924 
7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Garden and Farm Notes 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
I think the editor is right in his re¬ 
marks on the kudzu plant. It is mainly 
of value to increase the feed on a rocky 
pasture. My big plant 'well illustrates 
the danger of having the plant in close 
proximity to the garden. Only a few 
days ago I cut off from the base of the 
plant about 50 runners starting to sneak 
into the garden, and now there are fully 
as many starting. The plant covered a 
large piece of lattice, and is climbing 
over the top of the wood-house. Then it 
reaches out and tries to get on the grape 
arbor, and I have to cut it loose. It com¬ 
pelled me to grub out a patch of rasp¬ 
berry plants where it had sneaked in and 
rooted. How much is annually cut off 
this great plant I cannot tell, but that 
one plant would go a long way towards 
feeding a cow. Now, when everything 
not irrigated is drying up, the kudzu does 
not seem to mind the drought. 
It is nearly two months since we had 
any rain, and while it is wonderful how 
this sandy soil endures a drought where 
the crops are properly worked and a dust 
blanket kept on the surface, there is no 
doubt that crops of all sorts are suffering. 
The part of my garden over which the 
Skinner irrigation pipe extends is show¬ 
ing up finely, and, on the unirrigated 
part, the sweet potatoes and cantaloupes 
do not seem to suffer greatly, for my can¬ 
taloupe vines are a long way ahead of 
any I have seen in the fields around me. 
The finest field of cucumber I have seen 
is a two-acre patch just across the road 
from my office. It belongs to a young 
man from North Carolina who has not 
spared work on it, and will be in ahead 
of most of the growers. A good rain 
would start him to cutting in a few 
days. Hut the crops so far as I have no¬ 
ticed of cukes and cantaloupes are very 
late, and the danger is that we will come 
in right along with South Jersey, and 
the market will break at once and no one 
get profit. 
I have more vacant ground in my gar¬ 
den than I have ever had. The latest to¬ 
mato plants should now be in their 
places to. make the crop of green ones 
about frost time to put away for later 
ripening, but the only spot under the irri¬ 
gation pipe is being reserved for late cab¬ 
bages. To set the plants in the dust 
means too much carrying of water to 
make them live. The late peas have 
been cleaned off the wire fence, and I 
have crease-back beans to plant there, 
but they would cook before getting mois¬ 
ture enough to germinate. Lima beans 
are just starting to run, and it is a very 
feeble run. 
I have been experimenting- with the 
sulphate of ammonia as a side dressing 
as compared with nitrate of soda. It has 
given good results in the irrigated section, 
but elsewhere litis not done so, but more 
probably has been a damage in the hot 
dry soil. This is no fault of the material, 
but of the conditions that have prevented 
solution and nitrification. With a dust 
dry soil and a temperature of 95 to 98 
daily there is no reason to be surprised at 
the failure of any plant food to be taken 
by the plants. 
A company of our growers here has 
made a pilgrimage to New Jersey to see 
the overhead irrigation as practiced there, 
and now there is a great deal of talk 
about irrigation. But it is very hard to 
get our people to adopt any intensive 
methods. With a good rain they will for¬ 
get all about irrigation, and will go on in 
the old way till another drought catches 
them. B.ut our great sweet potato crop 
seems to thrive, w'et or dry. The vines 
are running and look green and healthy 
as a rule. What the roots are doing it is 
too early to say. 'With a location, cli¬ 
mate and transportation as favorable for 
Winter forcing as any section, and far 
better than the Lake Shore region where 
the Winter growing of vegetables under 
glass has developed largely, our growers 
go to see great forcing establishments in 
New Jersey, and never seem to think 
that we could do the same thing more 
oheaply, and hence at greater profit. 
w F. MASSEY. 
Killing Squash Bugs 
What is the best remedy for the squash 
bug? R. 
Dr. G. M. Twitchell last year reported 
good results from a mixture of tobacco 
dust, sulphur and air-slaked lime. The 
tobacco should be ground very fine and 
the ingredients thoroughly mixed. 
Destroying Crab Grass 
One of our readers reports a case where 
2 ft. of soil was taken from a tract of 
land in a village. With this surface soil 
all taken off there seemed to be nothing 
left but yellow sand, yet the crab grass 
has come up out of this subsoil as thick 
as fur. It only goes to show how power¬ 
fully this grass can attach itself to the 
soil. It does not grow from seed only, 
but wherever there is a joint or piece of 
root left behind in the soil there would 
come back a sort of a new crop, and this 
healthy habit must be remembered in any 
effort to kill crab grass out. There are 
two ways of doing it. One is to chop off 
and kill every particle of root in the soil. 
This may be done by plowing and then 
keeping constantly after the crop with a 
spring-tooth disk. The other plan would 
be to grow some crop like buckwheat or 
millet, which will make a very heavy, 
rank growth, and smother out the crab 
grass. With this method it is often the 
job of a lifetime to keep this pest down. 
In some part of New England crab grass 
has run in and occupied whole fields, so 
as to make their cultivation with ordi¬ 
nary crops practically impossible. On 
the other hand, the crab grass makes a 
fair pasture, or hay. and a fair amount of 
it in an orchard has some value as a 
mulching and manorial crop. The ob¬ 
jection is that if you leave any of it on 
the farm you may expect it to spread. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC—A civil suit under the 
Sherman anti-trust act for the dissolution 
of the Cement Manufacturers’ Protective 
Association was begun by the g< vernment 
in the United States District Court at 
New York June 30. The complaint, filed 
by United States Attorney William Day- 
ward, accuses the manufacturers of hav¬ 
ing built up, by means of a so-called 
“open-price” association, a great combi¬ 
nation amounting to a conspiracy in re¬ 
straint of trade, resulting in enormous 
profits to the corporations; ‘‘unconscion¬ 
able prices” for their product and the re¬ 
striction of building, “thus depriving men 
<>f employment and preventing relief from 
the grave shortage of housing facilities.” 
A prohibition enforcement bill, spon¬ 
sored by Gov. Blaine of Wisconsin, and 
amended to prohibit the manufacture of 
home brew, was signed June 30 by the 
Governor. The measure becomes effective 
at once. Gov. Blaine recently vetoed a 
bill because of its home brew section. He 
declared the section against home brew 
could not 'be enforced and that the State 
did not have the money to enforce it. 
When the Governor’s measure came up 
his followers in the Senate deserted him 
and the bill went through with the home 
brew amendment. 
The Cuneo-IIennaberry Company, pub¬ 
lishers, supported by the International 
Printing Pressmen’s Union of North 
America, filed suit in the Circuit Court at 
Chicago. June 30. for $50,000 damages 
against William L. Hass and Henry Van 
Artsen, president and business agent of 
the Chicago Pressmen’s Union No. 3. The 
suit is the culmination of an unauthorized 
strike of pressmen that was called at the 
Cuneo-IIennaberry plant by the two de¬ 
fendants. It is alleged that Van Artsen 
told officers of the company that if it did 
not stop printing the Western edition of 
a large weekly he would call the union 
pressmen off the job, which he did. 
Two trucks, laden with merchandise 
valued at $120,000, were stolen by armed 
men near Metuchen, N. J., July 1, after 
their crews had been taken off at the 
point of revolvers and carried to a lonely 
spot miles from telephone communica¬ 
tion. One of the trucks. contained silk 
and the other a miscellaneous cargo, in¬ 
cluding a large number of automobile 
tires and silk underwear. The silk was 
valued at $100,000 and the merchandise 
at $20,000. The trucks were en route 
from Philadelphia to New York. 
A tornado struck Frederick, S. D.. July 
2. killing one man and causing $100,000 
damage. Practically every building in 
the town was demolished. Damage is 
estimated at $350,000 in surrounding 
district. 
The Bonneville irrigation project. 
which will improve several thousand 
acres in Davis County, near Salt Lake 
City, Utah, which involved a cost of $750,- 
000, became a reality July 4. Gov. C. It. 
Mabey turned an electric switch and 
pumps began lifting 43.563 gallons of 
water a minute from the Jordan River to 
the high line canal of the project, 812 ft. 
above. 
Eight men were dead, 36 others injured, 
10 so seriously that they may die, and 
property damage is unofficially estimated 
at $2,000,000 as the result of an explosion 
in the Standard Oil Company’s refining 
plant at Whiting, Ind., July 2. Two 
huge steel stills burst, the brick walls en¬ 
closing them crumbled, and a sheet of 
burning oil and gas spread for a radius 
of 200 yards, trapping the night force. 
Five men were burned to death, three 
died later in Chicago hospitals, and the 
condition of 10 others is serious. 
Anthony J. Drexel, Jr., son of the 
Philadelphia capitalist and son-in-law of 
George J. Gould, is one of four men in¬ 
dicted July 1 by the New York County 
grand jury on charges arising from the 
sale of stock of the Standard Film Indus¬ 
tries, Inc., a now inactive enterprise 
which claimed Drexel as vice-president. 
The others indicted are: Eliot Norton, 
lawyer of 2 Rector St. and son of the 
late Prof. Charles Eliot Norton of Har¬ 
vard University; Harry Brolaskie of Re¬ 
dondo Beach, Cal., and Louis B. Jen¬ 
nings. It is represented that Norton was 
secretary of the corporation, Brolaskie 
general manager and Jennings president. 
The Standard Film Industries, Inc., was 
organized in 1916 and had an ambitious 
program for manufacturing superior mo¬ 
tion pictures. According to District At¬ 
July 16, 1921 
torney Swann, it sold stock of the par 
value of $359,000, paid the stock salesmen 
commissions running as high as 40 |per 
cent, and returned no dividends. 
Numerous grain, forest, brush and city 
fires in Northern and Central California, 
which caused damage estimated at more 
than $1,500,000, were reported exting¬ 
uished July 4 after most of them had 
burned for 48 hours. 
WASHINGTON.—Establishment of a 
government shipping line between the 
United States and Alaska, to connect 
with the government railroad in that ter¬ 
ritory. _ and co-ordination of all Federal 
activities relating to Alaska are pro¬ 
posed in a bill introduced July 5 by Sena¬ 
tor Cummins, Republican (Iowa), and 
referred to the Senate Territories Com¬ 
mittee. The bill also would confer upon 
the President general authority to co-or¬ 
dinate by transfer, consolidation or dis¬ 
tribution, all government agencies having 
to do with Alaskan affairs. 
Plans for reducing the enlisted strength 
of the army from 223,000 men to 150,000 
by October 1, as directed by Congress will 
be presented to Secretary Weeks within a 
few days. Although details were said not 
to have been definitely worked out, it be¬ 
came known July 5 that it will be neces¬ 
sary to abandon some military posts, in¬ 
cluding several in each branch of the ser¬ 
vice and materially reduce the commands 
at others. One of the most important 
commands to suffer i-eduction will be that 
on the Mexican border, it is said. An in¬ 
formal report in circulation July 5 said 
it was proposed to abandon practically all 
of the coast artillery posts in the South 
with the exception of that at Key West 
and a few others at important points. 
A system of model airways, covering 
the entire continent, is planned by the 
Army Air Service for the use of all op¬ 
erators or owners of aircraft. It contem¬ 
plates chains of "well organized landing 
fields, supplemented by frequent emer¬ 
gency fields and identification markers 
connecting the principal cities. Because 
of the lack of appropriations from the 
Federal Government air service officials 
said July 5 it was their purpose to appeal 
to the chambers of commerce, aerial clubs 
and civic organizations to assist in crea¬ 
tion of the airways. The Boy Scout or¬ 
ganization already has pledged its co-op¬ 
eration, it was stated, and will construct 
identification markers, guard wrecked 
planes, submit monthly reports on emer¬ 
gency landing field conditions and gener¬ 
ally assist aviators in trouble. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The Ameri¬ 
can Seed Trade Association, in annual 
meeting at St. Louis, Mo.. June 22-24, 
elected the following officers for 1921- 
1922: President, L. L. Olds, Madison, 
Wis.; first vice-president, Alex. Forbes, 
Newark, N. .T. : second vice-president, 
Louis Reuter, New Orleans. La.; secre¬ 
tary-treasurer. C. E. Ivendel, Cleveland, 
O.; assistant secretary, Clifford Cornell, 
St. Louis, Mo. Next place of meeting was 
not decided. 
The American Association of Nursery¬ 
men, in annual meeting at Chicago June 
22-24, elected the following officers for 
the ensuing year: President, M. R. Cash- 
man, Clinton Falls Nursery Company, 
Owatonna. Minn.; vice-president, Paul C. 
Lindley, Pomona, N. C.; secretary, Chas. 
Sizemore. Louisiana, Mo.; treasurer, J. 
AY. Hill. Des Moines, la. ; executive com¬ 
mittee : Lloyd D. Stark, Louisiana, Mo.; 
Earl D. Needham. Des Moines, la.; Rob¬ 
ert Pyle, West Grove, Pa. ; S. W. Crow¬ 
ell. Roseacres, Miss.; W. C. Reed, Vin¬ 
cennes. Ind. Marker development com¬ 
mittee : F. F. Rockwell, Bridgeton, N. 
J.; Earl O. May, Shenandoah. In.; C. R. 
Burr. Manchester, Conn. Legislative com¬ 
mittee: J. Edward Moon. Morrisville, 
Pa. Vigilance committee: Paul C. T.ind- 
le.v, Pomona, N. C. Next place of meet¬ 
ing. Detroit, Mich. 
Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind.. an¬ 
nounces a great potato exhibition for Jan¬ 
uary, 1922, during short course week. 
The premium list to hand discloses a 
lengthy list of prizes, a large number of 
which have been donated by the various 
manure, machinery and chemical manu¬ 
facturers, a fact that indicates that they 
realize the value of supporting shows. 
In an effort to protect the cyclone 
swept area of the Olympic Peninsula in 
the State of Washington from fire, Secre¬ 
tary Wallace June 30 issued an order, 
effective July 1. prohibiting smoking with¬ 
in the area during the fire danger season. 
Aerial air patrols also will be maintained. 
Nearly 7,000,000.000 ft. of timber blown 
down by the terrific storm last January 
29 is contained in the half-million acre 
area swept by the storm. 
Prof. David Lumsden, professor of hor¬ 
ticulture at the Walter Reed General 
Hospital, Washington, D. C., has again 
been reappointed superintendent of the 
florieultural department of the New York 
State Fair. The fair will be held Sep¬ 
tember 12 to 17, at the State Fair 
Grounds, Syracuse. N. Y. 
Centralized purchase of foodstuffs in 
American markets by European govern¬ 
ments. wh ! ch has been considered by some 
as one factor in the fall of grain 
prices during the past 12 months, will be 
practically abandoned by August 1, ac¬ 
cording to information given Secretary of 
Commerce Hoover. England. France and 
Belgium by that time will have de-con- 
trolled food purchasing agencies, while 
Holland is already on that basis. This 
leaves Germany and Italy as the only 
governmental purchasers, and it was es¬ 
timated that these countries would not 
consume more than 20 per cent of the 
United States exports. 
A Fine Crop of Tomatoes Trained Two to Three Stalks to the Hill and Tied to 
Stakes 
