The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-11-21
Questions Answered.

'COTlnIulaH SeDuS us tuc lOlloW-
ing queries:
/. What is the best manner of trim
ming new currant bushes,-in tree
form, several stalks to grow from the
ground?
2. Where old curraht bushes have
become thick, how many stalks should
they be trimmed down to, they being
set three feet apart in the rows.
3. What has been the result of your
experiments with " Floats " as a sup
ply of phosphate?
4. Is cotton-seed meal safe to feed
to pigs from two to five months old in
any quantity whatever, if fed with
shorts, apples, etc?
5. Is linseed meal fit TO feed to veal
calves, or other calves one month old
and over, which are being fed on skim
milk?
REPLY BY AGRICULTURAL Ed
1ToR.- Trimming a currant bush to
single stem, so as to form miniature
tree, is done rather as a matter of
fancy than profit. Such currant trees
are not nearly so productive as bushes
grown in the ordinary way; but they
have very neat appearance, and if
we'll cared for will have finer fruit. and
keep it more free from the dirt spat-
tered up by rains. The chief difficulty
to be encountered is in the work of the
currant borer. In the ordinary bush
form this insect rarely does serious mis-
chief; indeed it often does good in
thinning out too crowded bush. But
as the tree form has but one stem, when
that is killed by the borer another one
has to be trained up to take its place,
with loss of fruit in the mean time.
2. For the best results the stems
should be left not less than four or five
inches apart, the oldest ones being re-
moved in pruning. Practically, we con-
fess to having usually let the borers do
most of our pruning, as we find that in
rich land, kept free from weeds, the
fruit maintains its size and the bush its
productiveness sufficiently in that way.
3. While in our practice we have
found the flour-fne South Carolina
phosphate, called " floats" to be quite
as effective fertilizer as ground bone,
vet we sometimes fear that we have
committed an error in advising its use
by farmers generally. Floats supplies
absolutely nothing to the crop but phos-
phoric acid, and unless there is present
with it in the soil sufficient supply of
available nitrogen and potash, you may
put on floats in any quantity without
appearing to do any good. 1t is most
astonishing how hard it is to make the
average farmer understand this ele-
mentary fact. Quite number, reading
what we have written on the subject,
have undertaken to use the floats in
place of complete fertilizer; and these
nearly all report, and some have written
to the papers, that floats is absolutely
useless. This is gladly picked up by
fertilizer men, who make their money
not out of floats, but out of the mixed
fertilizer which goes by the name of
phosphate" and is printed with a
sneer at our "theoretical notions. -
This way of calling complete fertilizer
phosphate" has become so general
that it probably will never be corrected.
The fact is very much to be deplored,
for it confuses the minds of men des-
titute of chemical knowledge. The
floats" is phosphate and nothing
else; but the "phosphate' which is
commonly sold contains not only "phos-
phate," but also nitrogen and potash
making it complete fertilizer. No one
who understands this would ever think
of using floats alone upon land requir-
ing complete fertilizer. He must have
some heterogeneous material to go with
it, and usually some potash. The rea'
son why we buy and use floats and bone
is because we get our phosphoric acid
very much cheaper in that way. We
can also buy potash, in the form OF
ashes, close at home, much cheaper
than we can buy it in fertilizer; and
we can get nitrogen as cheap separately
as we can ready mixed. So, as a mat
ter of economy, we buy our material;
and use them, mixed or alone, accord
ing to the state of our soil and the kind
of crop. For instance, if we were seed
ing to clover, we should put on bone
or floats, with ashes, but no nitrogen
because clover is able to get all the nj
trogen that it needs from the subsoil
its roots going down four or five feet.
Another point in our practice is diff
ferent from that of most other farmers
We aim to keep our land manureC
ahead, so that we could grow two o
three crops before it would show sign
of needing more manure. Doing this