HAMPSHIRE 

 FARMERS' MONTHLY 



ARY of \} 



aisachuaeti 



UTricuHural 



Vol. XIII. 



NORTHAMPTON. ftlASS.. I\IAY, 1928 



No. 5 



Budding Uncle Dudley 



Tells Story of Sweet Clover 



Rutland, Mass. 

 Feb. 16, 1928. 

 Mr. George F. E. Story, 

 Dear George: 



Well, we're jest finished fillin the ice- 

 house and gettin up a woodpile, so bein 

 as how Fve got a few minutes to spai-e 

 jest now I thought meb- 

 be perhaps I'd better 

 write and give you a 

 few pinters about that 

 feller Reiner thet works 

 fer you and let you 

 know how he's carryin 

 on so's you can put 

 some of these farmers 

 around the country on 

 the lookout so's they 

 won't get tuk in with 

 him agin like I did. 



You see, it was jest 

 like this. He cum up 

 here a year ago last 

 spring jest about mud 

 times, and as I hadn't 

 hed any company all 

 winter, I was mighty 

 glad to see somebody so 

 we jest set down in the sun on the south 

 side of the barn and visited fer quite a 

 spell. 



All of a sudden he sed he was tryin to 

 get the farmers interested in improvin 

 their pastures and wanted to know what 

 Fd dun about improvin mine. Well, I 

 told him that the hired man and me hed 

 cut off quite a strip of the woodlot and 

 burned the brush so's the cows could get 

 the fresh sprouts and whatever grass and 

 brakes thet would cum in if they wasn't 

 too lazy to walk down after them. He 

 kinda lafFed and sed that might abeen all 

 right fer grandfather's cows but the 

 modern dairy cow was a delicate refined 

 lady thet hed to be catered to if we were 

 to get her to do her best. 



Agrees to Try It 



I remembered areading in the Home- 

 stead where one of them college pro- 



Attention Homemakers! 



Help make your community the 

 banner one by coming to our annual 

 picnic at Laurel Jark June 12th at 

 10 :30 o'clock in the morning. Babies 

 will be cared for so they need not 

 keep you at home. Bring a basket 

 lunch. 



Pack your car full I 



m^- 



iiS. «'• 



.v» > 



L.BARNING TO REJTOVATE A STR.IWBERRY BED 



MODERN F. AND H. PRACTICES 

 GIVEN FOR WEEK AT M. A. C. 



This interesting group of small fruit 

 growers are being shown the most up to 

 date methods on cultivating a strawberry 

 bed during ANNUAL FARM AND 

 HOME WEEK at the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College. This year's pro- 

 gram is scheduled for .JULY 24 TO 27. 

 This is but one of many such groups that 

 may be seen at the time of farm and home 

 week studying the best methods of im- 

 proving practices on the farm or making 

 the farm home a betterr place in which to 

 live. Home makers, dairymen, poultiy- 

 men, vegetable gardeners, gardening 

 enthusiasts, and others have their special 

 programs during the week. 



Plans for the program are already well 



under way, with numerous well known 



subject matter authorities on the tenta- 



fessors wrote something thet sounded jest 1 1'^'^ program. One of the head line 



about like thet so I asked him if he'd ever 

 been to college and he sed he hed, so I 

 could see right off I was in fer it. Well, 



Continued on page 3, column 2 



speakers definitely scheduled for this year 

 is Liberty Hyde Bailey of Ithaca, New 

 York, author of many books on agricul- 



Continued on pag^e 0, column 1 



Five Factors Help Make 



Potatoes Yield a Profit 



Soil, Seed, Labor, Plant Food, and Pest 

 Control Are The Main Items 



How many potatoes do people eat? 

 Government estimates state that the aver- 

 age consumption per person is a little 

 more than three bushels. And apparently 

 it doesn't take many pounds over this 

 amount to knock the market price flat 

 enough to make potato growing unprofit- 

 able for most faiTners. 

 The total crop of the 

 country is not depen- 

 dent on acreage alone. 

 The yield per acre has 

 to be considered and 

 this is affected by all 

 sorts of things and con- 

 ditions. In some cases 

 it's poor land or poor 

 seed that cuts the yield. 

 In other cases it may be 

 the failure to control 

 insect and disease pests. 

 The combination of 

 acreage and yield con- 

 ditions makes for wde 

 fluctuations in the mar- 

 ket price. 



The great rewards to 

 the potato grower, de- 

 clares J. P. Helyar, extension specialist 

 in soils and crops at the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural college, are to those who 

 plant a faii-ly constant acreage and who 

 so manage the factors of yield that year 

 in and year out they produce potatooes 

 at a consistently low cost per bushel. It's 

 the man who jumps in a year after good 

 prices that often finds himself in the con- 

 dition of having hit the market at the 

 wrong time. 



The possibility of fluctuations in mar- 

 ket price is a poor refuge for the potato 

 grower. As an individual he has little 

 to say in controlling what the market will 

 pay. On the other hand, though he has 

 a lot to say as to how much per bushel it 

 will cost to produce his crop. Better to 

 be concerned with this than to be influ- 

 enced solely by the price paid for last 

 year's crop, or by trying to guess what 

 the rest of the ocuntry is going to do. 



Select Soil Carefully 



The man who plants a peck and the 

 man who plants 50 acres have the same 



Continued on page 8. column 1 



