3.012. 
THE RUR-A.E NEW-YORKER 
1»26 
FRUIT TREES WITH SMALL FRUIT. 
On page 1141 a question is asked 
regarding planting pear trees and 
peaches among bush fruit. My experi¬ 
ence is that it depends on what is called 
bush fruit. I have several acres of cur¬ 
rants with pear trees planted among 
them (18x20 feet) and it is a general 
practice in this section; excepting the 
Clapp. I have not heard of any com¬ 
plaints. Certainly my pear trees are 
making a splendid growth and are 
healthy. As currant bushes are very 
heavy feeders the trees do not get more 
than they need; no manure is put 
around the trees, excepting when it is 
not keeping up to the others. But the 
Clapp pear cannot stand as heavy forc¬ 
ing, being subject to blight. As the in¬ 
quirer speaks, of raspberries and black¬ 
berries more especially, I would not 
again plant peaches on any condition 
among raspberries, not because the forc¬ 
ing and cultivation of the berry will 
harm the peach trees much if any. But 
in my experience and what I have seen 
with others it injures the tree by crowd¬ 
ing, and taking away the fertility which 
the trees should have, when they are 
loaded with fruit. I find it best to take 
out two berry plants on each side of the 
tree, and at least one plant that is in 
the rows next to the tree. This will 
allow more light and air, and also a 
better chance for the cultivator to pass 
without so much injury to the tree. 
Blackberries must not be planted among 
fruit trees because of the danger of 
root gall, not to mention the damage 
the wire may do, and the thorns hurt¬ 
ing the horse, causing, him to back into 
the tree. Certain varieties of raspber¬ 
ries do not have root-gall, if proper care 
is given to them, but if neglected they 
are not safe to have around. Regarding 
using the less fertile part for the pear 
trees, would say if the inquirer must 
put in pear trees, plant in all if he 
wishes and fertilize the poorer place; 
he must use his own judgment about 
putting manure on all. Pears only need 
enough to keep in a good healthy con¬ 
dition; too much forcing is injurious. 
A. E. B. 
Pruning and Training the Dewberry. 
IF. E. IF., Naples, N. Y .—Will you give 
directions for pruning and training the dew¬ 
berry. Set last Spring, some of them have 
made a growth of 40 feet, trailing on the 
ground. 
Ans. —It is the common practice to 
train the dewberry upon some form of 
trellis. Quite often this is made by 
driving short stakes at intervals of 10 
to 18 feet, so that they stand about one, 
two or three feet above the ground and 
then placing cross arms on each of about 
two feet in length. Three or four wires 
are fastened lengthwise to the row on 
these arms. The plants are allowed to 
run along these wires. Again an up¬ 
right wire trellis is used similar to the 
grape trellis, but not so high. The 
canes of the previous year’s growth 
are shortened back and all but four or 
five are cut entirely out. These that 
are left are tied to the wires. The cur¬ 
rent year’s growth will trail over the 
trellis. f. E. G. 
Working for Old Apple Trees. 
C. IF. E.j East Aurora, N. Y.—I have 
bought 18 apple trees, along with a patch 
of ground in which they stand, and they 
are in bad shape; have not been trimmed 
for 15 years or probably more, and their 
bark is loose, inclined to be rotten and peel 
off, and is checked, presenting a mottling 
like an alligator's hide; can be removed 
readily. Should they be scraped, along 
with trimming' out and spraying? 
Ans.— You do not say how old these 
trees are—we assume 25 or 30 years. 
If the bark is peeling off, leaving the 
cambium layer or green inside bark 
dead, it is doubtful if it will pay to try 
to save the trees. If new bark is form¬ 
ing and you find it continuously up the 
trunks of the trees the work is worth 
trying. Cut them back. Prune out all 
the dead wood and cut off the limbs 
which grow to the inside so as to inter¬ 
fere. Scrape off the trunks and give 
the trees a soaking spray of lime-sul¬ 
phur. The scraping i» not necessary, 
but will help if the trunks are sound. 
Pecans for Illinois. 
I. H., Cairo, III .—I own a large farm in 
the fertile Mississippi River bottoms. It 
is black as tar on top and made from over¬ 
flow sediment. To prevent overflow the 
valley in which this farm is located was 
leveed a few years ago. To get more per¬ 
fect drainage large dredge ditches, were dug 
on section lines; they are very large and 
the dirt from them made a windrow 12 
feet high and perhaps 30 feet wide. This 
land is “black gumbo’’ for about four feet 
on top, and under this pure white river 
sand, so you see I have a windrow of sand 
12 feet high and 30 feet wide along one 
side of my farm for one mile. I have 
fenced close to the base of this ridge of 
sand, which leaves a pile of sand 30 feet 
wide and one mile long between the ditch 
and the fence that is waste land, and will 
grow up in weeds and briars and be an 
eyesore to the farm. I want to utilize it, 
and would like to put it in fruit if possible, 
so it would be cared for and kept clean, 
and the fruit trees will aid the appearance 
of the farm. Can you advise me what in 
the tree line will grow profitably in this 
sand, as I would like to grow fruit or nut 
trees on it ? 
Ans. —There is nothing* that will grow 
more luxuriantly in this soil nor yield 
better returns after the trees get into 
bearing than pecan trees. They should 
be of the best varieties known and either 
budded or grafted, and in no case 
should seedlings be risked to bring 
proper returns, because they are too 
uncertain, unless they are finally budded 
or grafted to the right kinds. There 
are a few choice varieties now known 
and being slowly and quietly propa¬ 
gated that are hardy enough to endure 
the climate of Southern Illinois and 
flourish. These are the Major, Green- 
river, Busseron and a very few others. 
As it is as yet almost impossible to get 
the grafted or budded trees from any 
of the nurseries it might be well to 
plant two or more nuts where each tree 
is to be, and when they come up allow 
the strongest one to grow. When they 
have attained a height of three feet or 
more they should be budded or grafted 
as suggested, thus saving time and 
finally securing trees that will be of 
superior and enduring value. They 
should stand not far outside the fence, 
and not closer than 75 feet apart, for 
in’ that rich bottom soil they will need 
all of that space until they are fully 
grown if not more. H. E. van deman. 
Non-bearing Apple Tree. 
G. IF. M.. Chicago, III .—In my apple 
orchard in .Michigan I have a tree, appar¬ 
ently the healthiest in the whole orchard, 
that does not bear. 1 have owned the 
orchard five years and it has not borne 
in that time, and a neighbor tells me that 
he knows it has not borne in 15 years. 
Can some experienced apple grower tell 
me whether there is any cure for this 
phase of sterility, aside from the ax? 
Popular tradition has it that boring a 
hole far into the tree and plugging up a 
dose of calomel will do the work. Is 
there any basis for the tradition? The 
tree I allude to is the most perfectly sym¬ 
metrical tree I ever saw and in every 
way the tree appears in the best of condi¬ 
tion. Can I make it get to work—make it 
useful as well as ornamental? I very 
much dislike to cut it down. 
Ans. —It is quite certain that the 
apple tree that is not bearing is either 
some standard variety that is naturally 
very tardy about beginning to bear, or 
some seedling that is of that peculiar 
character. The fact that it is a very 
thrifty tree is partly owing to its lack 
of bearing. It may finally prove to be 
a good bearer or it may not. If a ring 
ot bark about six inches wide is taken 
off the trunk next June it may have 
the desired result by checking the 
growth and causing fruit buds to form 
ready for the following year. This will 
not hurt the tree in any degree, for 
new bark will form almost at once, as 
I know by several trials during the last 
40 years or more. If the tree does not 
bear after this treatment then I would 
graft it to some reliable variety. There 
is no need to destroy so good a tree. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
More About Poison Ivy. 
My father always took three small leaves 
of the plant and chewed them and swal¬ 
lowed the juice when we went to mow 
about a spring where the poison ivy grew. 
This, notwithstanding the fact that he was 
so badly poisoned with it when young that 
he had a running sore on his leg for more 
than 50 years. This was the result of 
throwing his clothes on a bed of ivy when 
he went in bathing, and the dew steamed 
into the clothes. 
In my youth we cleared a large meadow 
where the ivy grew in profusion about 
the stumps, and I had a serious time with 
it every year at haying time. It never 
troubled me only on feet and ankles, unless 
I got some of the juice on my nands while 
digging stumps; then I learned that the 
milky juice from the roots was more pow¬ 
erful than the leaves. It always caused 
severe itching on my ankles, and I natu¬ 
rally scratched the skin off, and there was 
a sore. It would take a page to name all 
the “sure’’ remedies I tried. Salt and 
water was the main standby, but must be 
applied early in the case. At last I fell 
back on a solution of oxalic acid to meet 
the poison on its own grounds, t also 
learned that a coating of grease or oil 
applied to the skin before exposure to the 
poison would serve as a preventive. I oc¬ 
casionally work among the ivy now, and 
when the itching gets too serious to sleep 
I scratch the skin till it is. thin, then wet 
it and rub in fine salt until the smarting 
is as bad as the itching, then let them pass 
off together and that ends it. I would not 
advise any person to eat the leaves hoping 
to secure immunity in that way. We take 
many things into the stomach that would 
be dangerous if injected into the circula¬ 
tion, and this may account for people 
being able to take internally what would 
not be safe as an external application. 
Manchester, N. II. o. h. l. 
Regarding poison ivy, perhaps, my ex¬ 
perience may be of some benefit, in which 
event I certainly would be much gratified. 
Moving from the city and making this our 
home we had been here but a very short 
time when a nephew of ours unfortunately 
came across it, and for a short time suf¬ 
fered tortures but luckily before having 
time to make much headway a good neigh¬ 
bor of ours, a Frenchman, happening in 
on a friendly call and seeing the boy’s 
condition, told us all about it; its name, 
habits, etc., also as to an antidote, which 
is almost sure to be found growing within 
a few feet of the ivy itself, and inasmuch 
as the cuttings I send you were taken from 
a bunch of it, growing within a foot or 
so of a tree, which is radiant in color 
from the climbing ivy, bears out the state¬ 
ment. Our good neighbor excused himself, 
stepped out, returning within 10 minutes 
with a handful of this antidote. Under 
his direction my wife, crushing it up in 
her hands, gently rubbed the affected parts 
with the pieces and small, tender, macer¬ 
ated leaves, etc. The relief was absolutely 
instantaneous; no need of words, his face 
plainly enough indicated. Another appli¬ 
cation or two closed the episode. Our 
neighbor called it “ne touchez pas’’; it is 
generally known as jewelweed. e. w. it. 
R. N. Y.—The use of this common plant, 
variously called balsam, touch-me-not and 
jewelweed (Impatiens pallida and I. fulva) 
is entirely new to us as a remedy for poi¬ 
son ivy. It is so plentiful, and so soft and 
succulent, that it may be easily applied. 
Its medical properties are shown by the 
fact that fresh plants, infused in lard, have 
been used as a salve ’for painful ulcers. 
The European form, Impatiens noli-tangere, 
is a cathartic and diuretic, but said to be 
dangerous in use. 
Some Onion Querie*. 
1. What is the best kind of onion to 
raise in Western New York? 2. What is 
the cause of so many thick-necked or 
scallion onions? 3. Do white onions sell 
as readily as other onions? j. M. 
Sinclairville, N. Y. 
1. People in this vicinity who grow dry 
or Fall onions for market prefer the South- 
port Yellow Globe to all others. It is of 
good shape (globe), of good color (a dark 
rich yellow), and of good size. Of course, 
size of onions when grown from seed de¬ 
pends not only on character and richness 
of the soil, but just as much on the num¬ 
ber of plants left to a given length of row. 
Our onion growers usually sow about four 
pounds of seed to the acre and do not do 
much thinning except in spots where the 
plants stand particularly thickly in the 
row. They want the onions not more than 
two inches or less apart in the row in 
order to hold them down in size, the me¬ 
dium onion being in best demand by house, 
restaurant or hotel keepers. The Yellow 
Globe, in short, is probably the best of 
the varieties we now have. On my own 
soil I find it almost impossible to grow 
a good crop of dry onions from seed sown 
in the open. It is a strong loam. I can 
do much better with the onions of the 
Spanish type, the Prizetaker and especially 
the Gibraltar. By sowing seed in Winter 
under glass I can' grow these to a very 
large size, up to two pounds apiece, and 
as they are mild and sweet, In fact the 
equal of the imported Spanish in that re¬ 
spect, they find ready sale among neigh¬ 
bors for eating raw and in near grocery 
stores at far better prices than could be 
realized for the common Fall onions. 
2. If there is an inherited tendency in 
an onion seed to grow a scallion, I do not 
know a way how to prevent it from doing 
so. Therefore, careful selection of seed 
and of seed stock is the first thing to at¬ 
tend to. Onions growing in sandy soil or 
loam, however, usually run less to neck 
than those growing in loams of a heavier 
or more clayey character. In a wet season, 
or in soils heavily manured with nitrogen¬ 
ous manures, onions will also usually make 
thicker necks than in a dry season, or in 
soils manured with chemical (mostly min¬ 
eral) fertilizers. 
3. White onions of various kinds and 
sizes are in demand for pickling, mostly; 
but for the big bulk of the crop, and for 
general market, it is the yellow onion that 
is wanted. t. greinhr. 
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