came from 
this imported stock, and we can see how 
naturally there would be one out of the 
thousands of seedlings of superior power. 
Prof. Norton found that one. So far as 
can be now told an individual aspai-agus 
plant will retain its power to resist rust, 
be it small or great, throughout life. An 
asparagus field may grow more immune with 
age as the rusty plants dry out and die and 
the more resistant ones develop. These 
seedlings at Concord could not be subjected 
to a more trying test, for every effort is 
made to introduce the rust—even to letting 
the earlier shoots mature so as to introduce 
the Spring form of the disease. 
I have taken some time to explain this 
work because I think it the most striking 
illustration of what organization can do, 
and the best example of practical farm 
science that we have in this counti'y. Those 
asparagus growers have achieved what was 
•considered the impossible by organizing 
thoi'oughly for one definite thing, and using 
all their powers to obtain it. Prof. Norton 
has shown what may be done by patient 
selection and breeding for a desired type 
of plant. It is a most striking success and 
I think it indicates what will finally be done 
with potatoes and other crops which are now 
so subject to disease that we must fight for 
their lives. h. w. c. 
Cinders for Concrete Work. —On page 
560 you use the word ashes, meaning coal 
ashes, in a way that might it seems to me 
be misleading, or in other words full cre¬ 
dence might not be given to your state¬ 
ments, and therefore the greatest good pos¬ 
sible would not result from it. I am not 
an expert in concrete work, but have never 
seen ashes used, but always cinders—what 
I should call ashes are always left out. 
When removed from the furnace, the cin¬ 
ders are separated from the ashes by the 
fireman, the ashes hauled to the dump and 
the cinders saved for concrete work. 
Maine. J. henry rines. 
Study Your Wheat Before You Harvest It 
If the yield and quality are bad you must do better. If they are 
good it will pay you to make them better. A better fertilizer will 
do it. The usual wheat fertilizers do not contain enough 
POTASH 
Use 6 to 8 per cent. Potash, instead of I to 2, and balance 
the phosphoric acid of the bone or phosphate. 
Tell Your Dealer about this Now, before the fertilizer salesman 
arrives. Write us today for our two free books, “Fall Fertilizers” 
and "Home Mixing.” 
We sell Potash Salts in any amount from 1 hap: {200 lbs.) -up. 
Write for prices , stating quantity needed. 
GERMAN KALI WORKS, Inc. 
Continental Bldg., Baltimore Monadnock Block, Chicago 
Whitney Bank Bldg., New Orleans 
; '/< ? jAVpA; m a II f: v'/J-'f 
xivu u. dll o aac>. nrcuniwy 
{duo to poor fibre or careless spinning). 
Snarls (due to improper winding of the ball 
or too much twist in the spinning). Had 
tying .(due to unevenness in spinning). 
Plymouth Binder Twine lacks these faults, 
because we are favored as the largest buyers 
of fibre in the world, and next because ours 
is the oldest, most scientific and best- 
manned twine plant in America. 
Don’t take chancos this year. Use either 
PLYMOUTH EXTRA (550 ft. to the lb.) or 
PLYMOUTH SUPERIOR (600 ft. to the lb.) 
Send for instructive New Book on Twine. 
PLYMOUTH C0RDASE COMPANY 
Not in a Trust No. Plymouth, Mass. Established 1824 
Use Plymouth Pope — the Pope you can trust 
aXM\YV\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\YV\V\W\\\\\\\\\V\Y\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\wl 
PLYMOUTH 
Binder Twine 
BINDER TWINE 
FACTORY TO FARM. WANT FARMER AGENTS. 
Write quick. AUGUST POST, Moulton, Iowa 
^ Paint Is Cheaper 
Than New 
Buildings 
You know how 
quickly a building 
that never saw paint 
goes to rack and ruin. 
The boards rot 
around the nails,they 
crack and warp. 
Only constant re¬ 
pair keeps the build¬ 
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An occasional coat of good paint made with 
“Dutch Boy Painter” 
White Lead 
and real linseed oil will save your buildings 
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Decide to use “Dutch Boy Painter” White 
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Write for our "Helps No. 2008 which will tell 
you why , how , with what ../id when to paint. 
National Lead Company 
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St. Louis Boston Buffalo 
Cincinnati San Francisco 
John T. Lewis A Bros. Co.. Philadelphia 
National Lead & Oil Co., Pittsburgh 
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