1013. 
©67 
Ruralisms 
White Strawberries. 
Would you tell me if a wild white 
strawberry is unique? I have fouud a 
patch of wild strawberries in a thin lo¬ 
cust grove that bear a large berry, yel¬ 
lowish white, same color as the white 
raspberry Golden Queen. The berries 
are three times the size of the common 
wild and this color when ripe. T. R. h. 
Dutchess Co., N. Y. 
White or light-colored strawberries 
have little market value, no matter how 
well flavored, as it would scarcely be pos¬ 
sible to convince buyers that the berries 
are really ripe. The consuming public 
wants a bright red berry, and if red- 
fleshed throughout the market is still bet¬ 
ter suited. White or pink varieties are 
now scarcely offered by nurserymen or 
plant growers, though the older kinds were 
often of excellent quality. The writer 
well remembers searching the rows of 
Lennig’s White for the pale berries, the 
most delicious of any variety grown at 
the time. White strawberries appear 
rarely to be productive and generally are 
of small size. While albino fruits may 
occur among seedlings of all strawberry 
races, they are by far most common 
among descendants of the Alpine straw¬ 
berry, Fragaria vesca of Europe and por¬ 
tions of North America. T. It. H.’s berry 
is probably of this type. Although likely 
to be without commercial value a variety 
of this kind may be well worth domesti¬ 
cation. V. 
Failure of Beans. 
Will you explain the failure of my 
beans to bear fruit? On May 15 I 
planted a small piece of my 23x50 feet 
of home garden to Itoman beans (pole). 
They made rapid growth, are about six 
feet tall, but there is no sign of any 
flowers so far. I am thinking about tak¬ 
ing same out now, and planting some 
other vegetable more suitable to ground. 
I had the same spot planted to same 
beans last year, and had a fair crop. 
To insure better results I put in a liberal 
amount of rotted horse manure, also 25 
pounds of commercial fertilizer (truck- 
farmers’ special), which must have been 
a mistake. w. H. 
Long Island City, N. Y. 
I have never grown the Roman pole 
bean, in fact never heard of it, but 
am strongly inclined to believe the crop 
failure is entirely due to over-stimula¬ 
tion. The bean belongs to that class of 
plants known as legumes or plants hav¬ 
ing the ability to extract nitrogen from 
the air and deposit it in the soil through 
the roots, and when grown on the aver¬ 
age garden soil manures that are rich in 
nitrogen should not be used in large 
quantities. Fertilizers containing prin¬ 
cipally phosphate and potash would be 
better adapted to their requirements. 
Plants are sometimes peculiar in their 
action, and when failures like that de¬ 
scribed occur, it is not always an easy 
matter to determine the cause. It is 
a well-known fact among practical gar¬ 
deners that an over-supply of highly 
stimulating manure will sometimes cause 
plants to devote all their energy to the 
making of leaf and stem growth, sacrific¬ 
ing the seed crop to this growth. On 
the other hand, when starved, they will 
devote most of their energy to the making 
of seed, so that the variety or species 
may not become extinct. The law of 
nature compels the weakling to repro¬ 
duce, but the over-stimulated, robust, 
thrifty plant is often seemingly left to 
its own devices, and sometimes fails to 
produce seed for future reproduction. In 
plant breeding the hybridizer is compelled 
sometimes to subject certain plants to 
a starvation diet in order to get them 
to produce seed at all. This is notably 
true of the Clothilde Soupert rose. It 
will not seed under any circumstances 
when grown in the open ground, but if 
crowded into a pot and starved almost 
to the point of exhaustion, it will seed 
readily and freely, putting forth, as it 
were, a last effort at reproduction be- 
fore life becomes extinct. I mention this 
particular plant to illustrate how the 
iaws of nature govern plant life, and 
liow it is not possible to get some plants 
to make seed when in a thrifty or overfed 
‘ midition, and how it is comparatively 
' a W to get them to do so when in an 
impoverished condition. Plants in most 
cases, however ,are much like animals, 
i 'cj will thrive and give much better 
suits when fed on a balanced ration, 
oi best results in the growing of beans 
or any other crop, it is not always the 
THE R.U RAL 
larger quantity of fertilizers used that 
give the best results, but, the kind that 
meets the plant’s requirements applied 
in the right quantity, and no more. K. 
Sterile Tomatoes. 
Is there anything to be done to 
force tomato plants to set fruit? Can 
you not send me a word of advice 
before it is. too late? My plants are 
fine and thrifty and blossom freely, but 
hardly a trace of any fruit. j. e. c. 
I do not know of any practical way by 
which tomatoes or anything else can be 
forced to set fruit or seed except by 
artificial pollenization, and, as this re¬ 
quires to be done by experienced hands 
the average person would not make much 
headway at it. When tomatoes are 
grown under glass the blossoms will not 
pollenize well without assistance. When 
the pollen is ripe, ready for shedding, 
the blossom stems are gently tapped 
with a thin stick or some other device 
which causes the pollen to fall from the 
anthers and lodge upon the stigma, thus 
causing impregnation and the setting of 
fruit. This work is usually done about 
10 o’clock in the morning on bright days, 
later if the day is cloudy. If the weather 
conditions are favorable, the jarring of 
the blossoms on outdoor grown tomatoes 
might be helpful, but of this I am not 
sure, as I have never had occasion to try 
it. Excessive stimulation of the plants, 
causing a rapid and rank growth, would 
have a tendency to prevent them from 
producing fertile blooms in the early 
part of the season, but later on they will 
probably settle down to a more natural 
condition and set plenty of fruit. Wet 
weather will also interfere with polleni¬ 
zation of the blooms. It will often pre¬ 
vent the ripening and shedding of the 
pollen until the stigma has passed the 
receptive period, which of course will 
create a negative condition, resulting in 
the blooms dropping off. k. 
Covering Cauliflowers. 
What can I do for my cauliflower? 
My neighbors tell me I must cover it 
with paper or light muslin, I asked them 
why, but they do not seem to be able to 
tell me; they say the head decays away. 
It is about seven or eight inches high 
and looks very hardy; heads are just 
forming. l. F . H . 
Ulster Co., N. Y. 
As soon as the head or curd is vis¬ 
ible it should have protection from 
the light, as the bright sunshine often 
causes it to turn green, thus rendering 
it inferior in quality or entirely unfit for 
use. The leaves of the plant are gen¬ 
erally used for protecting the heads. 
Some of the broad outside leaves are 
broken half through the stems and the 
tops bent over the heads and pinned 
together with small sticks. When they 
can be obtained the long spines from the 
white thorn are most excellent for that 
purpose. Some gardeners practice cut¬ 
ting one or two leaves from the plant 
to cover the head, tucking them carefully 
in between the head and the outer 
leaves. I have found this plan quite 
satisfactory, and if the protecting leaves 
are properly adjusted, it is very rarely 
the operation need be done the second 
time, as the heads come to maturity three 
to five days after they become plainly 
visible. k. 
Thinning Tomatoes. 
I have a great number of Ponderosa 
tomato plants, all looking very strong 
and healthy. There are as many as 40 
tomatoes to a bunch. Is it too much to 
carry on a bunch? Would it be advis¬ 
able to pinch some of them out? h. n. 
Corona, N. Y. 
Thinning of tomato fruits is very sel¬ 
dom resorted to, as it rarely occurs that 
the vines will set more fruits than they 
will mature and ripen, or more than the 
grower thinks he will have use for. Some¬ 
times thinning the fruits is advisable 
when it is desired to grow extra large 
specimens, or when there is likely to be 
much surplus during the height of the 
season, as the thinning of the fruits will 
prolong the vitality of the plants and 
extend the bearing season sometimes be¬ 
yond that which could be reasonably ex¬ 
pected if the plants are allowed to mature 
and ripen all the fruit set in the earlier 
part of the season. The number of 
fruits set to the bunch in this instance is 
indeed phenomenal and it might be ad¬ 
visable to thin them at le,,3t one-half, 
especially if the vines are tied up to 
stakes or trellis. I have frequently had 
to give support to the clusters of this 
NEW-YORICBR 
variety, as it is a very large and heavy 
fruited sort, and one that well repays 
the grower for this extra care. I always 
grow my tomatoes on trellises, and when 
it is necessary to give the clusters of 
fruits support I find the best means of 
doing so is to suspend the clusters on 
strong piece of jute twine, one end of 
which is tied to the trellis wire. This 
makes a good support and can be easily 
and quickly applied. k. 
Virginia Apple Notes. 
I am glad to say that we are raising 
more hay, and this season’s crop has 
been good. We get so much better re¬ 
sults when we sow’ grass alone in August 
or September than formerly w r ith a nurse 
crop. I have been sowing one part Sap¬ 
ling clover, two parts Red-top and two 
parts Timothy, 24 quarts to acre, using 
200 pounds bone and 200 pounds acid 
phosphate per acre. I have made from 
two to three tons per acre and this sea¬ 
son we bought a tedder, a great help in 
curing hay. We are now sowing some 
Crimson clover in the orchard, but it is 
very dry and the seed may never come 
up, although we have been over the land 
a number of times, and have it worked 
up into a fine seed bed. We have a fine 
crop of Albemarle Pippins this season, 
but all red apples are shy; the Pippins 
are very clear and smooth, but w’e have 
too many worms, did not kill them all 
with our arsenate of lead. We are still 
using this compressed air for spraying 
and like it very much; however, recently 
our water supply has been low’ on ac¬ 
count of the dry weather, and it took 
longer to pump up tanks. A few w’eeks 
ago I found some scale on a few apples, 
and gave the tree a spraying with a 
bought preparation of lime and sulphur, 
Summer strength. It affected the leaves 
badly, and now about one-lialf of them 
are on the ground. 
I have just shipped an exhibit of ap¬ 
ples to the International Apple Shippers’ 
Association, and am making my plans 
to go out to Cleveland to see w’hat the 
buyers have in store for us. A short 
time since I had the pleasure of attend¬ 
ing the Summer meeting of the Virginia 
Horticultural Society at the University 
of Virginia, Charlottesville. We had a 
very creditable meeting and enjoyed a 
visit to some of the fine Pippin orchards 
.,Albemarle County; we saw some beau¬ 
tiful fruit. V e were very highly enter¬ 
tained and instructed by a visit to the 
State Experiment orchards at C’rozet. 
This work is being carried on with great 
credit by members of the State Experi¬ 
ment Station staff. In a few years they 
should be able to give us some valuable 
conclusions in regard to the fertilizers 
suitable for use on our soils. 
. , SAMUEL GUERRAXT. 
I ranklin Co., Va. 
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