The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-11-17
FARM NOTES.
Edited by John c. Edgar, Duval, to whom al
communications for this column shouu DC u
dressed
THE LATEST FRAUD.

Stltut6 tOr COHe6 HlSuly oAuoh0u W
one G. f. Cole of Buckner, Mo-, and
described by him as ''new and won
derful product" The plant was said
to be OF easy growth and very prolific,
yielding from fifty to sixty bushels OF
berries to the acre, which, when
purched and ground, supplied a bev-
erage 80 much like coffee that very
acute taste was required to detect the
difference.
This valuable plant was called by
its boomer "Cole's Domestic Coffee
Berry, and offered for sale at the
modest price of twenty-five cents per
1OOseeds, or $3.50 per pound, if pur-
chased in large quantities. Novelties
are proverbially high priced
and progressive people pay ungrudg.
ingly for anything that gives promise
of good results.
Doubtless many have responded to
Coles alluring advertisement and got
his "novelty" at several hundred per
cent more than it's actual market
value.
The plant is possibly as valuable as
he describes 1t and may make good
substitute for coffee, but the fraud lies
in his naming of it and the outrageous
price charged.
Prof. X. J. Redding, director of the
Georgia experiment station, has ex-
posed the fraud and written that the
much doomed "coffee berry" is simply
The Japan pea or SOFA hispida, COM
monty known as the Sofa bean.
/ have cultivated the bean and it is
ny productive and nutritious,
both for human and animal
food, but seed can be bought
at So per bushel.
Prof. Plumb of the Indiana station
writing on the same subject says
"We have been growing sofa beans
this season on an experimental plat.
AS green crop, the seasons expert
ence would not warrant recommend
ing it to Indiana farmers, as the plant
only attained height of fifteen
inches and was not very stocky. AS
forage plant 1 wish to give it further
trial here before passing Judgment on
it. Sofa beans, however, are worthy
of notice from another standpoint.
Last year. an intelligent farmer in
this county came to me with samples
of the bean rosted as for coffee
He stated that he had used
them for uo.r this n purpose pose TOR for
family enjoyed drink from this
source, He gave me some of his
roasted beans and we ground them
and used them in our family coffee
pot, and found them very agreeable.
SHELLS and without doubt drink from
| 10 rtrit
one from either coffee or cocoa shells
Many substitutes for coffee are used
and deem this the best yet brought
to my attention.
If our farmers would plant q small
piece of ground to, sofa beans and al
lew the seeds to ripen in the pods be-
fore threshing and after they have be-
come we'll dried, roast them, / feel
sure that many of them would have
better and more wholesome drink
than from the poor grades of coffee
beans 80 often sold to those who can
not discriminate quality in coffee.
HORTICULTURAL.
The farmer who plants few apple
or pear trees or ten or dozen grape
vines, will probably not have much
fruit to sell, but when they come into
bearing he will have the best food for
his family that the largest capitalist
in the world longs for and cannot surS
pass. His profits may not come in
the selling, but it WILL surely come in
the added pleasure to his family and
their better health. The more good
fruit We have the better our health,
the higher our enjoyment, the better
our temper and the less necessity is
felt for the doctor and his medicine
By all means have an ample supply
of fruit on the farm as well as on your
own table.
The Jasper Golden Russell pear is as
much curiosity, in so far as shape Is
concerned, as the peen to among
peaches. 1t is scarcely more than two
inches and half in diameter from the
stem to the calyx, while it is nearly
one-third more in diameter, measured
alright angles. 1t fruits very early
and abundantly and the fruit is val
ned for culinary use. 1t is claimed
that its thick tough, leathery leaves
adopt the tree to dry, hot climates
where the ordinary kinds cannot live.
A writer in the New York Tribune
relates his experience with hardwood
ashes applied to peach trees. He has
two peach trees of the same variety
standing twenty-four feet apart in
sod. Both bore full crops last season
and both blossomed full this year.
Two bushels of hard wood, unleached
ashes were spread under one, out as
far as the branches extended; but
none under the other. The former
bore this season two bushels of large,
well-colored fruit, and the latter but
twenty-three small, inferior, uncol-
ored specimens.
p. j. Berckmans the we'll known
fruit grower says that 'rosette" that
dreadful enemy to peach and plum
trees, has of late years appeared !
throughout many sections of the
South, and unless the utmost vigilance
is practiced, disastrous results to the
peach growing industry will follow.
The disease appears in the spring and
in affected trees the leaves assume a
yellow and sickly appearance, are