THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 433 



so that when you ask for formalin you simply ask for formaldehyde forty 

 per cent strong. 



Why must the farmer know something about formalin? Because it 

 will pay him. How? You ask. Well, one way is in getting rid of oat 

 E-mut. We talked about that only a week or two ago, and we intend to 

 repeat now what we suggested then and add a little more to it, for we are 

 determined that so far as the Wallaces' Farmer folk are concerned, 

 they must not grow smutty oats, at least if we can help. 



We do not know how much they all lose every year by sowing smutty 

 oats for seed; seldom less than five per cent, often twenty-five per cent. 

 We will try to put this in a way that the farmer cannot help but see 

 that it will pay him to get acquainted with formalin and use it. Professor 

 Goff puts it in a better way than we have been able to do yet, when he 

 says: 



Suppose a farmer raises twenty-five acres of oats and receives a 

 yield, without treating the seed, of forty bushels per acre, or 1,000 bushels. 

 Now, if five per cent of the heads in this crop were destroyed by smut, his 

 crop would have been 1,052 bushels of oats net gain, less the cost of 

 thrashing if he had treated the seed. We will put the satisfaction of hav- 

 ing good, clean oats with no smut in against the few cents that it would 

 cost to thrash them and see how the account stands, if oats are worth 

 25 cents per bushel. It would cost him, say 60 cents for a pound of for- 

 malin, and perhaps four hours' work at 15 cents per hour; total, $1.20. 

 He would have had 52 bushels more oats at 25 cents, or $13 less the cost 

 of treating, or $11.80 net profit as a result of reading Wallaces' Farmer 

 s.nd taking its advice. 



How to do it. Call around at your druggist's the next time you go to 

 town and ask him if he has any formalin. If he does not have it, tell 

 him that you and your neighbors are going to have clean oats next year 

 and he had better buy a lot. Buy a pound of it and put it into a barrel 

 of clean water, holding about forty-five gallons, and stir it up. Then get 

 out your seed oats, spread them about three or four inches thick on the 

 Larn floor, take your sprinkling can and sprinkle, then stir them up until 

 you get all the grains wet, then put on another layer and sprinkle that, 

 then shovel them up into a pile and spread gunny sacks over them until 

 the next day, spread them around once or twice until they are dry, then 

 sad up until you are ready to sow. Now that is all there is to it. 

 Had you not better pick up this $11.80 net profit for every twenty-five 

 acres of oats you are going to sow next year? 



But this is not all. You are going to plant some potatoes next year 

 and you will have need for more formalin and you will need a stronger 

 solution this time. If you have only a small amount of potatoes to plant, 

 fill the barrel only one-third full of water and put in a full pound of for- 

 malin. Before you cut your potatoes, and before they are sprouted, put 

 in as many as it will hold and have all the potatoes covered with the 

 solution. Let them stay there for three or four hours, then take out, cut 

 and plant. You can use this solution five or six times. 



