.013. 
THE) RURAb NEW-YORKER 
351 
DODDER IN CLOVER. 
ir. H, W., Emaus, Pa. — Last Spring we 
dubbed together and I ordered the clover 
seed for seven farmers, and it was very 
nice and clean looking seed. One of these 
farmers had much dodder in his field, while 
the rest have none. What is the habit of 
dodder? Does it grow and die after it has 
seeded? Does it grow next season in any 
crop? Does the seed stay in the ground 
and sprout when it is seeded again to 
clover say three, four or five years after¬ 
wards? Give a general description of the 
habits of this troublesome weed, and do you 
think the seed might have been in the 
soil and not sown this Spring? 
Ans. —Dodder is usually a parasite. 
It kills the clover and Alfalfa by twin¬ 
ing around the plants and strangling 
them. When once in the field it will 
spread quite rapidly. It was probably in 
that clover seed. When buying such 
seed it is a good plan to send a fair 
sample to the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture at Washington, D. C., and have 
them examine it for weed and dodder 
seed. The dodder will spread more and 
more if left alone until the sod is 
plowed and some cultivated crop put 
in. The best way to handle it is to 
mow over the spots where it is found. 
Cut a couple of feet around the dodder 
spot, dry the hay, pour on kerosene and 
burn the place over. This plan followed 
up will get rid of the dodder. 
PRUNING THE GRAPE. 
A. D. M.j Amherst, Mass .—In Circular 16 
of the New York Agricultural Experiment 
Station on “Pruning and Training the 
Grape,” F. E. Gladwin advises that only 
from 20 to 30 buds be left at the annual 
pruning of the Concord. Does this rule hold 
In regard to other commonly cultivated gar¬ 
den varieties of the grape? In most of 
our country it is easy to raise fine grapes, 
if we know how, and are willing to take 
the moderate pains required. But outside 
of those 'who cultivate grapes on a com¬ 
mercial scale there are very few who know 
how to prune or train the grapevine. In 
many gardens of central and southern New 
England grapevines can be found, but in 
most cases that have come under the ob¬ 
servation of the writer, the fruit is late, 
deficient in size of cluster and berry, poorly 
colored, and low in quality mainly because 
the vines are permitted to overbear. 
Ans. —It would be impossible to lay 
down definite rules regulating the 
amount of wood for putting up for any 
variety in particular. This each grower 
must decide for himself. It will depend 
upon local conditions, as climate, soil, 
adaptability of the variety, tillage or 
lack of it, fertilization, yield and wood 
growth of the previous year and system 
of training. The Delaware is not a 
DODDER AND SEED. 
successful grape for the “Chautauqua 
Belt,” because it requires far different 
fertilization and training from the Con¬ 
cord, while the vineyardist in this region 
has made a specialty of the Concord. 
Likewise the Catawba and some other 
varieties. Occasionally one sees a vine¬ 
yard of these varieties operated by one 
who has made a study of their require¬ 
ments and is a success. The Worden 
pruned as long as the Concord yields 
very inferior unripe fruit, and no earlier 
than the Concord, but pruned shorter 
it develops large well ripened clusters. 
In my circular, “Pruning and Training 
the Grape,” I made the statement that 
20 to 30 buds were enough for the Con¬ 
cord and I still maintain that more 
marketable pounds can be harvested 
when these limits are adhered to than 
when 40 are allowed. There are of 
course individual vines that will produce 
perfect fruit when the latter number are 
put up, and on the other hand there are 
those that will not support 10. There 
are vineyards that from a lack of care 
in tillage and fertilization should not 
support over an average of that num¬ 
ber, other vineyards across the fence 
will support an average of 25. It is 
true more clusters will be produced with 
the larger number of buds, but the ag¬ 
gregate weight will be less and the qual¬ 
ity incomparable. Observation teaches 
me that when a vineyard has produced 
a very large crop and made a good 
wood growth the preceding year, short 
pruning should be the rule for the next 
year. 
In 1909 the-Concord in the “Chautauqua 
Belt” returned a large crop with an ex¬ 
cellent growth of vine, but the ener¬ 
gies that had been expended in.matur- 
in the crop rather than the wood. 
As a result about 50 per cent of the buds 
were winter-killed and the crop of 1910 
was proportional. In 1911 another large 
crop was harvested, and good wood 
growth attained. Long pruning was 
practiced generally at this time, and 
either because'of this or Winter injury 
to the roots during the Winter of 1911- 
1912 the crop was reduced nearly half, 
and that poor in quality. We have 
here an illustration clear cut of the 
effort of over-pruning in producing 
yields alternately. It is common knowl¬ 
edge that some growers who pruned 
moderately short-each year did not have 
these variations during these periods. 
We have in actual practice gotten as 
many pounds of better grapes from 
vines pruned to 25 buds than from others 
pruned to 35, and we were particularly 
impressed by the fact that the former 
ones, instead of returning a decreased 
yield in 1912 as the latter actually did, 
made a decided gain. The vines are 
in rows side by side and have had uni¬ 
form treatment. 
I have given these facts to prove my 
contention that too long pruning is a 
serious menace to the production of fair 
annual crops of first quality fruit. When 
this practice is aggravated by late, in¬ 
frequent cultivation and starvation 
there can be but one result. I do not 
presume to say that all failures are due 
to these causes alone, for unseasonable 
and unfavorable weather conditions can 
bring about failure or partial failure, 
but I do maintain that if these good 
practices are adhered to such vineyards 
will not suffer to the extent from 
weather conditions that those in which 
too much wood has been left and good 
tillage and fertilization have not been 
the rule. 
If all the varieties of a given species 
of Vitis were equally vigorous it would 
be possible to give somewhat definitely 
rules for the pruning of that class, but 
vigor is as-variable in varieties of a 
species as' it is among species.. It is 
true that certain fundamental rules have 
been given by earlier writers for the 
method of pruning varieties of a species, 
but these have not always worked out in 
practice. In the following statements 
Concord with 30 to 35 buds is consid¬ 
ered as long pruned, Delaware requires 
short pruning, under favorable condi¬ 
tions 18-20 buds are enough. _ Iona, 
Worden and Moore Early likewise; the 
latter will produce best when the smaller 
canes are used. Lady, Headlight, 
Hartford. Eclipse, Brighton, Brilliant, 
Green Mountain and Niagara require 
moderately long pruning, while Aga¬ 
wam, Lindley, Goethe, Wilder, Jefferson, 
Herbert and Vergennes require rather 
long pruning. Under particularly fav¬ 
orable or unfavorable conditions these 
statements might require modification, 
but in the main they are an approxima¬ 
tion. More injury will result from ex¬ 
cessive long pruning than from short, 
yet excessively short pruning is not de¬ 
sirable. F. E. GLADWIN. 
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 more than 
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 was 
not quite what we would have liked to have seen, and not as we believe fairly representative of our goods, but with the grand average we 
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 general 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 user ol particularly 
choice materials and unusual methods of manufacture. 
From the Annual Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, FERTILIZERS , 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’ gxiarantees). 
“ 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. G. Co. show 90.26% 
as their percentage Activity of Total Nitrogen, which is the essential point. No other concern having an equal number or 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. 
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THE MAPES FORMULA & PERUVIAN GUANO COMPANY, 143 Liberty St., New York 
