Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1889-05-15

euCe upon Cn0 or the
company introducing the machine.
Remember their interest is in an
other direction. l knew at one time
the exact expense and quantity of diff
tcrent oils used in the same mower in
cutting eighty acres, but cannot now re-
call it. No. l castor oil stood ahead.
=. See that your pitman rod is just the
right length 80 that when the sickle
| plays back and forth the sections lust
center the guards. Remember not all
new machines are adjusted when they
leave the shop, so that you will expert
ence no difficulty.
3. The guard plates on most machines
should be kept sharp by grinding or fl
ing.
4. Watch carefully the guards. If n
gets loose you may break a six-dollar
sickle.
5. Oil the important bearings, little
and often instead Of much and semi-oc-
~casionally. Do not go around a forty or
a twenty acre ielC without oiling the
upper and lower pitman heads twice.
Oil a new machine very often at the
outset.
6. Test all the burrs on all parts of
the machine to see hat they are tight,
and remember you ought to look
them yer quite often.
Z. See to it that the knives don't get
loose.
8 Do not oil where the k~nife-keepers
rest on the sickle. 1t don't do ny
good. Buy new knife-keepe-s often
enough SO that your sickle may be made
to play close to the guard plates, and
then you machine will do good work.
8. Do not 60 to sleep. Watch your
machine all the time.-J. N. Muncey IN
Practical Farmer.
The Fellows.
The Department of Agriculture has
sent out a thick bulletin upon the dis
ease of peach trees called the yellows.
Commissioner Colman deputed Erwin
+. Smith, b. &c., as a special agent to
investigate this disease, and he spent
many months in its study. He found
that the genuine peach yellows first ap-
peared in the vicinity of Philadelphia
prior to 1871, and that since that time
it has existed in some one or more To-
~calities in this country. It did not
reach Western New York until within
forty years, but has now extended west
ward from the Atlantic coast to the
Mississippi and southwark to Georgia.
1t gradually spreads out from the spot
where it first appears in any locality,
OoU 6p1CaOS Ii / ulOI0 IdDlOl
than southwark. The first cases are
always young trees bought to set out a
new orchard, carelessly procured from
some infected locality. Whenever in
troduced its virulence and destruction
are everywhere the same. 1t is absent
from the Gulf States, and from those
west of the Mississippi. Its symptoms
are always the same. The lruit ripens
too soon; the buds push too soon; the
stored starch and other materials Of
plant food are wasted in excessive
growth, like what are called water
sprouts In apple trees; a bud in the top
being pushed into growth very early,
and growing too fast and too large and
too long to look natural. If the tree
has peaches on it they begin to color
before reaching full growth; purple or
dark spots appear On them, and when
cut open these spots are found to ex-
tend TO the stone. The second year
there is less fruit, the peculiar dis
eased shoots continue to grow, the
leaves are more narrow than usual in
proportion to length, and are greenish
yellow, or even red, and look as If the
trees were suffering from drought.
These symptoms increase from year to
year, and the tree dies during the third
or fourth year. Niagara County peach
SIOWGIS are ldLIlllldI Will Inc dDDoaT-
nee OF the disease in all it's stages, and
when the peculiar appearance of such
trees has once been noticed by even a
casual observer, he never makes a mis-
take in Identifying it afterward.
Prot. Smith discusses the possible,
and the reputed causes of the disease,
but is frank to say that, aside from it's
being communicated from diseased to
healthy trees when planted near or
brought into contact, be can find no
certain cause, and hence noscure can be
commended or certain. Prof.. Peck, the
New York State botanist, has spent con-
siderable time in the study OF yellows,
and at first was rather disposed to attri-
butte it to some unnamed fungus, like
the well-known pear blight, but later
on he acknowledged that there was no
certainty about the matter. Prof.
Smith seems to have arrived at the
same conclusion. He says that, as
might be expected when a disease is so
unaccountable, there have been any
quantity of sure remedies published at
various times. Yard and commercial
are the one generally given,
indicating from their success that the
trees were suffering from the want of
suitable plant-food and not from the yell
lows. 1t has been found hat in a To-
CdAAGS WhO1O bhC yCllOW6 OAlCtS tdCIO lS
no known fertilizer or chemicalingredi-
emit that will cure the tree. Its life may
be prolonged, but it is sure to die in the
end. Inscriptions persons have made
and advertised a ''peach-yellow" reme-
dy, or "a peach-tree fertilizer that was
cure to cure, as there are always some
farmers 10 bite at such bats. These So
called remedies were even advertised
as ''germicides' and sure to kill the
germs which, they said, were the cause
of the dissemination OF the disease.
One thing is certain: II Prof. Smiths
researches failed to indicate the cause
of the disease, his report will do much
good in the way of preventing people
from wasting their money on any sup
posed remedies. AS he says, a remedy
that is absolutely certain cannot be pre-
scribed for a disease until the cause is
apparent. The only remedy so far as
known tor the peach yellows is the dig
ging up and burning of every diseased
tree and the culture of the ground in
some grain or grass crop for at least two
years before setting young healthy trees
in the place. This is a heroic remedy,
: - :.