648 
5FMK RURAft NEW-YORKER 
April 27, 
Vegetable Garden in River Flat. 
E. B. F., Roscoe, N. Y. — I have an acre 
of river flat I wish to turn into a vege¬ 
table garden to supply my boarding house. 
It was plowed a year ago last Fall and 
covered through the Winter with stable 
manure put out as fast as made. Last 
Summer this acre was planted to corn 
and last Fall it was plowed again and 
was covered again through the Winter with 
stable manure. What would you do with 
this next? Do you think it will be neces¬ 
sary to use commercial fertilizer? If so, 
what kind? The soil is a sandy loam 
and lies 2,000 feet up. 
Ans.— This ground was Fall plowed 
and is now covered with manure. As 
early as possible we should cross-plow 
the field deeply and giving a dressing 
of lime to be harrowed in. Then fit the 
surface as fine as possible. With most 
vegetables it will pay to use a fertilizer 
containing 2per cent nitrogen, eight 
phosphoric acid and nine of potash. 
Cover Crops for Asparagus. 
A. E. E., Centreville, Mass .—What crop 
can I sow on my asparagus bed after I 
cut it this Spring, that will keep the 
weeds down and improve the land for next 
year, and at the same time keep the land 
from washing, as the bed is on a side hill? 
This crop cannot be plowed under until 
next Spring. 
Ans.— The simplest and cheapest; 
cover crops for asparagus are weeds, 
more particularly chickweed. This 
method is practiced by one of the largi 
est and best growers in New England. 
The weeds are allowed to grow after 
the cutting season, and tops, weeds and 
all growth is wheel-harrowed down in 
the Spring. Now many object to the 
above method, and use oats, rye, Crim¬ 
son clover, vetch, etc. This cover crop 
question for asparagus is still in its in¬ 
fancy, and probably 10 or 15 years from 
now we shall smile at the methods of 
to-day. If I had to choose between, 
them I would take Crimson clover or 
Winter vetch. Either is good, but vetch 
is sure to live through the Winter, while 
the clover generally winter-kills. Even 
if it does, the large mass of leaves on 
the surface keeps the soil from blowing 
and makes a lot of humus. The root 
system is extensive and is covered with 
nitrogen-bearing nodules. These leaves 
and roots disk in very easily, and help 
make a good soil. Crimson clover or 
vetch should be sown early in August 
or late July, harrowed or cultivated 
lightly (vetch deeper). This Fall 
growth should cover the ground, 20 to 
30 pounds of vetch seed to the acre, 
and 15 to 20 of the Crimson clover. 
Start an experiment station on your 
farm and determine for yourself which 
methods and crops are best. 
Massachusetts. c. w. prescott. 
Improving Garden Soil. 
When the garden is plowed and fitted for 
planting the soil looks rich and seems to 
be in fine condition. But as soon as we 
begin to work up the soil about the plants, 
and walk over the freshly dug dirt, it 
packs, and after a rain the earth is hard 
and hoes up in coarse lumps. There is 
not any clay in the soil and the ground is 
well covered with good manure each Spring. 
In places where the soil is not disturbed 
for some time there will be a sort of 
green mold, or moss, start. What do you 
advise ? G - H - 
Atwater, N. Y. 
Our best suggestion is to use a good 
coat of air-slaked lime well worked in. 
Lime has the effect of breaking up a 
lumpy soil and preventing its baking or 
packing. 
Trouble With Cucumbers. 
Why is it that my cucumber vines always 
die as soon as they begin to fruit? I 
never had any trouble in raising an abund¬ 
ance of cucumbers every year when I lived 
in Virginia, but it seems that I cannot 
raise them here. They will grow off nicely 
and be as vigorous and promising as any 
that I ever had until time for bearing and 
they then die. T. a. k. 
West Arlington, Md. 
It would be purely guesswork for me to 
tell you what ails your cucumbers without 
knowing more about the trouble. Cucum¬ 
bers and melons are affected by several dis¬ 
eases, such as mildew and leaf blight, and 
are often attacked by insects. The cucum¬ 
ber aphis or melon louse often swarms on 
them at midsummer, and the Southern corn 
root-worm, the larva of the twelve-spotted 
Diabrotica or cucumber beetle will attack 
the roots, while the mature beetles eat 
the plants. But I assume in your case, 
where the vines grow well till fruiting time, 
that some sort of fungus disease attacks 
them, and spraying with Bordeaux mixture 
early in the season and every 10 days till 
the fruit sets should prevent any external 
fungus. There are at times and in certain 
soils obscure bacterial forms that cause 
the wilt diseases in various plants. No 
spraying will have any effect on these, and 
the only thing is to avoid infected soil. 
I grow' cucumbers here with perfect suc¬ 
cess and hundreds of acres of them are 
grown around me here. We run out deep 
furrows six feet apart, and fill them half 
full of city stable manure. On this a heavy 
dressing of a high-grade commercial fertil¬ 
izer is added and a bed formed over the 
furrow and slightly flattened, and the seeds 
are drilled in a continuous row. After 
a stand is secured we thin out to 18 inches 
apart, and scatter a tablespoonful of nitrate 
of soda around each plant. With this 
treatment they thrive wonderfully, if spray¬ 
ing for blight is not neglected. If your 
soil is infected with the wilt disease I 
fear that cucumbers and melons will not 
thrive. In a garden on a small scale it 
may do to soak the soil with a solution 
of formaldehyde, one pint in 20 gallons of 
water, a week or 10 days before planting. 
Maryland. w. F. massey. 
A Job on an “ Estate.” 
Your little book, “Hind-Sights,” fills a 
long-felt want and is a credit to its au¬ 
thors. It should be in the hands of every 
farmer and farm’ hand too. But I think 
there is one class of swindler that has been 
neglected and left out of your book. His 
special prey Is the employe on the farm 
or generally the large estate whether he is 
a gardener, dairyman, herdsman or poultry- 
man. Sometimes he is the owner of a 
large farm and oftener he is the manager. 
He advertises or answers somebody’s ad¬ 
vertisement, and says he is in need of a 
good man, honest, sober, etc., to manage 
one of the various departments on the farm 
he owns or manages; says the department 
has been poorly managed, and promises 
great things for the man who will bring 
it up to a paying basis. The applicant 
for the position is put through a cross 
examination as to his experience, ability, 
etc., and is engaged with the understanding 
that he must produce results. When the 
man locates at his new position he finds 
a state of affairs most discouraging; every¬ 
thing upside down, and if he is to manage 
live stock he finds it all sick and unpro¬ 
ductive. So he starts to work full of hope 
and courage, hoping to get bis department 
in as good shape as he would have his own 
place did he own one and expected to make 
his living from it. If he is a gardener 
of poultryman, the manager is generally a 
first-class cattle man with no outside prac¬ 
tical knowledge, but a lot of theoretical 
ideas which he makes the other carry out to 
th'e detriment of that department. Yet he 
manages everything and in time he fires 
the man he made such a lot of promises to. 
While the man holds his position he learns 
a lot about the place where he Is working. 
His position, he learns, is open about once 
a year, and every former occupant gave it 
up disgusted or was discharged. The sup¬ 
plies he gets are bought by the manager, 
who generally gets a percentage from the 
supply house, and they are poor in quality 
and high in price, and he is forced to use 
things which are more expensive than good. 
As he knows his business he can foresee 
that his department will never be a success 
and he generally is discharged as incompe¬ 
tent or leaves disgusted of his own accord. 
Every Spring there are a lot of positions 
open which are not worth a man wasting 
his time trying to get. But such managers 
and employers force a lot of good men to 
be Jumping from one place to another con¬ 
tinually, and a “rolling stone gathers no 
moss.” It is a pity that owners of large 
estates do not look into some of the doings 
of their managers and see that the men on 
the farm get a square deal. G. a. C. 
nAY for Dry Sand. —I am anxious to 
find some perennial plants for hay and pas¬ 
ture adapted to poor dry sand. Have any 
of your readers had favorable experience 
with any of the following: Bromus inermis, 
Kidney vetch, Australian salt bush, furze, 
Onobrychis sativa and Polygonum Sach- 
alinense? J. C. 8. 
New York. 
A “Cement Gun.” —One of the novel¬ 
ties in construction work at Panama is a 
cement gun. This is not a cannon to be 
used in defending the canal, but an ar¬ 
rangement for blowing concrete into stone¬ 
work. Under a powerful air pressure the 
cement and sand are blown together in 
definite proportions, and mixed with water 
as they pass through the nozzle of the 
gun. In this way the mixture is blown far 
into stonework for several feet, and such 
work is made stronger than it otherwise 
would be. A mixture of one part of cement 
to three of sand is used for the inner 
coating, and there is a continuous spray. 
With one of these guns an area of 25 feet 
square from two to three inches thick, 
makes a day’s work. 
The Best Harrow.— In answer to E. E. 
C.’s query, page 124, without an accurate 
comparative test it wobld hardly be fair to 
give a too positive answer as which of the 
three types of harrow is best for clay soil, 
but my preference would be decidedly for 
the spading harrow. Its construction gives 
It greater penetration, the draft is lighter, 
and the narrow spades work in between 
small stones when the disk or Cutaway 
would be apt to be thrown out. We have 
had one of the spading harrows In use for 
over 20 years, and think so much of it that 
we are getting a new one with all the latest 
attachments of fore truck, wheel transports, 
reverse irons and extension frame for or¬ 
chard and farm use. c. P. B. 
Northbrook, Pa. 
Oats in Iowa.— The Iowa Experiment 
Station (Ames) has issued a bulletin on 
oats which states that “The seven years* 
experimentation showed as a rule Iowa 
farmers do not sow enough oats per acre. 
The Station has secured better results with 
a rate of from three to 4% bushels per 
acre than with only two to 2% bushels per 
acre, which is about the average rate for 
Iowa farmers. The average yield for four 
years from a two-bushel rate for Kherson 
oats was 49.4 bushels per acre; the average 
yield for the same time for a three-bushel 
rate was 53.7 bushels. In all the tests at 
the station farm the Kherson and Silver- 
mine varieties of oats gave the best yields, 
covering a period of seven years.” 
No-Rim-Cut Tires— 10 % Oversize 
The Truth About 
Cost of Tires 
Tires can be made to fit any price 
which users want to pay. The only 
just comparison is the cost per mile. 
Cheap tires may cost far more per 
mile than tires at twice the price. 
Tires may also be too costly—too 
fine in composition to endure. 
The object of the expert is the 
lowest cost per mile. That has been 
pur object for some 13 years. 
How We Know 
We make our comparisons on a 
tire testing machine, where four 
tires at a time are worn out under 
all sorts of road conditions. Meters 
record the mileage. 
There we have compared some 200 
fabrics, and some forty formulas for 
treads. 
There we have tested every 
tnethod and process. There we have 
compared rival tires with our own. 
Thus we have proved that Up- 
River Para—the costliest rubber—is 
cheapest on the mileage basis. 
Thus we have proved that long- 
fibre Sea Island cotton—the costliest 
material—is cheapest in the end for 
fabrics. 
We have proved that wrapped tread 
tires—the costliest construction—are 
cheaper than moulded tires—for the 
user. 
So we employ these things. And 
we use everything else which these 
years of test have proved most eco¬ 
nomical—in the cost per mile. 
til it now costs users no more than 
standard old-type tires. 
This tire—called No-Rim-Cut—has 
ended rim-cutting forever. 
Saving 25 Per Cent 
Next came the question of blow¬ 
outs—caused by adding extras to the 
car—by overloading tires. 
To avoid this we made No-Rim- 
Cut tires 10 per cent over the rated size. 
That means 10 per cent more air — 
10 per cent added carrying capacity. 
And that, with the average car, adds 
25 per cent to the tire mileage. 
With' these oversize tires, of the 
costliest construction—these tires 
that can't rim-cut—we met the price 
of standard old-type tires. 
The result is this: 
Last Year's Profit 
8.57 Per Cent 
Saving 23 Per Cent 
Then came the question of rim-cut 
tires. We examined thousands of 
ruined tires, of every make. And we 
found that 23 per cent of the clinch¬ 
er type were rim-cut. 
So we brought out a patent new- 
type tire — a hookless tire — which 
makes rim-cutting impossible. 
At first 
this type was 
expensive. 
It added one- 
fifth to our 
price. But 
our multi¬ 
plied output 
quickly re¬ 
duced it, un¬ 
Our profit last year on No-Rim- 
Cut tires was 8.57 per cent. 
With the largest output—with the 
most modern equipment—our selling 
price has averaged about 8 V 2 per 
cent over 
cost. 
That in a 
risky busi¬ 
ness, with 
fluctuat¬ 
ing materi¬ 
als, on a tire 
that’s guar¬ 
anteed. 
The point is this: 
Tires can’t be made more econom¬ 
ically than in this mammoth, mod¬ 
ern plant. 
Men can’t stay in this business, 
with the risks it involves, on a 
smaller margin of profit. 
In No-Rim-Cut tires you get as 
much for your money as any maker 
ever can give. And you know what 
you get. 
If you consider that fair, it’s an¬ 
other reason for insisting on these 
premier tires. 
Our 1912 Tire Book—based on 13 
years of tire making—ie filled with facts 
you should know. Askus to mail ittoyou. 
Goodyear 
No-Rim-Cut Tires 
With or Without Non-Skid Treads 
THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, AKRON, OHIO 
Branches and Agencies in 103 Principal Cities We Make All Kinds of Rubber Tires, Tire Accessories and Repair Outfits 
Main Canadian Office, Toronto, Ont. Canadian Factory, Bowmanville, Ont, 
(605) 
