1»13. 
Heating Tomato Bed. 
D. W. N. (No Address ).—Is there any 
way to heat a tomato or sweet potato bed 
without the use of manure? If so give me 
a plan to do it. 
Ans. —Formerly nearly all.of our to¬ 
mato and sweet potato plants were 
grown in manure-heated hot beds. Now 
a manure bed is seldom if ever used, 
and results are much more satisfactory 
without them. For growing tomato 
plants growers have small hothouses 
heated by wood stoves. These houses 
are built to utilize the ordinary 3^x7 
cold frame sash and have two raised 
benches with an aisle down the center. 
Growers usually have two stoves in 
houses 23 feet or more in length. One 
stove is placed in either end of the 
house and on opposite sides of the aisle. 
The stove pipe from each is run along 
beneath the bench the full length of the 
house and comes out at the further end. 
Thus giving some heat beneath the 
benches. This method of heating is now 
used by the mapority of growers it is 
comparatively cheap and gives satisfac¬ 
tory results. But each year sees more 
hot water heating systems installed in 
hothouses. This costs more at the start, 
but those who have such heat claim 
that it is cheaper in the long run and 
is by far the better heating system, 
both as to results and ease in running. 
With hot-water heat there are no 
benches. The plants are grown in low 
beds made directly on the ground, and 
the heat is radiated from pipes that 
run around the sides and down the cen¬ 
ter of the house. For growing egg¬ 
plants, small hotwater pipes &re laid a 
few inches beneath the surface of the 
seed bed so as to furnish bottom heat. 
Hot-water heating is, I believe, being 
tested for sweet potato beds, but nearly 
all growers here have furnace heated 
beds. These beds are built over a shal¬ 
low pit 10 or 12 feet wide and SO or 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
more feet long. Sleepers are laid across 
the space that has been excavated and 
the floor of the bed, made of boards, is 
placed on these sleepers. Then a brick 
furnace is made just outside one end 
and a flue is run from this about two- 
thirds the length of the bed. The flue 
is made on the bottom of the pit and is 
beneath the floor of the bed. A chim¬ 
ney is erected at the farther end of the 
bed through which the smoke issues 
put in but they are much more certain 
to bring results than are manure heated 
beds. TRUCKER, JR. 
Persian Walnuts for Indiana. 
W. A. H., Terre Haute, hid .—I have 40 
acres of clay land in a poor state of culti¬ 
vation. It has been badly handled and run 
down. I am thinking about setting it out 
in an English walnut grove. I understand 
the Pomeroy English walnut trees will do 
well in this climate. I would like to have 
your advice and opinion.. Do you think 
such a venture would prove a commercial 
CLOTHES BASKET OF ONIONS. 
, ...... , success? IIovv soon could I expect re- 
after first circulating in the space beneath turns an(1 how nu]C h could I expect an- 
the bed. Wood is burned in the furnace nally per acre? I would like to bave in- 
. . . structions on English walnut tree cultuie. 
and the heat and smoke is carried j s advisable to plant seedlings, or will 
through the flue beneath the bed. Some- ^be bettej^to 
times two or more rows of tile are laid use a subsoil plow iu preparing the land 
from the furnace to carry the heat be- M 
ncath the beds. This method of heating j ia bit of plowing from two to four inches 
is very satisfactory but there is some- so the soil is very light. What fertilizer 
* J would you recommend and how much to the 
times'loss by fire through defective Hues acre ? 'The native Black walnut grew on 
or broken sleepers. Sweet potato beds this land before it was cleared, 
heated in this way demand regular and Ans. —To attempt to grow 40 acres 
close attention after the potatoes are of Persian (English') walnut orchard 
a d 6 
anywhere in Indiana all at once would 
be very unwise. It may be that it would 
be all right in due time, but there is 
not sufficient favorable experience up to 
date to warrant any such venture in any 
of the Central States. This species of 
walnut is more tender, as a rule, than 
any of our native species, but some of 
its varieties are much more hardy than 
others, and have endured quite as low 
temperatures as those usual in Indiana. 
The Pomeroy is a strain of this kind 
and the seedlings of it which I have 
seen in peach regions of northern Mich¬ 
igan have been but slightly injured, but 
some in Central New York where 
peaches are tender, were badly hurt. It 
would be a rather safe plan to plant 
the hardy Persian walnuts where the 
peach is successfully grown, and not 
elsewhere, although we may be able 
to venture into colder regions if hardier 
kinds are developed, as I hope will be 
done. The violent changes of tempera¬ 
ture seem to be very injurious to the 
cultivated walnuts, but our natives en¬ 
dure them safely. Trees that are 
grafted or budded on the native stocks 
seem die hardier and more vigorous 
than those on their own roots. There 
are several named varieties of the hardy 
type that are being propagated fn this 
way, of which the Rush is one of the 
best. The kinds grown in Europe and 
California are not to be trusted for 
hardiness in the Central States, and are 
of doubtful character in the Atlantic 
States north of Virginia. My advice is 
to try a few seedlings of the Pomeroy 
and other hardy strains and also get 
grafted trees of them if procurable, and 
try them out. If they prove hardy then 
plant more. It is far better to plant 
grafted trees of the best varieties than 
seedlings, but the latter are far better 
than none. 
The walnut needs rich land, and the 
richer the better. Any kind of manures 
that will make farm crops grow arc- 
good for walnut trees. The fact that 
the native walnut grew on the land in 
question is favorable to the growing cul¬ 
tivated kinds. The trees should be set 
50 or more feet apart. 
II. E. VAN DEMAN. 
FIFTY YEARS’ UNPARALLELED RECORD, BOTH IN THE FIELD AND WITH THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS 
THE MAPES MANURES 
ABSOLUTELY CHOICEST OF MATERIALS, SEASONING, AND BEST METHODS OF MANUFACTURE 
AVAILABILITY WITHOUT ACIDITY NO ROCK OR ACID PHOSPHATES USED 
IN THE FIELD 
The record of The Mapes Manures in the field is too well known among our thousands of customers and friends, and with us we 
are glad to say the terms are practically interchangeable, as most of our good old customers have become our friends to require moiethan 
a reference to it. 
WITH THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS 
We are equally proud of our Record with the Stations. There may at times have been an occasional chance analysis which w as 
not quite what we would have liked to have seen, and not as we believe fairly representative of our goods, but with the grand aveiage ve 
have no fault to find. 
This is in spite of the fact that Station methods and valuations from the very nature of the case must be broadly geneial to ap¬ 
ply to the general average of the class of goods examined, and can therefore never be expected to do entire justice to the usei oi particular y 
choice materials and unusual methods of manufacture. 
From the Annual Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, FEREIL1ZERS, 1912: 
“ MAPES FORMULA AND PERUVIAN GUANO CO.’S fifteen brands all fully meet their guarantees, with the exception of No. 553, in which a 
deficiency of 0.37 per cent, of Potash is fully offset by an overrun of 0.7 per cent. Nitrogen.” 
So strong a statement is not and could not be made of any firm which had an equal or greater number of brands. 
From Annual Bulletin No. 143, December, 1912, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. Inspection of Commercial Fertilizers: 
(It publishes a table giving summary of results of analysis of complete fertilizers as compared with manufacturers guarantees). , 
“ MAPES FORMULA AND PERUVIAN GUANO CO. Number of brands analyzed, 18; number equal to guarantee in commercial value, 18.'’ 
That is, every one of The Mapes Brands are found to be equal to their guarantee in commercial value, and of no other company 
having an equal or a greater number of brands can this be said. 
It publishes another table bearing on the Nitrogen in the different brands analyzed. The Mapes F. & P. L. Co. show 00.^6% 
as their percentage Activity of Total Nitrogen, which is the essential point. No other concern having an equal numbei oi greater 
number of brands analyzed has anything like so high a percentage Activity of Total Nitrogen. 
It is unnecessary to say that The Mapes Manures have always been, and will always continue to be, while under the same man¬ 
agement, far above the average of fertilizers offered for sale. 
In speaking of this management, it is certainly interesting that not only have the Mapeses continued successively in the business 
for three generations, grandfather, father and son, but the Lanes, who have been associated with the Mapeses from the start, follow the 
same identical record in the business, grandfather, father and son, successively, and we ask can our friends and customers have a better 
guarantee than this family management that everything has been done and will continue to be done to make the Mapes Manures as good 
as the present knowledge of fertilizer science permits for the crops for which they are intended. 
SEND FOR OUR PAMPHLET 
THE MAPES FORMULA & PERUVIAN GUANO COMPANY, 143 Liberty St., New York 
