1912. 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
1269 
Ruralisms 
GROWING SUNFLOWERS. 
C. D. M., Clinton, Conti .—Can you tell 
me how to grow sunflowers? Many of the 
seeds are in the scratch feeds we buy. We 
raise a few and handle them in a crude 
way ; would like to know how others do it, 
and if they can be made a profitable crop? 
Ans.— Sunflowers (Helianthus an- 
nuus) are grown extensively as a farm 
crop in many parts of the world. Rus¬ 
sia, India and Egypt produce the seed 
heavily; Germany, France, Italy and 
Turkey grow it in less quantities. The 
seeds are used for human as well as 
stock food; a valuable table oil is 
pressed from them, and sunflower oil 
cake is largely used in Europe for live 
stock. The plant itself is used for fuel, 
and also for paper stock, so it may 
easily be seen that our use of it in 
poultry food covers only a small corner 
of its usefulness. 
Sunflowers are adaptable to many dif¬ 
ferent soils, but do best in light rich 
land, open to the sun and well supplied 
with moisture. A poor clayey soil 
is undesirable. The land should be 
well fitted—deep Fall plowing followed 
by Spring harrowing giving best results. 
The seeds are generally drilled in rows 
30 inches apart, nine inches in the row, 
seed one inch deep. Cultivate like corn. 
splnosa, has played a big role. Mr. Mijurin 
stated that it Is his firm belief that In 
the future this sloe will be employed very 
much in hybridization experiments and 
that we may expect some wonderfully fine 
results thereof. P. spinosa bequeaths to 
its offspring a host of desirable qualities: 
Firstly, a remarkable spicy flavor in the 
fruits; second, great keeping and shipping 
qualities; third, great prolificness; fourth, 
wonderful hardiness ; fifth, powers of being 
able to thrive on very poor and dry soils 
even; sixth, a great freedom from diseases 
in general; seventh, a good root system, 
and eighth, not growing too rank or too 
large. What have we done in America 
with this plum? Are Mr. Mijurin’s obser¬ 
vations corroborated by our breeders also? 
What I personally have seen of this wild 
sloe, I should say that it will not give 
good results in the Atlantic coast States, 
but that out in the Northwest it ought to 
thrive to perfection. I do not think it 
will ever be a success in regions where 
there is a protracted period of moist heat, 
like we so detrimentally experience in 
nearly the whole of the Eastern United 
States. 
“Mr. Mijurin told me that in his at¬ 
tempts to create a hardy peach he had 
peach kernels sent in from many different 
regions. These he sowed and had at one 
time 30,000 young trees, then the Russian 
Winter came and thinned them out so that 
after three years only 15 specimens re¬ 
mained. These he took care of and budded 
on Prunus spinosa, but some peculiar dis¬ 
ease came and killed them one after the 
other. It was bark rot, he said, that 
formed a black ring right around the little 
trunk close to the ground. Now he is 
hunting for peaches from the northernmost 
limits and at the same time has made hy¬ 
brids between Amygdalus hybrida and El- 
berta peaches and others. The plants he 
obtained are two years old now and re¬ 
semble Amygdalus nana more than A. per- 
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RUSSIAN CHERRY, PRUNUS AVIUM. Fig. 527 . 
Where grown commercially it is cus¬ 
tomary to pinch out superfluous flower 
heads when plant is four to five feet 
high, leaving four to five flowers to the 
plant. In Russia the flower heads are 
cut when mature with an implement like 
a corn cutter, and hauled to barns, 
where they are spread out, heads up, to 
cure thoroughly. When dry they are 
thrashed and winnowed, or separated 
by striking the heads against a board, 
the seeds dropping into large sheets. In 
some localities the whole plant is pulled 
up and stacked on racks to dry. In 
growing seed for the oil mills it is very 
necessary to cure the heads thoroughly, 
without any fermentation. We are una¬ 
ble to give figures as to profit on the 
crop; the outlet at present does not 
seem so good as in Europe, chiefly be¬ 
cause our farmers have not been in 
the market to sell the seed in any quan¬ 
tity. 
NEW RUSSIAN FRUITS. 
Bulletin 73 of the Office of’Foreign Seed 
and Plant Introduction contains some In¬ 
teresting notes from Frank N. Meyer, agri¬ 
cultural explorer for the department, on 
the work of Mr. J. V. Mijurin, of Kozlov, 
Tambov government, Russia. Mr. Mijurin 
is described as a Russian Burbank, but 
having taken a northern locality to work 
in, his products are of more value to the 
Northern States than those of Burbank. 
Mr. Meyer, who has been abroad for two 
years and a half, much of his work being 
of a difficult character, involving great 
hardship, sends the department the follow¬ 
ing notes regarding Mr. Mijurin's work : 
“No. 32602, a hybrid between Amygdalus 
davidiana and A. nana, is extremely inter¬ 
esting to us, as this plant may afford us a 
medium by which to create a perfectly 
hardy peach. Mr. Woeikoff, near Syzran, 
was wrong when he told me that the plants 
he had were hybrids between A. persica 
and A. nana, and I was right in my re¬ 
marks that they looked strikingly like A. 
davidiana. 
“No. 32663, an apricot, standing the 
severe climate of central Russia, Is some¬ 
thing marvellous ! The tree does not seem 
to be a vigorous grower, but maybe we can 
develop better strains by selection and 
hybridization. 
“Nos. 32664 and 32065, forms of the 
extremely interesting Siberian cherry, of 
which I personally think that it will play 
In the future, a much greater role in the 
Northern States than Prunus besseyi wfll 
do. We probably will develop large, sweet 
furited varieties and they will be home 
fruits par excellence. 
“The Nos. 32669-673, hybrid plums in 
which the ordinary wild sloe, Prunus 
sica;.the fruits, however, may be different. 
I was not shown these little trees, for they 
were covered up, being too valuable to be 
left unprotected. 
“Mr. Mijurin further has hybridized pears 
extensively and seems to have obtained 
some really important forms, able to stand 
much more cold than the ordinary types.” 
Fig. 527 shows a large-fruited variety 
of cherry, of fresh sour-sweet flavor, origi¬ 
nated in 1888 by the Russian plant-breeder, 
Mr. I. V. Mijurin, at Kozlov, Tambov gov¬ 
ernment, central Russia, and named by him 
“Knyasnaia Sjevera,” meaning “Queen of 
the Northsaid to be a hybrid between 
an early Wladimlr cherry and a variety of 
sweet cherry called "White Winkler.” ‘lias 
stood the severe Winters of central Russia 
very well and may be expected to thrive 
in the greater part of the Middle West, and 
more especially in those sections where the 
climate is more or less seml-arld. 
These new fruits will bo available for 
distribution in the course of one or two 
years. Application for material listed in 
these bulletins may be made at any time 
to the Office of Plant Introduction. As 
they are received they are filed, and when 
the material Is ready for the use of ex¬ 
perimenters it is sent to those on the list 
of applicants who can show that they are 
prepared to care for It, as well as to others 
selected because of their special fitness to 
experiment with the particular plants im¬ 
ported. One of the main objects of the 
Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduc¬ 
tion is to secure material for plant ex¬ 
perimenters, and it will undertake ns far 
as possible to fill any specific requests for 
foreign seeds or plants from plant breeders 
and others interested. 
At a recent flower show in New York 
the largest chrysanthemum plant exhibited 
was 11% feet across, and carried 1,200 
flowers. r i his was one of three huge speci- 
men plants, the varieties being R. F. Fel¬ 
ton, yellow ; Lady Lydia, white, and Wells’ 
I-Kito Pink, light pink. These plants are 
trained to form a huge flat disk of bloom, 
being trained to a wire frame. Great cul¬ 
tural skill is required to bring them to per¬ 
fection. 
lyetcriing to what we called “misapr 
guff recently, a reader calls upon us 
a sample of the guff attributed to Lu 
Burbank. Well, here is a sample : 
“Our close friend, Luther Burbank, 
recently made a discovery that is equ 
notable. For months Lute has been 
work on a scheme to cross the Christ 
tiee with the live oaks of Louisiana 
which he hopes to raise whiskers 
Santa Claus. The State Painters’ Ui 
expects to take the vegetable whiskers 1 
to the next National convention as 
exhibit of the new Pacific Coast bi 
model.” 
Of course, nine out of 10 people will 
regard this as a very feeble attempt at a 
Joke, but the other tenth will think there 
are possibilities in it. 
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