RURAL NEW-YORKER 
flower, but the apples are far behind. 
The crabs usually come first, but this 
year only a few blooms have opened, and 
all the other varieties merely show the 
])ink tip of the bloom. I never knew 
them to be so late, but nature knows 
more than I do about it, and I find no 
fault. Here at the middle of May our 
potatoes and oats and peas are in, garden 
under way, and about half of the corn 
land plowed. It is cold and starts in 
like one of those “mean,” fretful seasons 
we sometimes have when we want good- 
natured weather. Very likely this Bible 
J^chool field will be needed to keep ns in 
good spirits. ir. w. c. 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
A Bate Seasox. —Here is the 10th of 
May, and the merciu'y rarely gets out of 
the forties, with about one sunshiny day 
in a week, and the remainder cloudy or 
with cold rain. And yet how gi-een tlie 
Avhole country is, and the wonder is how 
the garden truck grows. The peas and 
onions are in their glory, of course, but 
the corn that has been abf>ve ground since 
late April does not increase in height 
much, and has a rather pale color. But 
the string beans are growing unexpectedly 
Avell. IMuskmelons and cucumbers have 
been twice replanted and none up. and 
yet there are crowds of cucumbers and 
squashes, volunteers where the crop grew 
last year, and already in the ’-ough leaf. 
Canxas and Lettuce. —Caunas sown 
last November, are now coming up finely. 
If we keep Cauna seeds till Spring it 
takes filing and soaking to get them to 
germinate, but sown in the late Fall the 
Winter softens the hard seed, and they 
grow nicely. The cool, rainy weather 
seems to favor the strawberries, for the 
bloom is wonderful and the green berries 
are increasing in size rapidly, though 
none are yet ripe. The transplanted let¬ 
tuce too enjoys the cool wet weather. I 
have never seen finer heads of lettuce 
from the open ground in !>5pring than we 
have here now. Not in my garden, for I 
am .somewhat behind with lettuce, but in 
the fields that are supplying the local 
market. 
TOJtATOKS AND BOTATOES.-1 USUally 
set tomato plants the latter part of 
.\pril, but have just tried a few out, and 
the reserves in the frames are so large 
that it is hard to put the sashes on with¬ 
out mashing them down. But it seems 
odd to set out tomato plants when tliere 
is fire in the greenhouse boiler. The early 
Irish potato crop is looking well, and in 
most fields there is a good uniform stand. 
The potatoes will go to market rather 
later than usual from present prospects. 
Tliose who bed sweet potatoes without 
glass are going to be late in getting the 
plants ready to draw, for notwithstanding 
a slight hotbed the air overhead is so 
cold that the plants cannot grow much. 
Pkomising PeoniEvS. —In ordinary sea- 
.sous in our sandy soil peonies rarely 
bloom profusely a.s they do north. But 
this season is favoring them and the early 
varieties are full of buds, and the late 
ones, which seldom mature blooms here, 
seem to promi.se to get in ahead of the 
hot weather. 
N.vruRE AND The Lawn. —There is a 
general plowing of the vacant lots and 
some beautiful blue grass sods have been 
turned to make corn. It has always 
been a mystery to me here that while 
large areas of land left to lie idle will sod 
over with a dense seeding of blue grass, 
we may use the greatest care in prei)aring 
a lawn, and sow an abundance of seed and 
it is always difficult to get and maintain 
a good lawn. And yet we can go out on 
any vacant lot and cut the sods and sod 
a lawn with perfect success. Nature evi¬ 
dently does some things better than we 
can. 
Strawberry Tran sport atio .\.— O ur 
strawberry growers are dreading delays 
in transportation this season owing to 
the general railroad congestion and the 
demands of Government transportation. 
The loss of the strawberr.v crop here and 
in lower Delaware would be a very se¬ 
rious thing, and it is hoped that the rail¬ 
road will do its utmost to hasten the 
strawberry trains. All the truck crops 
which are grown here on a large scale, 
such as cucumbers, muskmelous aud 
watermelons, demand fast transit to mar¬ 
ket. and delays on the road mean disas¬ 
ter to the growers. w. f. jr.vssEY. 
731 
Sweet Corn on Old Chicken Run 
Would it be advisable to plant sweet 
corn on ground that has been used as a 
chicken yard for 10 years, not used for 
any purpose for the past year and a half? 
Closter, N. ,T. e. r. a. 
The old chicken-yard will make a good 
place for growing sweet corn. Such 
yards retain the strength of the chicken 
manure for a good many years. The 
stalks of the sweet corn on such land 
will grow vei’y strong and rank, and ruu 
to stalk i-ather than ear. If you can 
use wood ashes or acid phosphate as a 
fertilizer ou that corn you will have bet¬ 
ter ears, as the ashes and the phosphate 
will supply phosphoru.s. which is usually 
lackiug in the chicken manure. 
Sulphur on Seed Potato 
The Hope Farm man refers to the use 
of sulphur on his potato seed, and as he 
does not say what he uses it for I would 
like to know if it prevents scab. I use 
formalin and always had nice, smooth po¬ 
tatoes. but if sulphur is as good it would 
save lots of work and time. v. E. G. 
New Preston, Conn. 
We use sulphur on the potato seed for 
two principal reasons. We think the .sul¬ 
phur has some effect in killing out the 
scab germs, and in protecting the seed in 
the soil from decay. While the sulphur 
.alone would not be as effective as the .so¬ 
lution of formalin we think that together 
they give good protection, fiulphur also 
helps to preserve the seed. We find it 
particularly useful this year when the 
ground is so cold and damp. In past sea¬ 
sons we have become convinced that the 
sulphur will protect the seed in this way 
aud often carry it through to where other 
seed would rot in the ground. We think 
it is well worth the extra cost of putting 
it on. 
A Yield of Sweet Corn 
On page G.">0. under “Brevities,” this 
question was asked: “.lust xvhat is a 
fair yield of marketable ears from an 
acre of sweet corn?” From my record 
for the year 1012 I can give you this re¬ 
sult : On one acre of fairly good corn 
ground I had a splendid catch of Crim¬ 
son clovei', sown in August. 1911. This 
was plowed under about .Tune 1. Two 
weeks after it was harrowed thoroughly 
(with Acme) marked off in three-foot 
check 1 ‘ows, and planted with Stowell’s 
Evergreen. The horse cultivator was 
used in working the growing corn twice 
each way through the season. In Sep¬ 
tember I marketed 1(1,000 ears of fine, 
large corn at .$1 per hundred. I planted 
four kernels to each hillj no other fertil¬ 
izer than the clover was used. 
Connecticut. geo. c. coiisTOCK. 
Poultry Litter With Manure 
What would be the result of mixing lit¬ 
ter from poultry-house, consisting of 
straw aud a good proportion of droppings 
Avith horse manure, which has pine shav¬ 
ings in it, and letting them rot down to¬ 
gether? ^ E. c. M. 
Maplewood, N. J. 
The result would be good. IMix the hen 
manure and the horse manure together 
evenly, tramp it down hard and see that 
the pile is kept x’easonably moist. The 
hen manure will start up a quicker fer¬ 
mentation. and in that way will h.asten 
deca.v and help rot down the shavings in 
the horse manure. 
Vegetable Growers Meet 
The New York State Vegetable Grow¬ 
ers’ Association held a meeting at Tully. 
N. Y.. May 2. This session was devoted 
wholly to the late cabbage crop. A. E. 
Wilkinson, of the New York State Col¬ 
lege of Agriculture, emphasized the im¬ 
portance of early and thorough prepara¬ 
tion of the soil. He advocated the use 
of acid phosphate, basing his conclusions 
ou demonstration trials which were con¬ 
ducted on 12 farms in 1013 and on 2<> 
farms in 101(5. 
I. C. .lagger, of the I^niversity of 
Rochester, described the methods of con¬ 
trolling club-root, black rot and black¬ 
leg. For the former he recommended ro¬ 
tation of crops, heavy liming, preferably 
a year in advance of the crop, the elimin¬ 
ation of cruciferous weeds and the great¬ 
est care to prevent carrying in the dis¬ 
eases ou plants or tools. Rotation and 
seed treatment with corrosive sublimate 
or with formalin, he I’ecommended for the 
last two. 
M. I). Tieouard. of Cornell, described 
the methods of screening seed beds for 
the' prevention of injury by maggots. 
These methods are full described in the 
Geneva^ Bulletin 2o4, 
E. N. Reed, of Cortland, tnxphasized 
the importance of having plants rciidy 
to set in the field earlier than Is the com¬ 
mon practice, thus making sure of a full 
season for growing, even though drouth 
may prevail during part of the time. He 
finds that screening the seed bed enables 
him to get plants more quickly and does 
not result in injury. 
C. R. White, of Ionia, spoke on mar- 
lading and |»ointed out the possibilities 
of co-operative organization for men who 
deal in so staple a crop as late cabbage. 
1 *. w. 
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KING MOTOR CAR COMPANY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
i 
