1883 .] 
AMERICAS' AGRICULTURIST. 
Close Pruning for Small Fruits. 
The importance of thinning canes, and 
shortening in the wood of the small fruits, 
is not generally understoood by the average 
farmer. He thinks he has done his duty 
when he has planted his currant bushes and 
raspberries under the wall or fence and left 
them to the rivalry of weeds and their own 
suckers. His grape vine climbs an apple 
tree, or the trellis on the side of the barn, 
without much pruning, and he blames the 
nurseryman for imposing upon him with 
worthless varieties of fruit. Let him apply 
the knife to the grape vine, cutting back all 
the new wood*to two eyes, after the vine has 
covered his trellis, and he will see clusters to 
rejoice his vision and palate. Only four 
canes to the stool should be left for the rasp¬ 
berry, and treat other shoots as weeds. Even 
the canes that are left to grow, after the old 
ones have finished bearing and are cut away, 
should have their branches shortened in, by 
thumb pruning, to give the best results. 
Manure your currant bushes with ashes; keep 
down the worms with white hellebore, cut 
out one-third of the wood every season, and 
even the old Red Dutch currant will sur¬ 
prise you with its burden of fine fruit. 
Pyrethrum as an Insect Destroyer. 
The last Report of the Entomologist to 
the Department of Agriculture, contains 
much valuable information. With the steady 
growth of horticulture and agriculture, the 
insects injurious to our fruits, flowers, grains 
and vegetables are multiplying, and the loss to 
the nation from insect depredation is estimat¬ 
ed by the hundreds of millions of dollars. A 
call comes up from all quarters for some cheap 
and effectual remedy. The Pyrethrum, 
which has long been an article of commerce, 
under the name of “Persian Insect Powders,” 
and used principally to destroy cockroaches, 
•etc., has in later years been applied to a 
great variety of insects, and found to be as 
fatal to them as to household vermin. The 
variety most in use as an insecticide, is 
Pyrethrum roseum. This plant was illus¬ 
trated in the May number of the American 
Agriculturist, 1882, and particular directions 
given for its cultivation, to which all readers 
;are referred who wish to cultivate the plant 
and secure a large supply of one of the most 
effective and safe destroyers of several in¬ 
sects injurious to farm and garden crops. 
The Government Entomologist distributed 
to various correspondents in all parts of this 
country and in Canada, seeds of P. roseum, in 
the winter and spring, of 1881, and partial re¬ 
ports are now given in his report of the 
failures and successes in cultivation. There 
is no doubt whatever of the hardiness of the 
plant, and its adaptation to a variety of cli¬ 
mate. One experimentor says: “I have 
had a plant of P. roseum in my herbaceous 
garden for many years past, and it holds its 
own without any care much better than 
many other plants. I should say from this ex¬ 
perience that it was a plant which will very 
easily recommend itself to culture in any 
part of the United States.” Peter Hender¬ 
son has grown the plant and its varieties 
for ten years, and finds it easy of culti¬ 
vation, either by seeds or divisions; per¬ 
fectly hardy, and he thinks likely to be 
nearly everywhere on this continent. It has 
been successfully grown in Florida, and also 
in Canada, without any special mode of cul¬ 
tivation. The failures reported are attributed 
to poor seed, to a season of exceptional 
drouths, which destroyed a large number of 
plants that grew well, until the drouth over¬ 
took them, and to the neglect of the culti¬ 
vators. A large part of these reports are yet 
to come in. There are five methods named in 
which the plant may be applied to destroy 
insects : as dry powder; as a fume; as an 
alcoholic extract diluted ; by simple stirring 
of the powder in water ; as a tea or decoc¬ 
tion. The powder may be diluted with ten 
times its bulk of flour, or any finely pul¬ 
verized material as wood ashes. It is recom¬ 
mended to mix the pyrethrum and other 
material 24 hours before use. In a closed 
room the fumes from a small quantity will 
kill or render inactive common flies and mos¬ 
quitoes. For application to insects on plants 
the powder mixed with water, and the tea 
made from the herb dried, are more con¬ 
venient and quite as effectual. The seed can 
be procured of our nurserymen, and the plant 
should be popularized in every community. 
Peas for Stock. 
For some classes of stock, especially sheep 
and swine, peas and pea straw make excel¬ 
lent feed, and should be more largely grown 
for this object. According to reliable author¬ 
ity the composition of peas and pea straw is 
as follows : 
Water. 
Ash. 
Flesh 
Foi mers. 
Fat 
Formers. 
Crude 
fibre. 
Peas. 
14.3 
2.5 
22.4 
52.3 
0.2 
Pea straw 
14.3 
4. 
6.5 
35.2 
40. 
By comparison with other stock foods, we 
find that while peas have a nutritive value of 
22.4 as flesh formers, com has a correspond¬ 
ing value of 10 ; oats, 12 ; barley, 9 ; rye, 11; 
yet, as fat formers, peas have less value than 
the above named grains. 
As a flesh former, pea straw is surpassed 
only by red clover, meadow hay, and bean 
straw, while as fat formers, their comparative 
rank is as follows: Meadow hay, 41.3 ; com 
fodder, 39 ; oat straw, 38; and pea straw, 
35.2; followed by bean straw, 33.5; barley 
straw, 32.7; red clover hay, 29.9; and rye 
straw, 27. Reaumer found that 1,000 pounds 
of peas increased the live weight of sheep 134 
pounds, and produced 14 pounds 11 ounces of 
wool, and 41 pounds 6 ounces of tallow. In 
production of live weight, peas were unsur¬ 
passed by wheat, oats, and barley; in pro¬ 
duction of wool, by hay with straw only ; in 
production of tallow, by wheat and barley 
only—the same amounts by weight being 
used in each case. While the practical feed¬ 
ing value of peas and pea straw will vary in 
different instances from the values above 
given, we may yet see that they have a veiy 
prominent place among stock foods. 
Pea straw may be cut when quite green, 
about the time of pod formation, and used 
like clover, when sheep will often choose 
them in preference to the clover. The nutri¬ 
ment is still mostly in the straw or vines. 
The crop may be left to ripen the peas, and 
then the grain and the straw are fed separate¬ 
ly. Peas make a good food for lambs and sheep 
in winter. As peas are rich in what is defici¬ 
ent in corn, they make a “ balancing” ration. 
The sowing of oats with peas may be prac¬ 
tised to good advantage. Not only do the 
oats assist in holding up the pea vines, but 
of themselves are a good fodder for sheep or 
swine. They are to be cut when the pea is 
soft, and may be used like hay; or, if 
allowed to come to maturity, often a very 
good crop of both oats and peas may be 
gathered. In sowing in drills, use about two- 
thirds peas and one-third oats. J. W. D. 
Skimmed Milk for Hens and Chickens. 
There is nothing better for laying hens in 
the spring than milk, after the cream has 
been taken off. We have tried it several 
seasons with complete success. With the 
milk given fresh from the dairy room every 
day, the fowls will need no other drink, and it 
will supply everything required in the way of 
animal food. The pullets fed with milk and 
corn, and a mixture of corn meal and milk, 
through the cold weather, have given an 
abundant supply of eggs. Wheat bran is also 
a good article to mix with the milk. It is 
better to give the mixture a boiling and to 
feed it in the warm state, but this is not 
necessary. We have also found the milk one 
of the best kinds of diet for young chickens, 
soon after they come from the nest, to pro¬ 
mote their health and rapid growth. Indian 
meal, ground course, and scalded with milk, 
is a perfect feed for them. As they grow 
older, grass, cabbage, or onions may be chop¬ 
ped fine and added to the daily rations. A 
portion of the milk on dairy farms, usually 
going to the pig trough, may be diverted to 
the chicken coop with great advantage. Eggs 
are worth twenty-five cents a dozen, and 
poultry twenty cents a pound, when pork 
brings but ten cents a pound in the market. 
The Roots of Plants. 
The term root is popularly applied to the 
underground portion of plants, but the appli¬ 
cation of the name does not stop here; for in¬ 
stance, roots on the lower joints of com, the 
roots of so-called air plants and those of the 
mistletoe, and other parasites which bury 
into and absorb the juices from the tissues of 
PORTION OP YOUNG ROOT, SHOWING THE ROOT 
HAIRS. 
living plants. The typical root, however, 
penetrates the soil, and to this form alone we 
will be confined. Roots have two functions 
with regard to the life of the plant; one 
purely mechanical, to hold it firmly in its 
place, and the other, the more important 
office of feeder, in which capacity they 
furnish all the water and mineral elements 
used in the growth of the plant. 
In general, the form, structure, and extent 
of the underground portion of the plant is 
similar to that above, and the closer we ex¬ 
amine it the more striking does this resem¬ 
blance become. A tree affords a good type 
for observation. The root, like the stem, 
branches and divides, until towards the ex- 
