The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-06-30

Live Wire From Australia l There Is real live wire in the l United States today, all the way across 1000 miles of water separat- l ing us from Australia. And would l you believe it, it is woman, yes. l just a plain woman. Her mission is
 not to learn jazz, the secret charms 1 of the flapper, how to bob the hair
 or how to control league of women voters. She did not bring a question:
 Daire with her to enlbarrass the free 1 born American citizen, but made 1t l known that her mission was to seeks
 information on agricultural topics. 1 When she visited Chicago, dis I tlnguished group of business men wanted to show her the art institute, | the grand opera, the magnificent
 parks, the huge hotels, beautiful res l idences and boulevards, all of which were declined What this lady did
 want to see, and the main purpose
 of her visit to Chicago, was the Union Stock yards. Australia is vi- 1 tally interested in catle and agricul- turaI pursuits, both her women and men. and she Is not wasting her
 energies in political turmoil. We Americans can learn a lot from our
 foreign friends, enemies too.
 Farming Strenuous Life
 l vaguest conception of the life led i by the truck grower. Every once
 in while. the city man buys a truck farm to show the poor, ignora mt professional how to grow vegetables
 and sell them at a profit. He puts
 a tenant on the place, goes to great l expense in buying farm animals. ma 1 chinery, tools and other up-to-date | appliances, then he blows himself for |. ( l and waits for the money to roll in. But In some way, the money always
 seems to be rolling out instead of | in, until finally he decides that he | better stick to the business he knows. Most of the truck farms around Bir- l mingham are located a good many
 miles out of the city, so that the l daily program of the average trucker 1 to be understood, must be related:
 He must arise about 2:30 a. m, hitch
 up and get his load to market by f
 a. m. The market is over by or l o'clock. and then he must hurry l home, because the animals and him. l self are needed for blowing. In ;hc | evening he must gather his produce and prepare it for market before it
 is dark He must go to bed early
 to get up again at 2:30 a. m. This l is the daily program and yet some
 think farming is not strenuous | game.
 Selling off the Plant Food
 1 Do you realize that when you sell any farm produce that you are sell l ing fertilizer or plant food off the ! land? When you have a sum of money and keep drawing on 1t with
 out putting any back does it grow! Most all fortunes have been accumu- lated by gradual additions to the | principal and the conservation of same. You cannot keep on taking from anything without final exhaus- 1 tion. So how do you expect your l land to keep on producing profitable crops without putting something back in the shape of those elements l the crops remove. Nature has its own secret way of restoring soil fer tility but we should not forget that | even nature can make good use of
 kelp. Your attention Is called to this
 because 1t Is yet time to plant COW peas. one of the most reliable soil builders we have. An animal or l human excites our pity when We 1 know they hunger, but what about the faithful land that has served | mankind so faithfully in the past
 Yes, even sentiment ought to man | fest itself. but common sense is be.- ter. and 1t takes 1t to conserve the
 land.
 Questions and Answers
 0. The leaves of my hydrangeas l are covered with a whitish powder and the foliage turns black and de- | cays. What could use to check? I
 have a lot of small Irish potatoes
 that I want to plant for fall crop,
 how should trey be planted? Mrs. T. D. S., Ralph.
 A. Dust hydrangea all over, both sides of leaves. with sulphur, repeat lat week intervals until trouble sub sides-a better remedy would be spray of one ounce each copperas and dry lime sulphur to a gallon water. Cut the small new potatoes in two 1 pieces, bed out in sand like sweet po- tatoes. eye up. Cover about an inch with sand and keep wet. They should Ibegin to sprout in ten days, take up then and plant in the usual way. c. I want to try my hand at growing mushrooms. How do you make the beds, what fertilizer do you
 use and when do you plant Mrs. E. S. | "A. Space would not permit of all
 the details necessary to make the di-
 rections comprehensive. would ad-
 wise you to write to the department
 of agriculture. Washington. D. C.. for a free bulletin on the subject I might advise you to start in small
 way as experience is the best guide. 1 o. What Is the proper time to l plant winter radishes. want to plant the Svhite. the red and the black VI