THE KUKAT 
NEW-YORKER 
1037 
In Memory of Col. Brackett. 
I wish to occupy a little space in your 
paper to pay a personal tribute to my 
clear old friend, Col. Gustavus B. Brack¬ 
ett, chief pomologist of the United States 
Department of Agriculture, who was laid 
to his last repose under the spreading 
oaks of Arlington, near this city, on Au¬ 
gust 4. 
For more than 40 years he was tin- 
leading figure in the science of fruits 
in this country, and perhaps in the en¬ 
tire world of that science. For half of 
that time I knew him personally, and 
will never forget how approachable he 
was, and how readily he would sit down 
and talk familiarly with the inquirer 
about how to plant and prune fruit trees 
and fight their enemies. There was an 
artistic side to him that was wonderful. 
The wax models of fruits that are the 
delight of so many visitors for their 
great beauty and fidelity to nature, on 
exhibition at the Department of Agri¬ 
culture, were made by him after he 
had attained an age when most men 
have retired from active life. His fame 
as an authority on fruits and their cul¬ 
ture was world-wide. To see him at his 
best, one had to watch him seated at 
the tables in the department, along with 
Prof. C. P. Close and other fruit experts, 
judging the samples that had come in, of 
apples, pears and other orchard products, 
all the way from Oregon, Maine or Cali¬ 
fornia. If the specimen was not too far 
gone with decay the colonel would name 
it, tells its history, and fix its status 
as to utility and value. Ilis mistakes 
were few indeed, and his judgments, while 
delivered with caution and without cock¬ 
sureness, were generally final. One of his 
chief mourners was his faithful secretary, 
Miss Huddleson, who for a quarter of a 
century was his daily companion at the 
desk, and who revered him as her own 
father. lie often expressed his confidence 
in The Rural New-Yorker as a relia¬ 
ble guide on affairs of fruit culture. 
Let crimson branch and purple vine 
And every fruiting orchard tree 
In reverential grief incline 
For one who ceased to be. 
And tear drops of the morning dew 
Weep from the laden boughs that bend 
For him who to those trees was true, 
Their lover and their friend. 
lie spread their virtues, fought their foes, 
And bade their useful tribe increase, 
Till, full of years, he found repose, 
In honor and in peace. 
Rest, soldier of the better cause, 
Beneath the oaks of Arlington, 
Wise officer of Nature's laws, 
Thy peaceful battle won! 
S-i long as fruit trees bless our land 
They shall perpetuate his fame, 
And high on honor’s roll shall stand 
Gustavus Brackett’s name. 
LINDSAY S. PERKINS. 
Lima Beans Fail to Seed. 
What, if anything, can be done to make 
pole Lima beans set? Vines are thrifty 
and could hardly bloom better. Many 
of the blossoms fall without producing. 
If there is any particular culture, trim¬ 
ming. or anything else which will insure 
a better crop I would like to know. 
Berlin, N. Y. a. c. 
Where Lima beans fail to seed well I 
have found that the usual cause is that 
the grower has depended on stable ma¬ 
nure only, and has got an excess of ni¬ 
trogen in tin- soil and a deficiency of 
phosphoric acid and potash, which are 
the plant foods mainly concerned in the 
making and storage of starch, and hence 
the formation of seed. lama beans are 
less furnished with the nodules in which 
the nitrogen-fixing bacteria exist than 
most other leguminous plants, and some 
nitrogenous manure is necessary. I use 
stable manure on my garden in the late 
Fall and then in Spring add a mixture 
eight per cent, phosphoric acid and 10 
per cent, potash, as my soil is of a sandy 
nature, while yours very probably will 
not need the potash to that extent. If 
your soil is a strong clay loam it is 
probable that a good application of acid 
phosphate or of steamed bone at rate 
of 1.000 pounds an acre will be all that 
is needed to make the beans set fruit. 
Any of the large Limas usually do well 
in your section, while down here .ve 
cannot get a good crop of the large white 
Lima beans, and grow the Sieva or butter 
bean as it is called here. But I can 
get good crops of the thick Lima or po¬ 
tato Lima class, and find that Burpee’s 
Fordhook fills the bill very nicely. I 
grow the small Lima or butter bean on 
chicken wire netting, and the Fordhook 
in rows like string beans, as it is a bush 
sort. To my individual taste the small 
Lima is the best of the class and bears 
profusely. You might try some of these 
and the dwarf Fordhook for large beans. 
W. F. M. 
Kudzu Vine in Missouri. 
Can any of your readers give me any 
pointers on the kudzu vine for pasturing? 
I have a few vines growing, and expect 
to put out quite a number, and wish 
to know its bad qualities, if it has any. 
It Winter-kills here, but makes up for 
that in its large growth, as some of my 
vines are now 40 to 50 feet long, and it 
is the only plant I have found that does 
not show the effect of dry weather. If 
it is a good feed, I believe it will be 
a good thing for our rough land in the 
Ozarks that cannot be cultivated 
Stone Co., Mo- c. E. degraff. 
If. N.-Y.—Most of the arguments for 
kudzu have come from Florida. It seems 
to be best suited to warm climates. We 
have heard reports that it wintered safe¬ 
ly in middle Arkansas and in North Car¬ 
olina. At one time parties in Southern 
New York claimed that it would endure 
the climate of that section but we have 
heard nothing from them lately. What is 
their later experience? With us, in 
Northern New Jersey, we became con¬ 
vinced that pole Lima beans would give 
more feed or manurial value than kud¬ 
zu. If it has proved useful at the North 
anywhere we want to know about it. We 
should try the new Siberian Alfalfa, 
Semipalatiusk, recently pictured in The 
R. N.-Y. We think that has great possi¬ 
bilities as a pasture plant on rough land. 
Hot Water for Peach Borers. 
Sometime ago somebody spoke of ap¬ 
plying hot water to peacn trees for borers- 
Would he tell us how he heats the water, 
how much to apply, when, and if there 
is danger of applying it too hot ? I 
suppose the treatment is given in the 
late Fall, the earth pulled back, water 
applied and the dirt replaced around the 
tree. li* L. D. 
Morristown, Tenn. 
We have tried this hot water treat¬ 
ment and also hot lye, and we have a 
number of reports from other people. 
Generally speaking the water is heated 
right in the orchard, usually in an open 
kettle, and taken directly from the kettle 
and poured around the trees. In some 
case we understand a portable steam en¬ 
gine is used for the purpose. The water 
cannot be made too hot in order to 
prove effective against the borers. We 
have found hot lye better for this pur¬ 
pose than the plain hot water. The or¬ 
dinary caustic lye was dissolved in wa¬ 
ter, the liquid brought to a boil and 
poured around the base of the tree. This 
was fairly effective in killing the borers 
when the gum was first scraped from the 
tree trunks. When this gum was not 
removed a good many of the borers were 
left uninjured. We found it necessary to 
scrape off the gum in order to kill the 
borers, and after scraping the gum it 
was just about as easy and more effec¬ 
tive to dig the borers out and make sure 
of them. We doubt therefore if the hot 
water or the hot lye treatment will prove 
economical, except perhaps in special 
cases, where there are not so many of 
the borers to be found. 
Poultry and Potato Beetle. 
On page 893 correspondence is invited 
on chickens and potato beetles. Two years 
I raised potatoes in my chicken runs, and 
had no beetles. I do not know that l 
ever saw a chicken eat a beetle, but the 
second season I put no chickens in a sec¬ 
ond run planted with potatoes until I saw 
the hardshell bugs on the plants. Then 
I turned the chickens in and the bugs 
disappeared. This satisfied me that chick¬ 
ens eat potato bugs. I have always 
thought if there was other meat availa- 
gle the bugs might not disappear. I dis¬ 
covered that it was easy to have some 
sunburned potatoes if the chickens were 
allowed to run in the patch when of a 
good scratching age. 
My experience with chickens in as¬ 
paragus is also u satisfactory one. and 
I have tried this four or five seasons. A 
three-foot poultry wire fence between a 
half acre of asparagus and my garden, 
the fence posts being lath, has served me 
well, but of course I don’t keep Leghorns. 
If weeds start before the chickens are 
introduced I doubt if the weeds are dis¬ 
posed of, but if the chickens are given a 
clear field they keep it so, and eat the 
asparagus beetles too. It is not amiss 
if the flock is large to have some grass 
in the same run. Chickens do not care 
for asparagus, but I have seen evidences 
of their tasting it when other green food 
was not plenty. Charles w. ciiapin. 
Massachusetts. 
Notes from a New York Garden. 
I notice Professor Massey says Golden 
Bantam corn does not amount to much 
with him. I wish I could have him walk 
through our patch (about two acres), 
and see what it amounts to here. With 
us it is by far the tenderest, sweetest 
corn we have ever tried, and we are 
raising it exclusively this year for can¬ 
ning. We hope to put up 5,000 cans of 
it this season. We are trying a quart 
of Seymour’s Sweet Orange to see if 
we can get a larger ear with the same 
sweet tender kernels. We are never 
troubled with the corn ear-worm, in fact, 
I have never seen one (and hope I never 
will). 
The Prizetaker onions are making a 
wonderful growth this season ; the weather 
seems to be very favorable to them. The 
seed was sown February 23 under glass, 
and the plants set out AprI 19 and 20 in 
new muck soil well fertilized. Some will 
measure between three and four inches 
in diameter at this writing (July 27). 
I have tried spraying them with Black 
Loaf 40 for thrips, but cannot see that 
it was very effective, although it will 
kill them if you can hit them with it. 
There is one serious pest, however, which 
spraying does not seem to check: this 
is the sneak thief. One night last week 
we lost over 100 fine large onions. This 
is very annoying, as I was keeping an 
accurate account of this patch to see 
just what the returns would be at har¬ 
vest time. I have the same number of 
rows of Yellow Globe Danvers sown the 
same day the Prizetakers were set out, 
and will see which returns the greatest 
weight, profit, etc. 
I have just begun digging and marketing 
Burpee’s Extra Early potatoes, and the 
crop is extra fine this year. We have 10 
rows 20 rods long, and at the rate they 
are turning out will yield nearly 100 
bushels of marketable potatoes. By sell¬ 
ing in small quantities we are able to 
get .$1 per bushel, and they sell very well 
at this price. 
After reading in “Hope Farm Notes” 
about transplanting Alfalfa, I sowed 
eight rows 20 rods in length in drills three 
feet apart. This required about one-half 
pound of seed, costing 10 cents. It has 
been well cultivated and three rows now 
have the appearance of a small hedge 
about 1G inches high. It is beginning to 
blossom quite freely. The latter part of 
June I drilled in two rows of Hungarian 
millet between each row of Alfalfa. When 
this is ready to cut I will mow the whole 
thing over and will get quite a little hay, 
as well as having a fine lot of Alfalfa 
plants for transplanting next Spring. 
This looks like a good thing. No <V>ubt 
it would have been better not to sow the 
millet, but as feed is scarce and high 
and the ground was well enriched I 
thought I would chance it. w. a. s. 
Clarkson, N. Y. 
Roadside Trees. 
Regarding the planting of apple or 
pear trees along roadsides to be used 
later for fence posts, the objections to it 
in my opinion, are several. In the first 
place, if fruit trees are planted along the 
road and they ever bear any choice fruit, 
it will probably be stolen invariably. 
Trees along a fence are not going to re¬ 
ceive any cultivation whatever, and are 
very unhandy to spray. Again, if any 
stock is turned in the field they will de¬ 
stroy the fruit and very often stock being 
turned or driven along the road will do 
the same thing. I have a very few apple 
trees along the road, which were there 
when I bought my farm, and they have 
been a source of annoyance to me ever 
since. Personally I would not think of 
planting out fruit trees with any such 
idea as ever using them for fence posts. 
New Jersey. JOHN II. BARCLAY. 
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The Rural New.Yorker 
New York 
Dear Sirs: —r want to thank you for 
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try ami get more Subscribers. ! have 
envelopes and will hand them out 
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chance. Yours very truly, 
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AH of " 
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