MULCHING AND MANURING.
Mr. Earle was questioned about the use of castor bean pomace for strawberries. He uses it mixed with wood ashes. It is capital on poor land. He likes unleached ashes in both strawberry and orchard culture. He pays six cents per bushel for them. The castor bean pomace is good for anything in the poor soils of Southern Illinois. He uses about half a ton to the acre. Spreads with a Kemp spreader. Five hundred pounds per acre will show excellent results. Has tried a tablespoonful of the mixture to the strawberry plant when setting out. Has tried salt to kill grubs in asparagus beds, but found it to kill the weeds and most of the asparagus, while the grubs seemed to enjoy the application. Did not find it of much value as a manure. Bone dust had shown no particular results. Superphosphates acted much like the bean pomace. Does not think coal ashes of much value. He uses the pomace as early in the spring as possible. Sometimes he plows it under and sometimes applies after the plants are set, and cultivates it in. One application answers for two years' cropping. He fruits a strawberry plantation but two years, and he sometimes thinks one year sufficient. He does not agree with some of his neighbors that mulching has resulted unfavorably. Does not think the mulch has increased the noxious insects. Knows of a plantation not mulched at all, that suffered more than any other this year from the tarnished plant bug.