1911 . 
THE RURAIi NEW-VORKER 
837 
KNIFE FOR THINNING CORN. 
To-day I was shown and used a tool 
for weeding and thinning corn in the 
field. It works so well and is so simple 
I must let your readers know of it. 
One man with this tool will do with 
ease the work of five men without it, 
and do it better. Anyone can make it 
in 15 minutes. The old back-breaking 
way was to pull the surplus corn, at 
same time disturbing the roots of the 
corn which was left. With the new 
tool no roots are disturbed. One walks 
upright and does two rows as fast as 
he can walk. To make the tool get a 
stick about 30 inches long, like a stout 
cane; flatten one side near thg big 
end of the stick; screw the cutting 
blade of a mowing machine on the flat¬ 
tened portion of the stick, and the tool 
is done. Try it. It does not look as 
good as it is, but try it. j. G. 
Malvern, Pa. 
AN OLD ORCHARD REDEEMED. 
In 1910 a party bought half of an old 
apple orchard of about seven acres on the 
Niagara River. Soon after the owners 
came to me and asked If I would undertake 
the task of redeeming the nearly dead trees. 
I began by trimming the dead wood all out, 
scraped the trees with a hoe as high up as I 
could reach, both bodies and limbs, then 
painted stubs where limbs were sawed off. 
Then I bought three barrels of soluble oil 
and proceeded to use it by mixing it one to 
12 of water. I sprayed the orchard on all 
sides. The ground was plowed and culti¬ 
vated and kept clean all the year. The or¬ 
chard leafed out in good shape, and was 
full of bloom. After the blossoms had 
fallen I sprayed it again with Bordeaux mix¬ 
ture. The consequence was that in the Fall 
the owners sold $120 worth of apples, 
where in the other half of the orchard that 
was not sprayed and cultivated there were 
no apples. In Spring of 1911 the orchard 
was again plowed and cultivated and re- 
trimmed and then sprayed by using one bar¬ 
rel of oil mixed as before. The foliage 
came out green and bright, and trees blos¬ 
somed full. After blossoms had fallen I 
sprayed again with lime and sulphur and 
arsenate of lead, and will spray once more 
with the same mixture. Prospects are very 
good for an abundant crop of apples this 
season. j. c. w. 
Lewiston, N. Y. 
What Ailed the Vetch? 
I sowed 300 pounds of Winter or Hairy 
vetch, the first of last September, with one- 
half bushel of rye and 25 pounds vetch to 
the acre. The ground was plowed and a 
good seed bed made before sowing. This 
vetch came up very well, and was six to 
eight inches high when Winter set in, but 
this Spring there was no vetch to be seen. 
This was sown on light, worn-out, sandy 
soil. Do you think I got Spring vetch? 
Does it need inoculation? e. r. 
White Pigeon, Mich. 
I am confident that it was Spring vetch 
instead of Hairy vetch. This is the first in¬ 
stance I have ever heard of its freezing 
out. On the W. C. Smith farm, of poor, 
sandy soil, and where it has been grown 
for the past six years, it has stood through 
the severe Winters unharmed, and in one 
instance his lowlands were covered with 
flooded ice for quite a while, but the vetch 
came through all right. I would advise 
E. R. to try it again, even if on only a 
small scale, as I know Hairy vetch is just 
what his lands need. No inoculation is 
needed. This matter has been well shown 
on the farm above noted. j. rr. haynes. 
Indiana. 
WEEDS IN THE VINEYARD. 
Can some of The R. N.-Y. readers say if 
it may not be a mistake to keep a vineyard 
clean of all growth of weeds? Now the 
purslane (“pusley”) is covering the ground, 
protecting soil from the intense sun’s rays, 
midday, and quite cool air of nights. I 
have kept it cultivated and hoed down, hut 
am led to think it may be a “plant misun¬ 
derstood,” and that it was really a. benefit. 
Will some answer? c. a. i*. 
Highland, N. Y. 
My plan for grapes has been clean cul¬ 
tivation till July 1, and sometimes August 
1, depending on crop vines were carrying 
and growth of new wood. We then let the 
weeds grow so as to keep up the supply of 
humus in the soil. The time that cultiva¬ 
tion should cease is a matter that each 
vine.vardist must decide for his special type 
of soil, remembering that late cultivation 
■timulates wood growth and retards ripen¬ 
ing of fruit and wood, while if cultivation 
is stopped too quickly wood and fruit may 
be stunted. B. J. case. 
Wayne Co., N. Y. 
I think clean culture to August 1 much 
the best vineyard practice; after that 
weeds or a cover crop will do no harm, 
and may be of an advantage. As to 
working a weed crop as conserver of mois¬ 
ture we cannot see far enough ahead. Wet 
soil will grow weeds very fast. Should it 
turn dry and hot, working deep to kill 
the weeds will dry the soil quickly and cut 
off the fine feeding roots of the vines, and 
check growth suddenly, reducing the crop 
by reducing the size of the berry. 
Orange Co., N. Y. e. w. barnes. 
After the middle of July vineyardists in 
this section welcome such weeds as purslane 
and chickweed in their vineyards. They 
make an excellent cover crop, and after the 
date mentioned, there is but little more 
growth of either vine on bunch. A cover 
crop tends to check growth and hastens ma¬ 
turity and early ripening. A vineyard kept 
entirely clean for the entire season, soon 
gets the soil hard and lumpy from lack of 
humus. Weeds are much better than no 
cover crop. Rye, buckwheat and clover are 
all used as cover crops, but 75 per cent of 
the vineyardists use weeds. 
Yates Co., N. Y. e. c. gillett. 
Our idea here is to plow the vineyards 
reasonably early in Spring, and keep thor¬ 
oughly cultivated until about first of Au¬ 
gust ; most of us believe in some sort of 
cover crop. In some vineyards soon as 
cultivation stops a heavy growth of chick- 
weed starts. This is thought well of, and 
where it grows wells other crops are not 
usually sown. Protecting soil from heat 
of sun in early part of season is a new 
idea to me; I don't think well of it, as wo 
find the hotter the weather the better the 
grapes grow. After grapes get full size 
and ripening begins, we do not want vino 
growth, and any kind of cover crop that 
will cover ground we think a good thing. 
Pennsylvania. a. i. loop. 
I think it a mistake to keep a vineyard 
perfectly clean, unless the owner has 
plenty of yard manure, or recourse is had 
to a yearly cover crop, and this last is not 
sufficient to maintain the humus or proper 
soil texture, for the reason that it must be 
plowed before sufficient growth has been 
made in the Spring. Otherwise if a dry 
season ensues the cover crop has used the 
moisture necessary to carry the vines and 
trouble ensues. I once made the mistake 
of letting a heavy growth of Crimson 
clover stand until it was two feet high, 
about the 10th of June, I think, in the 
expectation of a wet time. The rains did 
not materialize and the vineyard did not 
recover in three or four years. I do not 
know what “pusley” is, but we have a 
creeping, thick-growing plant that we call 
chickweed, and consider it a blessing if it 
comes in after the last cultivation late in 
July, and it usually does if ground has 
been well cultivated. I think if the in¬ 
quirer has kept his vineyard well worked 
up to the middle or late July he need not 
worry. I once heard our State Grange 
lecturer, who has a vineyard in Chautau¬ 
qua County, state that a vineyard could be 
maintained and kept at its best indefinitely 
by cultivation alone, without the use of 
barnyard manure or cover crops. lie evi¬ 
dently believed it, and gave an experience 
of 20 years to prove his statement. Now 
that might be possible on some deep fertile, 
gravelly loam in his county where soil 
texture maintains itself, and the thorough 
cultivation provides sufficient food to carry 
the vines. But on our heavier clay soil's 
of Ontario County the constant plowing 
and cultivation would burn out the vege¬ 
table matter in two or three years at the 
most, and our vineyards would be worth¬ 
less except for making brick of the soil. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. f. a. seeley. 
I dare not recommend the practice of 
letting weeds grow in a vineyard because 
of their usefulness for humus, lest I be 
misunderstood and some one may take an 
ell for an inch, and so have an authority 
for the practice. Nevertheless, weeds have 
their part in maintaining the fertility of the 
soil. I am at the present moment very 
busy preparing the soil of my cherry orchard 
for a cover crop, and have manv weeds that 
were allowed to grow up during the hurry 
of cherry harvest. A young lady com¬ 
mented on the absurdity of my practice of 
obliterating one crop of plants that I might 
sow another. . But when I am through my 
cover crop will have a fine stand over the 
entile orchard. Now the weeds have not 
She also asked if the cover crop would not 
rob the trees of necessary moisture. In 
reply I told her that might be true of to- 
day, but if I continued my present practice 
of having a cover crop, the humus added 
to the soil m five years would retain more 
moisture than the weeds now take. For a 
number of years past I have not used com- 
mercial fertilizers as a direct system for 
fertilizing the trees. I use it to make a 
larger cover crop which will give me a 
more sponge-like soil. If vour readers were 
a class in agriculture I would like to dwell 
upon how plants succeed each other. In my 
strawberry bed, chickenweed was a pest 
during the early weeks of the Summer: 
biter came pigweed; now comes purslane 
” hen we reach the cool nights of September 
the chickweed will return in all the glory 
of May. affording a most pointed lesson 
on the influence of climate on the growth 
of plants. j. w. s. 
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Thorough Fertilizing. 
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