The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1883-01-18
at evening, or during cold, cloudy days, as st
such times the worms are in their tent.
NOTES AND EXTRACTS.
Digest of information Collected From Various


Something has been said about the use OF
ordinary salt IS a fertilizer. One important
Office Of the salt is to make soluble and conse-
Quentlv useful in the plant, the materials al
ready locked up. as it were, in the soil. Sup
posing you have been putting on barnyard
manure and other fertilizers. Some OF the
nutritive materials, as for instance potash and
phOsphoTic acid, may perhaps have been taken
up by the soil, and remain there IN difficult
soluble condition. Furthermore, there are in
the soil some Of these ingredients that were in
the original rock of which the soil is made
up, and are still, so to say, locked up. or, in
other words, still remain in an insOluble form
therein. One effect of salt. as is the case often
times with gypsum and lime, is to set loose
that potash as phosphoriC acid. You must OK
peCt, therefore, in putting on salt that It's
chief use viii be, not as a direct nutriment TO
the plant, but rather rs a means Of setting
other materials loose; and salt is very useful
on this account, because it IS not readily OBJ
served in the upper layers Of the soil, but often
teaches through into the layers; and 1t will
have the effect of setting these materials Tree
all the way down.-Prcf. At~Gter.
PRUNING TO PROMOTE FRUITFULNEss.
practical gardener makes the following
important statement: " Last year, rs a test of
n frequent practice among growers of melons
and squashes [ pinchCd the ends of the long,
main shoots of melons, squashes and cucum-
bers, and left some to run at their own will.
One squash plant sent out a single stem, reach
ing more than forty feet, but did not bear any
fruit. Another plant was pinchcd until it
formed q compact mass Of intermingling side
shoots eight feet square, and it bore sixteen
squashes. The present year, muskmelon
plant thus pinched in, covers the spot allotted
to it, and it has set twenty-three specimens of
fruit. The pinching causes many lateral
branches, which latter produce the female or
fertile blossoms, while the main vines produce
only the male blossoms. The difference in
favor of the yield of an acre of melons treated
by the pinching process may easily amount to
100 barrels"
HIGH CULTURE.
Study not how far plants Will endure poor
cultivation, but how far it will pay TO carry
high culture and fertilization; there is a limit
in this direction. Every mans farm, every
mans circumstances and peculiar location must
become personal problem, which no book, 10
journal, no counsellor can solve so well as the
owner, yet much help and many valuable sug-
gcstions can often be given by persons of less
capaCiey or less experience. We never talked
with man Of common sense without carrying
away some thought experience, or suggestion
that has aided us in future work. The man
who is all-suticient in himself, who cares moth
ing for the ideas of others, and believes his
methods cannot be improved, Is painfully and
disaStrously Geluded. We need confidence in
ourselves, but it should be the confidence that
lays hold of what is profitable in others eXpe-
rience, and makes it available in forwarding
our own enterprises.-Greess Fruit Grorer.
CABBAGE CATERP1LLARs.
writer in the Fruit Recorder makes the
statement that one of the neighbOTS planted
some cabbage plants among his corn where the
corn missed, and the butterflies did not find
them. He has therefore come to the conclusion
that if the cabbage patch were in the middle of
the corn field the butterflies would not find
them, as they fly low and like plain sailing.
POTATO CULTURE.
An Ohio correspondent tells the Cleveland
Herald that repeated experiment and long OBJ
servation have satisfied him that fat culture OF
potatoes not only requires less labor than hill
ing, but produces heavier crops of equally good
quality, and this whether the season be wet
or dry.
THE BARLEY CROP.
There has been a small increase of area, en-
larging to breadth slightly above two million
acres, and an average yield has been obtained,
making crop Of not less than forty-five mil
lion bushels, yet the supply does not suffice for
home consumption. Though a small export
trade is carried on, the importation IS larger by
millions of bushels. The percentage of the sup
ply that is imported is greater than the percent
age of any cereal product exported, wheat only
excepted.
The average yield per acre of barley for a
series Of years has been found to be twenty-five
bushels; it was greater in 1871, 1873, 1873, 1879
and 1880 and less in intervening years. 1t is
nearly twenty-thrce the present year.
California, New York, and Wisconsin furnish
more than half the acreage, and with Iowa,
Minnesota, and Nebraska exceed three-fourths.
Very little IS grown in lhe South, usually, and
the increase the present year is very small.
1t is a noticeable fact that the only cereal of
which the United States never produces q sup
ply for home consumption is the one which
yields higher value per acre than any other
The average yield and value per acre for eleven
years, from 1871 to 1881, inclusive, is thus COM
paratiyeIy presented: