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(Copyright, 1911, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
jASHIXQTON, June 17. (Special Corre
A T spondence of The Bee.) Come with me
V 1 to the Agricultural department and .ee .
flies, bugs and bacteria which are In
juring the farmer. He 1. finding them
by the millions and he has scores of scientists who
are rearing them, studying their habits and practicing
how to destroy them. '1 went today through a num
ber of laboratories where these little beings are cul
tirated. Some are so small that a billion or so can
be crowded Into a thimble, and they breed bo rapidly
that a single family will produce more than sixteen
hundred million children and grandchildren in
season, many generations being crowded Into that
time. '
Take for Instance the San Jose scale, which has
cost oar fruit growers something like $200,000,000
and for which they are now spending millions to fight.
I looked at it through th. microscope In the pomo-
logical bureau today. The one I examined wa. among
those on a peach limb which covered It as closely
almost a. the pores of your, skin.. Each. scale Is a
HJmi :jr;- ,-r M- ,,, ,h.m In other place, they were working on form, of tfjr ?JirZV MM U Z'J JOT , TL 5 rT Cf.-J XXII
Mt as big as 'the head of a pin""adbV ci1,ns moth th Plum, curcullo.
f lies under' this, using it as a .Meld PlaW lice" and the. apple and peach borers, which fat-
waxylike body
the Insect Itself
while It suck, the ltfeblood of the tree.
Tfle little being' is male and female and the sexes
are married aad: have -children not unlike human
being.. The single, female, however, will have 400
young in a season, and. the young reach maturity so
quickly jthat one little wife may produce 400 babies
a year, while the offspring of one parent during a
single season has been estimated at more than sixteen
hundred million female..' When ft 1. remembered
that there are colonies of thla Insect scattered through
out every orchard region of the United States from
northern Michigan to the Everglades of Florida, and
from Los Angeles to Delaware, you may appreciate
what a Job It is to control them.
Chinese Invasion, j
Talk about the Yellow Peril! This little animal
came from across the Pacific. It was brought In on
some peach stock imported from China and was ruin
ing the orchards of southern California when one
of the farmers of that region gave his tree, a wash
of .hop dip. The dip was composed of a lime, salt
and sulphur solution, which had come from Australia.
He wa. surprised to find that this liquid wiped out the
Kale. The fact was reported to the Agricultural de-
' partment, and then, a. a result of it. experiments,
began the wholesale spraying which now goes on all
.over the country. Every winter or spring the cpm
merclal orchard, of the United States are sprayed
with this mixture. The concentrated spray is too
strong to use after the leaves have come out, but it
doe. not injure the tree, while vegetation 1. dormant,
and If applied to every bit of the bark above ground
It wipe, out the scale. s" .
Moreover, the San Jose scale ha. no wings to fly
from tree, to tree, although the young can climb about
from their little home, over tha branches, and can
be carried on the feet of bird, to the other tree, of
the orchard or to other orchards, which may be many
miles off. It may also be blown by the wind a short
distance.
The Insect ha. so spread that there i. scarcely a
locality in the United States which is free from it,
and the only salvation of an orchard is regular spray
ing from year to year. The scientists tell me the
spraying should begin as soon as the trees are -planted.
' for the scale may exist on the nursery stock, and a
single family which may start with a space as big
as the finger nail of a baby will soon populate, not
only your orchard, but also those of your neighbors.
The insects live on the trees of the forests, so that the
only safe method i. a wholesale slaughter each year.
Other Pmranitea,
I spent some time with Prof. Waite, who is now
studying the prevention of the rot which develops In
oranges, apples, peaches and other fruits on their
way to the markets. He took me into his laboratories,'
where a number of mlcroscopists and other scientist,
-were working, and where there were long table, filled
with glass Jars. These were so covered as to prevent
the invasion of bacteria, and they contained oranges
which had been inoculated with fungus and given the
right conditions for its development. I saw a large
number of glass tubes, the znoujhs of which were
plugged with cotton. Each tube contained a specie,
of fungus, which, by the way, U one of the lower forma
of vegetable life.
Fungu. I. a sort of plant which feed, on other
plant.. It 1. a plant cannibal or parasite, as it were
It is so small that you have to have a microscope to
examine it. but it develops so rapidly that It soon
eats np and destroy, any fruit to which It attache.
Itself. I was shown a glass rage, something like a
telephone booth, which waa made by Mr. Waite that
It might be bacteria proof. This 1. in order that the
men may work safely within it and that the fungu.
TTIE
Sam Fights
they are studying may not be affected by the other
little pests flying around. This booth has a draft
which forces the air in! through sheets of cotton wool,
so wadded together that the bacteria cannot go
thrbugh them. It Is this air that is breathed by the
operator at work in the booth.
In other places they were working on forms of
fungus which affect the leaves and In others upon
those which eat at the bark and heart of the tree.
It was, in' fact, a great medical laboratory devoted to
tree diseases and their prevention.
I found some similar things in the laboratories of
Prof. Qualntance, who Is fighting all sorts of Insect,
and worms, which attack our orchards, and also In
the rooms of Prof. Scott, who Is one of the most fa
'mow. of. our scientific doctors as to the. treatment
of fungus diseases.
Insects Which Eat Millions.
,( " .Impossible to estimate the damage done to
orchards by hugs and rot Tier, are from fifteen
tot twisty ns'ect pest, which cost thla country from
$6D,Ool0OO to 175.000,000 a year, ..The control of
thfcSan seacaie roots up many millions, ana men
ten on the root, of the trees.
Take the peach! ' We have ' east of , the Rockies
something like 000, 000 such trees, and they are
yielding a crop worth $15,000,000 a year. In some
seasons the brown rot takes away fully half of the
profits of the south, and the plum curcullo often eats
down our peach income to the amount of $3,000,000
or $4,000,000. By the recent discoveries of Profs.
Scott and Qualntance we are able to control certain
peach pests, and this means an annual saving of mil
lions. The material used is a self-boiled lime and
sulphur wash mixed with arsenate of lead. It is ap
plied several times during the season.
Onr Big Peach Crop. . '
Now that the people are going crazy over the.
money in apples they seem to have forgotten the
profit, which have been and are being made in
peaches. I am told' that the peach Is one of the big-
gest gambles In the great lottery of fruit raising. It
often falls, but a single good crop covers many past
' losses, and two or three make the orchardist rich,
Take the Miller brother, of West Virginia. They
have an orchard which has yielded dividends of $500
per acre, and out of which they have been making
from 40 to 60 per cent per annum. We have alto
gether more than 100.000,000 peach trees. There are
8,000,000 In Michigan and almost an equal number In '
Georgia, Texas and California. Kansas 1. a great
peach state, and so are Maryland and Delaware. Along
the eastern shore, of Lake Michigan there 1. a peach
-
Big Manufactory Operated , on
RANK NELSON DOUBLEDAY, the magazine
publisher, Is now working out a unique ex
periment in establishing a big manufactur
ing plant on a forty-acre farm twenty mile,
from New York.
F
t..
"I am a professional exponent of coun
try life," said Mr. Doubleday. "Until recently, how
ever, my buslnes. was all done in New York, some
here and some there, because I couldn't concentrate it
economically at one spot. I could have bought a site
100 feet wide and 100 feet long for a lot of money,
but the building would have had to be twelve stories
high. Raw material moved up from floor to floor.
nd the finished product moved down, would mean
a waste OI lime ana Sieam. It 1. DeinK OOne. I KnOW
in every large city in the United States, but It is not
cientiflc and Is contrary to the first principle, of
common aense. oil Sunday, his eyes scanning the members of the To know how to sell is to know when to sell. There
'To save money,, and, likewise to be consistent, 1 congregation. If perchance a worshipper was die- are always plenty of buyers for standard crops wheat
decided to carry out a plan that I was positive would covered napping, out went the rousing staff, the far- cotton, hay, corn and oats. But there are vital mo
work. I came here, bought forty acres of land, and ther end of which "bobbed" the offender in the rib. ments in agriculture, as there are in every other
put up a fire-proof building that 1. solid as a rock.
Manufacturer, said I was making a mistake. City men,
they declared, would not move into the country among
the crickets and katydids. I would have a labor
problem right off. and would be unable to hire or
coax any one to start the works. Well, almost before
the roof was on 600 clerk, and 1,200 mechanic, ap
plied for Jobs."
"But what are you going to do" with the land?"
was asked -
"Cultivate it. I have already set out 5,000 st raw-
bey plants. I mean to grow fruits, flowers and
vegetable, and make them pay: There is to be a green
and flourishing object lesson for the pilgrim, who
come our way.
'Indeed our forty acres must be actually, profit
able, otherwise the scheme will be a 'failure. The
" farmers -near our factory haul their produce to New
York, twenty mile. away. They haul it in wagon, at
a heavy cost in time and labor. A large hotel In the
OMAHA SUNDAY PER: JUNE IS.
the Bugs "and Bacteria
country which runs from five to ten mile, back from
the lake, extending north and south for a distance
of 150 miles Georgia has a number of orchard Ists
who are cultivating more than 100,000 tres, and
there Is a druggist in that state who own. 160,000
trees. The peach trees of the south have been re-
cently greatly injured by rot and other diseases, but.
the new. spray, solutions of the' department have
Proved the salvation of the crop, and there promises
t0 b bl maaT In " , . - '
How One Boy Made Good.
In connection with peach growing, it is Interesting
to tell how one boy made a fortune in peaches, and
by his own exertion, and study,' lifted not only his
own family bat many others to. affluence. I refer to
Hale, the Peach King of Georgia, the man who Is now
at the head of a syndicate which own. orchards
capitalized at $1,000,000 or more, and which has
shown profits of $50,000 and upward a year. I don't
know how many hundred thousand peach trees Mr.
Hale owns, but he has built up a great peach-growing
industry in southwestern Georgia, and his fruit 1.
sent in refrigerator car. all over the north. He some
times harvests 1,000,000 peaches a day, each peach
being handled three times in sorting, picking and
packing, and he ha. the most improved methods of
cultivating hir trees and marketing the crop,
i have Just talked with a man who know. Hale
very well. y Said he:
"Hale was born -near a little town in Connecticut,
'His father lived on a farm upon which nothing could
be raised, not even the mortgage. His father was in
debt and he" died, leaving the farm Incumbered to the
amount of $2,000, with only two little boys. Hale and
his brother, to meet the Interest and support the
family. They found they had to hire themselves out
to keep the farm going, and at 12 years of age young
Hale wa. cutting corn for hi. neighbors at a few'
cent, a day.
One day during the noon recess, when he wa.
tired of handling cornstalks, he sat down under a
vicinity open winter and summer and filled with bust-
ness men and their families, buys its vegetables and
fruit, in New York and has them shipped by train.
"In other words, the-potatoes and apples taken to
New York in a wagon are brought back on the rail-
road. Such idiotic management Is going on all over
.' .
Sleeping in Church
Formerly in the churches of England a most cur
lou. and laughable custom was that of 'using the
"rouslnr Staff " This was a. lone ntlrk or nnlA In tha
hands of the beadle, who walked softly up and down
the aisles of the church during the religious service
or on the shoulder. The sleepy one would not close
his eye. in church again that day.
An amusing story 1. told of a woman who acted
as "sluggish waker" In Holy Trinity church; Warring
ton, about the year 1820. It is given here:
"In the early years of the nineteenth century, at
Holy-Trinity church, Warrington, a masculine bit of
womanhood named Betty Finch held the office of
sluggish waker, which wa. there known as the 'bob
ber." She is described as walking majestically along
the aisles during the service armed with a long stick
Uk . flBh, rod whlcn ,bob fMtenea to tho
end of It, and when she caught any one speaking or
napping she gave him a nudge with the stick. Her
son wa. engaged in the belfry and often truthfully
Mng: :,
" 'My father's a clerk.
My sister's a singer, '
t ' My mother', the bobber
And I am the ringer.' " . .
1911.
seedling peach tree and munched the fruit, while he
We- whether he should ever be able to pay off
the neut and make a man of himself. A. he did so
he looked up at the peaches and thought how fine
it would be to have a few thousand such trees and
make a fortune in fruit. The thought grew upon
him, and he decided to try. In one way and another
he scraped and saved until he had $100 in cash. He
earned more during the w
' was able to b"?y. 3,000 peach
winter, and in . the spring
trees and plant them out
on the home farm. They grew, and through his ex-
c'ellent care soon surpassed all the trees of the neigh-
borhood. ; .He raised crops between the rows, and
finally brought the orchard into bearing. .
Before the fruit was ripe, however, the mortgage
.came due, and the elder, of the church which held it
notified him he must come in and pay. He put them
off for a few weeks, and rushed hi. fruit to the mar
kets, handling it so that he got the highest prices.
He advertised in the Hartford papers, and hired
storerooms there for'the display of his peaches. HI.
profits, were such that he soon, had more than enough
money In the bank to pay off the mortgage and
leave him a big sum for the future.
Ten-Tbonsand-Dollar Crop.
"Hale', first peach harvest, in short, netted him
about $10,000. This was not known to the church
men until he came in and .aid:
" 'Well, gentlemen, I have come to arrange about
that note.' ' ,
" 'But, young man, we don't know that we can
extend it,' said one of the deacons. 'Too boys have
been very extravagant in selling your peaches, and we
can't afford to lose this 'money.'
" 'But,' said young Hale, 'Ton don't need to lose
the money. I have come in to pay the note.'
" 'Oh!' returned the elders, "if you have the money
to pay we would Just as lief let It run. We will have
to put the money elsewhere. You had better keep It.
All we want Is our Interest.'
i
a Country Farm
this country. I have made a contract to supply that
hotel with fruits nd vegetables, and shall give the
farmers in the neighborhood a primary lesson in their
own business. Apart from the land and the uses we
.re to make of it we shall reduce our rent, taxes and
Insurance and greatly improve our physical conditions.
Manufacturing in the country, therefore, is not a sent!-
mental undertaking with ua, but a well-considered pol-,
icy that gives every promise of success.
"Are farmr. rnM.l.. fn
- . , v Uv .a.vLa VI VII
like yourself to lift them up?"
"Many of them are making headway, but most
of them are still old-fashioned in their methods. In
the south, they are plowing two Inches deep and get
tins- much Ins rnttnn than la nieolKlA Tk. i.
a business man prmarily. He should be as competent
in bargaining as a hardware merchant or a butcher.
kind of business. .If I were a farmer, I should try to
sell intelligently, and having .sold, should go lmmedl-
ate,y at something else. It doesn't pay to stand around
half the winter for the price of wheat to advance a
cent in selling price. Time 1. lost. I believe in mak
ing every minute count."
Of the increased cost of living, Mr. Doubleday .ays:
"It is caused principally by Inefficiency on the part
of everybody. Mechanic, and clerks live rempte from
the land. Those who live on the land do not know
how to supply the wants of those who dwell In large
town, and cities. W. lack system, and. consequently.
ve laca economy, inings are nanaied too often. We
are doing some of our chopping with the head of the
axe and some with the blade. Take the excursions of
the potato, for Instance, from the time it leaves the
hill In the field until It come, hot and steaming on
the breakfast table. The process is complicated and
rldlculous. commercially, but is typical of our present
system of living." .
in Orchards
" No, indeed, replied Hale. 'I have the money
and I am going to get rid of that mortgage.' And
he thereupon paid the note.
" "The next year," continued this man, "'Hale set
out more peaches. He cultivated and fertilized hi.
orchard and he proved that fruit could . be made
profitable in Connecticut. In 1889 he made 124,000
out of one crop from thirty-five acres, and he gave
such a stimulus to peach growing In New England
that , there-are now something like 3,000,000 tree, la
Connecticut, while there are many In the adjoining
state, of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. '
"A little later on Mf. Hale got the idea that Oeorx
gia would raise peaches. He traveled all over that
state and picked out his present locality. Since then!
he haa raised enormous. crops, and ha. shown what
could be done by careful cultivation, Intelligent Mar-,
ketlng, modern machinery and good business man
agement. He is always on the lookout for frost, and
pests of one kind and another, and hi. foresight has
several times saved him his crop, when those of hie
neighbor, were ruined."
Word of Warning. ,
v A. I write this, one of the many stories of the
successes which are now being made In farming, the
thought comes to me of the multitude who are rushing
into such enterprise, and Investment, without con
sideration. ' As Prof. Waite said to me today the ma
chinery of fruit growing and farming 1. more won
derful than that of the largest gun factory , or elec
trical industry. Its success requires the mos careful
selection of soil, a knowledge of the crops one is at
tempting to raise, a study of fertilizers and disease,
and also the being "Johnny on the spot" throughout
"all or a greater part of the year. Notwithstanding
this, men who would not buy a lot without the most
careful searching of title or go into any buslnes.
without having thoroughly investigated the market.,
the machinery and A the past profits and losses, will
risk the savings of a lifetime in a gold mine of which
they personally know nothing, or in an orchard scheme
the information . concerning which Is presented only
on paper. '
Take, for instance, the case of a government em
ploye who called the other day to ask the advice of
the fruit men as to an investment in a new orange
region which is being exploited in various part, of the
aoutn. rnis orange is or a Japanese variety which,
will grow much farther north-than the sweet oranges
of Florida or California. The locality proposed was
somewhere In Alabama. The scheme it managed by
a syndicate which i. selling its land, at $300 per
acre wlth th nnderstanding that the trees are to be
w uu.c a w u iu tor ior uto yearn,
whIch theJ w111 COm Jnto faring. The PfOS-
pectus haa figure, which show that a tract of five
acre, so treated' will give a man a profitable income.
Said the pomologlst who told me this story:
"That man was a proofreader who ha. to do with
government printing. HI. work 1. such that the mis-
PlaClDg ' V00?, m,,ni co,t UncU 8am million.,
m'8t"e woul(1 loBe hIm b,a ,0 "f"' h told
me, had so worn upon hi. nerves, that he felt h4
must arrange for hi. leaving the service at some time
in the near future. He said he thought thla would
be, a good place to Invest his-savings, and that he
would eventually retire to bis orchard. He said he
intended to put in all he had and to pay the balance
on installments of $15 a month. I asked him it he
had gone down to Alabama to see the land and in
vestigate the proposition.' Ha replied that he bad
not, but that the prospectus gave all the figures and
showed Just what the profits would be. I asked if
he knew the manager.. He .aid he did not. I there
upon strongly advised him to make no such Invest
ment without further knowledge. He said, however,
that he thought he would risk it, and so went away.
His mind was made np before he came in, and my
adTice wa. worth nothing."
The agricultural department has many such
scheme, brought dally before it Some of them are
good and will pan out all right, but a great number
are questionable, to say the least, and those who in-
vest should make the most careful Inqulrle. Into lo-
cations, market, and the Individual, who are man-
aging before they risk that whleh ha. cost them year
of privation to .ave. . FRANK O. CARPENTTW.
0