937 
THE; RURAb SEW-YORKER 
The Home Acre 
Notes from a Northern Ohio Garden. 
Liquid Fertilizers. —A friend of the 
writer’s with a clay loam soil uses ni¬ 
trate of soda by the ton, and applies it 
in liquid form. He disolves it in a 
barrel, making as strong a solution as 
the water will take, and applies with a 
can having a small hole. This hole is 
of a size which will deliver a gallon along 
14 rods of row at a three-miles-an-hour 
walk. By walking faster or slower the 
amount is varied a little. By applying 
immediately before or after a shower the 
nitrogen gets in its work immediately, and 
the effect is seen very soon. His special¬ 
ties are peas, Lima beans and tomatoes. 
Although peas and beans are nitrogen 
gathered on their own initiative they 
seem very quick to appreciate help along 
the same line, and seem to bear out the 
Bible promise that “to him that hath 
shall be given.” Another friend who is 
a very successful gardener, and keeps a 
good many chickens besides makes con¬ 
stant use of liquid poultry fertilizer both 
in the plant-house and field. He has sev¬ 
eral barrels and keeps a quantity “on 
tap” the year around. This is a pretty 
strong alkaline solution on account of 
the lime in the manure, and soils fertil¬ 
ized with it do not favor fungus growth. 
He claims that spraying with it will in¬ 
stantly arrest the spread of damping off 
in greenhouse work. I have an idea that 
this form of fertilizer would give excel¬ 
lent results on land fertilized with acid 
phosphate. I am going to experiment 
this Summer with strong liquid fertiliz¬ 
ers where white grubs are working on 
strawberry roots. By watching closely 
one can detect where grubs are working 
on a plant, and it may be possible either 
to kill the worm or so to reinforce the 
plant as to carry it along. 
Frost Injury. —Few vegetables gar¬ 
deners pay any attention to locating in 
favorable locations with reference to im¬ 
munity from frost, yet it is worth while 
to take the matter into account. There 
have been some pretty disastrous experi¬ 
ences this Spring with frost. One neigh¬ 
bor a short distance up the Cuyahoga 
Valley lost nearly everything on the 
night of May 27. He had just bought 
a little home of 12 acres which was part¬ 
ly set in berries and the remainder most¬ 
ly planted to early garden stuff, and the 
prospect seemed good for a Summer’s re¬ 
turn of nearly $1,000. Everything was 
killed or seriously scotched. Even peas 
and early cabbage were cut down. At 
my own place, two miles down the val¬ 
ley, but 200 feet higher the first in¬ 
jury was not serious to hardy stuff, and 
my tender plants were still in pots and 
paper boxes in the cold frame. Snap 
beans suffered, but the stems were not 
frozen and they are making a weakly 
growth and will give a small return. 
The frost was spotted and the ground 
sloped in the direction of the rows, so 
part escaped, and I did not sacrifice the 
plot. The last of June I planted every 
other space to late cabbage so I probably 
will get a fair return from the ground. 
Location of a garden not only differs in 
frostiness but in earliness of crops. An 
acquaintance located along a creek in the 
outskirts of Akron, and fully protected 
both east and west by hills, brings to mar¬ 
ket sweet corn more than a week before 
the earliest local offerings and gets fabu¬ 
lous prices for it. I know another garden 
close to two trunk line railroads in the 
suburbs of a city with a large switch¬ 
yard close by where sweet corn is plant¬ 
ed in April, and is two feet high before 
I dare plant, and I have never known it 
killed by frost. Six switch engines and 
pushers are in constant use, and the 
smoke and heat make a local climate 
which is a month warmer than the coun¬ 
try around has. My own soil is warm 
and sandy and formerly before there was 
so many southern strawberries shipped 
in, I often had a week of high prices be¬ 
fore others began to pick. 
Protection From Frost. —A young 
friend is marketing strawberies (a full 
crop) at $4 per bushel while his neigh¬ 
bors have only a few, and many of these 
imperfect as a consequence of the frost 
referred to. He covered his plantation 
with straw, which he provided for such 
an emergency, on two different nights. 
This result of a few hours’ work on two 
evenings will net him more than $100. 
Many thousands of pepper and tomato 
plants in bud and bloom, or set with 
fruit were killed, and in every case it 
would have been better to have set less 
and either protected or carried the others 
along in pots in the cold frame than to 
have risked all upon the uncertainties 
of the weather. Various ways of pro¬ 
tection in gardens were tried, and with 
varying success. Large plants wrapped 
carefully in newspapers were saved, and 
small ones covered with berry baskets with 
earth drawn around were all right. 
Plants covered with earthen pots and tin 
buckets suffered about as badly as if 
no covering had been attempted. The 
man who uses liquid poultry fertilizer 
referred to before, has made many ex¬ 
periments, and found that loose and very 
strawy stable manure, comparatively dry, 
placed on and around tender plants, will 
save them from frost. If I live to see 
another Winter I am going to investi¬ 
gate the cost of making pasteboard pro¬ 
tectors from the waste boxes of Depart¬ 
ment stores and groceries. A large store 
in a neighboring city keeps two men bal¬ 
ing the waste paper and boxes constantly 
accumulating. Many things which form¬ 
erly were packed in wooden boxes come 
now in various kinds of pasteboard, and 
I believe covers of pasteboard boxes 
might be fashioned in Winter which 
could be used for plant protection for 
two or more seasons. l. b. pierce. 
Barren Grapevine. 
. M hat is the matter with my grape¬ 
vine? It is 10 years old, always blooms 
heavily, but never had a grape on it. It 
has other grapevines near it, some on the 
same trellis, a fine large vine. The other 
vines have lots of grapes on them. 
East Harwich, Mass. ii. w. n. 
An examination of the blossom clus¬ 
ters sent shows this vine to be a male and 
therefore not capable of setting fruit, al¬ 
though it may bloom much more pro¬ 
fusely than the vines with perfect blos¬ 
soms or female vines. It is not uncom¬ 
mon to find many male vines among the 
wild species of a locality, and for the 
benefit of those cultivated varieties that 
are self-sterile or imperfectly fertile it is 
desirable to have a few vigorous male 
vines mixed among them in the vineyard 
to assist in the fertilization of their blos¬ 
soms. F. E. GLADWIN. 
Culture of Asparagus. 
We have an acre of asparagus and 
would like to know if it required salt, 
also when it should be manured and how 
much of both salt and manure it takes? 
The roots are six or seven years old. 
Could you tell us where we could get a 
book that treats on asparagus? H. b. 
Milford, Conn. 
It is a question among asparagus 
growers whether salt has any beneficial 
effect on the crop, some contending it 
has, while others contend it has not. In 
my own experience I could never see any 
direct benefit to the plants, but indirect¬ 
ly it is sometimes beneficial, as the salt 
when applied at the rate of 2,000 to 
2,500 pounds to the acre, will destroy 
practically all weed growth, and also 
destroy most of the root eating insects, 
such as wireworms, grubs, etc. When 
used it should be applied in Spring only. 
As it is your intention to procure some 
authoritative work on asparagus culture 
it is unnecessary to give cultural direc¬ 
tions here. Nearly all the State agricul¬ 
tural stations have issued bulletins on 
asparagus culture, also the U. S. De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, Washington, D. 
C. , which are distributed free to appli¬ 
cants, mostly, or if a small fee is 
charged, it is only sufficient to cover cost 
of printing and mailing. Write U. S. 
Department of Agriculture, Washington, 
D. C., for Farmers’ Bulletin No. 61 on 
“Asparagus Culture,” by R. B. Handy. 
This bulletin is free. The New Jersey 
Agricultural Station, New Brunswick, 
N. J., probably can supply you with a 
copy of their bulletin on asparagus cul¬ 
ture ; this is a fine treatise on the culture 
of this vegetable, and should be read by 
every one engaged in its culture, whether 
for home use or for market. I think 
they make a nominal charge of 10 or 15 
cents to non-residents of the State, k. 
Harvesting Sweet Clover. 
Here is a plan that may be useful to 
your corespondent Fred M. Peasley, 
page 843, in gathering his Sweet clover 
seed at small expense. We have worked 
it out from experience and expect to use 
it this year. Make your hay-rack floor 
tight either by flooring it over solid or 
by spreading canvas or other tight cov¬ 
ering over it. Then put a foot-board on 
edge all around it. nailing the four boards 
together at the ends, that is at each cor¬ 
ner of rack. Then get enough wire cloth 
with quarter-inch mesh to cover rack, 
nailing to edge of the foot-boai’ds. Put 
in enough cross pieces of 2x4’s. so as to 
make the wire cloth stiff enough to bear 
a man’s weight. 
When your clover is cut and dry 
enough to shell off its stems easily, take 
your man and go to the field with the 
above described outfit. Let each man 
have big long-tined fork. Drive along¬ 
side the first swath. Have the man on 
the ground pitch the clover onto the 
wagon. Have the man on the wagon hit 
each good sized forkful a few licks on 
the top side, turn it over and repeat, then 
throw it off on opposite side. The seed 
and a lot of fine trash will go through 
the wire cloth out of the way. This can 
be easily cleaned in a fanning mill. The 
seed will be mostly unhulled, however. 
This plan will leave an abundance of 
seed on ground for next crop, besides 
leaving the straw where it should be, 
scattered over the land. In this dry 
country we find that six glancing blows 
with a long-tined fork will strip prac¬ 
tically all the seed off a forkful. 
Nebraska. j. h. tubbs. 
Remarks on Sweet Clover. 
I read with interest the article writ¬ 
ten by Chas. Wing on Sweet clover and 
it set in motion again thoughts which I 
so often think, along this line. I note 
he says he can keep 50 head of beef cat¬ 
tle on 20 acres. I wonder why it is then 
that people knowing this will continue to 
keep about one head to every six acres of 
pasture? 
I note he says he found both lime and 
inoculation necessary; but he knows and 
we all know that neither one is necessary 
where the subsoil is thrown to the sur¬ 
face. This seems to be a fact in any 
State; if the surface soil is sour by 
throwing up the subsoil it grows beau¬ 
tifully without lime, inoculation or pre¬ 
paration of soil. This is a lesson nature 
shows us on every hand, but nowhere is 
anyone putting it in practice. Why 
those in a position to put it into prac¬ 
tice do not, especially in the Eastern 
States, where there are so many worn- 
out fields, is a mystery to me. Merely 
by plowing deep and turning up the sub¬ 
soil this clover could be grown that has 
the same feeding value as Alfalfa, which 
is about the same as bran. It will yield 
many tons to the acre of green feed. It 
is difficult to cure in the old way, but if 
mowed and put into shocks without cur¬ 
ing, being careful no dew or dampness is 
in it, it will cure out in this way in a 
few days, as it could be stacked imme¬ 
diately as they do Alfalfa nowadays in the 
West, sometimes with no curing or dry¬ 
ing at all; stacked green it goes through 
a heating process and comes out when 
ready to feed like fresh-mown hay, with 
no loss of leaves. 
By using a tractor and plowing up the 
subsoil I see no reason why all this run¬ 
out eastern country might not again be¬ 
come a great stock country. If we had 
half his land in Sweet clover for pasture 
and the other half in hay for Winter 
feed no grain would be necessary either 
for work teams or milch cows, as the 
food value of Sweet clover is high enough 
to make grain feeding unnecessary. 
In this country many of the roads are 
piked with livestock and wherever Sweet 
clover gets a start it grows well without 
inoculation. Either lime or the turning 
up of subsoil will grow it, but in the East 
the farmers as well as the land are poor, 
and if by merely turning up the subsoil 
this crop can be grown these farmers 
could get it started with no expense at 
all, and later should the land get sour 
they would be in a position to put on 
lime as well as phosphoric acid if needed. 
Experiments as how deep to plow 
would seem to me the only thing lacking 
to make this plan of growing Sweet 
clover a success as we have proof of it 
on every hand in a small way where the 
subsoil has been thrown to the surface. 
If farmers would make use of this les¬ 
son nature has shown them as a cheap 
way to grow Sweet clover it would 
mean millions of dollars to many States; 
in other words, rich soils now poor, and 
the same with their owners; fat cattle 
hogs and sheep on every hand where now 
it is a disgrace to the country to see 
these fields so barren. j. b. finch. 
Ohio. 
When you write advertisers mention Thb 
U. N.-Y. ana you'll get a quick reply and a 
“square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
Every farmer wants the paint 
which at lowest cost gives 
greatest protection and long¬ 
est wear. The paint business 
was revolutionized by the 
introduction of 
zinc 
Zinc put a new value into 
the old paint mixtures. 
Write for the booklet, “Your Move," and 
we will'send it together with a list of manu¬ 
facturers who make Zinc paint ready to use. 
The New Jersey Zinc Company 
Room 455, 55 Wall Street, New York 
5 to 14 More Bu. 
of Wheat Per Acre 
prove it 
I Cleaning and grading 
Fall Seed Wheat with’ 
/ a Chatham Mill never 
fails to increase the crop 
5 to 14 Bu. per Acre. 
If some of you gentlemen 
who grow fall wheat question 
; assertion, just drop me a line and I'll over¬ 
whelm you with facta —actual crop records made 
by actual farmers; men whoonco **poo booed" cleaning 
and grading Seed Wheat. 
You've got rye, vetch, timothy, alfalfa or some other 
jrrasB seeds that need cleaning, too. The “Chatham'' ia 
just the thin? for those jobs. 
“ ’ * *• — *tha 
that s 
Next winter, the Chatham can grade and clean all yoor 
opring seed—barley, corn, oats, *•» 
clover, and all kinds of grasses. / A uver 
Just now my prices are low h. \ ~1 400,000 
and I give you a Tree Crtai.No II. I | n Use. 
money asked till you are eat- 
iatted. Hand power or gas. 
Send postal for startling lL.fr. 
{ facta and records of bum¬ 
per wheat crops; and for 
1 free book which tells 
\how to clean, grade and 
. separate any grain or 
k grass seed. 
Manson Camobell Co.. 
Dept. 43 
Detroit, Mlcmgag 
Kansaa City, Mo. 
Chatham Graiiv 
Grader and Cleaner* 
I for potatoes 4 styles to choose from to suit your 
special conditions. We guarantee them to do the 
work we claim for them. All growers know that it pa vs 
to use diggers even on five acres—they save much 
valuable time and save all of the crop in good condition. 
1 
......v. <-rop in good condition. 
IRON AGE DIGGERS 
No. 155 
For 
Heaviest 
Conditions 
■ Wheels. 32 or 28 Inch, Elevator. 22 or 
/ 20 inches wide. Thorough separailon 
without injury to the crop. Best two 
wheel fore truck. Right adjustment 
of plow, shifts in gear from the seat. 
Can be backed,turnsshort into next row. 
Ask your dealer about them and 
write us for descriptive booklet. 
BATEMAN 
M’F'G CO. 
Box 20 
Grenloch, N. J. 
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