Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow ThemAnonymous
Science
Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them
Anonymous
Vegetable gardening
=Leaf Blights.=--No attempt will be made here to separately describe
the two leaf diseases. Both destroy the foliage and check the further
growth of both vine and tuber. The leaves turn brown or black, and the
stem quickly wilts and falls. There can be no growth of tuber without
vigorous health of vine. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture, in advance of
the occurrence of any disease, is recommended.
Bordeaux mixture for this purpose is made by using six pounds of
copper sulphate and four pounds of quick lime, dissolved in separate
wooden vessels, and the lime water poured into the dissolved blue
stone. This should be diluted with water sufficient to fill a
forty-five gallon barrel. Paris green to the amount of from
one-quarter to three-quarters of a pound to the barrel should be
added, to destroy beetles and other insects.
The vines should be sprayed five or six times, beginning when they are
6 inches high, at intervals of ten days or two weeks. During rainy
weather the spraying should be more frequent than during clear
weather. The object is to prolong the life and vigor of the vines. The
cost of the five or six sprayings, including labor at $1.50 per day,
is put at not above $6 per acre, while the crop at stake may be
affected to the extent of scores of bushels.
=Scab and Rot.=--The evidence about scab and rot is still contradictory,
but it is likely that these diseases will presently be under control.
At the New Jersey Station, Professor Halsted completely conquered scab
with an application of 300 pounds of flowers of sulphur per acre
scattered in the rows, while the same treatment at the Ohio Station
was less successful. At the latter station benefit was found in the
use of salt, kainit, sulphate of potash, etc.
The various experiments and observations on potato scab and rot seem
to indicate that scab flourishes best on a soil inclined to be
alkaline, while rot is most prevalent on a soil inclined to be acid.
The use of lime increases scab, while the use of kainit diminishes it.
The best practice, therefore, under present knowledge, would be to use
clean seed on new ground, avoiding fresh stable manure. Clean seed can
be had by treating tubers with corrosive sublimate. This substance is
dissolved to the amount of 2-1/4 ounces, in two gallons of hot water,
and (after standing a day) diluted with water so as to make fifteen
gallons. In this solution the uncut seed potatoes should be soaked for
an hour and a half. All unplanted seed potatoes should be destroyed,
as the corrosive sublimate is highly poisonous.
The use of sulphur, as recommended by Professor Halsted, will prove
entirely satisfactory in some soils. In others, the use of kainit or
sulphate of potash or acid phosphate would no doubt be found preferable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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