1912. 
PUNCHER AND TONGS.’ 
On page 325, “Trucker, Jr.,” in his article on Spring 
work told of setting plants by using the “puncher and 
tongs.” Many readers have asked what these implements 
are—so “Trucker, Jr.,” tells them in the following article: 
I am enclosing a rough drawing of the puncher and 
tongs we use for setting plants. In reply to inquiries 
will say this machine mentioned in the article on 
Spring work, page 325, is not, so far as I am aware, 
for sale by seedsmen or dealers in agricultural im¬ 
plements. It is a cheap easily-made affair and with 
the exception of a steel point can be made by any 
farmer. Hundreds of acres of sweet potatoes are 
grown lie're annually, and this machine is used almost 
exclusively for setting the plants. In fact, the ma¬ 
chine has been slowly evolved by the growers them¬ 
selves, who in order to increase their plantings of 
sweets found it absolutely necessary to have some 
tool that would make the planting less laborious than 
if trowel or dibble were used, and at the same time 
be more rapid. But although designed primarily for 
sweets, it is used successfully with other plants. Last 
year we set with this machine 160,000 sweet potato 
plants on light sandy soil, and 20,000 strawberries, 
10,000 cabbage and one or two thousand tomato plants 
on heavier soil. 
The machine is made as follows: Take a piece of 
white pine 3 l / 2 to four feet long, 2'/ 2 inches wide, lj4 
inches thick and dress dowm for puncher as shown in 
the illustration, Fig. 161. For 25 or 50 cents a black¬ 
smith will put on a steel point and an iron strap to 
hold the handle in place. A cloth band for the arm 
is run through a slot in the top; for this an old sus¬ 
pender answers nicely. The tongs are simply two 
strips, each 3j4 feet long, one inch wide and one-half 
inch thick, made to taper at the point and nailed to a 
5xlj4xl inch block which keeps them open at the 
points and gives some spring. Be careful to have the 
two strips come together squarely and tightly at the 
points. The length of both puncher and tongs should 
vary in accordance with the height of the operator. 
It will be quite easy for an inexperienced person to 
make both puncher and tongs, but his first attempt at 
using them will not be so easy. At first they seem 
very awkward and clumsy, and it is quite difficult to 
get a plant set at all. However, to do first good work 
and later rapid work requires much patience and prac¬ 
tice, but after once getting the knack it is quite easy. 
When setting plants walk with the row on your left. 
Have the right arm through the snug-fitting strap at 
the top of the puncher with the hand grasping the 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORR'ER 
puncher and tongs, and may give a clearer idea'as to 
how the work is done. Personally, I think this opera¬ 
tor should be walking behind the boy rather than 
where he is. That would bring the puncher im¬ 
mediately over the row. However, some operators 
find it comes easier for them to walk with the row on 
their left; it is mainly a question of convenience. 
TRUCKER. JR. 
SOD SYSTEM WITH MELONS. 
STARTING THE PLANTS.—I read with a great 
deal of interest the article in The R. N.-Y. on melon 
growing, by Paul Rose. For the benefit of the small 
grower who is situated where it is inconvenient for 
him to get plant boxes on account of the cost of trans- 
OPERATING THE PUNCHER AND TONGS. Fig. 103. 
portation, I would like to tell you the way. I start my 
melon plants. My way is what is called- the sod sys¬ 
tem, and in most cases I prefer it to the box system. 
I have grown melons in a commercial way for. several 
years, and have grown plants in both sod and boxes, 
but of late years have discarded the boxes entirely 
for three reasons: 1. To save expense in the cost of 
the boxes, which is no small item when you count the 
first cost of them, the freight and the time taken for 
making them. 2. It takes about one-half the time to 
cut the sod and fill the cold frames that it does to fill 
it with the same number of boxes. 3. It takes about 
two or three men less to transplant them into the 
field. For the sod system the frames do not need to 
be so high as in the box system, for the plants do 
not run up so high in the bed. I built my frames 16 
handle. Take the tongs in the left hand. First grasp inches high on the north side and 10 inches high on 
the plant betwen the points of the tongs at the very the south side. I use one-inch lumber of any wood 
end of the root, insert the point of the puncher where that will not warp and that has a straight edge on 
plant is to stand, and turn it part way around with- the top for the sash to lie upon. I make my melon 
out withdrawing it; then with tongs push the plant frames so that when the plants are removed to the 
down beside the point in the opening made by turn- field I can take them apart and pile them up, for they 
ing it, withdrawing the puncher as tongs 
are inserted. When the plant is in as 
deep as desired, release pressure on 
tongs and remove them, striking imme¬ 
diately after with puncher a short dis¬ 
tance from the plant to pack the soil 
around the roots. In practice these 
movements follow each other in quick 
succession and on clear ground plant 
setting goes almost like clockwork. 
A beginner will probably find catching 
the plant in the tongs the most difficult 
part of the operation, and emphasis 
should be laid on the necessity for do¬ 
ing it correctly. In practicing he should 
be careful always to pick up the plant 
by the end of the root and have it be¬ 
tween the two points of the tongs clear 
down to their very end. If a plant is 
grasped half way up the stem it will 
be doubled up when set and have 
both tops and roots in the air. And 
if caught an inch or so above the two points of 
the tongs it will be hard to get the plant set as deeply 
or accurately as desired. Hence the necessity for hav¬ 
ing the tongs come together squarely at the points. 
As stated in the former article, a man with boy to 
drop plants can set 14,000 to 20,000 plants a day on 
the sandy soils, and he will not feel near as much like 
stretching himself across the ridges to get the 
“kinks” out of his back when night -comes as does the 
man who sets plants all day with a trowel. On heavy, 
sticky soils plants cannot be set quite so rapidly as 
on the lighter soils, but even so we find the puncher 
and tongs far ahead of the trowel for doing the work. 
The illustration taken from an extract of the Thirty- 
first Annual Report of the New Jersey State Board 
of Agriculture, sent out as a bulletin on sweet potato 
production, shows the operator at work with the 
466 
and moving your stick until you have cut a space as 
wide as your stick is long, turn it around at right 
angle to the way you have been cutting, and proceed 
as before. When you have this space cut both ways, 
and if you have used a 16-foot stick, you will have 
2304 sods ready to put into the bed. If you want a 
larger sod use a wider stick; a four-inch sod. gives 
me the best satisfaction though, and you can get just 
a half more in a bed of the same size than you can 
of a five-inch sod. A plant grows more compact and 
stocky in sod than in box manure, therefore do not 
need as much space. Take a sharp spade and run 
under the cut sod, taking out four at a time, being 
careful to cut them all of the same thickness, about 
four inches. Place them on a stone boat or low 
wagon, draw to your bed, placing them carefully on 
the level bottom, grass down, taking pains to row 
them both ways and keeping them pressed up snug so 
as to leave no space between them. When your bed 
is filled take a board as long as your bed is wide and 
lay it on the first three rows of sod in the end of the 
bed. Get on this board and stamp it down, then turn 
over on to the next three rows, and stamp, and con¬ 
tinue this until you have covered the whole bed, which 
will take but a few minutes. When this is done your 
sods are all leveled to the same height, ready for 
planting, which should be done immediately, before 
the grass begins to grow. 
PLANTING.—Take a piece of broom stick about 
six inches long, sharpen to a blunt point on one end 
and go over the bed making a hole in the center of 
each sod about one-half inch, deep; drop in seeds, 
pinch the dirt over them, water well, put on sash, and 
the sun will do the rest. \\ hen the plants are large 
enough, thin out to one in a sod, and if the grass 
should grow, up too high put on a mulch of good rich 
clean diit, about an inch deep. This will keep the 
grass down and will help the plant to send out a new 
set of roots where this dirt comes in contact with it. 
In choosing sod avoid getting- any with clay in it. To 
improve the richness of your s6d spread manure in 
the Fall on the sod you want to use 1 in the Spring, 
raking it off when you cut sod. This will improve 
the richness of the sod wonderfully. 
TRANSPLANTING.—W hen it comes transplant¬ 
ing time, and the field is properly prepared and 
checked both ways, I take a one-shovel marking plow, 
using a small shovel, and furrow out the ground, 
having it fresh to set the plants in as they come from 
the bed. Have the sods thoroughly wet before re¬ 
moving from the bed, and when they are placed on 
the wagon to go to the field they will carry just as 
well as a box plant will. Two boys, one on each side 
of the wagon, take these plants from the wagon and 
place them right in the fresh furrow where the cross 
check is, and it is ready to have the soil hoed around 
it and pressed down. No boxes to take off, no boxes 
to blow about and knock the plants to 
smithereens. If a little care is exercised 
these sod plants will come out of the 
frame into the field and start off to 
growing just as nicely as a box plant, 
and 3 'ou will save the expense of the 
box, which is quite an item, especially if 
you should lose your plants in the bed, 
which is no uncommon thing in a cold, 
cloudy, wet Spring. I raise several 
thousand plants this way every year, 
and have never failed to have good suc¬ 
cess. Plants will stand more cloudy wet 
weather in sod than in the manure of a 
box with less danger of damping off or 
root dying. I have seen whole beds go 
down this way in boxes, while I never 
have lost a plant raised in sod. 
Berrien Co., Mich. b. d. bishop. 
KING GEORGE,” A GUERNSEY ISLAND YOUNGSTER. Fig. 163. 
are in use only about six weeks of the year, and by 
doing this the frames made out of light material will 
last many years, and besides one can till the ground 
where the frames stand, keeping it free from weeds 
and raising a crop on it besides. After the frame is 
ready and the ground is leveled down, you are ready 
to put in your sod. 
PREPARING THE SOD.—Choose a level field of 
good tough June grass sod large enough to fill the 
beds. Get a common 2x4 scantling 14 or 16 feet 
long, bore a hole at each end to drive pegs through to 
hold 2x4 from moving while you are cutting your sod. 
Take a light sharp ax or hay knife and cut along each 
side of the stick, cutting about five inches deep; pull 
out pegs, move over stick eight inches, having a four- 
inch block to measure by so that you will keep the 
line of sod straight; cut as before. Keep on cutting 
The Geneva Experiment Station in 
a scent bulletin discusses the value of 
fertilizer for growing orchard fruit. As we under¬ 
stand it, the conclusions are that orchards on strong, 
natural fruit soils do not need fertilizers, especially 
where there is some supply of farm manure. The 
argument is that where land is so thin and poor 
that fertilizers are needed it would not pay to plant 
an orchard. This has aroused much discussion. 
Some of the most profitable orchards in the coun¬ 
try are on thin land near towns, where chemi¬ 
cals must be used heavily. The usual teaching 
has been that phosphate and potash should be 
used anyway with cover crops to provide nitrogen. 
In order to get at the heart of it we have asked a 
•umber of apple growers in New York to tell us 
just what they think about it. They are men who 
rarely appear in print, but who make their living out 
of the orchard. They ought to know. The reports 
are not all in—we want all we can get so as to print 
the facts. 
