1370 
And then came Prof. M. A. Blake and Mr. Charles 
H. Conners of the New Jersey Experiment. Station. 
As a result of their work there will, within a few 
years, come new peaches to take the place of Craw¬ 
ford and put New Jersey back where she belongs. 
Wait and see! Professor Blake sized up the situa¬ 
tion some years ago and set himself to the task of 
producing new peaches good enough to restore the 
reputation which Crawford threw away. It was a 
big job, as anyone who thinks for a moment will 
realize. 
Elberta and her sister. Belle of Georgia, made it 
possible for Georgia to ring the hell and call the 
world to her peach market. These two sisters have 
done more to put Georgia in the limelight than any 
1(1 statesmen who ever lived in the State. And they 
were vagrant sisters—tramps, if we may believe the 
story told about them. It has been said that a 
colored cook threw a pan of peach pits and peelings 
out into the backyard, and from them grew a hunch 
of seedlings—one of which was Elberta. No one 
seems to have erected any monument to the colored 
cook and the story may not he true, hut both El¬ 
berta and Belle seem to have been chance seedlings 
without any definite attempt to breed them true. 
They may be said to belong to the great army of 
fruit tramps of which Baldwin apple is president 
and Bartlett pear vice-president. 
But Professor Blake and Mr. Conners were not 
satisfied to take chances on fruit tramps. The job 
of finding a peach to fit the word “Jersey" was too 
important, and so they started in to breed a peach 
just about as a breeder would try to produce a 
40-pound Holstein cow or a 300-egg hen—by careful 
selection of parents. At first they tried emasculat¬ 
ing the flowers on a tree, fertilizing from another 
tree, and then covering the flowers with paper or 
muslin bags. This was not satisfactory, and they 
then worked out the plan of covering the entire tree 
with a tent of cheesecloth. The pictures. Figs. 429 
and 430. show a tree covered with the paper bags 
and also one of the breeding tents. The frame of 
this tent is made of 2x4 timber, with shingle lath 
tacked, on. and the whole covered with cheesecloth. 
A door gives entrance. Under this tent there was 
no chance for insects or wind to distribute pollen 
from outside flowers. The exact breeding of each 
peach could be told. 
In 1914 six of these tents were put over seven 
trees. Two small trees of Belle were under one 
tent—the others being Elberta. Early Crawford, 
Greensboro. St John and Mayflower. Some of these 
were self-pollinated, that is. surely fertilized by 
their own blooms, while others were crossed by 
emasculating the flowers. Belle and Elberta were 
largely used for crossing on the others, and some 
of the most interesting peaches this year came from 
the crossing of these two sisters. Since then other 
varieties have been worked in an effort to obtain a 
fine early variety. 
Each of the thousands of peaches produced in this 
way was watched and handled by itself. Each pit 
was carefully marked, dried, planted and finally 
the seedling was transplanted in an orchard. There 
are now more than 3.000 of these seedlings growing 
on the station farm. 
Mr. Conners has his records so complete that he 
can quickly tell the parentage of any tree of the 
3.000. just as an expert breeder can tell you the 
pedigree of any animal in his barn. I saw the trees 
in hearing this year. Practically all of them were 
good, but there are 10 or more of very superior 
merit, and I firmly believe that Professor Blake and 
Mr. Conners have already found what they went 
{1 fter—a peach that will mean more to New Jersey 
than the famous Crawford did. 
One canhot speak too highly of the quiet, modest 
way in which this great work has been done. I erv 
few people knew it was going on. and yet it is the 
most complete and far-reaching work of the sort 
ever attempted. It will mean more to New Jersey 
than anything else that has happened for years. 
Nor can we speak too highly of the patient and tire¬ 
less work of Mr. Conners in developing these seed¬ 
lings. To the average man it would seem about the 
most tiresome and monotonous employment that a 
human being can think of. yet it was necessary, 
and it has been done with remarkable skill and 
patience. 
I wanted to let our people know what is coming. 
It is the biggest thing yet in horticulture—this de¬ 
liberate and scientific search for a “Jersey” peach. 
They have got it, and a little later we shall show 
pictures of the best seedlings, and give some details 
about the work. h. w. c. 
A Pennsylvania reader says: “We cannot farm in 
this wet season. We butcher the ground and raise 
weeds.” 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Shall We Give Up Wheat ? 
As this year has been rather hard on the wheat crop, 
and lots of farmers are very discouraged, 1 think it a 
pretty good time to ask your advice on the following 
proposition : I maintain that the farmer who is farm¬ 
ing say 100 to 175 acres would be better off if lie would 
abolish wheat and plant the same acreage (hitherto 
given to wheat) to corn, of course planting the usual 
acreage of corn also. By planting Alfalfa he would get 
hay, and the extra fodder could be used to advantage in 
place of straw, for bedding. It. seems nearly all the 
farmers in this section only raise wheat to get clover 
and straw anyway. 
Delaware. R. P. s. 
N the last week of August I rode on the cars 
through your section. I saw a great many fields 
in which the wheat shocks were still standing, and 
the ragweeds nearly as high. This wheat of course 
is almost worthless from sprouting and molding. I 
also saw here and there farms where the wheat was 
well stacked and safe. For a grain grower in your 
section, wheat is the natural money crop, for there is 
no part of the United States where better average 
crops of wheat are grown. Therefore it is a serious 
thing to abandon wheat there because of one seasonal 
disaster. The trouble is that too many farmers trust¬ 
ed to the weather when they could have hastened the 
wheat into stacks, like many did. Much of the wheat 
T saw will he fit for nothing but hog feed, for moldy 
feed will kill horses. Of course a farmer can change 
his whole method and object in farming. Tie can 
build silos and put his entire corn crop in them. He 
can grew more Alfalfa and clover for hay, and with 
the aid of a permanent pasture kept in good grass by 
top-dressings annually, he can keep a big lot of Hol¬ 
stein cows and ship milk, as many are doing now all 
around you. It will he an every-day and Sunday 
job. but the money will come in all through the year, 
and this will be an advantage over grain growing. 
Your part of the country is rapidly becoming a dairy 
section. Instead of selling milk you might put in 
butter cows: there are creameries not far away from 
you. and you could make the skim-milk profitable and 
perhaps find this better for you and the farm than 
shipping milk to Philadelphia. But a farmer needs 
to think long before making a radical change in his 
farming. The money crop of any section has become 
such through long years and the evident adaptation 
of soil and climate to the crop. I know men not. far 
from you who have for many years averaged 40 bu. of 
wheat per acre, and often make more, and wheat, 
with some live stock feeding, has been profitable 
across that whole belt from bay to bay. But now 
there is a general tendency to go into the dairy work. 
Everyone will have to decide for himself, w. f. m. 
A Back-to-the-Lander’s Plans 
I have had a proposition put to me and I will put it 
to you the same way. and tell you of my intentions. A 
friend of mine has a large farm, about 450 acres. He 
has 85 acres river flat, of which I can have as little or 
as much as I want. He will plow and drag it. and put 
it in condition for me to plant, let me live in his tenant 
house and not charge me anything. I am to use the land 
as I see fit. as though it was my own. and be my own 
boss. Also timber for chicken houses will be furnished, 
and I can have as many as I want. This place is in the 
Chenango River Valley. I am figuring on going in the 
Spring to try my luck truck gardening. I believe in 
using a small amount of land and get all there is in it. 
I have now a pen of Thompson strain Barred Rocks and 
figure breeding them eventually on a large scale. 
Broome Co., N. Y. c. L. R. 
REPARATION.—Without knowing more of the 
details of your plan it is very difficult to give 
valuable advice on your proposition. With this, as 
with practically every other enterprise, it all depends 
on “the man behind the gun.” To tackle a proposi¬ 
tion of this kind requires a practical farmer or truck¬ 
er. That is. he should have both practical and sci¬ 
entific knowledge of the business. This does not 
mean that if he has spent his vacation on a farm 
where a few vegetables are grown for family use and 
has read a couple of books on the subject, he is quali¬ 
fied for the undertaking, but it means that he should 
have at least two or three years’ working experience 
on a successful truck farm, at the same time study¬ 
ing thoroughly all the available literature on the sub¬ 
ject that his time would permit. 
CAPITAL.—The next point to consider is the cap¬ 
ital to he invested. In starting any new business, 
and especially one of this kind, where it is necessary 
to wait until crops can be grown and harvested for 
returns, considerable capital must be used for fer¬ 
tilizer, seeds, tools, shipping boxes, baskets, and 
many other things. Four or five thousand dollars 
would not he any too much working capital on a 
place of this kind. As you have free rent, this helps 
materially in reducing your running expenses, and as 
your friend will put the land in shape to plant, this 
will also help, but you should figure the cost of this 
work just the same, as it all costs time or money. 
MARKETS.—In starting a truck farm, you should 
look up your markets thoroughly, and compare cost 
of production with selling prices in the large cities, 
September 20, 1919 
taking into consideration the fact that you will have 
to ship most of your produce, as Binghamton is your 
nearest city, and the markets there are often glut¬ 
ted. You must also take into consideration the very 
unsatisfactory transportation facilities with which 
we are burdened at the present time. IIow long these 
conditions will he tolerated in a civilized country of 
course we do not know, but it is certain that this is 
one of the greatest problems which you will be up 
against. 
READJUSTMENTS.—Of course high prices are 
the rule for everything at the present time, but I be¬ 
lieve that there is going to he a readjustment to pre¬ 
war conditions, and this is going to have a very bad 
effect on business if the prices of farm produce de¬ 
cline before the cost of production is decreased. This 
is one of the drawbacks to look out for in the near 
future. 
POULTRY.—There are very few successful poul¬ 
try and truck farms combined. While it is perfectly 
proper to raise some truck as a side line with poul¬ 
try, or to keep some poultry as a side line to truck 
gardening, the two do not work very well together 
when both are run on a large scale by one man, as 
the principal part of the heavy work with both comes 
at the same time of year, during the Spring months, 
and it is very difficult to obtain help enough to keep 
both branches going properly at this time. You 
mention a fancy strain of fowls which you intend to 
breed in large numbers eventually. At the present 
time the tendency is largely for stock bred for heavy 
egg production instead of fancy points, and you 
would stand a much better chance to succeed with 
stock bred from heavy egg producers than you would 
with stock bred for exhibition. The results of the 
egg-laying contests which are becoming so popular 
in this country will give you facts and figures in re¬ 
gard' to the cost of feed and value of eggs produced 
by stocks from hundreds of different breeders 
throughout this country and Europe, and you will 
find this information much more reliable than the 
statements of some breeders of fancy fowls who are 
unable to back up their claims with official egg rec¬ 
ords. Before building houses on land belonging to 
another person I would suggest that you obtain a 
long lease, or make some provision that will prevent 
the owner of the land from dispossessing you after 
you have put your time and money into the work of 
constructing houses for poultry, and before you have 
received sufficient returns to justify the investment. 
While there may be no probability of this at the 
present time, you never know what changes may take 
place in the future, and it is always better to be on 
the safe side. These are only a few of the more im¬ 
portant points to consider when starting a business 
of this nature, c. s. greene. 
What Part of the Consumer’s Dollar? 
On page 1273 I read an article on that “35-cent dol¬ 
lar.” I am enclosing return accounts on two small 
4 Crt. Lopes— 
3 J. at $1.00. 
.$3.00 
1 8. at .75. 
$3.75 
Charges— 
War tax .... 
.$0.00 
Freight . 
Cartage . 
Commission . 
• ••••••••• 
2.72 
Returns . 
Cost of 3 .T. Crts. 
.$0.75 
Cost of 1 8. Crts. 
.22 
.97 
Gain . 
8 Crt. Lopes— 
4 .T. at $0.75. 
.$3.00 
4 8. at .50. 
. 2.00 
$5.00 
Charges— 
War tax .... 
Freight ..'... 
Cartage. 
.82 
Commission . 
.50 
4.S9 
Returns . 
$0.11 
Cost of 4 J. Crts. 
at $0.25..$1.00 
Cost of 4 8. Crts. 
at .22.. .88 
$1.88 
Returns . 
.11 
Loss . 
shipments to New York. 
I have been wondering 
part of “consumer’s dollar” I received. 
Delaware. jay wm. haldeman. 
The returns made by the commission man are 
printed above. As we figure this (here were 12 
crates of cantaloupes. The commission man claims 
to have received $8.75 for the two lots and 
says the entire cost of freight, taxes and selling was 
$7.01. That leaves $1.14. while the cost of crates, 
etc., was $2.85. This leaves a deficit of $1.71. 
The price paid by the consumer for these melons 
would depend on their size and quality. We do not 
know about that, but at a very low estimate the final 
consumer paid at least $5 a crate or $40 for the two 
shipments. Now let some expert mathematician tell 
us what part of $40 a deficit of $1.71 way be! 
