136 
—is nonsense. It is also claimed for this stuff that 
since the germs are taken from th^ roots of legume 
plants it will enrich any soil. That is simply more 
nonsense. 
A Hudson River Violet House 
F IG. 49 shows the interior of a violet house 
owned by .lulius Moul of lied Hook, N. Y. The 
pictures were taken last Winter. The section around 
Rhinebeck and Red Hook, in Dutchess County, N. Y., 
is noted for its production of violets. 
Tens of millions of these flowers are 
shipped every year during the Winter 
season. The brief season around St. 
Valentine’s Day seems to give the 
greatest demand. The violets are sent 
as far west as Chicago, as far south as 
Tennessee and north to Canada—both 
by express and by parcel post. In Red 
Hook alone there were, last year, over 
50 violet houses. Some of the houses 
of the size here shown will yield more 
gross income than many a 100-acre 
farm back among the hills. Yet no one 
could fairly advise the average gar¬ 
dener or farmer to “go into violets.” 
It is a highly specialized business. A 
fair way of putting it would be to say 
that a successful violet grower must 
be more than half violet himself, and 
few of us, after an honest study of our 
own reflection in the world's mirror, 
will claim that we size up to the test! 
The varieties of double violet most commonly 
grown a re Lady Hume Campbell and the old Marie 
Louise, while favorite single sorts are Luxonne. Cal¬ 
ifornia and Princess of Wales. Desirable soil is a 
moderately sandy loam with some clay, preferably 
from an old pasture, which is cut in the Fall and 
stacked in a compost heap with well-rotted manure, 
mixed in the proportion of one part manure to four 
parts soil. Before putting in the houses or frames 
the soil is thoroughly worked over, with about 200 
lbs. of unslaked lime added to the soil for 3.000 
plants. Solid beds are usual, though violets are 
sometimes grown on benches. Many are grown in 
frames, but in the North the Winter weather makes 
frames quite inconvenient, and the cheaper forms of 
houses are more generally used. 
Violets are propagated by division of the crowns, 
and bv offshoots which are rooted in sand. These 
offshoots are taken in late Winter or early Spring, 
without disturbing the old plants, which are usually 
cleared out after the middle of April. The soil is 
renewed, in most cases, every year, about 5 in. of new 
soil being put in. The plants are set in May, about 
S in. apart,, in 10-in. rows, when growing double vio¬ 
lets. but the singles are more luxuriant in growth, 
and are set about 12x12 or 12x18 in. Fresh air and 
careful but abundant watering are imperative. The 
runners are cut off, and every effort made to secure 
strong, healthy plants by Fall. 
In sections where the Winter is mild, violets are 
sometimes grown in the open ground, and then cov¬ 
ered with portable frames at the approach of cold 
weather. The advantage of the modern system of 
greenhouse culture is that it gives perfect control 
over moisture, and a better opportunity to combat 
fungus and insect enemies, which are many. 
Some varieties of violets require a heavier soil 
than others, and some growers pin their faith to cow 
manure rather than horse manure. Constant work is 
needed in keeping the beds clean: weeds, dead leaves 
and abortive flowers are all removed, for their pres¬ 
ence invites disease. Runners or dead leaves are 
always cut off; to tear off invites fungi to work on 
the lacerated tissue. The plants are syringed through 
Summer and early Fall, as a deterrent 
of red spider, but by the middle of Oc¬ 
tober this must be avoided. A thin 
mulch of fine well-rotted manure may 
be given in August. Eternal vigilance, 
good sense and a favorable location are 
the great factors for success in violet 
culture, but weak or diseased parent 
stock will nullify the most intelligent 
work. Men of experience acquire a 
knowledge of the plant that cannot be 
obtained from books, and thus appear 
to have some “secret” that is, after all, 
only acquired by hard work and close 
observation. 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
iug in this section, and I either have suspicious customers 
or I am not getting the results I should. I am making an 
average of one bushel. 26 lbs flour, 7 lbs. of bran or 
shorts, and allowing 15 lbs. for hulls and waste through 
cleaning and scouring. This seems to be the average. 
If you can give me the amount it should make I shall 
be very grateful to you. as I will then remodel my 
mill or put up a stout argument. J. S. B. 
A N old English proverb runs: “What is bolder 
than a miller’s neckcloth, which takes a thief 
by the throat every morning?” There may have been, 
in ancient times, when tolling was the general cus¬ 
tom, a miller who took more than his share of his 
Loss in Milling Buckwheat 
Will you tell me about how much flour, 
how much bran, how much hull and how 
much waste or shortage there should be in 
grinding average buckwheat, per bushel, 
making good buckwheat flour? I am mill- 
Mr. and Mrs. Berrang, the Travelers. Fig. 48. 
customer’s grain, thus fastening an evil name upon 
the calling and creating a distrust which time has 
not yet wholly eradicated. However that may be, 
your figures show that there is a thief concealed 
January 29, 1921 
reputation, offers the following suggestions to help 
you find him : 
In a 50-lb. bushel of reasonably dry and clean buck¬ 
wheat, there should be from 1 to 1% lbs. of screen¬ 
ings and waste and from 5 to 7 lbs. of hulls. In ex¬ 
ceptional instances there may be S lbs. of the latter; 
never anything like 15 lbs. The remainder is floui 
and middlings. Just what proportion of each oi 
these you should have depends upon what your 
standard for “good” buckwheat flour is. It may de¬ 
pend, also, upon what your customers demand. Some 
of these want a dark flour, showing 
particles of hulls. These, to them, are 
guarantees of genuineness and sources 
of the real buckwheat flavor. 
Manufacturers of modern mills claim 
that they will make 30 lbs. of flour to 
the bushel; some mille make 35 lbs. of 
the commercial product that goes into 
prepared flours. You should be able, 
from buckwheat of this season, to make 
from 28 to 30 lbs. of good flour. Your 
loss in 15 lbs. of hulls shows that there 
is something radically wrong some¬ 
where, and the trouble is very likely in 
the first break. You may be using an 
old-fashioned shueker of soft, metal, and 
one easily dulled or dented and grooved 
by the passage of nails or other hard 
substances, thus permitting waste. Or, 
if this break is one of modern steel 
rolls, they may be dull. The effect of 
dullness here is to flatten the kernel 
and cause it to ride over the sieve with 
hulls of similar size and shape. No white kernels 
whatever should show with the hulls from dry buck¬ 
wheat. 
Your trouble may, of course, be located elsewhere, 
possibly in old or defective silks, but the excessive 
quantity of hulls points to the first break as the prob¬ 
able source of your loss, and one first to be inves¬ 
tigated. No part of the process of making buckwheat 
flour better repays constant attention than the first 
breaking of the grain. ‘ M. b. d. 
A Dutchess Count!!, N. I 7 ., Violet House. Fig. \9. 
somewhere in your mill, who is robbing you and who 
has, thus far, escaped your vigilance. A friend with 
30 years’ experience in milling buckwheat, and one 
whose product acquired something more than local 
Mr. Berrarw’s House on Wheels. Fig. 50. 
Soil Fertility Association 
T HERE was recently organized at Chicago an 
“Association of National Soil Fertility Re¬ 
sources.” The object is to try to combine such pro¬ 
ducts' as limestone, rock phosphate, gypsum and 
potash rock into a system of permanent fertility. 
This means finding some cheap and natural process 
by means of which phosphate and potash rock may 
be made available as plant food, so as to produce the 
needed nitrogen in legume plants. The president of 
this association, Mr. Tupper, said: 
Anvone who travels through Europe is impressed at 
once with the wonderful extent to which they have car¬ 
ried the fertilization of soil. For example, a farm in 
the vicinity of Marseilles, France, which was cultivated 
in Charlemagne’s time, is still producing heavily today. 
That same farm was cultivated as far back as the time 
of .Tillius Ciosar, and back of that to the time of Car¬ 
thaginians, and even before that presumably, at the 
date of the earliest Phenician settlements, carrying back 
an unbroken record for many hundreds of years before 
the Christian era. 
It is true that many farms in Europe and in Eng¬ 
land have produced paying crops for 1,000 years or 
more, and are still “going strong.” With proper care 
a soil need not “wear out.” In the old Pilgrim town 
of Plymouth, Mass., there are many gardens which 
have no doubt produced annual crops for nearly 400 
years. They were used as Indian gardens before the 
white people came, and have been in constant use. 
This year’s crops were as large as any during their 
long history. We have no doubt the same thing will 
be found true of gardens at St. Augustine. Fla. 
These soils have been well supplied with lime in 
limestone, ground clam shells or ashes, and have 
been kept well filled with organic mat¬ 
ter, either by using manure or using 
weed cover crops, fish waste or gar¬ 
bage. This practice has kept the land 
sweet and active, and enabled it to 
fully utilize and give up its plant food. 
For unless a soil is “sweet and active 
there is little use putting manure or 
fertilizer into it. By “active” we mean 
full of the necessary bacteria which 
mean so much to a soil. With lime and 
organic matter fully supplied, a soil 
cannot “wear out.” There ought to lie 
at least 25.000,000 tons of ground lime¬ 
stone used in this country every year. 
It is doubtful if 5,000,000 tons are now 
used. Each year finds a greater need 
of lime and phosphates on most of our 
Eastern soils. Many of them need a 
change from live stock keeping, al¬ 
though that suggestion seems like here¬ 
sy to many farmers. 
