The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-17

A Visit to One of the New Yovk Ex- pertinent Stations.
 A visit was recently made to one of the New York Experiment Stations
 that is located at Geneva. It must De said here that the State of New York l maintains two agricultural experiment | stations, all of the support of one and ! the greater part of the support of the other being from State, An1 not na- | tional, funds. At the Geneva Experi- l ment Station no teaching whatever is done, but twenty-two persons are kept busy Investigating agricultural ques- | tions. The income of this one station | furnished by the State and used exclu- sivsly for analytical and investiga- tional work, is larger than the total .n- come on which the Alabama Polytech- mic Institute supports nearly score of departments of instruction and maintains the Alabama Experiment Station.
 One of the largest pieces of work, now in hand by the New York Geneva Station is the investigation of varie- ties of apples. Several experts nave been at work for a number of years on this subject and the results are to be published as two large. finely H. lustrated volumes, which will consti- ute complete manual on varieties Of apples tested in New York State. For
  bulletin the Legislature made a special
 and additional appropriation of $2o.- 900. One realizes why horticulture is made such large part of the work of this station when one flrds that this is one of the largest agricultural indus tries of New York State and that Ge- neva is in the midst of the fruit belt From this town of Geneva were shipped last season more than three h.rn nf Ch present the cherry trees are reddened with tempting fruit. Apple orchards stretch out into hundreds of acres and r. variety of other fruits are grown. The strawberry season is just closing and the raspberry season just begin ming.
 The State has provided the most suit able and commodious of buildings for the station at Geneva, among them ! being the science building for the study of plant diseases, horticulture, dairying and entomology; the admins trative building; the chemical labora- tory; the cold storage building; the stock barn, costing about $14.000, and I storage barn, and the poultry houses. Poultry investigations constitute one of the leading lines of popular work. Dairying also constitutes one of the chief lines of work. In dairying the investigation is of a strictly scientific nature and might seem to some farm | CTS to be too much so for practical | results. But the fundamental discov- cries that this station has made and is making in its scientific investiga- tions in cheesemaking will doubtlesC l eventuate in results as practical as | those that flowed from the laboratory | work of the Wisconsin station. from | which grew the Babcock test. the basis of the modern buttermaking in-
 dustry.
 j. F. D.
 Nitrate of Soda Applied in Midsummer. | A correspondent wishes to know
 whether 1t will pay to make an appli- | cation of nitrate of soda in July to l cotton that is about ready to lap in the l rows. In my opinion this is unneces-
 sary. in view of the large size of the
 plants. It might even do harm, too
 greatly increasing leaf growth and
 shade and thereby increasing boil rot,
 the scourge of cotton grown on rich
 land In my experience 1t pays to
 give fertilizers plenty of time to act. | Even nitrate of soda, soluable and l quickly available as 1t is. Is better ap-
 piled before the plant has reached l nearly half its growth. l am not in favor of the general application of ni- trate of soda in midsummer even ! thoush thC CottOH Oc OnG Spe- 1 cial use of nitrate of soda now is in the 1 garden to stimulate late corn or other plants desired to reach edible size | promptly. If 1t Is too late for best ef- | fleets from nitrate on cotton 1t is of i course too late to apply any other fer l tilizer to the same plants JED. l Cement Walks and Floors on Farms. | Many farm houses have no walks l them nnl U weedy paths lead to the front door and l to side porches. We should plan to l change these farm houses" into farm | homes. One of the best ways is to pro- vide permanent walksz-walks to the | well and to the front gate; walks to | the horse lot, as well as the garden | Gravel Is commonly thought to be the | best material for this use in the South | ern country, though sometimes crushed 1 rock is available. Brick would be more l freely used but for its responsiveness. | Neither of these materials makes a permanent walk. Hs
 | The cheapest and best material for | walks and certain floors Is a concrete, 1 mada of cement combined with gravel l or crushed rock, or crushed brick. and | covered with cement and sand topping l to give a durable finish. This same 1 material may be used to great advant-
 1 age as flooring for stalls in stables.
 dairies, granaries, etc. Such combina-
 | tions. or concretes, are much cheaper ! than Is comm only thought
 | Take one part of cement n f3va no rt a