Norwich bulletin., 1909-09-18
4 FARMERS TALK TO FARMERS
Letter PIeases the Farmer-What One Gardener Don't Know-Flower Growing in Agriculture Contrary Re suits of Seasonable Experiments combinations of Fertilizer-The Whipple Corn Leads the Famous .Eyergreen-A Word About Asparagus.


 | drouth, and these by weeks of violent | ly fiuctuating temperature. During ] the last month we've had, here, days | of parboilng heat, with the mercury sizzling around 9s degrees in the shade, and days the same week which were
 so cool I had to wear my sweater to
 keep warm while at work Since Au-
 gust first we've had three nights so stitngly hot that sleep was impossible,
 outside the ice box, and a dozen or fifteen nights so cold that thick quilts
 were in demand. Three mornings
 running, the first week in September,
 my thermometer stood at 35 degrees,
 and my corn and beans and cucumbers
 and squashes and peppers and toma-
 death that they've stopped growing.
 It's all they can do to keep alive, to
 say nothing of fruiting. Yet, as told
 you, some weeks ago, I find a few
 crops, five in all, coming better than
 they ever did before with me. What's
 sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, evidently.
 My truck patch is mostly loamy, shading off in some places into a more or less gravelly deposit. The teach ing of others and my own observation led me to believe that, in these grav- ely portions, at least, nitrogen was lacking. I have striven to supply it. in measure by blowing under all the humus making material I could. This sea son I determined to try a commercial fertilizer high in nitrates. So I bought some from prominent New England maker. Its analysis shows that it is very high in nitrogen content and well up in phosphorus and potash, as well, all in the most soluble and quickacting forms. It cost me for fertilizer, freight, hauling and applying about $50 a ton. Well, I've tried it in all sorts of ways and all sorts of combinations.
 In connection with four tons of rot ted stable manure I used four hundred pounds of it on scant fifth of an acre of asparagus. That's at the rate of twenty tons of manure and one ton of fertilizer to the acre. And I've had the biggest and best asparagus I aver had or ever saw. I put it, at the same rate ans with the same proportion of stable manure, on my onion bed, and the onions began to rust and had to be pulled before they were three quar- ters grown. put the fertilizer at the same rate without any stable manure on my carrot and beet bed, and am going to have a fine crop. Similar treatment of my melon patch has re- suited in practical failure. For early potatoes I used the fertilizer alone, at the rate of a thousand pounds to the acre. Result. the poorest yield I've had of years For corn, I used four hun dred pounds to the acre on one patch, fertilizer alone. It was the very worst corn l ever saw. Stunted growth, i'm perfect ears, niggard yield. Another patch with stable manure plowed un- der and hen manure in the hill, no fertilizer, is good average crop as to stand, but just three weeks later than treated with heavy application of COW manure at each plant and three times repeated doses of fertilizer, hood | in between the rows, has given me a | very poor yield of fruit, about two | weeks late. Another patch given a 1 single application of fertilizer at set- i ting time, shows vines fairly loaded | with green fruit. but at least four | weeks late. Now, can you make head | pr tail' of that sort of thingZ I can't. | The only certainty I have is that | do not know several things thought | last spring I did know. That tends | to humility, but hardly to financial | profit.
 By the way, speaking of corn, the | one variety which has, on the whole. l done the best with me, this un-corn- | like season, is the 'Whipple." origin. ated right in Norwich. It has shown | the most vitality in withstanding un- | favorable conditions, has developed | big ears of first class quality, compar- | atfvely early, and certainly seems to | me the most promising of any new variety I've tried in ten years. It has | come on, with me, a little later than Cory or Golden Bantam, but earlier | than any other mid d-season va riety and with ears as big and kernals | as sweet as Evergreen, which it has | beaten by more than two weeks. on | even terms of planting and care On | a little, late planted patch half Whip | pie and half Evergreen. both planted In three foot rows, one foot apart in | the row, solely with the idea of rais- Ing" fodder" the ''Whfpple" is now bearing fine roasting ears while the | Evergreen is not yet even showing silk.
 Just one other word about asparaqus; wrote, early in the season, that the sour spring weather had hurt it bad y and it was hardly half a crop. This was exactly true, at the time. but. even while ! was writing that, the weather was changing and the later turned out something phe- l Moreover, the after-growth )f greenery produced since cutting vas stopped, has been sight I have ,ne stalk which measures nearly ten eet in height, and another which is 'hree and seven- -eights inches around It the ground. We consider that some asparagus!
 THE FARMER.