'?72 
this rural nkw-yokker 
.Tmio 21, 
FARMERS’ CLUB 
[Ev oiy query must be accompanied by the 
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Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
SUBSTITUTE FOR “CLARK” GRASS 
CULTURE. 
Referring to the Clark system of pre¬ 
paring a permanent pasture, which you 
have described several times in The U. 
N.-Y., the writer is prompted to inquire 
what treatment you would recommend 
where a disk harrow is not available for 
tearing up the ground. I have a small 
piece of ground I wish to put in a per¬ 
manent pasture, and would like to make 
a thorough job of it, but I do not have 
a disk harrow, neither is there anything 
of this kind in my neighborhood that 
is available. How would plowing length¬ 
wise of the field, then harrowing thor¬ 
oughly, then plowing crosswise with con¬ 
tinued cross harrowing afterwards, do 
as a good substitute for the disk har¬ 
row V W. o. s. 
Williamsport, I’a. 
The vital principle of the “Clark” 
system is thoroughly killing out the old 
sod of weeds and foul trash. This can 
only be done in one season by tearing 
the old plants up again and again, so as 
to leave the roots exposed to sun and 
air. The ordinary smoothing harrow 
leaves a smooth, nice surface or seed 
bed, but after a time the old growth 
comes in and fills the land. It would 
not pay to go to the full expense of the 
“Clark” system in an ordinary rotation, 
but only where the meadow or pasture 
is to remain permanent. By killing out 
the old trash to begin with, seeding 
very thickly and feeding heavily with 
chemicals, we can keep the grass grow¬ 
ing for years. The plan you speak of 
will not make a perfect seed bed, but 
is a fair substitute. Can you not get a 
spring-tooth harrow? This is a tool with 
a set of curved teeth coiled so as to 
rip and tear- up the ground. These teeth 
will rip out many of the old roots, but 
do not toss them up to tin; sun as well 
as the disk or Cutaway. A spike-tooth 
harrow with the teeth set ahead at a 
sharp angle will help, or you can make 
a hand-made tool by driving large spikes 
or sharp rods through a heavy plank, 
so that they slant forward and catch or 
tear up the ground. This tool will rip 
out some of the roots. Do not use a 
smoothing harrow until you have well 
ripped out the old growth, for this rip¬ 
ping and tearing is the most important 
part of the work. 
Questions About Sweet Corn. 
1 would like to get some information 
in regard to sweet corn. Who was the 
originator and when did it first come into 
use in this country? When was it first 
used in Europe? c. s. m. 
Connecticut. 
Sweet corn, classified by botanists as 
Zoa saccharata, is a variation of Zea 
Mays, which is regarded as a monotypic 
genus. It first came into cultivation in 
the region about Plymouth, Mass., in 
1779, being received from the Indians of 
the Susquehanna. Whether some Indian 
Burbank originated it, or whether it was 
the result of careful selection by copper- 
colored cultivators, is now unknown. 
Prior to 1854 only two varieties of sweet 
corn were known, but in 1899 61 dis¬ 
tinct sorts were listed. We do not know 
when sweet corn was introduced to Eu¬ 
rope; field corn was introduced in 1502. 
Sweet corn has been attracting some at¬ 
tention in Great Britain for several years, 
but is not yet generally grown. William 
Cobbett, the politician and writer, who 
died in 1835, tried to popularize the cul¬ 
ture of field corn, and grew it for some 
years at his farm in Surrey. 
Care of Young Vino. 
Last Fall and this Spring 1 set out 
about 15 young grape vines. They have 
started nicely, from four to six shoots. 
Should I let them all grow this year or 
pinch some of them off? E. E. s. 
Wurtsboro, N. Y. 
It is best in such a case as this to al¬ 
low all the buds from these vines to grow 
until about the first of July, when all 
but tlie two best shoots should he broken 
off. Under ordinary conditions there will 
result two good fruiting canes and the 
vinos will have attained a good root sys¬ 
tem. By leaving all the buds till July the 
injury from the hibernating leaf-hoppers 
will be spread over a much greater feed¬ 
ing area, hence the damage to any one 
shoot will ho less than if the same num¬ 
ber nf hoppers were confined to but one or 
two shoots. F. E. GLADWIN. 
“BUNCH GRAPES” AT THE SOUTH. 
After a number of disappointments I 
have been successful in having all the 
hunch grapes I can accommodate on my 
place for my own use. Most people make 
a rank failure of them here. Our native 
grape is’ the Muscadine, of which there 
are several variations ranging in color 
from a light brown in the scuppernoug 
to a black in the bullace. The vine is 
jointless and the leaves are small, with 
the fruit a few in a cluster, the stem 
attached to the pulp which makes a tear 
in thi> skin in picking, rendering them un¬ 
suitable for a shipping grape, but allow¬ 
ing their use for local markets, home use 
or wine. The vine grows and bears best 
when left to its own sweet will and pleas¬ 
ure, and is not pruned except where it 
makes a thick mat, and prevents pollina¬ 
tion, for, it would appear it is a self- 
sterile grape, and there are numbers of 
what I should say were male vines grow¬ 
ing wild, for they make fruit clusters 
but bear nothing. I have one vine on an 
arbor, a purple grape, a seedling from a 
light brown scupirernong, which is never 
touched with the knife for pruning pur¬ 
poses. 
The native grape becomes dormant 
early in the Fall and takes a good long 
sleep, waking only after Jack Frost has 
packed his grip and headed for the North 
Pole, a sleep of four to five months, and 
all other plants, the pecan excepted, are 
up and have had breakfast, as it yawns 
and rubs its eyes, and wakes up. This 
may appear entirely foreign to the ques¬ 
tion of handling bunch grapes which are 
not natives, but the study of this plant’s 
habits in connection with my failures put 
me to thinking and finally hatched out a 
theory, which, while it may be all moon¬ 
shine, has enabled me to succeed where 
most others fail. There is a back-to-the- 
lander near here who saw my few vines 
and said they made him homesick; he 
had not seen such grapes growing since 
he left home, and his home is way North, 
near the Canadian border; he wanted to 
know all about them. I gave him tlie 
history of each vine, so far as I could, 
showed how it was handled ,arid why it 
was, and he saw the results. He has sev¬ 
eral hundred cuttings in now and hopes 
to make a vineyard, but whether he will 
succeed or not, is the question. Can he 
overcome the practice lie is used to, and 
work to suit present conditions, not of 
soil or fertilizer but of climate? It is 
very, very doubtful. lie will have to fol¬ 
low his own old way, and not get beneath 
the surface of the thing; to the root. In 
saying he would have to get to the root, 
I was literal, for it would appear the 
whole failure to succeed is due to the 
root of the vine. The Northern grapes, 
Niagara, Concord, Delaware, etc., in their 
native haunts have a rest period, I should 
judge, of five or six months, and a grow¬ 
ing season the remainder of the year. 
Here they rest for hardly over three 
months, and grow for about eight or 
nine, unbalancing the whole scheme of 
nature; breaking the night’s rest. Dur¬ 
ing the growing period the vine puts out 
an extraordinary amount of wood, the 
fruit maturing early, it has a long season 
to make wood and fruit buds; then the 
short rest does not allow the roots to 
have time properly to digest the returned 
sap, making really a top-heavy plant with 
a deficient root system, and this root is 
what has to be nursed and guarded. 
To protect the root you have to trim 
excessively, if you wish the vine to re¬ 
main productive, for a full crop on an 
untrimmed, or a half-trimmed vine, ap¬ 
pears so to weaken it that it is several 
years in recovering from the effects, or 
it may not recover, and slowly dies, 
which, I should conclude, is the trouble 
with most efforts to produce bunch 
grapes. The people just cannot seem to 
get away from the idea of an arbor, and 
system of handling like they use on the 
native species. An arbor is all right, if 
the vine is brought up to it in the right 
way, and trimmed severely, for it will 
soon cover the structure with vine with¬ 
out damage to itself, from the cut-back 
main stems. It would appear that the 
trouble with experienced people from the 
North is, they trim as they are used to, 
not making allowance for the short dor¬ 
mant or recuperating season, which is 
about one-half of what nature appar¬ 
ently intended, so it is rational to con¬ 
clude that with only half the period of 
rest, you should not reasonably expect 
over half the amount of production, ex- 
cept at the cost of the vitality and con¬ 
tinued performance of the plant. The 
difference in the Summer temperature is 
not enough to he a determining factor, 
for, in truth, the temperature does not 
reach the extreme height in the South 
that it does in the North. 
It would not appear practical, if pos¬ 
sible, to enforce a period of dormancy as 
nature seems to demand, so it must la* 
compensated for by regulating and con¬ 
trolling the amount of fruit produced to 
au amount in proportion tp the rest the 
vine has received, instead of what nature 
intended it to have, and this can only be 
done with the knife, or by removal of 
such an amount <>f surplus fruit as is 
necessary, and maturing only what tlie 
vine is able to normally produce, under the 
existing conditions without weakening if. 
If a vine in the North with a six 
months’ rest is of such a size that it 
would normally mature 60 bunches, it 
would be rational to trim it back so it 
would carry .'!() to 40 bunches where the 
period of dormancy was about one-half 
of what it would be where the vine was 
native. Without knowing, yet, I imagine 
the reason for the poor success or total 
failure with apples, cherries, asparagus, 
and other crops from the North when 
planted in the South, is more to be at¬ 
tributed to a lack of proper Winter dor¬ 
mancy than to any other cause, for they 
can stand high temperatures, for they do 
stand them where they grow, but they 
also require low temperatures and a long 
Winter rest. It is notable that tlie na¬ 
tive species become dormant in the 
South much earlier and remain so much 
later than the varieties from the North 
do when planted South, which would ap¬ 
pear to indicate that nature intends each 
plant to have a certain period of rest, 
and adapts native plants to take that rest 
in whatever section they grow naturally, 
and that man must compensate for the 
lack of rest or pay the penalty. I have 
never seen this idea advanced before, and 
feeling it may be something it would pay 
to look into, am writing you, but the ap¬ 
plication of the principles will enable 
anyone to produce Northern bunch grapes 
for their home use in the South, but for 
wine should stick to the native, as there 
is so much less trouble handling them, 
they produce so much more, and make a 
better wine. mauskna a. PARKER. 
Alabama. 
Canadian Spruce Beer. 
You might not think that spruce boor 
would be considered a diplomatic sub¬ 
ject, yet U. S. Consul Baxter, of St. 
Pierre Island, makes it the text of a 
consular report. It seems that tlie beer 
is a popular beverage in tlie French Can¬ 
adian islands and the recipe is given as 
follows; 
“Another beverage in common use 
there, cheap, pleasant, and very whole¬ 
some is spruce beer. A bough of black 
spruce, fresh from the tree, is chopped 
into small pieces and put into an iron 
pot containing about six or eight gallons 
of water; this is hung over a large fire 
and left to boil for several hours, until 
the leaves come off without effort; it is 
then taken off and some molasses put 
into it, at the rate of about one gallon for 
18 gallons; the whole is stirred up. and 
when sufficiently cooled is poured into 
a cask, where a pint of the grounds left 
by the former brewing and a certain 
quantity of cold water to prevent the 
grounds from being scalded have been 
previously put. The cask being coni' 
pletely filled with cold water, is well 
shaken and left to ferment and settle for 
24 hours. Then the beer is fit for use. 
* * * Some people of a particular 
taste use that beer with spirits instead 
of water, a mixture which is there called 
eallibogus, and confined to a few ama¬ 
teurs.” 
Every dollar you pay out on the farm is 
not EXPENSE 
When Yon Buy a 
DEYO PORTABLE ENGINE 
you are making an INVESTMENT 
that will pay you back its cost many 
times over. Write us today for proof, 
even though yon believe you are not just 
ready for an engine. 
DEYO-MACEY ENGINE CO. 
22 Washington St., BINOHAMTON, N. Y. 
I.nixeHt M Him far t un-rs of Gasoline Kiurinoa in the KhhI. 
J. 8. >Yoo<lhoiim*, 189*195 Water St., New York 
Itlclntrilsoii Mf|f. t o., Uoriester, Mau. 
Kendall A Whitney, Portland, Maine 
THE EUREKA 
MULCHER and SEEDER 
( r A. mulcher, smoothing harrow, aultivator, weeder and 
geeder all combined. Form* dust mulch and coimcrve* 
moisture. Three wizen, 8.10 and 12 ft. Lever with pres¬ 
sure spring regn la tea depth of cut. Pulverizes the soil. 
Levels the ground. Teeth are Hat and can be removed 
to cultivate in rows. The driver rides. 
Seeding boxes can be easily attached to sow grass 
seed, alfalfa, oats, etc. Adjust* for seeding various 
quantities. Teeth cover need thoroughly, either sluil-| 
. low or deep. Economical in price. 
-^———-- Prompt shipments from 
branch nenrj’ou. Send for, 
free catalogue today. 
EUREKA MOWER| 
COMPANY, 
Box 840. Utica, N. Y. 
VEGETABLE PLANTS 
Celery, Tounito, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Sweet Po¬ 
tato, Pepper, K kk Plant, Rhubarb, Asparagus, 
Strawberry Plants, all loading varieties, large or 
small lots, by expressor mail. C.\TA LOGUE FUKK. 
1IAKBY I,. SqblKES, Good Ground, N. Y. 
MARTIN’S ANIMAL MAT ER f ERTILIZERS 
are the old reliable unexcelled crop producers and 
soil enriehers. Manufactured chiefly from mate¬ 
rials from our own abattoirs and stockyards. One 
customer, ordering 225 tons, found every sack in 
perfect mechanical condition and count correct. 
(His name and others furnished upon request). 
We want reliable agents in unoccupied territory. 
D. B. MARTIN GO., 706 Penn BIflu.. Pittsburgh. Pa. 
SOY BEANS 
1,. C. BROWN, 
-$1.5 0 PEIt B U. 
COW PEAS, $"J per be. 
- I.a Grunge, 111. 
For Soil Improver ,r!„ S gs*y- 
our LEAF MOLD. Also PEAT MOSS LITTER for - poultry, 
horsesand cattle. Booklet ami samples free Age.nts 
wanted. PEAT COMPANY, 130 Manhattan Street, New York 
Pohhon-a Dilute- Beets. Lettuce. Kohl-rabi, 
udUOd^t- rlcllllo per LOUII. Tomato, Sweet 
Potatoes, $1 50 per 1000. Cauliflower. Peppers. $2 per 
1000. Send for list. J. C. 8C11MIDT’, Bristol, I’a. 
Sweet Potato Plants 
per 1000; and Cabbage Plants $1 per 1000 Send for 
free list. W. S. FOILD & SON Martly, Delaware 
Poisoning Grasshoppers. 
There promises to be a plague of grass¬ 
hoppers iu Kansas this year. We have 
given directions for poisoning many in¬ 
sects; now comes this plan from the 
Kansas Agricultural College: 
Poison bran mash should be made this 
way: Bran. 20 pounds; I’aris green or 
white arsenic, one pound; syrup, two 
quarts; oranges or lemons, three; water, 
SVj gallons. Iu preparing the bran mash, 
mix the bran. I’aris green or white 
arsenic, thoroughly, in a wash tub while 
dry. Squeeze the juice of the oranges 
or lemons into the water, and chop the 
remaining pulp and the peel to fine bits 
and add them to the water. Dissolve 
the syrup in the water and wet the bran 
and poison with the mixture, stirring tit 
the same time so as to dampen the mash 
thoroughly. The bait when flavored with 
oranges or lemons was found to be not 
only more attractive but was more ap¬ 
petizing, and thus was eaten by more of 
the grasshoppers. The damp mash or 
bait should be sown broadcast in tlie in¬ 
fested areas early in the morning. The 
amount of bait made by using the quan¬ 
tities or ingredients given in the formula 
should cover four or five acres. As very 
little of the bran mash is eaten after it 
becomes dry, scattering it broadcast iu 
the morning and very thinly places it 
where the largest number will find it 
in the shortest time. Sowing it. in this 
manner also makes it impossible, for 
birds, barnyard fowls, or live stock to 
got enough to kill them. On Alfalfa 
fields, in order to get the best results, 
the bait should be applied after a crop 
has been removed and before the new 
crop has started. As the poisoned bait 
does not net quickly, it will be from 
two to four days before the grasshoppers 
are found dead and these will be more 
numerous in the sheltered places. It 
tloes not take much ixfison to kill them. 
Even a small portion from one of the 
poisoned flakes will be sufficient to cause 
death. t. dailey. 
BOOKS WORTH BUYING 
Agriculture and Chemistry, Storer.. .$5.00 
Fertility of the Land ILoberts. 1.50 
Fertilizers, Voorhees . 1.25 
Fertilizers and Crops, Van Slyke.... 2.50 
Mauures, Semper .40 
Soils, LUlgard . 4.00 
The Soil, King. 1.50 
Fanners of 40 Centuries, King. 2.50 
Forage and Fiber Crops, Hunt. 1.75 
IIow Crops Grow, Johnson. 1-50 
How Crops Feed, Johnson. 1-50 
Meadows and Pastures, Wing. 1.50 
Physics of Agriculture, King. 1.75 
Weeds of Farm and Garden, Pamiud. 1.50 
Drainage for Profit and Health. Waring 1.00 
Irrigation and Drainage, King.1-50 
Irrigation Farming, Wilcox. 2.00 
Irrigation Institutions, Mead. 1-35 
First Principles of Agriculture, Voor¬ 
hees . LOO 
Principles of Agriculture, Bailey. 1.25 
Alfalfa In America, Wing. 2.00 
Book of Alfalfa, Coburn. 2.00 
Asparagus, Hexamer .50 
Bean Culture, Sevey.50 
Book of Wheat, Dondllnger. 2.00 
Book of Corn, Myriek. 1-50 
Study of Corn, Shoesmith.50 
Cereals in America, Hunt. L7 j 
Corn Culture, Plumb. LUO 
Clovers, Shaw . LOO 
Farm Grasses of the TJ. S.. Spillman.. l-On 
Celery Culture, Beattie . 
Cotton. Burkett . 2.00 
Ginseng. Kains . -jri 
Melon Culture, Troop. •“[: 
Mushrooms, Falconer . LOU 
New Onion Culture, Greiner. 
Onion liaising, Gregory . 
New Rhubarb Culture, Morse.*’ 
A B C of Potato Culture, Root. 
The Potato, Fraser.7,» 
Squashes, Gregory . 
Tobacco Tx*af, ICIlIebrew . 
Horse’s Foot and Its Diseases, Zundel 2 o ’ 
Swine, Dietrich . L-d 
Swine in America, Coburn. 2.m> 
Horse Book, Johnstone. L;J” 
The Horse, Roberts. L-*' 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKFR 
3X3 West 30th St.. New York 
