98 
'Ike RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 17, 1920 
V 
I 
*8 
Grape-Nuts 
supplies what many 
breakfast cereals lack 
—solid nourishment including 
the vital mineral salts so 
necessary to encourage 
normal growth in children. 
4 
A body-building food 
that tastes real good 
“There ’s a Reason ” 
rfMM 
Farm, Garden and Orcliard Toola 
Answer the fanners’ big questions. 
How can I grow crops with less 
expense ? How can I save > n plant¬ 
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priced seed go farthest 2 The 
IRON AGE Potato Planter 
solves the labor problem and makes 
the best use of high priced seed. 
Means $5 to $50 extra profit per acre. 
Every seed piece in its place 
and only one. Saves 1 to 2 
bushels seed per acre. Uni¬ 
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spacing. We make 
a full line of potato 
machinery. Send 
iklel 
for booklet today. 
No Misses 
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Bateman M’f’gCo., 60S 968 Grenlocb, N. J 
AGENTSWANTED 
Active, reliable, on salary, to 
take subscriptions for Rural 
New-Yorker in Schuyler and 
Chemung Counties, N. Y. 
Prefer men who have horse or auto. 
Address: — 
JOHN G. COOPER. 2ii S W. State St., 
OLEAN, N. Y. 
or 
The Rural New-Yorker 
333 W. 30th Street, New York City 
“The Old 
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When you write advertisers mention 
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Feed lor a Bigger Herd 
The size of your herd is not limited by the number 
of acres on your farm but largely by the amount of feed 
that those acres produce. You can carry more live stock 
by growing more feed to the acre. The right fertilizers 
produce more feed, which increases the manure supply 
to be returned to the land and increase its crop-producing 
power. 
A A C- Fertilizers 
Make This Possible 
They are specialized fertilizers that help to produce maximum 
yields. They are made to suit your crops and farm conditions; 
special fertilizers for top-dressing grass, special fertilizers for Corn, 
Oats and other grain, special fertilizers for use with manure or 
without. 
Our Agricultural Service Bureau can help you to select the fer¬ 
tilizers best suited to your crops and your own farm conditions. 
This Bureau has made fertilizer tests in many states. It is under the 
personal charge of Dr. H. J. Wheeler, formerly Director of the 
Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station. Write for informa¬ 
tion. The service is free. 
Ask our nearest office for our book, "How to Make Money with 
Fertilizers .” It is full of practical fertilizer information and contain* 
46 illustrations. 
If we have no agent in your town, we want one. 
The American Agricultural Chemical Company 
Atlanta 
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Buffalo 
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Cincinnati 
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Columbia 
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Garden and Farm Notes 
Notes From a Maryland Garden 
The mild and beautiful Fall weather 
has been followed by an unusually severe 
spell of cold waves in December, with 
light snowfalls which disappeared by the 
last of the month, for New Year’s Eve 
was a delightfully warm and sunny day. 
But the prospect seems to be for a Win¬ 
ter of more than usual severity. Years 
ago I knew an old Scotch gardener who 
was born at Abbotsford, the son of Sir 
Walter Scott’s gardener, who had been 
educated by the baronet’s sister, and could 
recite many of Scott's works from mem¬ 
ory, who was a great weather prophet. 
He did not predict by goose bone or the 
planets, but from what he called the av¬ 
erage of experience. lie said that he 
could almost certainly predict the char¬ 
acter of the Winter on the 21st of De¬ 
cember. He claimed that a long series of 
observations had taught him that which 
ever way the wind blew on the Winter 
solstice, that would be the prevailing 
wind of the Winter. Here on the 21st the 
wind this Fall was northwest and cold, 
and according to the Scotchman we are 
to have a northwest Winter. But. like 
other weather prophets, the old man 
missed it as often as he was correct. My 
own observation has been that an early 
setting in of cold before Christmas is 
more often followed by an average in Jan¬ 
uary and February than by unusually 
cold. 
But the December cold shows its effects. 
The tops of the onions and leeks are 
scorched more than I have ever seen 
them so early, and the spinach leaves 
show its effect quite plainly. Yet the 
turnips left out for Spring greens seem 
all right. Last Spring I let a small 
bunch of salsify go to seed. And what 
a lot of seed they do make! The bloom 
in the morning makes a brave show, but 
closes by mid-day. The heads of seed are 
so loose that many seeds get scattered, and 
though other crops at once occupied the 
land, the young salsify plants are now as 
thick as wheat. I am watching fo note 
whether they will grow any during the 
Winter and be fit to cook in Spring. The 
extreme hardiness of the plant may en¬ 
able it to use the mild spells, but I am not 
expecting anything. But I got seed 
enough for my garden for years or till 
they are worthless. 
One of the greatest bothers in a gar¬ 
den devoted to kitchen vegetables, % and 
hence kept heavily fertilized, is to keep 
grapevines on a trellis in any sort of 
bounds. The outrageous growth of the 
vines in such fertile soil tends to wood 
rather than fruit, and the closer the 
pruning the more rampaut the growth. 
Vines on an arbor in the backyard are far 
more fruitful, as the top-dressing of the 
lawn grass does not increase the nitrogen 
content like the stable manure used ou 
the garden. On account of this rampant 
growth I feel inclined every Spring to 
grub out vines and blackberry plants from 
the garden. The blackberry roots run out 
among the vegetables, and keep one al¬ 
ways chopping out the suckers. Let alone 
one season the garden would soon become 
a bramble jungle. 
Almost daily someone is asking about 
the kudzu vine. One of the readers of 
The R. N.-Y. wants to know if it will 
stand the Winter as far north as Balti¬ 
more, Md. I have never learned how 
near the North Pole it will grow, but I 
think that it will stand the Winter any¬ 
where in the United States. North of 
Baltimore it will probably lose the entire 
top. Here it kills to within 2 or 3 ft. of 
the ground. In Central North Carolina 
only the latest green shoots get hurt, but 
when killed to the ground it grows all the 
stronger the next season. As everyone 
traveling down through Southern Pied¬ 
mont has seen, there are thousands of hill¬ 
sides eroded into vast gulleys, and appar¬ 
ently hopeless for any cultivation. There 
I believe is a place for the kudzu. Boot¬ 
ed on' these hillsides it will send out its 
runners in all directions, and they will 
root in the gulleys and their sides, and 
help to catch the silt, and will multiply 
till the hillside is matted aud eventually 
saved if the entire growth is left for a 
few years. After the plants have mat¬ 
ted it may be used as pasture, and a herd 
would have to eat very fast to get ahead 
of it when established ! w. F. massey. 
Simple Tree Surgery 
A short time ago there appeared in The 
R. N.-Y. a detailed description of a case 
of “tree surgery.” The process seemed 
rather complicated and difficult, and be¬ 
cause of that I thought someone might 
be deterred from undertaking it. There¬ 
fore I would like to tell you of a “suc¬ 
cessful operation” performed on a tree 
on my front lawn in Schuyler County, 
N. Y. 
It was a big beautiful basswood, at 
least 40 years old. A number of years 
ago a large projecting limb had been 
sawed off close to the trunk. The wound, 
not being protected in any way, as the 
seasons passed, the decaying wood extend¬ 
ed into the trunk of the tree until there 
was a cavity 8 or 10 in. in depth, and 4 
or 5 in. in diameter. I had heard of trees 
being “doctored” and had seen some of 
the good effects from it in our own beau¬ 
tiful parks here in Brooklyn, but I knew 
nothing of the process, so went to work 
to save that tree with only a putty knife 
and an old iron spoon for tools. I scraped 
and dipped out what I could reach easily 
I used no antiseptic or cleansing fluids, 
not even cold water. Lastly I packed the 
cavity with a “dough” made of Portland 
cement and water and awaited results. 
Every Summer, as I visited the place, I 
found the trunk closing around the wound 
and slowly aud sui’ely covering the ce¬ 
ment, until this past season I found every 
indication of a wound entirely obliterated. 
No one, excepting myself, could point out 
the place. Perhaps all kinds of wood 
would not heal so readily. I simply re¬ 
late this as a bit of true experience. 
New York. MRS. E. M. WORTH 
Petroleum Smeared on Trees 
I had au almost disastrous experience 
with rabbits in a 10-year-old orchard of 
13 acres. Two weeks ago back-water from 
the Ohio River flooded all streams tribu¬ 
tary to it, and with a heavy local rainfall 
drove all rabbits to higher ground. I had 
this orchard protected with veneer wraps 
till a few years ago, and washing trunks 
with lime-sulphur each Fall, have had 
little rabbit trouble till now. Many of 
the trees are 10 in. in diameter, but size 
made no difference. Seeing desperate 
remedies were necessary, and no time to 
lose, I cut a burlap sack in six pieces for 
convenience to handle and soaked pieces 
in oil used for oiling hogs for lice, taking 
precaution to wring all oil out possible, 
so that when I lightly rubbed trunks 2 ft. 
up you could only 6ee a light trace of oil 
but plenty of smell, aud so far not a rab¬ 
bit has touched trees. I do not expect 
effect will last long, as petroleum oil evap¬ 
orates and washes off, but it gave me a 
respite, so I gave a good shot two boxes 
of shells and he killed 65 rabbits in a few 
days, besides what we killed ourselves. I 
am afraid of oil on trees, but will experi¬ 
ment on a few worthless trees to see how 
much can be used with safety, and report 
results. Once before I used machine oil 
same way and had no bad results. 
Kentucky. ALLAN REII). 
It. N.-Y'.—We are afraid of oil on such 
trees, and would caution our readers to 
regard this as an experiment. Remember 
that you take a risk if you handle the en¬ 
tire orchard in this way. 
Eurning Twigs in Garden 
You recommend burnt twige of trees 
for fertilizer, especially potash: but would 
not burning twigs in garden injure the 
soil by drying it out? o. 8. 
No; not to any harmful extent. It is 
quite often necessary to “sterilize” soil in 
order to kill out insects and disease germs. 
This is done by steaming or burning. Old 
farmers, who never heard of “steriliza¬ 
tion,” burn a big bonfire where the cab¬ 
bage* or tobacco seed is to be planted. 
Such plants are usually free from disease, 
because the burning destroyed the germs. 
Many years ago in England farmers ou 
heavy soils practiced what they called 
“paring and burning.” The top soil was 
cut away in blocks and burned or heated 
with peat or other fuel. This broke up 
the soil, and probably made some of the 
potash more available. 
