loes 
head or the English rye grass. The distinguishing 
feature of the two grasses is (hat the small divi¬ 
sions (containing three or four seeds and called 
spikelets) on (lie quack grass are turned flatwise to 
the main stem, while in the English rye grass, the 
spikelets are turned edgewise to the main stem. The 
seeds of quack grass are seldom seen unless one is 
looking for them. They are rather inconspicuous, 
being about one-half inch long and only one-six¬ 
teenth of an inch wide. They look very much like 
a miniature oat when ripe, being of a light brown 
or yellowish color. A close examination of a quack 
grass seed will disclose a difference between it and 
an oat: that difference being that the furrow of the 
oat is more closed than that of the quack grass seed. 
The roots of the “quacko desperado” are fine and 
fibrous, and these are sent out from each joint on 
the underground stem. The roots themselves do 
not help the plant to spread and they are so fine that 
they are seldom seen unless the plant is dug quite 
carefully. 
HOW IT SPREADS.—What most people call a 
quack grass root is really a stem. Take up the so- 
called root if you will and examine the joints. 
Joints are seldom found on a true root. Notice the 
joint carefully and note that a scale is over it. Pull 
the scale off and underneath will be found a true 
bud so large that it can be easily seen ^irh the naked 
eye. Now, if your eyes are good enough, you can 
pull this bud apart with a pin and will see that it is 
made up of various miniature leaves. This shows 
us why a stem always shoots up from one of these 
nodes on the underground root-stalk. A true bud is 
there. We expect each bud that we graft into a 
Peach seedling to grow and so the bud that is on 
the quack grass underground stem, grows whether 
we expect it to or not. The principle is the same, 
the bud is the embryonic stem of next year, and is 
nature’s way of stem growth. Quack grass seeds 
mature early, usually some time in July, and may 
be cut with the hay or grain and thus the plant may 
be scattered by the seeds. I have known quack 
grass to spring up suddenly on a field and cover 
almost the entire surface in a single season, which 
showed that the seed must have been in the seeds 
of the wheat or oats sown on the land. However, 
probably the majority of the quack grass is propa¬ 
gated by dragging the underground stems around in 
working the land. 
ERADICATION BY SUMMER FALLOWING.— 
Of the various methods of killing noxious weeds; 
pulling, spraying with chemicals, cutting, smother¬ 
ing, or Summer fallowing. Summer fallowing is the 
one which is the surest of eradication of quack 
grass. This grass stands so thick on the ground that 
it is impractical to spray with a poisonous spray. 
This would only kill the top growth and not the 
roots. It is well nigh impossible to kill a field of 
quack grass without giving up the crops on the field 
for at least a single season. In three or four years’ 
time, thorough cultivation in tilled crops will usual¬ 
ly nearly kill it, hut it would seem best in a young 
orchard such as W. M. .T. has to Summer-fallow the 
piece. It ought to be plowed this Fall. In an old 
sod, such as he describes, the roots probably do not 
grow deeper than two or three inches, or they may 
grow to the depth of the plowing of last Fall. The 
depth of growth should he determined and then the 
plow adjusted so that the bulk of the roots will l>e 
turned on the surface. This plowing should he done 
at once and then the rest of the season cultivate or 
harrow so that not a leaf can show itself above the 
surface. Be sure to keep the leaves down around the 
trees. I should get after it at once, when I can 
Plow pretty close to the trees without injuring them, 
and there will be less quack to keep down with hand 
tools. If this orchard is left for three or four years, 
quite a growth will have been made. This will nec¬ 
essitate working with horse power farther away 
from the trees and so a larger amount of hand labor 
will he required to keep the grass down, but worst 
of all, the quack grass roots will he so grown in 
around the tree roots that it will take two or three 
seasons entirely to kill them out. j. j. mathews. 
CONCRETE BOXES. 
IIE concrete boxes shown in Fig. 4S5, are handy 
for many uses about barn and henhouse. The 
forms used for making such receptacles are 
two second-hand store boxes, one several inches 
smaller than the other. The smaller box has two 
wooden strips nailed across the top, long enough to 
project across the larger or outside box, thus sus¬ 
pending the inside form so that it will not sink into 
the fresh concrete at the bottom. 
After this first or bottom layer of concrete is placed, 
the space between the sides and ends of the two 
boxes is filled with concrete and kne result will be a 
THK RUKAL NEW-YORKER 
box of concrete of the dimensions represented by 
this space. If great strength is required, wire or 
small steel rods may be imbedded in the concrete as 
it is built up, which will reinforce it to the degree 
that it will he very much stronger than plain con¬ 
crete. On tin* other hand, if a porous concrete is 
required, 11 1 ;if is to say one which will admit mois¬ 
ture, it may he made of cinders with the quantity of 
cement and sand somewhat reduced. This is known 
as a lean mixture. A satisfactory mixture for work 
of this kind would be a concrete composed of one 
part Portland cement, two parts sand and four parts 
stone or gravel. When placed in the forms it should 
be thoroughly tamped and worked from side to side 
with a flat paddle. This will bring the richer mortar 
to the sides of the form, making a smoother surface 
than would otherwise result. The concrete should 
Win. Pickering, Plioto 
LONG ISLAND CORN THREE STORIES 
HIGH. Fig. 481. 
be of “sloppy wet” consistency. It should be pro¬ 
tected from the hot sun and wind and kept in the 
forms several days, after which it should be 
sprinkled twice a day, or, if the object is small, im¬ 
mersed in water for the period of a week. 
By the use of a dense and impervious concrete, re¬ 
inforced as described above, but especially at the 
corners, the forms will answer for a small tank or 
watering trough. Where tanks are to be placed in 
exposed situations subject to freezing, it would be 
well to slope the inside form by making it a little 
smaller at tin* bottom than at the top, thus provid¬ 
ing an inclined interior surface upon which the ice 
will tend to slide upward, thereby preventing the 
destruction of the tank. It is said, however, that the 
placing of a stick in an upright position in a recep¬ 
tacle of this character will prevent it from bursting 
in cold weather. With pipe openings established, 
these box forms are available for the construction 
of a kitchen sink or slop drain, as well as a drain 
(or an outside pump or faucet. It would not be a 
difficult matter to establish them in the horse or cow 
stalls for mangers or small watering troughs. 
Tn using old boxes in the manner described it must 
he understood that the chief object in view is to do 
the work as cheaply as possible. In a majority of 
cases, unless the boxes were perfectly smooth and 
September i 2, 
oiled or soaped before the concrete is put in, it 
would he necessary to destroy them in removing 
them from the concrete. 
A LONG ISLAND CORN FOREST. 
HERE i.s the man who has said that Long 
Island cannot be made into a dairy section, 
or that the Long Island soil is so poor that it 
cannot produce good crops of corn? We have 
heard men talk in that way. We would like to get 
hold of one of them this Fall and lead him into the 
cornfield which is pictured at Fig. 480. We would 
make him change his mind, in case he had any mind 
which had growth enough in it to make such a 
change possible. The photographs were taken on 
the Old Brick Farm at Roslyn, L. 1. Mr. Taber- 
B illctts brought us these photographs to show what 
Long Island soil can do when properly fed and cared 
for. The corn is Eureka. It was planted in drills 
about three feet apart, and lias been given the most 
thorough culture possible. Of course Mr. Willetts 
did not pick out a sand bank, or a piece of beach 
sand thrown up by the sea, and plant this corn with¬ 
out any manure or fertilizer. lie has a large dairy 
farm where high-class milk is produced. The soil 
is typical of Western Long Island. It lias been 
farmed for many years, and was producing good 
crops when the -soil in the Mississippi Valley was 
doing nothing hut supporting buffaloes and other 
wild animals for the benefit of the Indians, or a few 
wandering white trappers. 
The corn was planted on an old Alfalfa field. This 
Alfalfa was reseeded last year, but the crop was not 
very satisfactory, or as good as they wanted, and 
so this Spring they plowed the new seeding under. 
First they put on a thick coating of cow manure. 
When we asked Mr. Willetts how many tons they used, 
he said they just opened the manure spreader wide 
and let it go. This manure with the Alfalfa sod 
was plowed under, the ground well fitted, and the 
corn drilled in, using 400 to 500 pounds of corn fer¬ 
tilizer in addition to the manure. As is well known, 
such a corn fertilizer is usually not high in nitrogen, 
but is rich in phosphoric acid and potash. In fact 
the object of such a fertilizer is to act as reinforce¬ 
ment for the manure. As the corn came up it was 
kept clean of weeds, and the surface was kept tlior 
oughiy stirred with cultivator and hoe. We see tin* 
result of all this work and feeding in the mighty for¬ 
est which is shown in the picture. The single stalk 
pictured with men beside it gives a good compara¬ 
tive idea of the way this corn has grown, and do 
not get the idea that there is only a small back 
yard or playground piece of this corn. Mr. Wil¬ 
letts lias about 70 acres of it, which would put the 
cornfield right in the same class with the big West¬ 
ern growers through the Middle West. 
This corn will be used to fill the silos, while the 
over-run will he stacked for feeding as dry fodder 
through the Winter. There are not silos enough 
on the farm to contain it. The argument between 
farmers who grow this immense corn like Eureka, 
and those who grow the smaller corn with a larger 
mature ear, is an old one. The big corn men want 
a silo filler.—the others want quality, as they say. 
rather than quantity. A silo filler can he helped out 
with cottonseed or linseed meal, while the quality 
corn does not require so much grain. It is an old 
argument which we need not take up here, but the 
point we want to bring out now is the fact that 
Long Island soil when properly handled in this 
way, becomes as productive in corn culture as any 
other soil on the Western Hemisphere. There are 
so many people who seem to have an idea that Long 
Island is a dry, barren desert, that we are very glad 
to show this forest of corn as evidence of what 
comes out of the desert when man knows how to 
make it come. 
THE POTASH SITUATION. 
I N view of the impossibility of importing potash from 
Germany while the war lasts, what advice euu lie 
given Eastern farmers about the use of fertilizers? 
Is it not probable that most <>i our soils contain 
enough potash so that a failure to use it for one or 
more years will not seriously affect crops? 
Of course, no one definite answer can be given 
with safety. On soils which are of a marked clay 
type. I should imagine the potash could be omitted 
or lessened for a few years without very serious 
difficulty; indeed, there are those who hold that we 
are now overdoing the use of potash. However, on 
some sandy soils, and particularly for such crops as 
tobacco and potatoes, and some of the root crops, I 
should expect that a potash shortage would be evi¬ 
denced rather promptly by decreased yields. Of 
course, as you suggest, lime might be used tempo 
rarily to set free potash, provided the crop was of 
such a character that lime would not work an in¬ 
jury. The situation is certainly a serious one. and 
