1912. 
U'HB RURAL, N5W-YORKER 
Wll 
AN OHIO ORCHARD IN RIVER BOTTOM. 
Good Returns from Intelligent Treatment. 
tween the banks is almost worthless for any other 
purpose, and in it there stands several thousand bar¬ 
rels of water close at hand. It can be pumped into 
an elevated tank and run out as needed for spraying, 
or pumped in spraying tank direct if desired. The 
stream goes dry in Summer droughts, but it is not 
often when there is not a good rain every few weeks 
through the season. He expects to cement a runway 
to carry off the surplus water. 
In addition to the eight acres of orchard mentioned 
he has a considerable area planted which will soon 
be in bearing, and some just getting a start. He 
has bought another tract of the same land adjoining 
for $100 an acre, and expects to plant it the coming 
Spring; he will then have planted about 4,000 trees. 
Only eight trees have died in the eight-acre orchard 
to date, and that is a great contrast to what is found 
on the hills back of there where many orchards have 
only a half or three-fourths of a stand at best. A 
great many acres of bottom land near this have been 
planted the past few years, and it looks as though 
they are just as promising as any in the far West. 
Lawrence Co., O. u. t. cox. 
plish very much unless it is weighted down and then 
it will not do as good work as when the soil is more 
mellow. With this sized harrow much ground can 
be gone over in a day. If the soil is not too rough 
v/e use two medium-sized horses to pull the harrow, 
but when the earth is more dry and cloddy, three 
horses are used. The spring-tooth harrow covers less 
ground and pulls rather hard, but does very effectual 
work under many conditions. However, in newly 
plowed sod ground, if the harrow is set very deeply, 
it will rake up much trash and pull exceedingly hard. 
Or, in cornstalk ground or other soils where much 
ttash has been plowed under, the spring-tooth harrow 
will bring some trash to the surface. The spring- 
tooth harrow is also used many times in preparing 
ground to be sown to oats instead of plowing. If the 
soil is loose and not too compact this implement will 
fit the ground for oats very nicely if gone over sev¬ 
eral times. This operation is much quicker accom¬ 
plished than plowing, hence the large custom of the 
practice, and in many cases is very satisfactory. This, 
of course, could not be accomplished with the spike- 
tooth harrow. It has been said that the disk harrow 
is the farmers’ godsend. This has, with¬ 
out question been one of our most 
valuable implements. We have a double¬ 
acting disk, that is, the disks in front 
are perfectly circular and there are 14 of 
them. These front disks throw the soil 
out or away from them. Behind these 
are 14 more disks; they are cut out 
somewhat on the fashion of a circular 
saw, and they throw the soil in or 
toward them, or in other words, throw 
the soil in opposite direction from those 
in front. The disks behind are set 
just the opposite to those in front. The 
rear disks can be detached by drawing 
out a pin. It requires four horses to 
pull this harrow when working both sets, 
but once going over the soil has the 
same effect as when using a single disk 
and lapping half. Two large horses can 
pull it when working * J ->e single harrow- 
on corn stubble or other similar solid 
earth. 
We have been asked why not buy a 
harrow that three horses can pull, one 
with 12 disks? The objection to these is 
that when disking corn stubble ground 
the harrow will not cut two cornstalk 
rows at a time, and the next time the 
team comes around the off horse will be 
compelled to walk on or straddle the 
row. When a 14-disk harrow is used 
this objection is overcome, and I do not 
believe pulls any harder than a smaller 
harrow. 
The disk harrow is used very exten¬ 
sively to prepare ground for oats. This 
has given excellent results, and very few 
farmers in our section plow oats ground, 
but plow the same soil in the Fall and 
sow to wheat. The disk harrow is used 
in many cases to disk sod ground before 
it is plowed. This makes the plowing 
much easier and this idea is advocated 
by many. The disk is also used for 
pulverizing the soil, and does in one 
operation what it requires several opera¬ 
tions with any other harrow to accom¬ 
plish. The dry, hot Spring last year got 
the ground plowed for corn very hard 
and it seemed no implement could touch 
it until the disk harrow was used. This 
did more good than anything else we 
could use. If we were to eliminate any 
one of our harrows it would be the 
spike-tooth, harrow first, and the double-disk last, and 
I believe the disk harrow is a mighty good investment 
for any farmer; its value is hard to estimate. 
Miami Co., O. ira g. shellabarger. 
I tliiuk everyone should take The R. N.-Y., for no 
cleaner or better paper ever was printed. You don’t 
have to look at the bottom of every piece you are going 
to read to see if it is a medical advertisement. 
MBS. L. s. LEACH. 
Readers may not say much about concealed adver¬ 
tisements, but none the less they know what they 
are. We have been surprised to find that some large 
advertisers really seem to think that intelligent sub¬ 
scribers do not see through editorial ‘“puffs” and 
“write ups.” One would credit them with a keener 
insight into human nature, but they still come calling 
for “write ups,” and we regret to say that many farm 
papers give way to them. Under no circumstances 
whatever would the editorial columns of The R. 
N.-Y. be used to exploit an advertised article. With 
our present circulation we believe that any man who 
offers a fair bargain can sell goods to our readers by 
offering them in the advertising columns. 
In the Fall of 1816 Joel Gillett moved from Marietta, 
Washington Co., O., down to Lawrence Co., and set¬ 
tled on some nice river bottom land. He brought some 
fruit trees down with him from the nursery of Gen. 
Rufus Putnam and when planting them the following 
Spring one was found where a sprout had come out 
below the graft and it was pitched out to his little 
son Alanson, saying, “There is a Democrat, you can 
have that.” The lad took it and planted it, and when it 
began to bear it was so nice and good that it was 
finally named Rome Beauty, suggested by George Wal¬ 
ton. Part of this farm was practically worn out by 
the tenant system, and after looking around over sev¬ 
eral States B. F. McCown bought some of it, and only 
a few hundred yards away from where the original 
tree had grown, paying $50 per acre, and he says it 
was not worth half that then for farming purposes 
in 1894. In the Spring of 1895 he planted an orchard 
of eight acres, 365 trees, about 33 feet apart, cultivated 
them in corn and manured the land some for six 
years, and they had the blight so badly 
that he was afraid they would die unless 
something could be done to check it. 
The orchard was sown to grass and 
mowed, the trees mulched and the blight 
disappeared. The trees were first sprayed 
in 1900, and the first light crop was se¬ 
cured in 1905; since then it has had 
six paying crops, netting in 1906 $100 
per acre, in 1907 $80, in 1908 $90, in 
1909 $200, in 1910 $200 and in 1911 $400, 
counting the good fruit at $3 per barrel, 
which has not yet been sold from cold 
storage. A severe freeze March 16 
killed about all the blossoms on 80 trees 
that were early bloomers, or the yield 
might have been much greater. There 
are 273 trees of Rome Beauty which 
bore nearly all the fruit the past year, 
when he harvested 1,140 barrels of 
picked apples, and all the drops and 
some culls were sold at good prices too. 
The two years before the yield was 
about 600 barrels each. There are 23 
Grimes trees in the lot which two years 
ago produced 150 barrels and sold for 
$600. One of those trees has a record 
of sales from the picked fruit of $127 
for 38 barrels, produced as follows: 
First crop 2 y 2 barrels, four barrels, 
five barrels, seven barrels, nine barrels, 
7j4 barrels, 2j4 barrels last year, when 
most of the bloom was killed. The 
drops were enough • to pay the expenses 
of caring for the trees and the crops 
in that time. Larger Grimes than were 
grown here I never saw. 
Mr. McCown has been making five 
sprayings and is sure he cannot control 
the fungous diseases with a less number 
of applications; he uses arsenate of lead 
with the Bordeaux each time. Last 
year he sprayed two rows across the 
orchard with lime-sulphur, 1-35, and 
arsenate of lead; when that hot weather 
came the foliage began to show burning 
and some of the fruit too, and he then 
sprayed with a lime solution to see if 
he could check the injury. He did 
so, but the fruit was checked in growth 
and was later in ripening, and did not 
attain the size of that sprayed with 
Bordeaux, so he had no more use for 
lime-sulphur as a Summer spray. He 
used Bordeaux instead for the later 
spraying on those two rows. Some bitter rot and 
sooty fungus both showed up from the use of lime- 
sulphur but the Bordeaux controlled it. 
He is a firm believer in making three pickings 
when the trees are full, and the latest picked usually 
have as good or the best color. He packs in three 
grades, extra fancy, fancy, and choice, with all the 
culls and imperfect ones thrown out and puts the 
name of the variety, the grade and the name of the 
grower on the faced head and when one barrel is 
sold it is a good recommendation for another. 
There is a small stream which drains a few hundred 
acres that runs along the back of the orchard, and 
the land sl&pes slightly to it on the back; the highest 
part of the orchard is about 15 feet above the lowest 
part of the stream. He has built a dam about five 
feet high across the outlet, so as to catch water for 
spraying and maybe' for irrigation purposes if he has 
enough stored when it is needed. The water is 
backed up more than 100 yards; the depression be¬ 
ROME BEAUTY TREES—14 YEARS PLANTED. Fig. 114. 
MULCHED ORCHARD—RAKED FROM TREES IN WINTER. Fig. 115. 
EXPERIENCES WITH HARROWS. 
We find it absolutely necessary when preparing 
a seed bed for any crop to use a harrow at some 
stage of preparation properly to fit the soil. There 
are several different kinds of harrows, as the spade, 
spike, disk and spring-tooth. Some farmers prefer 
one kind to another for some particular reason, but 
all the different kinds have advocates, and all could 
be used to advantage, but the average farmer cannot 
afford to own one of each kind, and therefore must 
center on one or two of the kinds. We possess one 
42-tooth spike-tooth, one spring-tooth and one double¬ 
acting disk harrow, and these we find very valuable 
implements. We have had no experience with other 
kinds. Our soil here is a clay underlaid with lime¬ 
stone having streaks of black through. The spike- 
tooth is most excellent in leveling and pulverizing soil 
that is freshly plowed and not very cloddy. If the 
ground is dry and cloddy the harrow will not accom¬ 
