Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-05-04
FARM AND ORCHARD.
WHO HAS THE BEST PLAN FOR A
HEy-HOUSEs
Valuable Information About Plant.
ing P0tatoes-Curled Leaf
on Peach Trees.

on Peach Trees.
A correspondent asks the RECORD UNION
to give him some ideas as to the best plan
upon which to construct hen-house suit
able to the climate of the foothills. Will
some of our successful poultry -raisers send
US the result of their experience? We
shall be glad to make this department of
the paper one of value to farmers, horti-
culturists and vineyardists, bat we do
not pretend to be an infallible authority
on all matters pertaining to their business.
If farmers and fruit-growers will write
their experience they can be of great serv-
ice to their fellow-men and aid in the
building up and proper development of the
State.
POTATO GROWING.
d. B. Harrington, writing to the Wis
consin Ag1culturist, gives the following
very valuable information: Preparation
of the seed is essential. This consists in
planting nothing but fully developed, per-
feet tubers, cut according to approved
methods. When we deposit these cuttings
in the ground we do not plant the true
seed, and the product is only reproduc-
tion of the same tuber, and is the same in
effec. as in-breeding of animals. That is
why varieties run out or deteriorate, so
that in few years the best kinds are no
longer worth planting. To prevent this
deteriorating as much as possible, we aim
to keep up the blood through treatment of
the seed
Sin cutting, l adopt standard to which
all pieces are sized. The aim of the
grower is to raise crop, even in size, free
from deformities, and at the same time
reach the highest yield. Small potatoes
are of little account One hundred
bushels to the acre, with fifty bushels I'M
salable, is really only fifty bushels per
acre. My effort has been directed singly
to this point, to obtain an even-size
yield, without an oyergrowth or an IN
dergrowth, and after twenty-five years of
study, labor and experimenting, l am
convinced that this is the only true
method. Commencing at the stem end,
cut to the heart of the potato, two eyes to
each piece, and all the pieces of size as
nearly as possible, rejecting the seed end.
While the seed end will grow and pro-
duce, it works great mischief. The cluster
Of eyes on the seed end, numbering from
five to eight, will all grow. Each eye
represents cluster of tubes numbering
five or six, making in all about forty
tubes subsisting on the one piece of parent
flesh, only large enough to feed five or six.
The result is, that two or three
of the most advanced and vigorous will
consume the greater part of the parent
flesh, leaving the balance to starve. These
in consequence become stunted, or dwarfed,
and ripen premature. In this condition
they remain in the ground until quickened
by friendly shower, when they put out a
second gro with in the shape of warts, crooks,
prongs, or an elongation equally as bad.
Any portion of those deformed tubers will
impregnate the seed with bad blood, and
these deformities will be likely to show
themselves each year more marked. Farm
ers must learn to treat their potato seed with
the same care that they do their seed
wheat, seed corn or seed animals if
they would become successful growers.
Where superfluous eyes are in the
way, cut tucm Out anu THROW tnem
away. Cut to standard size all the pieces,
whether whole tuber will make two or
ten pieces. These pieces being all of a
size, planted alike, fed alike and cultivated
alike will produce alike-the desirable,
even-size crop. This is what we term
seed treating"
RATIoNs FOR STOCK.
By the bounty of Congress, experimental
stations are to be, all over the United
States, filled with the best and most
learned chemists and scientists. They
will naturally, and probably very correctly,
tell the farmers what are the best rations
for each class of stock on the farm. They
will tell us that it is necessary to feed bran,
oil meal, corn fodder and hay, etc. But
would it not be better for Professors to tell
the farmers now to use to the best advant-
age what they do and can raise on their
farms? No matter how much philosophy,
chemistry, sociology or heterogeneous agents
they may hurl at the farmers, they will
feed what they can raise. They will not,
and should not, haul to market and sell
their corn to be skinned by Chicago scoun-
drels, and then buy and haul back to their
farms oil meal, bran or any heterogeneous
or albuminoid foods They will not haul
and pay freight both ways, and lose the
middlemens profits ON both articles. Bran
is scarce in Iowa, and will grow more 30
year by year. Oil meal is dear, and the
mills are frequently long distance from
the farmer. But fiaxseed can be raised on
| any farm, so can oats. The object there
fore should be to educate farmers how
these things can be profitably raised on the
farm and be best and most profitably used
for stock, instead of insisting on such food
as the farmers will never procure when
corn, clover, hay and oats can be so easily
and cheaply raised. Let us have practical
sense at our experimental stations to rec
| ommend improved ways of using what we
have. 1t is the only way they can be use.
full to the country and the only way they
can gain the confidence of practical farm.
ers.-Des MONIES Register.
RECOMMENDED FOR cURLED LEAF.
The following spray or wash is strongly
recommended as a remedy or cure for
curled Leaf on the peach tree. We
hope that a number of our peach growers
in different sections of the State will give
it a careful trial: Dissolve one pound Of
blue stone (sulphate of copper in four
gallons of hot water; when cold, add one
pint of commercial ammonia; to this add
sixty gallons of water" Peach trees sub.
ject to "curled leaf should be sprayed
| with this mixture or wash while in bloss.
ON, or while the blossoms are falling. Bet.
ter results would be obtained by spraying
couple of weeks before the trees blossom
and then again just after the blossoms fall
This spray or solution should be applied
under as great pressure as possible and
with very fine spray nozzle, throwing 8
mist on the tree and foliage with consid.
cradle force. 1t is said that this wash ap.
piled as above will destroy the germ.
which cause "curled Leaf" on peaches
California Fruit Grower.
FERTILIZING FOR FRUIT TREES.
Those who are planting out orange
orchards should consider carefully the
need and cost of fertilizing within two oil
three years after their trees are planted
The home Of the orange is not upon the
rich loan lands where corn and alfalfa are
wont to thrive. 1t is not along the deer
river bottoms where the peach will beal
for years without the aid of manure, but il
is rather upon sandy and rocky land, OIL
land that has a large proportion Of clay
and sand. This soil is not rich for frui
and vegetables like the river bottoms but
it is warm and freer from frost than thos,
| lands vet this reddish CLAW Soil ic nor ,