872 
*h; RURAL NEW-YORKER 
T 
Good 
COMMON-SENSE 
REASONS 
Why 
BARIUM-/ 
PHOSPHATE 
/? SHOULD BE USED 
in THE BARN EVERY 
DAY IN THE YEAR 
Manure is Deficient 
in Phosphorus 
It should have this element added to 
make it a well balanced fertilizer. 
You Double the Value 
of Your Manure 
by reinforcing it with Barium-Phosphate 
containing : 
28% PHOSPHORIC ACID 
Barium - Phosphate is 
A Disinfectant 
It will keep your barn sweet and sanitary. 
Bad air and disease go hand in hand. 
FOR THESE REASONS 
it will pay you to use B-P in the stable 
gutters every day, or to add about 100 
lbs. to every spreader load of manure as 
it is put out. Write for our books: 
“Phosphorus and Manure” 
“B-P for General Farm Crops” 
Witherbee, Sherman & Co., Inc. 
2 Rector Street 
New York City 
393 Main Street 
Worcester, Mass. 
SAVE AH Your GRAIN 
Don’t wait for the custom thresher. Do your 
threshing when the grain is right and get the 
lull return from your labor. 
The Ellis Champion Thresher and Cleaner 
eqtiip|>ed with self feeder and wind stacker 
makes the ideal small outtit. 
If you have only a very little threshing to do, 
or small power, we can supply you with a 
machine without self feeder or wind stacker 
and at a price that will make your put chase 
a real investment. 
Just aivo us the size of your engine and the amount of grain 
usually raised and we’ll submit a proposition on a machine 
that will be just the one for your work. 
ELLIS KEYSTONE AGRICULTURAL WORKS 
Pottstown - Pennsylvania 
SULCO-V.B. 
Charles Fremd’s Formula 
Sulphur—Fish Oil—Carbolic Compound 
A Combined Contact Insecticide 
and Fungicide of known reliability. Con¬ 
trols scale insects, also many species of 
lice and fungus diseases on trees, plants 
and animals. 
AT YOUR DEALERS OR DIRECT. 
Manufacturers of Standard Fish Oil Soap. 
Booklet Free. Address 
COOK & SWAN CO., INC., 
SufcoDept. K 148 Front St., New York, U.S. A. 
KXcdSAWRIG 
Low Introductory offer puts this new saw-rig 
within reach of all, at small part of cost 
of other rigs. Saws yoor 
winter’s wood in few hours. 
Powerful 4-cycle motor. 
Easy to operate, light to 
move. 80 days’ trial to 
prove our claims. 10-year 
guarantee. Send today for 
_ FREE BOOK of FACTS. 
OTTAWA MFC. CO.. 177 Main St., Ottawa, Kana. 
■ . MARK A DOM, in AS IIOCB. SELL MENPETS 
agents a patent patch for instantly mending leaks 
in all utensils. Sample p a c k age free. 
COLLETTE MFC. CO., Itept. 108, Amsterdam. N.l . 
A GENTS—Mason sold 18 Sprayers and Autowasliers on# 
A Saturday; Profits, $2.50 each; Square Deal; Particu¬ 
lars Free. RITSLEIt COM FAN Y, Johnstown.Ohio 
When you write advertisers mention 
The Rural New-Yorker and you’ll get 
a quick reply and a “square deal.” See 
guarantee editorial page. 
Various Notes 
Soy Beans After Clover 
I have a field of rather late seeding of 
clover in oats last season. There is some 
Alfalfa and Hairy vetch mixed in. The 
ground was wet and heavy when seeded, 
but baked hard later, and while heavily 
top-dressed with stable manure last Fall, 
I hardly expect much of a hay crop this 
season.' Can I plow this field as soon as 
the hay can be gotten off. about July 1, 
and sow Soy beans, cutting these for hay 
and then seeding to Winter wheat? Will 
the Soy beans develop so as to give a 
good yield of hay before it is too late for 
sowing the wheat? In ease I decide to 
sow part of this field to Hairy vetch, and 
a little rye for hay next year, will it be 
a good plan to sow a little vetch in with 
the Soy beans to help inoculate the 
ground for the vetch later on? E. R. o. 
Rockland Co., N. Y. 
You would have about 7.” days of 
growth for the Soy beans if they were 
planted July 1. They will not make 
grain or seed fully in that time, hut some 
of the early varieties will make a good 
vine before wheat seeding. We find that 
season a poor time for curing hay. but it 
can be done. We should inoculate the 
vetch seed before planting. A little vetch 
seed treated in that way and seeded with 
the beans will help fit the soil for the 
vetch and rye. 
Making Eeet Syrup 
We have been wondering for some time 
what would be the result of grinding 
sugar beets in a cider mill, pressing them 
and boiling the juice, the same as maple 
sap. We have been thinking of trying 
this plan of beating the sugar trust. 
Ohio. F. L. F. 
The result of all this would be a thick 
dark-colored syrup with a sweetish taste, 
but a very poor and disagreeable flavor, 
and it is not likely that you would he sat¬ 
isfied with it. This has been tried a good 
many times, and while some samples of 
this syrup are eatable, as a rule it is not 
considered very desirable. We think that 
a small patch of sorghum or Early Amber 
cane would give very much better syrup 
and sugar, but you do not need to go all 
this long process of grinding the beets if 
you want to try this method. We have 
often described a simple method recom¬ 
mended by the Department of Agriculture. 
Simply wash the sugar beets clean. Then 
cut them into thin slices with a knife, 
hatchet, or any other cutter. Put these 
slices in a barrel or tub and pour a quan¬ 
tity of hot water over them, enough to 
cover the beets fully. Let them stand a 
couple of hours or so, then pour this 
liquid off and boil it down, the same as 
you would maple sap. The sugar of the 
beet is soaked out by the water. This 
is much easier than grinding and pressing 
the pulp, hut the syrup made in this way 
will rarely prove acceptable in the aver¬ 
age family. 
More About the Vltamines 
We have read much about the great 
need of foods containing vitamines for 
children. Are they also as necessary in 
the food of elderly people? Would there 
he any danger or damage to the system 
in eiiting an excess of them, that is, food 
which provides more than the normal 
needs of the system? 
You ask whether “these vitamines are 
as necessary for elderly people as they 
are for children.” Nearly all the woi’k 
which we have done, and most of that 
done by others, has been done with young 
animals. We have, however, demonstrated 
that the water-soluble vitamine is needed 
by adult rats, and there is every reason 
to believe that adults of all species of 
animals require this type of vitamine as 
do the young. Whether adults need more 
or less than young remains to be deter¬ 
mined. On this point our experiments 
have not given a clear answer. We are 
now engaged in trying to determine 
whether the fat-soluble vitamine is neces¬ 
sary for the adult and are still somewhat 
in the dark. Apparently the older an 
animal is the longer it is able to go 
without this factor in the food, but 
whether the foods which we have been 
employing are entirely free from this 
factor has not yet been certainly estab¬ 
lished. They contain very little. We 
have one rat which has gone for con¬ 
siderably more than a year without any 
known addition of this factor to its diet, 
and it has not yet given positive evidence 
that it is suffering because of a deficiency 
in its diet. It is now declining in weight, 
but that is not uncommon with rats of 
its age. The other adult rats which we 
have thus fed have gone for a long time 
without evident signs of a need of the 
fat-soluble vitamine, hut eventually de¬ 
clined in weight and recovered when this 
factor was added to their diet. I am 
pretty sure that adults need the fat- 
soluble vitamine, but apparently do not 
need it in such large quantities nor so 
constantly as the yourg. The human 
experience with scurvy indicates that 
adults must be protected against this dis¬ 
ease as well as the young, but I know 
of no experimental evidence which has 
dealt with this question with animals. 
In regard to the next question, con¬ 
cerning the effect of an excess of vita¬ 
mines, I think we have reason to believe 
that no harm may be expected on this 
score. Our common experience leads us 
to conclude that a diet over-rich in the 
water-soluble vitamine does us no harm, 
if in fact it does not do us good. We 
have fed rats on yeast as the sole source 
of their protein, under which conditions 
they get a great many times as much 
water-soluble vitamine as do those which 
are fed with only enough of this factor 
to promote their normal growth. We 
have no reason to believe that these have 
been in any way injured. I presume the 
same is true in regard to the fat-soluble 
and antiscorbutic vitamines. 
TIIOMAS B. OSBORNE. 
Ants and the Company They Keep 
Do you know of anything that will 
keep ants from young fruit trees and 
grafts? I set out a few trees every 
Spring, and do some grafting, and the 
ants soon stop the new growth. They 
are covered with little green lice on 
underside of leaves and all over the 
young sprouts at the top. Is there any 
way to keep them off? II. D. P. 
Mahopac, N. Y. 
“A man is known by the company he 
keeps.” This is an old saying that has 
much truth in it, and although it may 
not be strictly applicable to ants, yet 
these creatures are sometimes judged by 
the company they keep, as the foregoing 
letter indicates. If ants wore wise from 
a human standpoint they might always 
avoid the “appearance of evil,” and he 
known for what they really are—the most 
interesting and remarkable insects in 
many respects in the world. Anfs are 
very wise in their own way, however, 
and the tales, true scientific tales, of ant 
wisdom liave made many pages of exceed¬ 
ingly interesting reading. 
The correspondent was keen enough to 
have observed that there were other occu¬ 
pants than ants of the young fruit trees, 
namely, small green lice or aphids, and 
thereby hangs the tale. If the corre¬ 
spondent had watched the ants long 
enough he might have discovered for him¬ 
self some of the best part of the story, 
although not all of it. for it has taken 
long hours of very careful observation by 
many scientists t<> arrive at a knowledge 
of some of the details concerning the re¬ 
lations of ants to aphids. Nor do we 
know them all yet. for undoubtedly there 
are many points in this remarkable re¬ 
lationship of these tiny animals that have 
escaped our observations. 
To begin the story, I must explain that 
most plant lice excrete a sweet substance 
known as “honcydew.” Sometimes, where 
the aphids are abundant on a tree, they 
excrete an amazingly large amount of the 
honcydew—so much that the leaves* of the 
plant become covered with a glistening 
coat of the sweet, sticky liquid. Often 
the flagstones of a walk will become wet 
with the honeydew beneath trees on 
which the lice are abundant. This sweet 
liquid is the source of attraction for the 
ants, and it is this that draws them to 
the aphids. In fact, many ants gather 
the honeydew and use it as food for their 
young, and it is almost safe to say that 
wherever aphids are found on plants 
there we shall find ants running up and 
down the stems and visiting the lice. In 
visiting an aphid the ant strokes the body 
of the former with its feelers or antenna', 
and in response the aphid gives out a 
drop of honeydew. which the ant quickly 
and greedily gobbles up into its mouth 
and then goes to another aphid, where 
the performance is repeated. Thus the 
ant soon has itself filled to capacity, when 
away it goes down the stem with its load 
of sweet provender and hustles away to 
its nest to gladden the hungry children 
with this delectable food. Nor are the 
ants ungrateful to their friends, the 
aphids, nor do they milk their cows to 
death. On the contrary, the ant care for 
the aphids very solicitously, defend them 
May 1, 1920 
from their enemies, and in some eases 
actually build substantial “sheds” over 
the lice to protect them from inclement 
weather. The relation of the little brown 
cornfield ant to the corn root-louse in the 
great corn regions of the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley are even more remarkable, but as 
Kipling would say ‘‘that is another 
story.” 
The upshot of the whole matter is that 
the ants do not directly injure the plants, 
hut they do protect, comfort and foster 
the real culprits, the aphids, for these are 
the rascals that suck out the juices of the 
leaves and buds, and cause the former to 
curl and remain small, while the latter 
are often stunted and checked in their 
growth. Thus we come to the more pro¬ 
saic part of this problem, namely, how 
shall the foliage and buds of the fruit 
trees be protected from this dual and 
disastrous alliance of the ants and aphids? 
Well, since the ants are really innocent 
of any actual wrong-doing, and since they 
are very difficult to kill anyhow, we 
always direct our insecticidal batteries 
toward the real criminals—the plant lice. 
These are easily killed by spraying them 
with uocotine sulphate (black-leaf-40) at 
the rate of oue teaspoonful to a gallon of 
water, to which a piece of soap about as 
large as a hen’s egg is added after it has 
been dissolved in hot water. The spray¬ 
ing should be thoroughly done and the 
lice actually hit with the liquid. More 
than one application may be necessary, 
because some of the lice may be missed 
the first time, in which case they will 
soon increase in numbers and have to be 
hit again. If one has numerous trees on 
which the lice are abundant, it may be 
desirable to spray on a much larger 
scale. In that event the nicotine sulphate 
should be used at the rate of one pint to 
100 gallons of water to which five pounds 
of laundry soap have been added. 
GLENN W. IIERRICK. 
Culture and Marketing of Horseradish 
I would like some information on the 
culture and methods of marketing of 
horseradish. We have some mucky hol¬ 
lows around here that are tilled 1 with 
water most of the year. If they are 
drained, would they be suitable for it? 
Can I get the roots or sets at reasonable 
price? ^ E. P. 
Modena, N. Y. 
Horseradish rarely produces seed, so 
root cuttings are used for planting. They 
are made from the small side roots re¬ 
moved from the main roots when trim¬ 
ming the product for market. They are 
usually six inches long and a half-inch 
through, though we have used smaller 
roots. By cutting the top off square and 
the lower end slanting, mistake in plant¬ 
ing is avoided. When trimmed in the 
Fall the roots are bunched and s'.ored 
over Winter in sand, for Spring planting. 
The soil should not be too wet. that is. 
have water standing on it. A deep, moist 
soil is best, and a well-drained muck 
should give good results. The rows are 
laid out three feet apart, furrows plowed 
and roots set vertically IS inches apart, 
with the top about two or three inches 
below the surface of the soil. Some early 
cultivated crop, such as peas, may be 
grown in rows between the horseradish 
rows, thus giving n return early in the 
season. Thorough cultivation is prac¬ 
ticed. As most growth occurs late in the 
season, (he crop is loft as long as possible 
before harvesting. The roots are dug 
and trimmed and side roots saved for 
next season. One objection to the crop is 
that it is hard to eradicate after growing 
on an area, as the small roots left in the 
soil each produce a new plant. 
Many growers grind and bottle their 
product, and a few sell to horseradish 
factories. Nearly all seed stores carry 
horseradish sets. T. H. T. 
The Non-partisan League 
Those who seek information on the 
greati farm movement that has developed 
in the Northwestern States since the 
beginning of the World War will want to 
read “The Story of the Non-Partisan 
League,” by Herbert E. Gaston. Mr. 
Gaston was associated with some of the 
League’s publications for three years, 
which gave him intimate knowledge of 
its affairs. lie tells (the story in plain 
and simple language, and apparently 
with no purpose either to exaggerate the 
faults of the organization and the men 
who promote it, or to make his book a 
propaganda in support of the movement. 
Heretofore the information received out¬ 
side of the field of action in regard to the 
movement came largely as a controversy 
between those who favored the League 
and those who opposed the whole move¬ 
ment. Naturally, it left: the neutral 
reader somewhat in doubt as to the meiits 
of the argument. No one can, of course, 
write on the subject completely as a m o 
tral, on the record, be he with it or against 
it; but the author has not sought to in - 
Alienee judgment. He impresses us as 
having done his best to tell the facts as 
he found them. Those who are inter¬ 
ested in the attempt of farmers to woik 
out their own economic problems tliroug 1 
organization will read the book with in - 
terest and profit. 
