1912. 
THE RURAL) NEW-YORKER 
6iJl 
THE CUTWORM NUISANCE. 
Several Readers .—Can you give any ad¬ 
vice on destroying cutworms which were 
exceedingly troublesome last year? 
Ans.— A circular recently sent out by 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture 
gives the following advice: Take a 
bushel of dry bran, add one pound of 
arsenic or Paris green, and mix it 
thoroughly into a mash with eight gal¬ 
lons of water, in which has been stirred 
half a gallon of sorghum, or other 
cheap molasses. After the mash has 
stood several hours, scatter it in lumps 
of about the size of a marble over the 
fields where injury is beginning to ap¬ 
pear and about the bases of the plants 
set out. Apply late in the day so as to 
place the poison about the plants over 
night, which is the time when the cut¬ 
worms are active. Apply a second time 
if necessary. When cutworms occur in 
unusual abundance which happens lo¬ 
cally, and sometimes generally, in some 
seasons, they exhaust their food sup¬ 
ply and are driven to migrate to other 
fields. This they do, literally in armies, 
assuming what is called the army-worm 
habit. At such times it is necessary to 
treat them as we do army worms. While 
the methods which have been advised 
are valuable in such cases, these rem¬ 
edies may be too slow to destroy all the 
cutworms, and we, therefore, have to 
employ other methods. These include 
trenching, ditching, the plowing of deep 
furrows in advance of the traveling 
cutworms to trap them, and the drag¬ 
ging of logs or brush through the fur¬ 
rows. If the trenches can be filled with 
water, the addition of a small quantity 
of kerosene so as to form a thin scum 
on the surface will prove fatal. In ex¬ 
treme cases barriers of fence boards 
are erected and the tops smeared with 
tar or other sticky substances to stop 
the cutworms as they attempt to crawl 
over. Clean culture methods and ro¬ 
tation of crops are advisable, as also 
Fall plowing and disking. Many cut¬ 
worms can be destroyed where it is 
possible to overflow the fields. This is 
particularly applicable where irrigation 
is practiced. _ 
ENGLISH SPARROW AND SQUIRREL. 
II. II. M., Rye, N. Y— Mr. Richard Le 
Gallienne in his “Travels in England” says 
that farmers in the vicinity of Marlbor¬ 
ough pay twopence a dozen for sparrow 
eggs. One farmer in the previous season 
had destroyed three thousand embryo spar¬ 
rows in this way. Does this mean that 
English sparrows are injurious to growing 
plants? I have not found it so. They 
may destroy the eggs of other birds, but 
an English farmer would not mind that. 
The red squirrel, however, is a serious evil. 
They not only drive desirable birds away 
and eat their eggs, but consume more of 
our fruit than we do ourselves. Is there 
any easy way of getting rid of them? 
Ans.— The European house sparrow 
is quite generally regarded as a nuisance 
in his native home, destroying vast 
quantities of grain and garden pro¬ 
duce. It is especially destructive to 
peas, lettuce and in early Spring to the 
buds of fruit trees, particularly the 
bloom buds of the pear and currant. 
They also take their toll of ripening 
fruits, such as strawberries and goose¬ 
berries, but are less injurious in that 
respect than some of the thrushes. It 
is quite necessary in many thickly set¬ 
tled localities to cover trees and garden 
beds with netting to protect them from 
the sparrows. Though destroying a few 
insects during the nesting period the 
European sparrow is at other times a 
noisy, disagreeable scavenger, destroy¬ 
ing far more than his services can pos¬ 
sibly be worth to the gardener, hence 
the almost universal dislike with which 
he is regarded. 
Here in America he has a wider 
scope, and is tolerated in crowded cities 
for his noisy audacity, but in the 
suburbs he often causes material dam¬ 
age to grain and fruit buds, but chiefly 
acquires the ill-will of bird lovers by 
devouring the eggs and young of at¬ 
tractive native birds. The introduction 
of the species to this country was a 
serious mistake, founded on the as¬ 
sumption that the foreign sparrows 
might do something toward lessening 
the evil of hairy caterpillars in city 
parks—a function the sparrow promptly 
declined to perform. It would be of 
advantage to exterminate the species in 
this country if it were possible, but it 
shas now spread from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific Oceans and from Manitoba 
to Mexico—wherever there are good- 
sized towns you may find the sparrow— 
and the most that is likely to be done 
is to limit local increase hy destroying 
the ugly nests whenever discovered, and 
occasionally thinning out the adults by 
trap, gun or poison. 
The Eastern red squirrel is indeed 
a lively pest, who accomplishes little to 
justify his depredations, from the 
gardener’s standpoint. The sportsman, 
too, does not love him, as he is known 
to he the inveterate enemy of larger and 
more decorative gray and black squir¬ 
rels, annoying and even overcoming 
them by sheer excess of impudence and 
activity. All squirrels may be regarded 
as enemies of our desirable song birds, 
robbing the nests of eggs and young, as 
well as energetic crop thieves when at 
all numerous, but the common red 
squirrel is undoubtedly the worst of the 
lot. He is not, however, usually wary 
and may easily be dispatched with gun 
or poison. In using the latter, grains 
soaked in a solution of five grains 
strychnine sulphate to the ounce of hot 
water and securely placed in the favored 
runway will be found effective. Cau¬ 
tion must, of course, be used that do¬ 
mestic fowls or useful wild birds and 
animals do not have access to the 
poisoned grain. v. 
Pecans for Tennessee. 
I would like to have you name about 
two varieties of pecans that would be 
worth while for us to plant in this clay 
limestone section in upper Eeastern Tenn¬ 
essee. I mean of course the grafted 
plants to make nuts only for home use. 
Morristown, Tenn. M. v. k. 
This is one of the very live questions of 
the day, for the pecan is such a delicious 
nut and the tree so very long-lived and 
profitable that there is a great desire to 
secure and plant trees of the hardier 
types. There is no question about the suc¬ 
cess of the very choice varieties in the ex¬ 
treme Southern States, but how far north 
they will live and succeed is not known, 
but it is known that they have died, root 
and branch, in many of the Northern 
States. Whether they will succeed in Ten¬ 
nessee and similar regions is doubtful, but 
there are some reasons to believe that the 
early ripening kinds that have originated 
near the northern line of the Gulf States 
may prove hardy enough and ripen their 
nuts. Moneymaker is one of the very few 
that would be worthy of trial. The Man- 
tura and Appomattox are two choice vari- 
ties that grew from nuts planted in Vir¬ 
ginia that, although no pecan trees are 
natural to that State, have proved hardy 
and very valuable. Grafted and budded 
trees of these two and a few other of the 
hardier semi-northern type are being prop¬ 
agated in a limited way, and very re¬ 
cently there have been a few of the very 
hardy native varieties bearing choice nuts 
selected from the woods of Indiana, Illi¬ 
nois and Missouri that have been named 
and attempts at their propagation and 
introduction are under way. 1 have cracked 
and eaten some of this class that are very 
worthy when compared with some of the 
best of Southern varieties. Rut nearly all 
of the wild varieties, both north and south, 
bear nuts that are small, thick Shelled and 
the kernels so interlocked with the bitter 
parts of the shell that the taste is not 
good, although the kernel of all pecans 
is really delicious. It is expected that 
within a few years there will be trees of 
these really hardy and desirable varieties 
propagated on hardy seedlings and offered 
for sale. As yet there are almost none to 
bo had even for the most advanced ex¬ 
perimenters to test. The public must be 
patient. H. e. van deman. 
Hardiness of Privet.— While the Cali¬ 
fornia privet is enormously popular as a 
hedge plant, experienced nurserymen realize 
that there are limitations to its hardiness. 
E. Y. Teas of Wayne Co., Indiana, gives 
the following experience with privet during 
the past Winter in the “Florists’ Ex¬ 
change 
“After six weeks or more of extreme cold 
weather, sometimes 10 to 22 degrees below 
zero, is a good time to examine shrubs, etc., 
ns to hardiness. I have to-day looked over 
the privets out in exposed situations in 
the nursery. California privet in four year 
old plants are all killed down to the snow 
line. This same thing occurred three 
years ago, when all hedges of this plant 
were killed down to near the ground. 
Nearly all of these started again in Spring, 
making hedges all the better for the kill¬ 
ing. only that an occasional plant did not 
start at all, leaving vacancies in the line. 
"On our ground, Ibota and Regelianum 
privets in two and three year old plants are 
generally killed back at tips of the 
branches for two to three inches. These 
seem practically hardy, in our rather heavy 
clay soil. Our Araoor River privets In 
three and four year old plants are alive 
and green to the tips. T think in most cases 
the terminal buds will start. I consider 
Regelianum the most desirable privet for 
hedges, on account of its compact, rather 
spreading habit of growth, and also on 
account of its peculiar and beautiful foli¬ 
age. I believe this is a sport from Tbota 
privet. I do not believe any privet will 
retain green foliage through several weeks 
of cold weather bordering on zero.” 
Potatoes for Grafting Wax.— A French 
experimenter has been using raw potatoes 
in'place of wax in vine grafting. A scion 
is chosen of about the same diameter as 
the stock; a hole is cut through the potato 
just large enough to admit of the passage 
of the stock and scion. After the sur¬ 
faces of stock and scion have been prepared 
for grafting, the potato is slipped over the 
stock, the scion placed in position, and the 
tuber drawn up and fixed so as to sur¬ 
round the graft. It is said that results 
were better with this method than with 
wax or clay, during a very dry season. 
The Gasport Tractor Has Made Good 
Now entering its third successful season and better than ever. 
It has fully demonstrated that it can do all we claim for it and more. 
Neither money, time nor experiment has been spared to put it far above all competitors. 
Sane and simple in its design. 
Rigid in frame yet flexible in movement. 
Have you plowing which must be done quickly ? You need it. 
Have you large orchards to cultivate in hot weather ? It becomes a necessity. 
Write at once to 
ORCHARD MACHINERY MFG. CO., GASPORT, N. Y. 
PLANT TREES WITH 
Red Cross 
Dynamite 
Stops First Year Losses. 
Speeds Up Development 
One to Two Years. Pta R ted 
Improves Quantity, Spade-dughoie 
Color and Quality ol Fruit. P h ° , °3 r, «ph«a 
The illustrations herewith 
are correct reproductions of 
photos of two-year old Bing 
Cherry trees planted same 
day out of same shipment. Simi¬ 
lar results have been obtained all 
over the country. The root dia¬ 
grams show the reason. You can’t 
afford to plant trees in spaded holes. 
Write lor Free Booklet 
To learn how progressive farmers are using dynamite for removing 
stumps and boulders, planting and cultivating fruit trees, regenerating 
barren soil, ditching, draining, excavating and road-making, ask for "Tree 
Planting Booklet. No, 30 ” 
DU PONT POWDER CO. 
Pioneer Powder Makers of America WILMINGTON, DEL. 
r- 99 %o % Pure- 
American Bngot Iron Roofing 
Guaranteed For 30 Years 
Without Painting 
The Only Guaranteed Metal Roofing ever put on the 
market. Samples free. Write for a free book showing 
remarkable tests. A way out of your roof troubles. 
THE AMERICAN IRON ROOFING CO., Dept. D. ELYRIA. OHIO 
Better Than Nitrate of Soda 
FOR THE PERMANENT ENRICHMENT OF LAND 
FARMOGERM INOCULATION 
is recognized as the STANDARD INOCULATION 
Valuable Book of Particulars sent FREE 
EARP-THOMAS FARMOGERM CO. 
Dept. 11 _ Bloomfield, N. J„ U. S. A 
TRADE MARK rer. o. s. pat. office This trade mark will 
Guarantee 
Your 1912 
CORN CROPS 
Use Hubbard’s Soluble Corn and General Crops 
Manure broadcasted, and Hubbard’s Complete 
phosphate in the hill as a starter. The latter 
will often save a crop from early frost by giving 
a quick growth. 
Send at once for our Free 1912 Almanac and our Booklet on Soil Fertility 
They tell all about Bone Base Fertilizers and how to use them. For corn 
these fertilizers are unequaled. 
ROGERS & HUBBARD CO. 
MIDDLETOWN, CONN. 
