Middletown transcript., 1908-06-20
FARM NEWS AND VIEWS

| ~SHS AASGSIc au0 W6eQS. constant
cultivation of the crops will keep the
weeds at bay, and the use of sprays de-
stroy insects. But all this means hard
and continual work.
1t is not too late to sow for the first
planting, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash,
muskmelon. Nor to sow late cabbage
and caulifower; nor to set out tomato,
egg plant and pepper plants. Ever
green corn planted early this month
will come in for use in September, and
that planted toward the end of the
month should be ready by October. -
For succession, plant beans evey ten
days. the black seeded varieties resist.
Sow beets for winter use. Sow
endive three times this month. En-
dive is considered the natural hot-Weather
substitute for lettuce.
In the fruit garden cultivate the trees
and bushes, and apply wood ashes. Trim
out all old and dead wood of bushes,
train the rest and pinch out tips of young
shoots when two and half feet high.
This will give more compact bushes next
year.
F.. Once or twice this month all the fruit
trees and berry bushes should be sprayed
with the Bordeaux -arsenate compound,
but never while the trees are in bloom.
1t is good plan to go over the squash
and pumpkin vines, and cut out all
long, rank runners and all poor, sickly-
looking fruit. This will add strength to
the remainder, producing larger speci.
mems. Try planting the Hubbard squash
the middle of this month, choos-
ing spot where no similar crop
has recently been grown; and you are
very apt to escape the black squash bugs.
1t is said that Darwin spent 80 years of
his life in studying the earthworm. He
found it blind, deaf and dumb. He dis
covered that while it lives in the cold,
dark earth it knows, how better than man,
to plow the ground so that all the green
things can grow. 1t helps huge trees by
plowing the ground, turning it over and
Iosening it up so that light and air and
sunshine and rain can get into it. These
earthworms cast up piles of earth and the
longer they work the thicker layers grow,
until they form a vegetable mold. Nearly
every bit of this vegetable mold has been
through the worms, and the soil where
this mold is found is finer, darker and
richer. 1t is finer because it has been
ground up by the little stones in the
worms gizzard. 1t is darker and richer
for having been mixed with juices and
dead leaves in the worms body.
The following are cheap insecticides
and come highly recommended:
Dissolve two chunks of common white
wash lime for each pail of water used,
and add small teaspoonful of copperas
in powdered form. Sprinkle this mixture
freely on all growing plants and on the
ground around them, and it will kill all
kinds of plant lice and insects except cab
bage worms, striped beetles, white grubs
and potato bugs. A handful of fine dust
from the middle of the street sprinkled
on the cabbage settles the worms.
Boiling water into which is placed
scraped soap and little kerosene, when
applied around squash or cucumber vines
never failed to kill the yellow bug.
London purple is cheaper than paris
green, and does the same work in killing
potato bugs.
Lime and ashes, mixed with water and
poured on the ground, causes the white
grub to curl up for the last time. Poured
on manure piles. it kills fly-eggs and
many embryo insects.
A new Jersey farmer says that chop
ping wood will be made easier and with
better progress, if the cutting is done
mostly with the inside corner of the az.
Here is rule that will generally hold
good in setting the time for planting
in the North. 1t is worth cutting out
and saving. When the peach tree is in
bloom, plant peas. When the cherry
tree blooms, SOW peas, spinach, lettuce,
corn, salad, onion sets, asparagus roots.
When the pear tree blooms, plant
all of the above as we'll as radish, cell
cry, carrot, beet, mustard, onion
seed, parsley, tomato seed, cabbage,
parsnip, When theapple tree blooms,
plant all of the above and satisfy, beans
corn, cucuumbers, MELONS, pumpkin and
okra.
The value of nitrate OF soda applied to
barnyard miIlet at the New Jersey ex-
pertinent station was stated by the
experimenters as follows: Amount ap-
piled, 100 pounds per acre; yield untreated
acre, 7.63 tons, treated acre, 1888 tons;
gain by use of nitrate, 5.75 tons; per
cent. OF gain, 75.4; value of gain, at %
per ton, $17.25; cost of nitrate per acre,
So. 60; net gain per acre by use of nitrate
over cost, $13.65. The crop was seeded
on June Is on well-fertilized land at the
rate of three -fourths bushels of seed per
acre, after crop of oat and pea forage
had been harvested, which averaged
six tons per acre. The nitrate was ap-
piled soon after the plants, were well
rooted and capable of absorbing
food rapidly. Harvesting began August
13.
Some farmers apply common salt to
their radish patches and claim that they
have fewer wormy radishes.
Peaches and plums should be thinned
out before the "June DROP is over, and
also the danger of depreciation by the
curculo is past.
In the case of peaches they should never
be thinned to less than five inches apart.
Six or eight inches is recommended when
the finest quality of the fruit is desired.
Plums should be thinned to about the