74 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[May, 



Our Local Organizations. 



The regular stated meetiug: of the County Agri- 

 cultural and Hortituitural Society was held in their 

 rooms over the City Hall on Monday afternoon, May 

 2d. 



In the absence of the President, Vice President H. 

 M. Engle called the meetiug to order. 

 Members Present. 



The following members were present: H. M. 

 Engle, Marietta; M. D. Kendig, Creswell; A. F. 

 Hostetter, city; Johnson Miller, Warwick; Hon. 

 John H. Landis, Manor; W. H. Brosius, Drumore; 

 Henry Kurtz, Mount Joy; Frank Griest, city; C. A. 

 Gast, city; Dr. C. A. Greene, city; F. R. Diffen- 

 derffer, city; Levi S. Rei»t, Manheim; M. L. G'rider, 

 Mount Joy; Washington L. Hershey, Chickies; J. 

 M. Johnston, city; J. H. Hershey, Rohrerstown; C. 

 L. Hunsecker, Manheim; A. D. Hostetter, Millers- 

 ville; James Wood, Little Britain. 



The reading of the minutes of last meeting was, 

 on motion, dispensed with. 



Reports of Committees. 



Dr. C. A. Greene read a little report in which he 

 recounted his attempts to get up a city meeting in 

 favor of holding a county fair and the success he 

 met*ith. He also had a new plan by which he 

 proposed to attain the end li: view, which is to secure 

 guarantee subscriptions. He complained that the 

 other members of the committee had given him no 

 aid, and he declined going it alone any longer. 



Henry Kurtz thought this an important matter, 

 but as one man cannot do all the work required, he 

 thought we ought to interest others. He believed 

 the people of the county would co-operate. 



Johnson Miller was timid in this matter ; he was 

 afraid we could hardly make a fair a paying success. 

 He would not go into the matter unless enough sub- 

 scriptions were secured in advance to make it a suc- 

 cess. He thought that as the fruit crop would be a 

 partial failure, it might prove a drawback to the 

 success of a fair. He admitted we have all the 

 necessary elements, but how to bring them out was 

 the question. 



W. H. Brosius said our fairs have never been what 

 they should have or could have been ; but until there 

 is a guarantee fund to secure the society against 

 loss, he would not vote to make a fresh attempt 

 next fall. 



On motion, the committee was continued, to re- 

 port at next meeting. 



Crop Reports. 



Johnson Miller said the wheat fields were thinly 

 set and backward. The grass fields look poor, and 

 a short hay crop may be expected. Potatoes and 

 corn are partly planted. The peach crop will be a 

 failure. 



Henry Kurtz said the wheat is backward, and so 

 is the grass. 



Mr. Wood thought one-half the wheat crop looks 

 well, but the other half won't make half a crop. 

 Some corn is planted. 



M. D. Kendig reported the farmers busy with 

 their tobacco fields ; much manure is brought from 

 abroad; 1,050 tons have arrived at his nearest rail- 

 road station. There is a great demand for home- 

 made manures. He has experimented with seed 

 corn and finds that forty-five of that selected in tue 

 fall and thirty-five of that taken from the crib will 

 sprout. The tobacco plants are coming along well. 

 No beetles so, far. No peach blossoms are visible ; 

 cherry blossoms are plenty. Tobacco is moving ofl', 

 although the prices are down a little. 



Henry M. Engle thought no farmer should plant 

 corn that does not sprout 9.5 per cent. If corn is 

 well selected in the fall, not more than .5 per cent, 

 ought to be lost. It is reasonable to suppose that 

 the cold weather having set in so early, and having 

 been so intense and prolonged, may have had some 

 influence on the vitality of the corn. 



W. L. Hershey reported some good and some bad 

 wheat fields in Rapho. The clover is poor, but the 

 timothy is better. The tobacco beetles are already 

 about. 



W. H. Brosius reported the crop in Drumore about 

 the same as elsewhere throughout the county. 



H. M. Engle thought there would be au average 

 crop of whisat. He believed the farmers would get a 

 better hay crop than they expect. There is a pro- 

 fuse cherry bloom. There is bloom on the peach 

 trees in some places, but a majority of trees have 

 none . 



How we are Poisoned. 



Dr. Greene read a supplement to his former arti- 

 cle on this subject, in which he amplified somewhat 

 upon the statements there made. 



C. L. Hunsecker said the terrible afflictions which 

 the essayist predicted have not yet been realized. 

 Instead of the lives of men becoming shorter in con- 

 sequence of the use of tobacco, the years and gener- 

 ations of men have actually been prolonged. More 

 live longer to-day then they ever did. Men use many 

 sub?tances that are regarded as poisonous, but some- 

 how they manage to "get as old now as they did a 

 hundred years ago. 



C. L. Hunsecker read the following essay: 



Is Land Improved by Lying Many years in 

 Grass. 



This depends very much upon the geography, soil, 

 climate and the method of managing land in a coun- 

 try. The surface of the earth contains 200,000,000 

 square miles of territory, and of this quantity, but 

 a small proportion is occupied and under actual cul- 

 tivation. This being the case, it follows that the pro- 

 portion of the surface of the globe that has never 

 been stirred by the plow is vastly greater than that 

 which has received the care and attention of man. 



The great pasture ground of our western country 

 is an illustration of the fact that land is at least not 

 exhausted, worn out and valueless by lying in grass 

 for many successive years, but the natural soil of 

 much of the prairies is so deep and rich and the 

 great expanse of the tall green grass is as boundless 

 as the ocean, that without being stirred and sown by 

 the husbandman it furnishes its rich pastures year 

 after year to innumerable herds of animals. This is 

 also true of the blue grass region of Kentucky and 

 other portions of the north where grass grows spon- 

 taneously. I have read of a case in Georgia where 

 land was lying a long time In pasture; when plowed 

 and planted in corn and other grain it produced for 

 several consecutive years bountiful crops without the 

 application of any manure. But as a large propor- 

 tion of the land occupied by man and under cultiva- 

 tion for our sustenance, much of which is poor by 

 nature and utterly exhausted by severe cropping, 

 may not, although it should lie fallow for a number 

 of years in succession, produce much grass and still 

 be very poor. But when again brought under culti- 

 vation and thoroughly plowed and manured so as to 

 produce good crops of grain and grass, and in this 

 condition put to grass, may be pastured year after 

 year and be in a condition to pay the farmer hand- 

 somely without wearing out the laud. 



A farmer in Otsego county. New York, has two 

 main pastures on his plantation. He confines his 

 cows for two seasons on one of these, giving the 

 sheep theother. Then he changes them, putting the 

 cows into the sheep pastures, wheje they are kept 

 another two years. Then another change is made, 

 arid this alternation is kept up every two years. In 

 this way the pastures are constantly enriched by the 

 droppings of the cows and sheep; and the cows eat 

 the feed in the places shunned by the sheep ; and the 

 sheep eat the grass in the places where the cows re- 

 fuse it. This prBctice is said to have had very satis- 

 factory results. 



"The well-manured and showered earth, 

 Is deep enriched with vegetable life." 



In the earliest ages the earth produced grass and 

 pasture for the shepherds and sustenance for man, 

 before cultivation was attempted, and it does not 

 appear that the land was Impoverished by it, for It 



produced, when cultivation began to be practiced, as 

 bountifully to the industry of the husbandman, as it 

 does to us in our day and generation. 



It is within the recollection of many of us that the 

 principal field upon many farms in Lancaster county 

 was the meadow, which was irrigated, and besides 

 got the bulk or the manure pile, and although there 

 were taken two crops of hay from it each season, we 

 now obtain more and better hay per acre under our 

 methods of culture than then ; when land lies fallow 

 all the year, and is not pastured, mowed or the 

 grass carted from it, it is not likely to suffer much 

 deterioration, but when it is mowed, the grass and 

 hay hauled from it, and nothing in the shape of 

 manure put upon it in return to sustain and stimu- 

 late the grass, it'will ultimately get that poor that 

 no living animal can sustain itself upon it. By pas- 

 turing simply, nearly as much is left as is taken 

 away, and the land, if improved by manuring, re 

 mains in good condition. 



1 the futlivated i 



arth, 

 md g-ood.' 



In England nearly one-half of the land is in grass, 

 and in Ireland three-fourths. It is maintained that 

 the laud that is brought under cultivation produces 

 bountiful crops of grain and root crops ; that much 

 of the best English land has been reclaimed from 

 the worst possible condition, and brought up by 

 high farming to its present good condition. Here Is 

 au example showing that land which has been culti- 

 vated for centuries, and at times very much worn 

 down, is still rich in the resources to produce mag- 

 nificent crops of grass and grain. 



In France the farms are small, often a few acres. 

 Fifty acres in area is a large farm, in contrast with 

 the large farms of England and America. It is from - 

 necessity, one would suppose, that the French acres 

 should be thoroughly rotated, yet it is a fact that it 

 is still the custom to let land lie fallow to a much 

 larger extent than in England. Yet the land holds 

 out remarkably well. 



Holland, in Europe, is alow, flat country, reclining' 

 from the sea, and its meadows are coverd with the 

 forest verdure upon which are browsing numerous 

 herds of cattle. From the nature of the country it 

 naturally enough lies much in grass, ahd without 

 failing to produce luxurious abundance of herbage for 

 years without cultivation. On the whole it is ques- 

 tionable whether the laud is more improved by lying 

 many years in grass. In some sections of the earth 

 it may be best, in other sections not. 



Dr. Greene read another essay on horse clipping. 



W. H Rrosius said thatthe subject referred to him, 

 "Why Do Farmers Keep Dogs?" had been so ably 

 discussed by a late paper that he hardly thought it 

 necessary to say anything further. Said paper 

 answered the above question in this way: "Because 

 they want to." 



Levi 8. Reistread the following paper: 



What to Substitute for a Failing Hay Crop 

 may not definitely be answered, but that a deficiency 

 in the coming hay crop is almost sure to take place 

 is very certain. Very few newgrassfields look prom- 

 ising. The best thing that could have been done 

 would have been if farmers had put out less tobacco 

 and given their now deficient grassfields a thin coat 

 of manure and plowed them down for corn and kept 

 their good old fields another year in grass. That would 

 have been the best and proper remedy, but it is now 

 too late, as the corn ground is prepared, but the next 

 best thing to do is to cultivate Hungarian grass or . 

 sow corn for provender. 



The cause of the grass failures is in a great mea- 

 sure attributable to our farmers themselves. We 

 read in Holy Writ that in ancient times they h-ad 

 years of rest in certain things, and among them in 

 their land under cultivation, but such an idea is all 

 lost on young America. I recollect that grass fields 

 were generally given from two to five years rest, 

 when they were often overgrown with meadow and 

 blue grass, thoroughly mixed with clover and 

 timothy, and the hay was so good that horses were 

 kept in a, good condition on hay aloue. The same^ . 



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