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Chap.2=_.- Copyright No.____-- shelf.za.© UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | San 1 : = Hin Bh, Ls i he - a “ i ae on . a rn ae: : a ; — wD ay 6) ee ay baie - ay 7 as an oh >. - tah oe i " may) i : le c a on a te a 1 serve) : ie -. a) ~. 7 oe hes Bui ; rf a , © : ae Pars er ve 7 ae a ie i ee ; a an ; , an ab’ ib aL ya, aia a ar | - m ot: N pal wal ro A a toil uit li 7 i“ | a oh. aN 4 ee). ih) i eh he, a Fe ~~ 1 ae ee y? : e3 ai +} oo ©, os cv) ' >) ae 1 Bi nl -_ " : ‘ a ih > rh f a an my nN ‘i rs i ay A J ee aku : Ag f ath ’ i” ‘ Sr @ ae ™ WMA 3 - a = wh : eg ‘ mt} | fi Pn poy ae ie : 1@ Ye iis ce \ Us ny i «f : 2 ; as My ie 7 . ‘ Vy, vil» ", By 4 a] on “a ‘ ‘ 7 ” ‘ a , ak ae ‘ , . 7 i wae eee See Lg ia a) _ » re) ‘ ay. rey " AG ° The 4 > ae ‘a ee oy Vie “Se if i | ry : ae Winey? ; a, f ae i witli t ‘ey ai rs - oi 7 a a n ry - ie + os 6 : ay Aa a _ TS i a ae mA, ia 7 7 ; a ms, Lal =) : oy cal oh F 4 7 : -— a on er) aie i's 7 : i ie : - a3 Lal io My Dies Mae fa of - - Ve) : ies + 7 oe 1) i : eg “i ) x if a ; me ay biG - a i oT) he ae i ee 7 ue ¥ Da ne Pe 2% - a) Hy! : My he ae | ae ri, “ a 7 . Noy : im i Pim ane ; : my Bs oa a 7 - 4 : > A iby ios vee li Me . ras a * ie 7 ‘aan re Ay tier tanta ebay | j 7 . " « nee as Ni a vi “i au: se ue, 7 : 7 ™ ra i. ac : : wy Va Pu fh U win o a bey 4 cy, an avn son? 44 i 4 ae . er - ‘oe aaa iM ii a aa ih ieiw ht it Mi Wiehe | Pip ne | Pye Dae QUERIES WITH ANSWERS ens SEONG Agricultural and Horticultural Subjects. By of BuRNET LANDRETH, Foreign Member of the Agricultural Societies of Japan, Chile, Mexico, France, Horticultural of London, Society of Arts, London, Acclimatization of Brazil, L’ Academie Royale de Suede, Chevalier and Officier du Merite Agricole de France. PUBLISHED BY DAVID LANDRETH & SONS, Seed Farmers and Merchants, aN Established 1784,. Zarot OF C ive / PHILADELPHIA. i. RY RIG, ORE COPYRIGHT, 1895. PHILADELPHIA : Press oF MAcCatia & COMPANY INCORPORATED, 237-9 DOCK STREET. |HESE 999 QUESTIONS represent only a small portion of the Queries which have been sent to the firm of the ie. ; author, and which have presented them- pee AASSN selves to practical minds, dwelling upon the subjects of field work connected with agri- culture and horticulture, more particularly in the special branch of Vegetable Gardening. Among farmers and gardeners not enough thought is given to the why and wherefore, or cause and effect, for, as a rule, they go on year after year without profiting by the personal opportu- nities afforded them of observation, or by the results of experi- ments at scientific stations. Every year a new series of cultiva- tors, both of farm and garden, spring into existence, few of them profiting by, few indeed knowing anything about, the experiences of their predecessors. With rare exceptions the young farmer and gardener does not take up his work from the scientific side, but strictly from the laborer’s side; and he begins at the bottom, meeting the same difficulties as did his father and too often not acquiring informa- tion beyond what his father possessed. This should not be; agriculture should be taught in all our public schools of country districts, as it has been taught for years in Germany and Austria. It should be elevated as an art; in its higher estate it already is an art. No pursuit possesses a greater scope for development; the field is almost unoccupied by leaders, scientific and practical. Since this Book has gone to press, many more Queries have been presented, and they, with others, will be compre- hended in a second Volume, now being prepared, to be issued a year hence, which will comprise over 1000 additional Queries. The Author asks readers to send him at once, and any time hereafter, additional questions that he may answer them, the responses subsequently to be embodied in the second volume. Q99 QUERIES AND ANSWERS. - - SELECTED FROM. .- LANDRETHS’ INQuIRY Book. MAny of the inquiries made of the Seed Merchant by amateurs and practical gardeners are very difficult to answer, as they arise from the varied thought and experience of the inquirers, the outgrowth of every physical diversity of soil, climate and condition, as well as from the temperament and mood of the writers. Out of the many. thousands of queries made of us there may be selected a few from our Inquiry Book which it may be practical to repeat, with the responses made, as they may meet a need for similar information for some of the readers of this volume. They might be better grouped or classified, but are printed just as they have been recorded. Readers of this book may not in all things agree with the answers made ; that is their privilege, as many queries are subject to different interpretations. The book is not published for the scientific, nor for those who already know it all before they read it. 1. Query. What is the distinction between a fruit and a vegetable? ~— eeuit or Answer. In a physiological sense a fruit is borne upon a flower stem Vegetable. and is a growth following the development of a flower, and, except under abortive conditions or failing of pollination, containing within itself or upon itself the seeds for the perpetuation of its species. Perhaps, to meet a popular understanding, a ready definition of a fruit might be an edible growth upon a tree or bush, containing seeds and having a sweet or sour flavor. 2. Q. Ifa fruit isa consequential development of inflorescence and con- Nuts. tains a seed, is a nut a fruit? A. A nut or hard-shelled seed, if contained within a pulpy envelope, is, with its covering, a fruit under the previous definition ; but under the usual understanding a fruit must be an accumulation of soft, pulpy tissue. Some nuts—as the cocoanut, the walnut and the hickory—are Grains. Culinary Vegetables. Bulbs. Tubers. Offsets. Broccoli. Cow Pea. Wheat. 4 QUERIES AND ANSWERS, enclosed in a thick tissue of growth, but the enveloping material is unpal- atable and indigestible. In the case of nut-bearing plants of habits fixed through original conditions or through selection based upon hereditary development, the seed or nut is developed at the expense of the surround- ing tissue. 3. Q. What is a grain? A. A grain is a seed suitable for use by man for grinding or crushing to meal for cattle feeding or human food. 4. Q. What is a culinary vegetable? A. It is a plant producing, above or below ground, a development of edible tissue, as the bulb of a turnip, the enlarged stalk of a koh] rabi, the head of a cabbage, or the half-abortive or abnormally developed buds of the cauliflower. A culinary vegetable generally requires cooking to fit it for human food, but not always, as exampled in the radish, lettuce, cress. A culinary vegetable in the exact sense cannot contain seeds, as it is a product developed previous to inflorescence. 5. Q. What isa bulb? A. It is an underground bud containing within itself a capacity for reproducing its kind. It is generally globular in form and is composed of scales or coats, one within another, familiar examples being the onion and hyacinth. ‘ 6. Q. What is a tuber? A. A tuber is a solid, fleshy development from a root and containing buds or eyes capable of producing its like; a familiar example of the tuber being the potato? 7. Q. What are offsets? A. They are young bulbs or bulblets formed on the sides of old bulbs. These broken off produce full-sized buds. 8. Q. What is the distinction between broccoli and cauliflower ? A. Broccoli usually has a taller stem than cauliflower, leaves narrower and stiffer, generally undulating, ribs broad and leaf stalks long; the texture of the heads not so fine nor so white as cauliflower; the flower head of a stronger cabbage taste. Broccoli has an advantage over cauli- flower in greater hardiness. It is less rapid in growth, and generally the plants are carried over Winter to develop in early Spring. Broccoli should be better known and more largely cultivated in the northern sec- tions of the Union. 9. Q. Is a Southern cow pea, a pea or a bean? A. It is a bean; the outward and unscientific distinction between peas and beans being that, as a rule, beans have fleshy edible pods, dis- tinctly marked eyes, smooth surface and of a far greater variation of color than peas. 10. Q. Have bearded wheats any advantage over beardless sorts? A. Bearded wheats possess a higher percentage of gluten than beard- less variety, and as gluten is the essentially nutritive element, its percent- age is a most important matter. The people of new wheat countries, as QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 3 our Northwestern States, the new lands of the La Platte and Australia, are generally tall and muscular, which physical condition is attributed to the richer glutenous wheat grown on new lands. 11. Q. What advantage is there in the growing of early wheats over Wheat. late wheats ? A. Early wheats are desirable as their habit more quickly removes them from the danger of red rust. 12. Q. What is pollen? Pollen. A. It is the fertilizing agent of plants, consisting of a yellow powder formed of cells of from 3}, to yq55 of an inch in diameter, each containing minute granules from y,/55 to s5}55 Of an inch in diameter. These minute granules produced by the stamens must be brought in contact with the pistil, and one or more pass into and through it till it reaches the base of the pistil. The pollen reaches the pistil by various means, as by the vio- lent bursting of the stamens, by currents of air and by insects. The length of time over which the pollen of ordinary plants retains its vitality varies from a few hours to many days, with a number of plants for many months, and with a few plants for many years. The quantity of pollen produced is enormous, the sulphur showers from pine forests consisting of pollen. Some plants producing 250,000 grains to the single flower. 13. Q. What vegetables will mix, if planted in proximity ? A. Only those of the same family, as for example, beans with beans. It is impossible to mix beans with peas, or squashes with tomatoes. Some vegetables looked upon as distinct, as for example, watermelon, can- taloupe, squashes, cucumber, pumpkin and gourds, are all of one family, and will mix one with the other. 14. Q. Will round-podded peas stand more cold, wet weather than Peas. wrinkled peas? A. Yes. Wrinkled peas, which are soft, are seldom ripened with the same completeness as round peas, which are hard, and they are more likely to decay under the same soil conditions—decomposiltion setting in earlier—in fact, they have less vitality and less physical vigor. 15. Q. What is a gourd? Gourd. A. Scientifically, it may be defined as a member of that family from which has sprung all the varieties of squashes and pumpkins, which edible fruits are yet comprised in the same general classification with many which are unedible. The edible varieties are those botanically indicated as maxima, mochata and pepo; the first having stalks round, without furrows, and with foliage large, broad, kidney-shaped, and covered with hairs; examples, Valparaiso, Hubbard, Mammoth. The second with stalks slightly furrowed, swollen where they join the fruit, leaves lobed or angular, deeply indented and bloated with air bubbles, seeds hairy and covered with a silvery membrane; examples, Canada Crookneck, Yokohama. The third with stalks slender, fruit stems five- sided and becoming woody, foliage deeply indented and hairy ; examples, White Bush, Vegetable Marrow, Cococella, Tours. The unedible varie- Hybridiza- tion. Potatoes. Sweet Potato. Wild Potatoes. Potatoes from the true seed, Potatoes, Size for Planting. Cutting Potatoes. Potato Skins. Bermudas. Potato Seed. 4 QUERIES AND ANSWERS. ties to which custom attaches the name of gourd have a hard, woody, dry shell and a flavor so bitter as to render them unedible. 16. Q. Is the Irish potato a native of Ireland ? A. No! Itis a native American, improperly called Irish because the Irish people cultivated it to such an extent at one time as to be the prin- cipal article of food. No American should call it Irish. Its true name is the potato,simply the potato, be it white, yellow or red, round or oblong. The sweet potato is not a potato at all ; it is called so through an errone- ous custom. 17. Q. If the sweet potato is not a potato, what is it ? A. It belongs to the same race or family as the yam, which family is not native to America, but is found in Africa and India. 18. Q. Can good potatoes be developed from the wild sorts of Arizona and Mexico? A. Yes, the writer developed several fine sorts after four years’ culture and selection, unfortunately losing them by frost during winter. 19. Q. How long will it take to develop edible-sized potatoes from the seed ball ? A. About three years. Of course it is all a speculation, for nineteen out of twenty of the seedlings are inferior to present standard sorts, those of good form and quality being like prizes in a lottery ; but when they are good they often pay handsomely. 20. Q. Which size seed potatoes produce best results all things consid- ered ? A. Medium size cut into halves. 21. Q. If my potatoes for planting are all large size, how small should I cut them? A. None smaller than a black walnut. 22. Q. Why are the skins of my potatoes eaten and scaly ? A. Sometimes from worms, which lime will drive off. Sometimes from excessive moisture bursting the skins, which nature attempting to repair results in scales. 23. Q. Why are Bermuda potatoes always smooth skinned ? A. Because grown on coral or lime soil, and because largely fertilized with sea weed, the salt and lime both being obnoxious to insects. The potato, as ordinarily propagated, is not grown from the seed, but from the tuber, a cutting of which resembles a graft or bud from a tree, and perpetuates the good or bad qualities of the parent. The true seed, which is borne in a seed-pod following the blossom, is very seldom seen, is very difficult to gather, and consequently is very expensive. In ap- pearance resembles a tomato seed of about one-tenth development ; the potato belonging to the tomato family. The seed germinates very easily, and the plants can be cultivated by any one, producing tubers the first year about the size of buckshot ; these, planted the second year, double in bulk, and after about three or four years, become of edible size. As en- tirely new sorts are thus produced, the cultivation is very interesting and often profitable. Per pkt. 30c. QUERIES AND ANSWERS, 5 We here record our protest against the expression ‘‘Irish potatoes’’ as applied to any of the many forms of round or kidney potatoes, the plant being a native American, found growing wild from Arizona to Chili. New varieties of potatoes are alone derived from the true seed, which is obtained from the seed balls; these seed balls are generally borne upon late varieties. The development of new varieties of valuable qualities is tiresome and disappointing, as often ten years of labor may not bring a single truly valuable sort. It is, however, a matter of chance, and the first experiment may develop a novelty of the highest merit. 24. Q. What is the product of cucumbers? Cucumbers. A. For early use plant in hills 4 x 4 feet, on a warm border, when the cherry is in bloom, and for a succession sow in drills at five feet, when the apple isin bloom. For pickles plant middle of Summer. In Florida and other Southern States, a fair average production per acre of slicing cucumbers is two hundred crates, 8 x 14 x 20 inches. Some growers claim average crops of 400 and 500—even 800 crates have been recorded, but these large yields are only occasionally heard of. Fresh Southern cucumbers appear in Philadelphia the last of November, and command $1 to $2 per dozen. Towards Christmas the price rises to $2.50 per dozen, after which the price declines to $4 or $5 per box of eighty-five to ninety fruit. By last of May the price goes down to $1 per dozen, after which shipments are unprofitable. As arule the early cucumbers from New Orleans bring better prices than those from Florida, being better sorted and better packed. A good crop of cucumbers, when gathered of pickling size, produces from 100 to 175 bushels to the acre. A bushel contains about 300 pickles. Some cultivators have claimed to produce over 100,000 pickles to the acre. The pickles should be slipped from the vine by the thumb and finger without raising or disturbing the vine. The pickle houses generally pay the farmers forty to fifty cents per bushel, they in turn sell them at from twenty to thirty cents per 100. Pickles properly prepared will keep five or six years. The method of salting pickles, as pursued in New Jersey, is as follows : To acask of 120 gallons capacity, take four quarts of salt and mix in two gallons of water. Place the solution in the bottom of the cask and put in the green pickles after washing. To each two bushels of pickles put into the cask add four quarts of salt, and continue until cask is full. Place the head of the cask, with edges trimmed off to permit of a rise and fall, on the top of the pickles, and on the top of the head or lid place a weight of twenty or twenty-five pounds. If there should be any leakage of the liquor, replace it by a solution of four quarts of salt to two gallons of water, keeping all the pickles submerged. Salt should not be stinted. Pickle packers make three sizes before pickling—large, medium and small. 25. Q. What is the form of a Long Green Turkey cucumber? Turkey A. A Long Green Turkey cucumber is long, three square and at the stem Cucumbers. end of a reduced diameter, the seed being found principally in the blossom Pickles. Cucumber Bug. White Spine Cucumber. Slicing. Fruiting. Cucumber Crops. Greenhouse Cucumber. 6 QUERIES AND ANSWERS. end. In an ordinary ‘‘Long Green’’ the diameter is about the same throughout its length, and the seed found throughout a larger portion of the fruit. The Long Green Turkey is a light producer of seed, and conse- quently the seed is higher priced than other field varieties 26. Q. Which variety of cucumber will produce the most small fruits for pickling ? A. The Short Prolifie and the Jersey pickle for commercial sales, but for domestic use the Long Green Turkey furnishes the best formed pickles. 27. Q. How shall I secure myself against the attacks of the cucumber or squash bug? A. Start the plants in the house or under glass, the seeds planted in square pieces of sod for readiness of removal to the field when the leaves become half developed. 28. Q. What is a good White Spine cucumber ? A. It is a leading sort both in the private and market garden, appreci- ated by reason of its strong healthy habit of vine and consequent produc- tiveness, of deep green symmetrical fruit. If of a good strain the fruits are in length four or five times their diameter, and nearly of the same diameter throughout their entire length, slightly three-sided and dotted with small warts, from each of which springs an ivory-white thorn or spine, giving the name of White Spine to the variety. With a few exceptions other cucumbers bear brown or black spines. From the extreme or blossom end of the white spine ten light-colored lines run towards the stem end, these lines as the fruit becomes larger turn bone white, sometimes a yellow white, and after the fruit becomes too old for shipment the entire fruit becomes a bone white, tinged with a light golden. Asa shipping variety the White Spine is highly prized, as it so long retains its green color, which, when it does change, alters not to a yellow, but to a less objectionable white. 29. Q. Which varieties of cucumber are the best for slicing? A. White Spine, Early Frame and Long Green. 30. Q. Why do some varieties of cucumbers produce more fruit than others ? A. Because of a more perfect formation of flowers, and a more profuse distribution of pollen. 31. Q. Why do vine crops as cucumber and melons produce larger crops after a dry summer than after a wet one? A. Because during the flowering period throughout a dry summer the pollen is freely carried from the male flowers by winds and insects to the female flowers, but during a wet season the pollen being made heavy by moisture it remains on the male flowers where it originates. 32. Q. In what way do English hothouse cucumbers differ from the usual American outdoor sorts ? A. The forcing house varieties, as Rabley, Marquis of Lorne, Telegraph, are all more than twice as long as the longest field varieties, sometimes QUERIES AND ANSWERS. a four times as long. They contain very few seeds, and are quite free from that property which to some people is so poisonous. 33. Q. How should I plant cantaloupes ? Cantaloupes. Cantaloupes or citron melons, as they are termed in Jersey, do well upon sod ground or upon land prepared for planting by plowing down a crop of winter wheat or winter rye, the sod or grass aerating or keeping loose the soil. The seed is planted at about corn-seeding time or when the apple is in bloom, in hills about four and a half feet in each direction. Two shovels- ful of well-rotted stable manure being trampled into each hill and covered with earth. The large long melons, like the Reedland Giant and Casaba, are generally sold by the hundred ; melons of the ordinary form and size are sold by the basket of one-half to five-eighths bushel capacity. Phila- delphia commission merchants pay asa highest price $1.50 to $2.00 per bushel. As an average price forty to fifty cents per bushel. Cantaloupe melons are frequently a drug in the market. 34. Q. Why do some people use the word musk melon (corrupted to Musk Melon. mush melon) cantaloupe, nutmeg and citron, as applied to the same fam- ily of vine fruits? A. (1). Musk melons as originally known were long, large-fruited, smooth-skinned, soft-fleshed, very aromatic and often of a sickening sweetness. (2). Cantaloupes as at first distinguished were large, rough and irreg- ular in form, often deeply ribbed and covered more or less with warts, the skin sometimes slightly netted, and at other times entirely without net- ting. Cantaloupes like musk melons are frequently inclined to crack at the ends. (3). Citron melons are of a later introduction. In form, they vary from flat and round to ovoid, slightly ribbed, generally netted, the flesh per- fumed, the seed small. The term nutmeg was originally applied to citron melons of oval form Nutmeg. slightly larger at one end than the other, like the nutmeg of commerce. Among the New Jersey market gardeners the expression, cantaloupe or musk melon, is never used. They always speak of citrons. 35. Q. When should I plant watermelon seed ? Seeding. A. When the black Walnut is in one-inch leaf, plant melons. , 36. Q. How should I plant watermelons? Watermelons A. Watermelons do well upon sod ground or upon land prepared for their reception by plowing down a crop of winter wheat or winter rye, the sod or grain aerating or keeping loose the soil. When the apple is in bloom the seed is planted in hills at ten feet apart in each direction. Two large shovelfuis of well-rotted stable manure dug and trampled into each hill and covered with earth. The cultivator should be prepared with quite four pounds of sced to the acre, that he may havea reserve for replanting in case of destruction of his plants by insect depredations or beating rains. Watermelon. Arkansas and The Boss Watermelon. Points of a good Citron Melon. Foreign Cantaloupes, 8 QUERIES AND ANSWERS, One vine alone to the hill should be allowed to attain perfection ; with four hundred and fifty hills to the acre, there should be nine hundred first- class melons. : Philadelphia commission merchants pay for prime melons, as a highest price, forty dollars (840.00) per hundred. Asan average price, ten dol- lars ($10.00) per hundred. They cease to be profitable to the trucker when bringing less than four dollars ($4.00) per hundred. First-class melons are always in demand, but the market is frequently overstocked with small fruit. Much of the melon seed offered throughout the country is the product ofimmature and deformed melons remaining in the field after all the choice fruit has been selected. 37. Q. What constitutes a good watermelon ? A. If for shipping to market the requirements seem to be to obtain from the acre the greatest number of mammoth melons of good carrying quality, little regard being paid to texture of flesh, depth of color, or flavor, so that the flesh is solid and red.