FARMERS' MONTHLY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



Asricultural Report 



Continued from page 1, column 2 

 three men enrolled in a campaign to pro- 

 duce at least 18 pounds of hay and 35 

 pounds of silage for every cow they kept. 

 Fifty men started 149 acres of alfalfa 

 which will be used as demonstrations in 

 1926. In this work we tried to get every 

 man to put the alfalfa in right as we al- 

 ready have too many farmers who have 

 demonstrated how to fail vwth this crop. 

 Next spring, a check of these demonstra- 

 tions will be made in which we believe 

 90yr of the acreage will come through 

 right. We have been fortunate in get- 

 ting some men not to try to grow alfalfa 

 because they had failed to make condi- 

 tions right for this crop. Census figures 

 show that there were only ten acres of 

 alfalfa in this county in 1909. This had 

 grown to 92 acres in 1919. Since that 

 time, the acreage has increased till we 

 now have 356 acres of alfalfa to be har- 

 vested in 1926. 



Some men objected to losing the use of 

 the land for one year in starting alfalfa. 

 The following method of starting the 

 crop was used .successfully in three out of 

 four demonstrations: — The land was 

 manured and plowed early in the spring. 

 Then three tons of agricultural lime and 

 500 pounds of acid phosphate per acre 

 were disced in. Then the piece was gone 

 over once a week with the spike tooth 

 harrow till about June 15. Then com 

 was planted as usual. The piece was 

 leveled with the spike tooth harrow. The 

 alfalfa was sown, brushed in and rolled. 

 The one failure from this method resulted 

 where the weeds were not killed before 

 planting. On this plot too much corn 

 also was u.sed. 



Another phase of the better roughage 

 campaign was the production of emergen- 

 cy hay crops. Twenty-four men carried 

 on "soy bean for hay" demonstrations 

 with a total of 30.5 acres. Several years 

 ago the planting of soy beans in corn for 

 silage was stressed. This work was not 

 a success, so many were prejudiced 

 against soy beans. One man was found 

 who was growing soys for hay. From 

 this man we obtained soil enough to in- 

 oculate all the soy beans; only one had 

 what could be called a failure. This was 

 on land that was very poor. Four others 

 had only fair crops. This was because 

 these men let the weeds get ahead of the 

 crop or else the woodchucks made short 

 work of part of the field. Some excellent 

 yields were secured. The average yield 

 was about two tons of hay per acre. 

 These demonstrations show that soy 

 beans have a place on our dairy farms as 

 an emergency hay crop. 



In addition to soy beans, many farm- 

 ers used oats and paas as an emergency 

 hay crop. Several splendid fields that 

 gave a heavy yield of good quality hay 

 were grown in the county. Other farms 

 used Japanese millet as a green feed to 

 help out short pastures. 



Two new varieties of corn were tried 

 out: (1) Lancaster County (Pa.) Sure 

 Crop; (2) Huron County (Ohio) Dent. 

 Ten men tried out Lancaster County Sure 

 Crop and found it to be a large, heavily 

 eared variety which is far superior to 

 Eureka. Huron County corn is a smaller 

 and earlier variety which produces a good 

 ear. These varieties will be tried out 

 again next year on a larger scale. 



At the beginning of the year we asked 

 dairy farmers to ti-y economical corn pro- 

 duction. This consisted of using im- 

 proved methods such as planking the field 

 after planting, the use of the leveling 

 harrow and the weeder before and after 

 the corn was up. The importance of us- 

 ing the leveling harrow and the weeder 

 before the weeds got started was stressed. 

 As a result of this work, three of the men 

 did not use the cultivator in the corn at 

 all. The others used the cultivator from 

 one to three times. All were able to en- 

 tirely eliminate hand hoeing. One man 

 said that he had grov^rn his corn cheaper 

 this year than he had ever been able to 

 before. 



This year two men carried on white 

 sweet clover demonstrations in their pas- 

 tures. The land in both cases was plowed 

 and manured lightly (about 8 loads per 

 acre) . From three to four tons of lime- 

 stone per acre were applied. The sweet 

 clover seed was inoculated and sowm 

 about the first of May. Both fields pro- 

 duced fine crops. Pictures taken of these 

 demonstrations have been shown to other 

 farmers with the result that several have 

 signified their intention of trying the 

 crop next year. 



Work on Cas7i Crops 

 Work was continued with nine potato 

 growers in the western part of the county 

 on the production of certified seed. On 

 the first inspection, it was found that 

 some of the fields had so much disease in 

 them that it would not be profitable to 

 rogue. Of the nine entered, only two 

 passed inspection, although all had profit- 

 able crops. 



For some time it has been thought that 

 high acidity probably coupled with alu- 

 minum toxicity was one of the limiting 

 factors in onion production. Experi- 

 ments at the Rhode Island Station have 

 shown that onions cannot produce a full 

 crop on acid soils. The Soiltex was used 

 to determine the acidity of the onion soils. 

 Tests were made in Amherst, Hadley and 

 Hatfield. In all cases it was found that 

 the soil was very strongly acid. Five 

 men carried on lime tests, using from one 

 two tons of argicultural lime per acre. 

 Two of these tests showed startling re- 

 ults. One man got 1440 sacks of large 

 ;ets and one-half sack of picklers on 45 

 acres of land. A neighbor on the other 

 side of the street got 125 sacks of medium 

 sets and 75 sacks of "picklers." Both 

 men had the same kind of sets, fertilizer 

 and soil conditions. The first man used 



Merritt Clark & Co. 



Clothiers, Furnishers 



and 



Hatters 



HART SCHAFFNER AND 

 MARX CLOTHES 



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144 Blain Street j 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. j 



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BISSELL'S TIRE SHOP 



NOKTHAMI'TOJV, MASS. 



Miller, Goodyear and U. S. Tires 



Tires and lubes 



Vulcanized by Steam 



Goodyear Service Station 



FREE AIR 

 06 KIIVO STREET Tel. 1293-M 



New 1926 5-Tube 



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Radio Set 



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129 King St., 



Northampton 



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