The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-10
Talks with Farmesr


1t is we'll for buyers of alfalfa seed
to note the fact that the Department
of Agriculture has announced that
there is a great deal of poor seed on
the market, much of 1t being adulter-
ated with dead seed. Hence it is i'm
portant to buy seed from reliable par
! ties who test their seeds. Low priced
alfalfa and low priced clover seed are
always the most costly to buy.
| 1t seems hard to get increased funds
| for the Agricultural Experiment Sta
tons we already have, and yet we are
far behind Europe in this work. The
| United States has one Experiment Sta
| ton for every 61,535 square miles of
territory, while Belgium has station
! for every 1853 square miles. Texas has
| one Experiment Station, and Texas is
u per cent. larger than Germany and
| France with their ISL stations.
| One of the most valuable discoveries
of recent years is the fact that the air
| in the so-called malarial regions is
| just as pure and wholesome as air in
| other sections, and that the malarial
plasma is not carried in the air, but
in the surface water and by a certain
| kind of mosquitoes bred in stagnant
water. Prof. Boyce recently gave, at an
| entertainment in London, an account
of what the English have accomplish
ed at Ismailia, in Egypt, where in a
population of 5000 there were annual
| ly over 1000 cases of malarial fever
BY filling some marshy land around
| the town and using petroleum for the
destruction of mosquitoes, the malaria
cases were at once reduced to 200, and
| it is thought that Ismailia will soon
| become a sanitorium for Cairo instead
| of a fever breeding place. In this
| country there are numerous places on
the South Atlantic coast which form
erly had a reputation for malaria
| where now it has disappeared simply
| through the adoption of artesian wells
| in place of the former shallow ono S.
| Not all mosquitoes are malarial beS-l-
| ing ones. The malarial mosquitoes SEA-
| dom go far$from where they Deed,
| and if the surrounding pre- n IS are
! kept free from Stagnant water, or
| treated with oil where they cannot be
drained, we can keep paradvciy
| free from the pests III the country.
Every country resident should know
that fever and ague are preventable
by proper sanitary precautions.
The old notion that a winter of UNI
usual cold is followed by an early
spring promises to be completely eX-
ploded this year, for of all the late,
cold springs of recent years this has
been the latest. Frosts have been
common even in the South, all through
April, and how much longer they will
continue in the more Northern sec
tons of the country it is hard to say.
We have a letter, written by the
brother Of our great-grandfat from
Rowan County, N. c., in June, 1774, in
which it is stated that the frost in
May killed everything, and that on
the 18th of June the leaves were just
beginning to bud out again on the
forest trees. Hence it would seem that
there has been a favorable change In
the climate during the past more than
100 years
Eyerbearing Strawberry.
A year or SO ago one of the German
Stations published an account Of a
fine everbearing strawberry called the
"EVerbearing Grecian Vineyard Straw
berry" IT was said to grow best in
the shade of trees and vines, and was
wonderfully prolific and bore all sum-
mer, each plant producing 81 worth of
fruit during the season. We would
like to know if any of our enterprise
ing nurserymen have gotten hold of
this variety? Who knows anything
about it?
Not a Criticism.
We have received letter from
Prof. w. j. Spillman, who has charge
Of the farm diversification work of
the Department of Agriculture, who
seems to think that our recent mott &c
of the work was personal reflection
on him. This editor did not know
who had charge of this work, and
the remarks were in no sense a criti-
clsm of any one, but simply the eX-
preston of hope that this important
move In the Department would get
INTO the proper hands be a real sue
cess. Prof. Spillman has our best
WlSheS for the success of the work he
is in charge of, and we hope that no
mistakes will be made in th. men di.
rectly in the management of the work,
for no work that has over bpel. plal-
ned by the Department of Agriculture
can be made of greater help to tie
farmers, especially in the cotton belt,
where a properly planned and eyeolt-
ed diversification will work wonders.
Our remarks were only the expression
of fear that the work might posi-
bly, get into impractical hands.
Spraying to Kill Weeds.
We would call especial attention to
the bulletin of Cornell Experiment
Station on spraying to kill weeds. 1t
Will be noted that the spraying with
copper sulphate does not hurt cereal
grains nor grasses but kills a variety
of weeds including ragweed. Now we
often get queries as to the destruction
OF weeds. Recently one reader wrote
about chick-weed, and we are pretty
sure that the copper sulphate spray
VIII Kill chick-Weed and recommend
him to try it. In our own case we do
not object to chick-weed except on
the lawn, and there the solution can
be used. In vacant places in the gar
den the chickweed comes up here in
the fall and grows all winter. making
a very efficient soil cover. Then in the
spring we ploN it 1lndn,. aud there