12 
Jht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
January 3, 1920 
JVb r&ce with 
Coffee prices! 
POSTUM 
Cereal 
selling 
the same fair price, 
and is better for you. 
Try it! 
Two sizes, usualprice 15$ and 25t 
Made by 
Postum Cereal Co. Battle Creek. Mich. 
ALLWORK KEROSENE FARM TRACTOR 
Light in Weight With 
Giant Power 
For All Kinds of Field and Belt Work 
Six years of satisfactory service for 
thousands of others will insure for 
you a profitable investment in the 
ALLWORK. Write us now for our 
free catalog and interesting sugges¬ 
tions to tractor users. 
ELECTRIC WHEEL COMPANY 
Box 48A Quincy. Illinois 
from your fertilizer will be greater 
if you use 
ROYSTER’S 
TPAOE HARM 
RCGISTCPCO 
The Fertilizer that made 
Fish Scrap Famous 
F. S. Royster Guano Co. 
Baltimore, Md. 
Garden Notes From New England 
(Continued from page 10) 
doubtedly the plant on which the florists 
make the biggest amount this season is 
the Cyclamen, which has been impoved 
until it has become one of the handsomest 
plants which can be grown indoors. About 
the only way to get satisfactory plants, 
though, is to buy those which have been 
started by experts, and when their bloom* 
ing season is over they must be thrown 
away. Primroses, though less showy, are 
more satisfactory in the long run. Speci¬ 
mens of Primula obconiea often remain in 
bloom for a whole year. The small flow¬ 
ered Begonias are also exceedingly val¬ 
uable for window gardens, and will grow 
in windows where they get but little di¬ 
rect sunlight, although the lack of sun¬ 
light will lessen the brilliancy of their 
flowers. 
Plant Lice. —There is one Chrysan¬ 
themum called Glory of Seven Oaks 
which will bloom practically all Winter 
long, and which is an excellent; house 
plant. Unfortunately the Chrysanthe¬ 
mum is more or less'subject to attacks of 
plant lice, and will need spraying with a 
nicotine preparation or white soap. One 
of the best ways to free potted plants 
from insect; pests, at least, before the 
flowers come, is to dip them in soapy 
water, afterwards rinsing them off with 
cold water. It is only necessary to cut 
a piece of pasteboard a little larger than 
tlm pot. with a slit in the middle through 
which the stalk can be slipped. Holding 
your hands over the pasteboard you can 
invert the pot and dip the plant into the 
liquid. This is much more effective than 
•praying. e. i. Farrington. 
Missouri Horticultural Society Meeting 
Part I. 
The sixtieth annual meeting of the 
M issouri State Horticultural Society oc¬ 
curred in Springfield the second week in 
December. 1919, continuing for three 
days. While the attendance was not as 
large as usual, owing to the cold wave 
which swept over this section from the 
Northwest, beginning the day before the 
meeting, and the uncertainty of getting 
here by rail, the session was one of un¬ 
usual interest and practical instruction. 
The _ problems in fruit-growing, apple¬ 
growing especially, were considered from 
every angle by those present and prac¬ 
tically engaged in the work in this State, 
several leading hosticulturists from Ar¬ 
kansas and Kansas also participating in 
the discussions. 
“Apple Production and Consumption” 
was the subject of a paper by J. H. 
Sweitzer. The speaker laid especial em¬ 
phasis on raising a high grade of fruit 
and consumption would, in such case, give 
the grower no concern. Discussion of the 
subject elicited various views as to the 
best means of increasing consumption in 
the local market. Louis Erb. who has a 
600-acre apple orchard at Cedar- Gap. the 
highest point in the Ozark “uplifts,” be¬ 
lieved that if the grower would make a 
practice of placing on sale through the 
commission man or retail salesman a 
medium grade of apples as well as the 
better grade, he would thus promote both 
consumption and hist-own financial inter¬ 
jest. There are countless housewives who 
would use apples prodigally if they could 
buy them at a reasonable price for sauce 
and pies, and for eating out of hand, but 
who deny themselves when they are 
asked to pay what they regard an exor¬ 
bitant price, and he cited two cases as 
illustration of his point. He was in a 
retail grocery when a woman customer 
came in, and after ordering some other 
articles priced some nice-looking apples 
conspicuously displayed. The reply was 
[75 cents a dozen. She said her family was 
a large one, and they would like some 
apples to eat, but she couldn’t think of 
paying that price, and inquired if they 
did not have a cheaper kind. The grocer 
was sorry, but couldn’t supply her. At 
another time, while visiting his married 
niece in the city, he accompanied her to 
the market. She took an ordinary mar¬ 
ket basket along with the intention of 
taking home with her a basket of apples. 
The merchant had a medium grade, with 
a corresponding medium price, which was 
so much less than she expected to pay 
that she left her order for the delivery of 
a bushel. This grade of apples, he ex¬ 
plained, should never be barreled or boxed 
for commercial shipment. 
Mr. C. A. Crutsingberg of Carthage 
gave his experience as a purchaser of 
run-down and virtually non-producing or¬ 
chards, and by thorough renovation meth¬ 
ods, fertilizing, pruning and spraying, 
bringing them back to their former vig¬ 
orous condition. A 160-acre apple or¬ 
chard. his first venture, which had not for 
everal years produced enough of a crop 
to pay the taxes on the land, yielded the 
frst season 12.000 bushels. His problem 
then was to sell them, the fruit being too 
soft to ship to a distant market. He 
nust dispose of the apples locally, but 
the orchard had such a bad reputation of 
producing inferior fruit that the neigh¬ 
bors, he felt sure, would not buy them. 
Then he thought of a plan and proceeded 
at once to put it into execution. He as¬ 
sorted and graded the apples as best he 
could, making three piles of them in the 
orchard, and then advertised them at an 
attractive price—attractive to the buyer— 
in the local papers in a surrounding area 
of 20 miles, and the three piles melted 
away like snow under a warm sun. These 
non-producing orchards, due to neglect 
that is almost criminal, can be brought 
back to almost a normally healthy state 
by intelligent and thorough treatment, and 
both investor and owner are usually 
amply rewarded by the results. 
Dr. E. L. Beal of Republic, one of the 
successful orchardists of the Ozarks, was 
on the programme with the assigned topic, 
“How I Grow and Sell Apples.” He 
told of his thorough methods in producing 
and thought that about covered the entire 
subject, as the crop will sell themselves 
in these times if grown right. He was 
reported by the Springfield paper to have 
sold his this year’s crop on the trees when 
half-grown to a Chicago firm at a satis¬ 
factory price, as did several others in 
his neighborhood. He cultivates thor¬ 
oughly, using a disk and spring-tooth liar- 
row, but never an ordinary turning plow, 
which disturbs the roots of the tree. A 
disk is necessary to cut up the Blue grass 
and crab grass, which sometimes become 
rank in moist seasons. Dr. Beal is also 
of the opinion that a fruit grower is liable 
to make the mistake of fixing too high a 
price for his crop, and told the following 
incident: An apple grower in his neigh¬ 
borhood sold his crop of 40 acres to a 
Chicago dealer at a very attractive price 
on the trees. A down payment of $2,500 
was made on the contract. The grower 
was to pick and ship the apples about 
October. Early in September the Jon¬ 
athans began dropping, and the grower 
wrote the dealer that they should then be 
picked. He replied by wire that they 
should remain on the trees until the date 
specified in the contract, and if picked 
earlier suit would be brought on the con¬ 
tract. The grower was nonplused by 
the situation, certain that the Jonathans 
would be all on the ground if not picked 
before October 1. lie consulted Dr. Beal 
as to his best course of action, who ad¬ 
vised him to gather the apples; that the 
buyer was undoubtedly “hedging” on his 
bargain, and that his threatened litigation 
was a bluff. “You may have a lawsuit 
for violation of contract, but the crop 
will be saved by picking it now, when it 
will be lost if delayed as the buyer in¬ 
sists.” Dr. Beal didn’t state the net re¬ 
sult of the controversy. 
J. H. Duncan, fruit specialist of Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., gave au illustrated demon¬ 
stration by means of charts of the in¬ 
creasing commercial apple production in 
the various States, showing its enlarging 
area. 
Prof. Faurot, director of the State 
Horticultural Experiment Station at 
Mountain Grove, Mo., talked on the sub¬ 
ject of “Proper Horticultural Methods.” 
He indorsed Dr. Beal’s advice to keep the 
turning plow out of the orchard, and em¬ 
phasized the importance of regular and 
proper pruning, not only to get the best 
results in the production of the apple, 
but also to control certain diseases, es¬ 
pecially canker. Prof. Dickens of the 
Kansas Experiment Station at Manhattan 
addressed the convention the following 
day on apple production in general, and 
was listened to with evident interest. He 
recommended regular pruning at least 
once a year from the time the tree was 
planted. It was essential to get the sun¬ 
light into the tree to color the fruit prop¬ 
erly, and avoid the necessity of pruning 
the price when marketing the crop. 
One of the most interesing addresses 
of the session was the report of D. E. 
Eicher, agricultural expert of the Frisco 
Railroad, of a recent trip with two hor¬ 
ticultural associates, which was made to 
the orchard sections of Illinois, Indiana 
and Ohio for the purpose of comparison 
with methods and conditions in the Ozark 
section of Missouri. They found crop 
conditions very similar, but methods of 
growing somewhat different, especially in 
the matter of fertilizing. The most pro¬ 
gressive orchardists use commercial fer¬ 
tilizer a good deal, while here the de¬ 
pendence is on stable manure, which is 
largely shipped in from the stockyards at 
Kansas City. The commercial fertilizer 
Used by growers iu the States named is 
nitrate of soda and acid phosphate. They 
were told at the Ohio Experiment Station 
of a surprising result of an experiment 
with nitrate of soda on the station 
grounds at Wooster, the check rows 
Which received no application showing 
more beneficial effects than the trees close 
to which the application was made. The 
theory is that the terminal roots extend¬ 
ing to the edge of the fertilizing spread 
got the full benefit of the fertilizer while 
the tliers did not. This result was dis¬ 
tinctly noticeable throughout the orchard, 
and the conclusion was that the fertilizer 
should be applied ou a strip half way 
between the tree rows, and the speaker, 
who is himself a fruit grower, stated 
that he would follow this practice iu fu¬ 
ture. 
The comparative merit of liquid and 
dust spraying was the subject of a paper 
by W. A. Irwin, who has a large apple 
orchard in the vicinity of Springfield, and 
usually lias a crop when some of his fruit 
grower neighbors do not, because of the 
activity of Jack Frost iu the Spring, about 
the blossoming period, when he has his 
heaters at work. He stated that from his 
experiment with the two kinds of sprays 
the past two seasons the dust spray is 
just as effective, and 50 per cent cheaper, 
than the liquid, and will use it exclusive¬ 
ly hereafter. B. 
“She has such an interesting face. She 
looks li. j a woman who has lived and suf¬ 
fered.” “I fancy she has. For years she 
has managed to squeeze a number four 
foot into a number two shoe.”—Life. 
