come out and make their canning purchases direct at 
the orchard. It gives them an opportunity to get 
out. into the country and makes a combined picnic 
and business trip. This, of itself, would make no 
small item in the amount of business picked up close 
by the orchards, but of course the big trade comes 
with the trucks. Perhaps the most conspicuous 
example of orchardsside selling dn both small and 
large quantities, with the small purchaser given 
special attention, is that of M. C. Mason of Walling- 
ton. For years Mr. Mason has been in the peach 
business, and before the advent of the trucks had 
built up a nice express business, but the returns for 
the last two years with direct sales have made the 
former venture seem like boy-play. 
GOING AFTER TRADE.—Mr. Mason does not 
trust to luck, but goes after the business with a show 
of system. When the autos and trucks first began to 
tap the peach belt, he was not long in learning that 
his orchard was the first one of any importance to 
all cars coming in from Watertown. Utica, Syracuse, 
the mountains and all eastern points. He saw his 
chance at once, and started out to improve on it. 
Signs were put up on the property advertising the 
crop, and space was taken in both county and city 
papers. From each direction signs indicated an 
approach toward the Mason fruit farm, and each 
year he has one “big day” when it is necessary to 
have a deputy on hand to regulate traffic and see 
that everything is regular and orderly. On his big 
day this year the sales ran up to $1,500 for the day, 
and last year, with a better crop, it was slightly 
more. 
SELLING METHODS.—Ilis orchard is fruited to 
Elbertas, and this year he started the harvest work 
about September 1. His sales are principally in 
bushel baskets, this seeming to be the burden of 
demand. Prices this year ran from $2.50 to $3 per 
bushel at orchard side. At these prices trucks loaded 
up and realized well in districts where the peach is 
an imported fruit There were times when as many 
as 15 to 25 cars were parked near the Mason orchard 
in quest of the fruit As the big day neared, when 
the peaches would be at their best, a double column 
announcement is used in the city and county press, 
and psychology does the rest. The buyers are there. 
That is the day they have been looking for. They 
had Mason peaches last year and they were good. 
RESULTS OF PUBLICITY.—This grower offers 
a field all too little explored by the average orcliard- 
ist. When the public is in a buying mood and prices 
are right it is a good time to sell. Mr. Mason has no 
use for the cold storage as an avenue to better prices 
in disposing of his crop. When the feast is ready 
he uses publicity as a megaphone, and his customers 
flock to him like bees after nectar. It is a business 
combined with orchard management. He keeps 
“open shop” by the harvested crop, having an at¬ 
tendant in charge all day with shifts for meals, and 
even after dark some belated patron may be on hand 
getting his load. If one could analyze the driving 
thoughts back in the working of this man's brain 
when this orchard is on his mind they might be sum. 
marized as just two: Produce peaches. Sell peaches. 
And everyone in these parts will aver that he has 
made a success on both points. He has good peach 
land—stony enough to raise the temperature a point 
or two as the early Spring sun is soaked up, and the 
orchard is kept in the best of condition. Every tree 
disabled by .the wind or through age is marked for 
removal and resetting. The peach orchard is the 
prize revenue on the place, and its owner proposes 
that it shall remain so. A. H. pulver. 
Fertilizer on an Old Meadow 
I have been buying the hay on two places, one of 22 
acres, which cuts about 30 tons. It is low. wet land, 
and in good shape, mostly Timothy and a little clover 
mixed. The other is an old place of about 30 acres, and 
only cuts now about 10 tons. It has had nothing done 
on it for years. If I should put acid phosphate on these 
places in the Spring, about how much should I put on, 
and how much increase in the hay could I expect? 
Maine. E. p. T. 
T would depend on the condition of the grass, and 
whether you have control of it for a term of 
years. If the seeding is still good, with not too 
much sour grass and weeds, the use of fertilizer will 
increase the yield, often to the extent of 1,000 lbs. 
or more per acre. If the seeding has been pretty 
much run out, with Aveeds predominating, it is doubt¬ 
ful Avhetlier fertilizer will pay. If you control the 
land for only one season at a time, it would hardly 
pay to use a fertilizer containing potash and phos¬ 
phorus, for these elements would not all be utilized 
in one season. You would not obtain all of this 
fertility back in one season’s crops. With a lease 
of only one year Ave think it would pay to use 100 
lbs. of nitrate of soda per acre, well scattered, in 
early Spring, just as the grass is greening. This 
application of nitrate often forces a quick and heavy 
growth, which adds half a ton to the acre yield. 
This nitrate is usually all used up during the fii’.st 
season. You cannot expect to keep up this increased 
yield by using nitrate alone year after year, for 
under such conditions the nitrate acts like a Avhip 
to start up a tired or hungry horse. Unless you feed 
the horse and give him a chance to rest, he cannot 
keep up the pace. In like manner the meadow must 
have lime, potash and phosphorus in order to main¬ 
tain its yield. Tf you can obtain a five years’ lease 
of this grass land it would pay you to give it a good 
coat of ground limestone right on the sod, and then 
use a mixed fertilizer at the rate of 400 lbs. or more 
per acre. All this is largely theory. No one is 
qualified to give a definite answer without actually 
seeing the ground. 
Prolific Corn 
I am enclosing pictures of a stalk of corn bearing four 
well-developed ears, Avhieh I think is rather unusual. 
The corn is Early Learning, grown by Peter Morrison 
on Y. S. Merle-Smith’s estate, Oyster Bay. Other stalks 
Avere found Avith three ears and many Avith two. 
THEODORE G. SMITH, 
N.-Y.—This is unusual, and Ave think it will 
• pay to continue selection of ears from these 
prolific stalks. We have worked along that line 
A Prolific Static of Early Learning Corn. Fig. t>06 
witli a variety of flint corn and have improved the 
stalk and its habit of forming ears. 
Growing Wheat on Poultry Farms 
For some years I have raised each season a small 
patch of Avheat—one-half to one acre—Avith varying 
results. Often after careful preparation of soil ‘and 
fertilization the crop would be poor, and at other 
times it would do nicely, making a decided help 
in the poultry feed bill. If I can raise a fair 
crop of Avheat at all, I can raise it cheaper than 
I can buy it. and get better grain besides. One thing 
I noticed, and that is this: Several times I have sown 
it after garden peas, and always with fine results. The 
Avheat on land after a pea crop Avould grow thick and 
rank and yield well. I was wondering whether it would 
be practicable to sow broadcast some A r ariety of field 
peas in the early Spring, follow in the Fall with Avheat, 
and get similar results as in the case of the garden peas. 
What do you think about this, and what do you suppose 
the peas did to the soil to make the wheat grow so much 
better there than on ground right beside this, where 
other crops than peas preceded wheat? I thought I had 
hit on an idea Avhic-h seems to me practicable to get a 
pretty sure crop of grain if the field peas will grow. 
The peas in this case would not necessarily be tre¬ 
mendously rank, for it evidently is not the vines that 
do the business, but the roots. The vines in the cases 
mentioned were removed, and thrashed out before ploAA'- 
ing. so it is the pea roots that make the Avheat grow. 
Massachusetts. h. h. e. 
HE peas add some nitrogen to the soil, and their 
vines or roots add organic matter. We have 
found peas very useful in fitting the soil for a crop 
of grain. Your best plan would be to seed a com¬ 
bination of Canada field peas and either oats or 
beardless barley. We have told many times hoAV to 
do it. Fit the soil Avell and use manure or fertilizer 
as you can. Cut the peas and grain at the right time 
and later thrash out the grain and peas for poultry 
feed. You can feed the vines to cattle or horses, or 
cut them up to use as litter in the henhouse. After 
the crop of peas and grain is harvested plow the 
ground and fit it well and sow wheat, with lime and 
manure or fertilizer. This will usually insure a 
good crop of wheat. Next year, after the wheat is 
harvested, you can work up the ground and sow 
buckwheat and Alsike clover. In a favorable season 
the buckwheat will give you a grain crop for the 
poultry, while the clover can he plowed under the 
next Spring to repeat the rotation of peas and grain 
to prepare for wheat. In this way a poultryman 
can, without much labor, grow on a comparatively 
small acreage a fair proportion of his grain feed. 
In some cases this will pay better than trying to 
raise small fruits and vegetables as a side line. This 
kind of grain can be grown with less labor tlian 
corn. W r e think many of our Eastern poultrymen 
can well afford to grow more wheat. 
Edible Nuts in New York 
Can you advise me how I can get a stand of edible 
nuts? I wish to plant for roadside and pasture shade, 
and in farm Avoodlot. Black walnut seems to do very 
Avell. Butternut is common, but not vigorous. We 
have no edible hickories, but almost any amount of 
'bitternuts. Would shagbark hickory seedlings grow, or 
would it be better to graft on bittemut stock? Would 
any other nut offer even a good experimental propo¬ 
sition under our conditions of soil and climate? 
Skaneateles, N. Y. w. G. 
T HE growing of edible nuts as suggested by W. G. 
is increasing on the farms throughout New 
York. The most successful varieties at present seem 
to be the shagbark hickory, the butternut and the 
English walnut. In Madison County the hickory and 
butternut thrive, but it is too cold for the English 
walnut. At Weedsport, just west of Syracuse, how¬ 
ever, English walnuts planted five years ago are in 
bearing. We had very feAV of either of these varie¬ 
ties this season, as the frost killed the tender fruits. 
It is no longer advisable to plant the chestnut in 
New York State, because of the chestnut blight or 
Endothia canker. This disease, which was first 
found in New York City in 1004, has spread in all 
directions, and threatens to eliminate the native 
chestnut from our diet. I have seen chestnut groves 
in New Jersey where every tree was bare of foliage, 
while the surrounding beeches, poplars and elms 
were green Avith foliage. No relief has been found 
from this disease, which has spread more rapidly 
than any other tree disease ever known. 
Hickories can be transplanted to the farmstead, 
though not as successfully as our common, rapid- 
groAving trees, the willoAvs, poplars and elms. The 
simplest method of propagation is to take the ripe 
nuts and plant them within a few weeks after gath¬ 
ering. Some growers mix the nuts with sand and 
light soil and bury them in the ground, planting the 
seeds in a permanent position in the Spring. In the 
nursery, the trees are grown in rows, dug at the 
end of the first year and transplanted, thus break¬ 
ing the tap-root, causing it to branch. The trees are 
generally sold as tAvo or three-year-old trees. 
Walnuts are also propagated most readily from 
seed, proving most successful when planted soon 
after ripening and before the seed coat shrivels. 
These varieties can be grafted by removing a girdle 
or square of bark from a seedling and inserting a 
bud on a piece of bark the same size, but this prac¬ 
tice requires an expert to make it successful. Seed¬ 
ling trees or nursery trees should be planted on the 
average farm. t. h. t. 
Sweet Clover and Stable Manure 
IIE Illinois Experiment Station has been, testing 
green Sweet clover against stable manure as 
fertilizer for corn. The Sweet clover Avas the old 
biennial sort and Avas seeded as a cover crop in the 
Fall. When about a foot high in the Spring it was 
plowed under on a field Avhere, alongside, about 15 
■tons to the acre of strawy manure was used. In 
these tests the Sweet clover eo\ T er crops gave better 
yields than the manure. Of course the manure con¬ 
tained more nitrogen, but we all know that only part 
of the nitrogen which is promptly available can help 
the crop. This active form of nitrogen is known as 
nitrate nitrogen—nitrates being the form in which 
nitrogen is prepared by decay to serve as plant food. 
The point is that the green Sweet clover decayed in 
the soil at once, while the straAV manure was much 
slower. Sweet clover, Avhen plowed under before it 
becomes too hard, decays rapidly in the soil, and 
thus is one of the most useful of all manurial crops. 
It is superior to manure for quick action. That is 
one reason why Ave think the new Hubain clover will 
be a Avonderful help on Eastern farms and gardens. 
