178 ' STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



IN REGARD TO SHADE AT^ONG THE ROAD. 



I firmly believe every highway in Michigan where the country is devoted to farms, 

 should be planted to trees, either forest or fruit, and receive thorough cultivation 

 and care for at least five years. Here is a good chance for investment on land 

 that is not taxed and that doesn't belong to you, rent free, but from which you 

 can have all the crop. This is no share business. The public says you can have all 

 you can grow on it and not a cent for taxes. How does it happen that the wide- 

 awalve Yaukee. who is always looking for a good bargain, or the industrious Ger- 

 man, who will sometimes cultivate even the fence corners, will permit such a 

 chance to escape? Did you ever figure how much improved fertile land lies un- 

 productive and waste in a single improved township? The highways that cut a 

 township into sections, allowing four rods to the road, contains 144 acres, but the 

 intersecting street will increase this area to nearly or quite 150 acres, which would 

 give to a county of 16 townships 2,400 acres. This would give to the 550 town- 

 ships that lie south of and Including Muskegon county latitude, about 1,340,000 

 acres. Some may ask what shall we plant? Some might prefer a sugar bush, 

 others an apple orchard. If you plant for generations yet unborn, the walnut is 

 worthy of attention. If the sale at Cassopolis a day or two ago is any criterion- 

 some of you may have read the account— I saw the report in two papers, stating 

 that 51 black walnut trees had been sold for $10,000, and a cut showing the section 

 of a tree accompanied the report. 



I advise sugar maple first on account of their beauty and value. By planting a 

 row of trees six feet from the fence and one rod apart in the row you get 80 trees to 

 the 40 acre farm, and if you own both sides of the highway you nave 160 trees. 

 One rod is not too close when you consider that the roots can feed to the center 

 of the road on one side and perhaps take in two or three rows of corn on the other, 

 but by the time the corn suffers from the tree exhaustion you will be able to harvest 

 enough maple syrup to sweeten the whole family for a year, or sell enough to pay 

 the farm taxes. I have a native sugar bush of 100 trees from which I often make 

 50 gallons of delicious syrup. Should you prefer an apple orchard, then plant that 

 vigorous upright grower, the Northern Spy. You need not be in a hurry to eat 

 the fruit from this variety as it won't be there, it just keeps right on growing until 

 it gets to being a great large handsome tree and then some year when all other 

 varieties are a failure and prices are away up out of sight, this particular sort will 

 surprise you, or your grandchildren, with a magnificent crop of the finest apples 

 in the United States. The reason for this peculiarity is found, I think, in the fact 

 that the Spy does not blossom much until about a week after the others and when 

 those adverse conditions of weather, which sometimes blast the apple crop while 

 in bloom have passed this tardy sort comes out under more favorable conditions 

 and produces its luscious crop. 



Then plant, protect, and cultivate, should be the motto of every farmer in Mich- 

 igan. . It will furnish shade to the traveler, fruit for the family, and sugar to 

 sweeten it. beautify the landscape and add value to your property. 



WOJVIAN'S WORK ON THE FARM. 



MANDA L. CROCKER, Shelby, at OCEANA COUNTY Institute, Shelby. 



I know women who make their work on the fariai drudgery; also know others 

 who enjoy rural cares and are happy as birds in the hedges. Work, like life, is not 

 "always what you make it," but a great deal as some one else makes it for you. 



If a farmhouse is built with an eye to comfortable convenience; woman enjoys 

 her indoor duties. Money is not always the prime factor of convenience; but al- 

 ways "gumption" or good common sense. 



We know there is more work for a. woman on the farm than in town. To this 

 fact so many ascribe the overworked condition of country women. This is a mis- 

 take. The question for women, as well at men, is how do you work? To under- 

 stand how to do a thing robs it of tedious failure. To under.stand dairy work means 

 restful labor. An ounce of clear insight is worth a pound of strength. 



Once a woman was asked: "What do you do on the farm?" "Oh," she answered, 

 "everything outside of the two ten-acre lots over there." This extravagant as- 

 sertion, however, covers more of the actual ground than one might think; this is 



