1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
029 
Ruralisms 
Transplanting Mountain Laurel. 
E have quantities of beautiful moun¬ 
tain laurel in our woods. Can you 
tell us when to put it out in clus¬ 
ters and hedges about the farmhouse? 
We have made some grow, but haven’t 
been very successful. c. E. u. 
Shelton, Conn. 
Mountain laurel (Kalmia) should be 
transplanted in Spring or early Fall. It 
is wise to mulch it the first season ; this 
protects the roots from both drying sun 
and frost. This shrub prefers a shady 
situation, but will grow in a sunny place 
if there is abundant moisture. It is often 
found in swamps, though it grows abund¬ 
antly in hillside or mountain woods. It 
dislikes clay or limestone soils, and is at 
its best in peat, sand or loam. 
Experience With Small Fruits. 
HE strawberry season has come and 
gone. I would be glad to hear your 
report on the Joe, as you said you had 
ventured in setting out that variety. 
With me it is a plump failure; spreads 
out on the ground like a purslane plant, 
long pointed no-flavored small berries, 
shaped like the old Parker Earle, but 
nothing to compare with that good old 
kind under favorable conditions. Of 
Helen Davis, early, one trial is enough. 
The raspberries are now coming on, 
Plum Farmer, Iloosier and Winfield. I 
have some new grapes (with me) coming 
into bearing this year and they all look 
fine now; Lutie, Campbell’s Early, Bril¬ 
liant, Barry, Herbert-Salem, Bacchus, 
Lucille, Brighton. Peaches a full crop; 
poor apple prospects; Corn looking well; 
rye harvest just began, all Fall grain 
fair; oats and Spring wheat rather short; 
hay crop one half, but this is more locally 
than generally, as it has been too dry in 
this county. a. j. masters. 
Iowa. 
R. N.-Y.—Joe seems promising to us 
after a brief trial. It is not fair to judge 
a variety entirely by the behavior of 
Spring set plants. We were cautioned 
about planting Joe on rich soil which 
would be suitable for Marshall, but to put 
it on light soil. It makes good-sized ber¬ 
ries of fair flavor and we shall try it 
further as a partner for Marshall. 
Onions. 
AVE you ever succeeded in growing 
large onions of the Bermuda and 
Prizetaker varieties by planting 
them outdoors in the Autumn, or have 
what you raised of these onions, planted 
in the Fall, been small? 2. Have you 
ever been able to destroy grass which 
has become well started in an asparagus 
bed, and have you used salt to destroy 
the grass? B. B. 
Maryland. 
1. I have never transplanted the Ber¬ 
muda onions, but have grown fine ones 
direct from the seed sown very early in 
Spring. Seed of the Prizetaker, Denia 
and Giant Gibraltar sown early in Sep¬ 
tember here, and transplanted as soon as 
the plants are about the size of a lead 
pencil, will make large onions the fol¬ 
lowing Summer. But I have made finer 
ones by sowing the seed in January in 
a cold frame, and transplanting them 
later into well-prepared soil. For the 
earliest green onions I plant sets of the 
Norfolk Queen, a different onion from the 
Queen of the Northern catalogues, in 
September. These are usually ready for 
the table here in late February. At the 
same time in September I plant sets of 
the Yellow Potato onion, and in May 
we can use the offsets of* these 
for green onions, the Queen having been 
used up. The main bulb of the Potato 
onion is left to ripen, and they make 
fine large onions. I sow the seed of the 
Norfolk Queen very thickly in April and 
a single row 40 feet long makes me all 
the sets I need for the Autumn planting. 
I never plant sets of any sort for ripe 
onions except of the Yellow Potato onion. 
There is nothing more easily transplanted 
than a young seedling onion. I pinch 
the roots slightly and the top too and set 
in very shallow furrows. For a substi¬ 
tute for green onions in the early Winter 
I sow seed of the leek early in Spring 
and transplant them in July into open 
furrows, and draw the earth to them as 
they grow and finally hill a little so that 
we get a long white shank. Being per¬ 
fectly hardy, these are left in Winter 
where they grew, along with the salsify, 
parsnips and late carrots, none of which 
we lift here. 2. I never had to clean an 
asparagus bed well set in grass, because 
I never let mine get in that condition. I 
keep the asparagus cleanly cultivated all 
the season through, and make the heav¬ 
iest fertilization after cutting has ceased, 
so as to get a strong growth of crowns for 
the next season. I never use salt as salt, 
but do use kainit freely, and that carries 
a good deal of salt. You will never need 
to use salt to kill grass if you keep the 
crop well cultivated all the time. 
Maryland. w. F. massey. 
Hawkweed or Paintbrush. 
AM taking so many papers and maga¬ 
zines that I had concluded to stop 
The R. N. Y. and then I made up 
mind that I could not get along without 
it, and I would stop some other paper 
instead. Enclosed find a flower I picked 
in my meadow. Please tell me the name 
of it and how to stop it spreading over 
the farm. Is it poisonous? ,J. L. b. 
Bennington, Yt. 
The plant sent is Orange hawkweed or 
paintbrush, Hieracium aurantiacum. It 
is a terrible perennial weed, damaging 
pastures in many localities. It spreads by 
seeds and creeping rootstocks. The roots 
are near the surface, so plowing and 
surface cultivation will destroy it. In¬ 
fested pastures should be broken up and 
given a short rotation of hoed crops. On 
upland pastures which cannot be plowed 
Prof. Jones of Burlington, Vt., advises 
broadcasting dry salt over the patches, 18 
pounds to the square rod (1% ton to the 
acre). We have never heard that it pos¬ 
sesses any poisonous qualities. Another 
Hieracium, the rattlesnake weed, H. ven- 
osum, is said to possess some medicinal 
qualities. 
Grass Under Trees. 
HAT can I do to make the grass 
grow under my trees? Last Fall 
I dug up the soil about them and 
filled it full of organic matter and this 
Spring sowed it with shady lawn seed. 
It came up in great shape and has been 
cut too or three times, but it is thin and 
don’t seem to make a sod. I have used 
nitrate of soda and last Fall and this 
Spring applied a liberal amount of bone 
meal. Can you suggest something? 
Manayunk, Pa. j. H. j. 
It requires time for the growing of 
turf from grass seed. Under very favor¬ 
able conditions a fairly good sod will be 
formed in the first year, but as a rule it 
requires the second season’s growth to 
make a good turf and under unfavorable 
conditions a longer period will be re¬ 
quired. In dense shade it is sometimes 
quite out of the question to get a good 
sod formation. It would seem there had 
been sufficient fertilizer applied this sea¬ 
son. At the beginning of Winter cover 
the grass lightly with partially decayed 
rough manure, this will afford Winter 
protection and the leechings of the ma¬ 
nure will be quite a stimulant to the 
grass in the following Spring and Sum¬ 
mer, and will very materially hasten the 
formation of sod. Early next Spring re¬ 
move all the rough portion of the manure, 
but leave as much of the finer portion as 
possible on the grass. Do not cut the 
grass too frequently, nor very short dur¬ 
ing the heat of Summer. k. 
Tools for Quack Grass. 
I HAVE a considerable quantity of 
quack grass to contend with. It 
strikes me that somewhere in one of 
the back issues of The R. N.-Y. you have 
mentioned an article or machine for 
gathering roots. Do you know of any 
such machine, and by whom is it manu¬ 
factured? j. p. k. 
Newfane, N. Y. 
The two best implements we know of 
for getting out quack grass are the big 
cutaway harrow and the spring-tooth har¬ 
row. The first chops off the roots and 
tosses them to the surface. The spring- 
tooth drags them out and pulls them 
where they can be gathered. The Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture at Washington is¬ 
sues a pamphlet on Johnson grass which 
will help all who are troubled by this 
sort of pest. In this pamphlet several 
forms of cultivators are described. They 
have slanting teeth or hooks in place 
of the ordinary teeth. 
“Doesn’t that horrible noise your 
neighbor makes when he sharpens his 
lawn mower disturb you awfully in the 
morning?” “No. I go out and borrow 
it as soon as he gets it sharpened.”— 
Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
Growing Onion Sets. 
W E have had good success in growing 
onion sets and for the benefit of 
R. G. C., page S52, and others who 
may be interested, we will give our ex¬ 
perience. Land that will produce a good 
crop of ordinary onions, will grow a good 
crop of onion sets. The soil should not 
contain large quantities of raw nitrogen¬ 
ous matter. If stable manure is used as 
a fertilizer, it should be well rotted, and 
if possible, applied the'Fall before plant¬ 
ing. A liberal quantity of lime applied 
to the soil will show wonderful results. 
The Yellow Strasburg is a good variety, 
but we prefer the Yellow Globe Danvers. 
Almost all varieties do well, however. 
We sow the seed at the rate of from 50 
to 60 pounds per acre. It is advisable to 
make the rows about 14 inches apart, run¬ 
ning the seeder twice in the rows, as it is 
desirable to scatter the seed over as wide 
a space as possible in the rows. In order 
to have a good stand the seed should lay 
in the rows at the rate of at least 500 
to the foot. The sets are usually kept 
clean with a handwheel hoe, unless they 
are grown on a large scale for commercial 
purposes, in which case the rows are 
made three feet apart so that a horse can 
be used in cultivation. 
Onion sets are very sensitive to weeds 
and grass and for this reason the most 
dilligcnt care is necessary in cultivataion. 
In spite of all that can be done with 
weeding implements, there is always some 
hand weeding necessary, and the amount 
of this required will depend a great deal 
on the way the work of cultivating the 
crop is handled during the early part of 
the season. It should be the aim of the 
grower to secure a crop of very small 
bulbs as nearly uniform as possible. The 
ideal onion set is a round, plump little 
onion, the top being withered up to noth¬ 
ing. A bushel of the smallest sets will 
plant a greater area than the same quan¬ 
tity of the larger ones. Onion sets ripen 
in this section about the middle of Au¬ 
gust. Before harvesting we shear or cut 
the tops off with a scythe, and have 
found that a very good way to harvest 
them is by the use of a mason’s trowel. 
After laying on the ground for a day or 
so we gather them and thinly spread them 
in a dry place. It is very important to 
dry and cure them thoroughly so that 
they will remain in an entirely dormant 
condition until wanted for planting. Stor¬ 
ing them is often quite a hazardous mat¬ 
ter, but we have had good success by 
storing in small baskets in a dry place, 
and also by freezing them as is often ad¬ 
vised for wintering ordinary onions. If 
the latter method is used, care must be 
taken not to handle the sets while in a 
frozen, or even partly frozen condition. 
Indiana. p. l. 
A Galveston civil engineer was seek¬ 
ing support for a railroad in Honduras. 
During a conversation with one man, in 
attempting to put the necessity for a line 
clearly before him. the Texan asked: 
"How long does it take you to carry your 
goods to market by muleback?” “Two 
days.” “Ah!” exclaimed the Texan 
“there’s the point. With our road in 
operation you could take your goods to 
market and be back home in one day.” 
“That is very well, senor.” said the Hon¬ 
duran. “But what would we do with the 
other day?”—New York Evening Tost. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
Rural New-Yorker and you’ll get a quick 
reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee 
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More Rye 
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