1912. 
e©? 
CHEMICALS AS FLY KILLERS. . 
L. A. M., Spofford, N. H. —Tell me the 
name of the new substance which should 
be put into piles of manure to prevent their 
breeding flies. 
Ans.— Acid phosphate or the German 
potash salt known as kainit may be 
used for this purpose. A mixture, 
equal parts, of the two will answer the 
purpose well, and also supply the phos¬ 
phoric acid and the potash which the 
manure lacks. From one to two pounds 
per day of this mixture for each animal 
will answer. Scatter it in the gutters 
and over the manure. It will be best to 
keep the manure cleaned away fre¬ 
quently. When only a few horses are 
kept it will pay to throw the manure 
into a tight room or shed screened with 
fine wire at window and door so as to 
be fly-tight. This will reduce the num¬ 
ber of fly eggs to a small proportion, 
while the chemicals will destroy most 
of those which hatch. 
PILING APPLE BARRELS. 
In the September issue of Cold is 
described the method of piling apple 
barrels in storage shown in Fig. 418. 
On the floor 2x4 sticks are placed so 
that they will come directly underneath 
the head of the barrel and no weight 
will rest on the sides and bilge. Similar 
sticks are placed on top of the barrels 
and another row of barrels placed on 
them. In this way they may be piled 
five or six tiers high. Where piled to 
much height care must be taken that the 
barrels come directly above each other 
STACKING UP THE BARRELS. Fig. 418. 
in the different tiers, and where possi¬ 
ble they should be so placed that the 
grain in the heads will be vertical, as the 
wood will thus bear the strain with less 
danger of crushing. 
Fighting the Apple Borer. 
L. W. 8., Springfield, Mass .—In my apple 
orchard in Maine I am greatly troubled 
with borers. I dig them several times a 
year, but it weakens the tree. Can you 
give me any help for killing or preventing 
the pest? What can I do for mice gnaw¬ 
ing in the Winter? I am putting on 1,000 
galvanized wire guards, one-third inch 
mesh. Is there anything better? Would 
the veneer wood protectors be any better, 
and what would be their effect against 
winter-kill, and sunscakl in Summer? 
Would it be wise to keep them on through 
Summer? 
Ans.— Here for the last two seasons 
(perhaps from favorable conditions, 
viz., very dry seasons) these pests have 
come in numbers almost equal to the 
cutworm plague. We have never tried 
but one remedy, to dig them out, and 
this requires an expert and one who 
thoroughly understands their habits in 
the tree. A knife and wire are the 
tools used, and an expert can do much 
of the work with the latter. I believe 
that some hired men put at such a job 
would do more damage than the borers, 
especially with the free use of the knife 
on young trees. The one who does 
such work should thoroughly under¬ 
stand bridge-grafting, and when doing 
the work in the Spring insert such grafts 
where needed. An average workman 
can be used to clear away all dirt and 
rubbish if such is allowed and level up 
round the trees afterward. I have never 
met anyone who could keep them away 
with any application of tan, etc., where 
they are very plentiful, yet I meet a 
grower once in a while who does not 
appear to suffer much from such pests, 
and does not have much or any labor 
in digging them out. I know of noth¬ 
ing better for mice than wire netting, 
which is used by our best growers here. 
The wood veneer protectors I know lit¬ 
tle about. My own method in growing 
a young orchard has been fairly clean 
cultivation with a cover crop, yet where 
I have used buckwheat and the grain 
was well ripened my loss from mice 
has not averaged 10 cents per hundred 
trees. I keep a few good cats, who en¬ 
joy hunting amongst the trees, and quite 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
often I see a mouse going to the happy 
hunting grounds where cats trouble not. 
Anyway, they have caused me little 
trouble. Possibly with the large snow¬ 
fall in Maine the methods that pay me 
best might not prove so successful. 
Here the mulch method is used or 
grass is allowed to form a mat around 
the trees some such protection as wire 
or veneer must be used. My trees have 
been hilled up with soil (a gravelly 
loam) with the Cutaway harrow, which 
is somewhat of a protection, as the level¬ 
ing of such soil is generally done in 
the early Spring. Yet after all is said 
or done by others, each must in a meas¬ 
ure adopt methods which fit his meth¬ 
ods of culture and location of orchard. 
H. O. MEAD. 
Worcester Co., Mass. 
Alfalfa in New Hampshire. 
Hon. D. IT. Goodell, an ex-Governor of 
New Hampshire, now a manufacturer and 
cattle breeder, writes a local paper about 
Alfalfa : 
“I sowed some Alfalfa seed with other 
grass seed about the year 1895. Never 
having seen Alfalfa, I did not at the time 
know that any of it germinated. About 
seven years ago I tried it again, sowing it 
without other seed. It came up and looked 
well the first year. After seeing this I 
discovered that I had small patches of it 
among the grass sown about 10 years be¬ 
fore, and it still lives, showing that when 
it once gets well rooted it stays. To my 
great surprise I found the next Spring 
that nearly all the roots of that last sown 
were dead. I have tried it almost yearly 
ever since and usually nearly all of it was 
dead after one year. 
"In the Winter of 1911 I read much in 
farmers’ papers about the need of lime on 
New England soils for Alfalfa. Therefore 
in the Spring of 1911 I .limed about four 
acres of land and sowed about 30 pounds 
of Alfalfa seed. It came up well and al¬ 
though the Summer drought was very se¬ 
vere, I got a good crop of weeds and 
Alfalfa. This year I have cut two crops 
and the third crop is fast approaching ma¬ 
turity.” 
Vetch and Rye; Alfalfa Without Manure. 
Can I sow Hairy vetch and Fall rye so 
that it will make good pasture next Spring, 
and when should it be sown? Can 1 start 
Alfalfa without barnyard manure? All the 
manure I can get is foul with weed seed. 
My grain is shocking this year; lamb’s 
quarters four feet high and foxtail so thick 
that the oats are choked out in some 
places; besides, it is about impossible to 
get the manure. I sowed an acre of Alfalfa 
the last of July and it is a fine catch 
with a few weeds which the frost will soon 
trim. p. p. B . 
Bedford, N. Y. 
Yes, but you must sow it at ouce. This 
is about tlie limit for seeding to vetch. 
Really it should be up by this time 
•in order to endure the Winter. The com¬ 
bination makes fair pasture but green rye 
is likely to give a “taste” to the milk. You 
certainly can start Alfalfa without using 
manure but you must plow under green 
crops and use time and fertilizer freely. 
Prolonging Growth of Timothy Hay. 
I want to know how to grow four or 
more tons of Timothy hay per acre, in Cen¬ 
tral Ohio, and think the proper place to 
look for information is among the practical 
people who operate in the East. It must 
come, if come it does, from ones who live 
at some distance from the great waters. 
The Clark system will not bring it here. 
Moisture-laden air like that over lligganum, 
Conn., must be added to that prescription, 
but as ours is much drier we must be sat¬ 
isfied with our little yields. Also, informa¬ 
tion must come from near this latitude, 
since farther North the season is longer 
for the life of the crop. I can remember 
when our Timothy was cut in August, but 
to make good hay now it must be done 
before the middle of July. The yield in 
fields of good farmers (about two tons per 
acre), is as good now as it was then but 
the same pains taken then would have made 
a larger crop, since it had longer to grow. 
Our fields are green until the last of 
June, dark purple at July first, and then 
turn brown at once, instead of sTowly add¬ 
ing virtue and weight. What we need is 
something to prolong the life of the crop 
and especially, lengthen the time of ripen¬ 
ing. We do not need advice on nitrates, 
potassiates, phosphates, manure spreader, 
nor humus. A field may have any or all, in 
any scarcity or amount, in different places, 
but it will ripen the same. We are at the 
end of the chemical trial and must now 
look for mechanical help. Will land plas¬ 
ter, salt or anything else hold off the time 
of ripening or dying? Next season we 
plan to settle this, if possible, but will some 
reader who knows, kindly settle it now? 
Ohio. W. W. REYNOLDS. 
R. N.-Y.—You have certainly blocked out 
a great job for some one. 
BAY STATE NOTES 
Seedsmen's Responsibility. —A case in 
point as to the guarantee of seeds being 
true to name, has lately come to my knowl¬ 
edge. A farmer in the neighboring town 
of Acton (Mass.) three years ago bought 
from a Boston seed firm White Egg turnip 
seed for sowing a quarter acre ~ piece of 
ground, meaning to sell the crop in the 
Boston market, where the variety is popu¬ 
lar. The seed proved to be the Purple 
T«n turnip, and he reported the error t<t 
the seedsmen, who after verifying it, asked 
him how much he figured his loss, and then 
promptly paid him his estimate of .$75 for 
the same. 
Massachusetts Rye Field. —A farmer 
near Fitchburg reports a crop of better 
than 30 bushels of grain per acre, and 
nearly two tons of straw. As the grain 
sold for seed near $1 per bushel, and the 
straw is worth $18 per ton, the profitable¬ 
ness of this easily-grown crop is shown m 
this instance. e. f. d. 
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