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1043 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Misfit Trees; Wolf River for M’Intosh 
T IIE daily papers in New England recently print¬ 
ed a story about misfit trees in Western Massa¬ 
chusetts. The Hampden County Improvement League 
has planted a number of model orchards, mostly of 
McIntosh. The public Story was to the effect that a 
large proportion of these trees proved “misfits’’— 
some poor variety having been substituted for Mc¬ 
Intosh. In order to obtain the facts we wrote the 
secretary of the League and his answer follows: 
iantly. In many cases they are undoubtedly heredi¬ 
tary, because in artificially long inbred plants which 
have been all brought to exactly the same hereditary 
composition these off-types never appear, but do 
show up when different kinds of corn are widely 
crossed. 
As far as they affect the yield of corn freak ears 
are more or less injurious, as many of them occurring 
in a field would cut .down the productiveness some¬ 
what. They are found more commonly on the 
suckers or side brandies than on the main stalk, 
and being uncovered or poorly covered by husks are 
usually eaten by the birds. 
The character in question is a good example of a 
thing which in itself has no practical value, yet it 
is a help towards understanding problems of great 
importance. Corn is America's greatest food plant. 
No one can say that' the slightest evidence bearing 
on the origin, development and early history of this 
grain may not ultimately prove to be of great 
As is quite often the case with newspaper reports, a 
Certain amount of exaggeration lias crept into the ar¬ 
ticles regarding the misnamed McIntosh trees in the 
model orchards in this county. I did not intend to pub¬ 
lish this matter until 1 had determined definitely the 
number of misnamed trees. The local newspapers hap¬ 
pened to get hold of the incident and, of course, it made 
a fine news article. It is a fact, however, that we have 
found a few trees in each of three orchards which were 
bought for McIntosh but prove to be Wolf Iliver. I am 
not sure of the total number, not having counted them 
as yet. I doubt if there are more than 50 in all three 
orchards. I was making my first visit t<* these young 
orchards and happened to have Prof. Sears of the Mas¬ 
sachusetts Agricultural College with me. Prof. Sears 
noticed a few substitutions at once, being in close touch 
with recent annoying experiences of this sort, and hence 
is always on the lookout for further instances of the 
same thing. 
As you say. the McIntosh can quite readily be recog¬ 
nized after a couple years of growth, but when the sub¬ 
stitution is Wolf River it is not so easy to detect. Fur¬ 
thermore, these trees were bought from supposedly reli¬ 
able nurserymen, and I doubt if anyone thought of ex¬ 
amining the trees closely to look for mistakes. As you 
may know. Wolf River lias been largely disseminated 
through this part of the country as a substitute for Mc¬ 
Intosh. Doubtless a great deal of this lias been due to 
the practice of smaller mi® .yinen buying stock from 
the larger firms. It certainly is a serious problem, and 
is one of the obstacles we have to contend with in urg¬ 
ing people to plant new orchards. i.. i>. jessemax. 
Assistant County Agent. 
The substitution of Wolf River for McIntosh is 
• 
like dressing up the wolf to represent Mary’s little 
lamb and turning him loose iu the sheep pasture. 
The two varieties are much alike in growth, and are 
hard to separate before they fruit. McIntosh is 
likely to supplant Baldwins as the great variety for 
New England, and that makes the Wolf River sub¬ 
stitution close to a crime. 
effectual worth, since it all helps to make this excel¬ 
lent plant still better. d. r. jones. 
Connecticut Experiment Station. 
More About Transplanting Alfalfa 
I am much interested in the late article on trans¬ 
planted Alfalfa. I note your opinion of the inertia 
that prevails to block new methods and ideas, and 
assure you that I can say “Amen” to every word of 
your article. But this matter of growing Alfalfa 
plants appeals to me most strongly, and I want to ask 
your opinion on the plan of fitting the ground and lay¬ 
ing it off as for a hoed crop, about 36 in. each way. and 
planting half a dozen seeds at each hill, then thinning 
down to a single plant another year. A young fellow 
came back here from the West a few years ago and told 
me that in Montana the best yields of-both hay and seed 
were obtained where the plants were grown singly 4 ft. 
apart each way and cultivated like corn' He did not 
say how the crop was started. 
I have never given much attention to Alfalfa, for I 
have always thought that up here in Northern Michi¬ 
gan was too far out of bounds for it to thrive, and the 
few fields that I have seen and are considered good are 
so far inferior to the fields I remembered in the South¬ 
west 20 years ago that it has always seemed like a 
losing game to engage in trying to produce a really good 
and lasting crop hero. Still. I am not satisfied that it 
cannot be brought to be a good crop here, but if so it 
must be by special methods and treatment. That is one 
reason why your transplanting experiment interests me 
so strongly, and I want to give it a tryout. But it 
looks as if to plant in hills, as we sometimes do cabbage 
seed, would lessen the labor of getting the crop started, 
and anything that saves labor these times is to lx> wel¬ 
comed. ART HUB LOXG. 
Clare Co.. Mich. 
W E do uot know liow this plan would work. 
Our opinion is that the transplanted roots 
would make more enduring plants than the seed¬ 
lings. One year we planted early potatoes in hills 
three feet apart. After the potatoes had been hoed 
once we planted Alfalfa roots midway between the 
potato plants, one way. That gave a chance to cul¬ 
tivate one way and hoe the other. When the po¬ 
tatoes were dug most of the Alfalfa plants were 
alive and of course stood three feet apart. The po¬ 
rn i'i crop paid for all the labor. The same thing can 
lie done with early corn or cabbage if 
the man who hoes is careful not to 
dig up the Alfalfa. That would be the 
trouble in seeding the hills. On weedy 
land there would be danger in hoeing 
up the plants. The scheme is worth 
trying, but we would plant corn ox- 
potatoes as a matter of economy. It 
always seems to us that transplanted 
plants .give a better root than seedlings. 
Many acres of Alfalfa roots have been 
planted in the West. The work is 
rapidly done with a power transplanter. 
We think 2 c feet each way will be 
better than three feet. Let ns repeat 
what we said before; that this plan is 
better adapted to small areas than to 
large fields. The picture at Fig. 297 
shows a field of drilled Alfalfa in 
Western Canada. This is being culti¬ 
vated much the same as potatoes ox- 
corn would be. In sections where irri¬ 
gation is practiced this drilled Alfalfa 
gives a great yield. 
It is a mistake to try to sell a man 
Some Curious Freaks of Corn 
A reader in Connecticut sent the corn “ear" from 
which the picture at Fig. 29.” was made. Probably a 
good many readers have found such ears in their fields. 
The picture at Fig. 296, showing several types of corn, 
was sent us by Prof. D. F. Jones of the Connecticut 
Experiment Station. 
V ARIOUS types of abnormal or freak ears occur 
in small numbers in nearly every 
field of corn. They have no apparent 
value, but are oftentimes interesting in 
that they give fairly reliable indica¬ 
tions as to how the corn plant came to 
he as it i$w is. No one knows just what 
was the form of the wild prototype of 
the most valuable plant iu America, 
but there is good reason to believe that 
it was like other large, much-branched 
grasses with male and female flowers 
in the same inflorescences at the top 
of the plants. Evidently the lateral 
stalks became shorter and their flowers 
lost the ability to produce pollen. The 
terminal flowers retained the function 
of making pollen, but lost their power 
to produce seed. This might have been 
an advantage, as corn pollen is heavy, 
and in sifting downwards the low-borne 
flowers would be pollinated, whereas 
terminal flowers might not be. 
This is pure speculation, but if some¬ 
thing of this kind did occur it is easy 
to see how a tassel was made over into 
an ear. The central spike of the tas¬ 
sel. which is larger than tlie side 
branches, gradually became still larger, 
and the side brunches disappeared. 
When this took place the seed-hearing 
inflorescence began to look as it now 
does. The freak ears found in corn¬ 
fields are throw-hacks to primitive con¬ 
ditions. and these fragmentary hints 
when pieced together make a fairly 
logical sequence of the great changes 
which have been brought about in this 
remarkable plant. 
The side branches of the ears illus¬ 
trated are vestiges of tassel branches. 
As to just what causes them to appear 
in any particular instance very little 
is known. They sometimes seem to he 
due to injury or abnormal conditions 
during certain periods of the growth 
.of the plant. They are usually more 
\'ttriations from flic Xormill Ear of Corn. Fit/. 296 
Rye Mulch in Peach Orchard 
I have a young poach orchard, some 
of the trees fruit-laden. I sowed rye 
around the trees. The rye i<s now three 
or four feet high, and I think of cutting 
it and stacking it around the trees as a 
mulch. Do you think it would be all 
right to do so? n. u. i„ 
Massachusetts. 
We have had good results from such 
mulching. The rye piled around the 
trees keeps the soil moist and cool and 
takes the place of close cultivation. It 
must be moved away from the trunk 
before Winter or the mice will work 
under it to ruin the tree. The great 
danger in such practice is from fire, 
if tire gets into such an orchard in a 
dry time it will work through the straw 
and ruin the trees. 
Abnormal Development in Ear of Corn. 
Fig. 295 
abundant when corn is glowing luxur- 
.1 Fit'll! of Ih'illnl I Haifa in Western Canada. Fig. *!>7 
something you know he does hot want. 
