1913. 
—*' »/ V* '* 
867 
Ruralisms 
Rose Bugs on Strawberries. 
Can you advise me how to handle rose 
bugs on my strawberry plants? There 
are thousands of them, and they are eat¬ 
ing leaves and fruit so that it looks as 
though I would not get any berries in 
two or three days. I have raised straw¬ 
berries for years, and never was bothered 
with them before. I did not spray early, 
and could I do so now without poisoning 
the berries so that they would be unfit 
for use? How can I avoid this trouble 
another season? p. h. n. 
North Uxbridge, Mass. 
It is certainly a banner year for 
insect pests. I have never seen a 
year in which there were so many in¬ 
sects, and a year in which they occurred 
in such numbers. The rose-bug or rose- 
ehafer is one of the kinds of which we 
have received many complaints. In a re¬ 
cent report of an outbreak of these in¬ 
sects, they were attacking cherry trees in 
enormous numbers and going over to 40- 
year-old apple trees, which they were de¬ 
foliating and stripping of the fruit. The 
rose-bugs attack almost any plant that 
comes in their path, and they are ex¬ 
ceedingly difficult to control. The food- 
plants upon which these insects work 
have been sprayed with varying quanti¬ 
ties of arsenate of lead from two to 10 
pounds to 50 gallons of water without 
satisfactory results. One of the most 
successful ways of controlling them on 
grapes, at least, is to spray the vines 
with arsenate of lead at the rate of three 
pounds to 50 gallons of water with one 
gallon of syrup added to sweeten the 
mixture. The addition of the syrup 
seems to attract them and causes them to 
eat more of the poison than they would 
otherwise. They are very resistant to 
poison and usually do not eat a quantity 
sufficient to kill them rapidly enough to 
protect the plants upon which they are 
feeding. 
In the case of the strawberry plants, it 
is so near the ripening of the fruit I 
would not wish to recommend spraying 
with a poison. It would seem to me in 
this case that the only thing to do is to 
catch the insects by hand. This could 
possibly be done to best advantage by 
children with ordinary insect nets. It 
seems to me that they might scoop up 
great quantities of them in these nets, 
and then destroy them by putting them 
in kerosene or burning them. In addi¬ 
tion to this it is possible that it might be 
feasible to cover the strawberry plants 
with a mosquito netting. This will de¬ 
pend, of course, upon the size of the 
field. If it is only a garden patch then 
the plants might be covered and thus 
protected from the insects. I regret to 
say that there is no known method of 
controlling this pest successfully. 
GLENN W. HERRICK. 
Winter Mulch for Asparagus. 
I have a nice bed of asparagus which 
I cultivate mostly with the hand culti¬ 
vator. The only time I cultivate it with 
a horse is when I harrow it in the Spring. 
What cover crop for Winter would you 
advise which would not interfere with 
the Spring cultivation? e. c. m. 
Afton, N. Y. 
In sections where the frost would pene¬ 
trate below the roots, a covering of three 
or four inches of rough strawy manure 
applied as soon as the ground freezes in 
the Fall is perhaps the best of all Win¬ 
ter mulches for asparagus, as it not only 
gives protection against severe freezing, 
but is a good fertilizer as well. In the 
early Spring rake off all the roughage, 
leaving all the fine manure possible on 
the ground, which should be spaded in 
with a garden fork. Asparagus thus pro¬ 
tected in the Winter, will start earlier 
and with much greater vigor in Spring, 
than it would if left unprotected. Hard 
treezing of the roots has a tendency to 
lower the vitality and delay the starting 
of Spring growth. K. 
Fighting the White Grub. 
Is there anything that will keep grubs 
iom eating off the roots of strawberry 
Pants in a new bed? I have been told 
mat a little sulphur put on the roots at 
io tune of setting would keep them off. 
°Jou think it worth trying? f. s. m. 
Billerica, Mass. 
^ e doubt if sulphur will keep off the 
s ubs. It is worth trying as an experi- 
"" ut. The trouble with most such treat¬ 
ments is that you never know that the 
"Uib is at work until the plant shows it. 
■uni is badly hurt. The best remedy we 
the: rural, 
know of is to inject a small quantity of 
bisulphide of carbon into the soil near 
the plant. This will usually kill the 
grub, but would hardly pay except with 
expensive new varieties. 
Runners from Mutilated Plants. 
Is it advisable to plant strawberry 
runners in a new bed that come from 
plants that the grubs have been work¬ 
ing at? j. s . L . 
Lancaster, Pa. 
If the runner plants are strong and 
healthy we should certainly use them. 
The fact that grubs have gnawed the 
roots of the parent plant would not af¬ 
fect well-rooted runners. Blight or some 
contagious disease might make the run¬ 
ners undesirable, but grub injury to the 
roots would not weaken them. 
Transplanting Sage. 
This Spring I got a package of sage 
seed, sowed it in two rows about 15 
inches between them, seeds about every 
four inches. Plants came up slowly, are 
about four, 12, 18 and 24 inches be¬ 
tween. Can I successfully transplant 
the plants to about 12-inch intervals? 
In what month should sage be trans¬ 
planted? I want a good sage bed and am 
disgusted with the poor results from 
commercial seed. After the plants start 
and seed grows I expect better returns, 
from home-grown seed. I have not 
handled sage plants before. m. ii. d. 
8ehuylerville, N. Y. 
The sage may be transplanted without 
any trouble. In commercial growing 
sage is transplanted to well-plowed land 
from the middle of June to the end of 
July, as this crop is often used to follow 
early peas. About 10 days after planting 
the ground is raked thoroughly to de¬ 
troy small weeds, and a second raking 
of the surface given about 10 days later, 
after which an occasional hoeing will be 
sufficient. Sage seed holds its vitality 
about three years, but many of our per¬ 
ennials are rather slow in germinating. 
You will find it very dasy to increase 
your stock later by division of the plants, 
which in garden practice is usually done 
every two years. Cuttings are made 
from green shoots, taken just before 
flowering, which are left in the cutting 
bed until the following year, or from ma¬ 
ture wood, taken in early Spring. Some 
selected varieties produce very little seed. 
Sage likes an open sunny situation, with 
rich well-drained soil. It is wise, in 
northern localities, to give a light mulch 
in the Winter, using such material as 
would be selected for a strawberry bed. 
NOTES ON STRAWBERRY VARIETIES. 
The varieties of strawberries that have 
proved productive the past season in my 
observation are the Chesapeake and Co¬ 
lumbia. The Chesapeake is said to have 
the fault of not making enough runner 
plants, but I doubt if this complaint 
would be so frequently made if more 
plant food was applied to the soil, or in 
other words this variety needs high cul¬ 
ture and does not succeed as well under 
medium or poor culture. The Columbia 
is firm and of good color. A seedling 
which has been originated by A. B. How¬ 
ard & Son, of Massachusetts, and which 
I have seen growing for several years, is 
the most promising early variety that has 
come under my observation. As far as 
I know, however, this seedling has never 
been introduced. m. a. blake. 
N. J. Exp. Station. 
We completed rather extensive prelim¬ 
inary tests of strawberry varieties last 
Spring, the results of which are em¬ 
bodied in our Bulletin 164. You will 
note that this test includes a large num¬ 
ber of the old sorts, good, bad and indif¬ 
ferent. as well as a number of the newer 
varieties. Our judgment in regard to 
these varieties is expressed on pages 768 
and 760 in the bulletin. The detailed 
descriptions are given in the latter part 
of the publication. We are continuing 
our tests this year with a number of the 
newer sorts and the better of the old 
ones, but have not this information ready 
to publish as yet. c. g. woodbury. 
Indiana Exp. Station. 
The past season has not been a good 
season for judging the quality of any 
strawberry. No variety here has come 
up to its usual quality so far as l am 
able to judge. The freeze in May cut 
the crop rather short, and the extremely 
dry weather during most of the fruiting 
season had a damaging effect on the fruit, 
and only near the close of the season, 
when a good rain had brought about bet¬ 
ter conditions, did I find fruit of good 
eating quality. The drought seemed to 
have made the berries hard and tough, 
and while they shipped well and brought 
unusually good prices, the quality of all 
was below the mark. For a mid-season 
profitable strawberry there has been 
none here to equal the Chesapeake. 
There are some who are growing the 
Missionary, which is a fairly good berry, 
but had such a poor chance in any field 
I examined that no opinion can be given 
of its character until it has a better 
chance. Gandy still holds its own in the 
black swamp lands east of us here, but 
Chesapeake is far better in our dry sandy 
NEW-YORKER 
soil. Of the newly advertised ever-bear¬ 
ing strawberries the Superb is the only 
one I have tried. This is really ever- 
bearing, and is a handsome fruit and the 
sweetest I ever tasted. I have planted 
Amerieus this Spring, but have not seen 
the fruit yet. Superb made a fine Fall 
crop last season. I believe that the Ches¬ 
apeake would make a fine plant for hill 
culture, but have not tried that. 
Maryland. w. f. massey. 
The principal varieties of strawberries 
grown in this State are Superior, which 
is an early berry, of inferior quality, but 
a heavy bearer; it is adaptable to light, 
high lands. Gandy, which is probably 
the main market berry, is grown on the 
lower lands of the State, and is prob¬ 
ably the latest variety which we grow. 
Klondike and Roadhouse have received 
favorable consideration in some sections. 
Chipman’s Seedling has been grown to 
some extent, and is worthy of trial. Prob¬ 
ably the best berry which has come for¬ 
ward in the last few years is the Chesa¬ 
peake. I believe this berry is worthy of 
trial by any strawberry grower. An¬ 
other variety which is not at all new, 
but seems adaptable to loam soils, is Joe, 
and some of our growers prefer it to the 
Chesapeake. Parson’s Beauty, at one 
time was grown largely in the southeast¬ 
ern portion of this State, but it is not a 
first-class shipper and is being gradually 
discarded. Steven’s Late Champion is 
also grown to a slight extent. Practi¬ 
cally all berries grown in this State are 
perfect, as the strawberry fields are of 
such a great extent that growers do not 
feel that it will pay them to mix varie¬ 
ties by planting pistillate types. Just a 
word about the Superior. Its principal 
qualification is that it is extremely early, 
and a very heavy bearer. The berry is 
small and of inferior quality. 
Delaware Station. c. a. yi’cuE. 
At the recent Chicago peony show vis¬ 
itors were requested to name their fa¬ 
vorites among the varieties shown. 
There was not a great number of varie- ! 
ties shown, but the following were given 
preference: Light pink, Eugenie Ver- 
dier,. Therese; white, Mme. de Verneville, 
Festiva Maxima; dark pink, Modeste 
Guerin, Triomphe de l’Exposition de 
Lille; red, Augustin d’Hour, Mme. Mar¬ 
tin Cahuzac. 
Tiie Northern Nut Growers’ Associa¬ 
tion has issued a useful little circular 
on “Beginning with Nuts.” It is ad¬ 
vised to give a nut orchard the same 
preparation as an apple orchard; the 
nuts are planted in the Fall, in holes 30 
feet apart. These nuts furnish trees for 
budding or grafting later. In two to five 
years the seedlings are ready for the 
scions. Choice grafted trees furnish the 
scions; they are carefully, freely watered 
once a week in a dry time, and watched 
for bud-worms and other insects. Bone 
meal is advised as a fertilizer for nut 
trees. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
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A Sweet, 
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Delicious 
“Bite-To-Eat” 
Post 
Toasties 
Dainty bits of pearly white com, 
perfectly cooked and toasted to 
delicate “brown.” 
Usually eaten direct from pack¬ 
age with cream and sugar. 
Or, sprinkle Toasties over a 
saucer of fresh berries—then add 
the cream and sugar—a dish to 
remember. 
Post Toasties are sold by 
Grocers everywhere. 
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The Rural New-Yorker, 333 W. 30th St., NewYerk 
