172 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[November, 



tioiis divided broods of cliickens, takinir a part each 

 time to a tenant bouse of his, where Jthey inva- 

 riably escaped the gapes, while those left at home 

 were badly affected wi)h the disease, and yet at the 

 tenement there was no aparent advantage either in 

 regard to pure water or healthy location. 



S. L. Gregg said that at his place the waste water 

 was all conducted away under ground to a sinck,and 

 chickens were regularly supplied with clean water 

 and that during a residence of ten years at his present 

 place the chickens had never suffered from the 

 gapes. 



After some unimportant discussion on the compa 

 rative value of one's own experience, and agricultu- 

 ral reading, the club adjourned to meet at the resi- 

 tdence of E. Henry Haines, on the second Friday in 

 December, and there discuss the question of the ad- 

 vantage of keeping up inside fences on farms on this 

 section. 



AGRICULTURE, 



The Use of the Roller. 



The Xeiv Eiif/land Farmer has a timely article on 

 this subject. Indeed it is almost always timely to 

 talk abort the good effect of rolling land. The roller 

 will not make moisture, but it will tend to retain 

 some of it that is already in the soil, and its use may 

 make the difference between a crop and no crop on 

 land that is to be seeded down during a dry period. 

 In a soil made compact by the roller, a light shower 

 may afford sullicient moisture to the surface to germ- 

 inate the seeds and give them a healthy start, while 

 in an ever-mellow soil they would lie dormant or 

 merely sprout and then dry up and die. The iron 

 roller is far better than a wooden one in every re- 

 spect. Is turns easily, being made in short sections ; 

 It is heavy according to its size, and bears harder on 

 the soil it covers. The weight of a large wooden 

 roller is distributed over too much surface at once. 

 The roller is often useful in the spring for compact- 

 ing the surface of newly-seeded mowing or grass 

 fields, sown the previous autumn, and which the 

 frosts of winter have loosened up or torn to pieces. 

 If cloverseed be sown on such land the roller be- 

 comes almost indispensable, and some farmers prac 

 tlce covering their grasG seed with a roller in place of 

 a harrow or brush, which is an excellent method 

 where the soil is sufficiently moist. Another good 

 use of the iron roller is upon mowing lands recently 

 lop dressed with stable manure. The weight is 

 needed to press the manure down close to the sur- 

 face, where it will keep moist, and all the sooner 

 help start the new growth, at the same time leaving 

 the surface smooth for the scythe or mowing ma- 

 chine. It is also used by gardeners to bieak up 

 lumpy soil, and with alternate harrowings to render 

 it fit for receiving the seeds of tender garden vege- 

 tables. 



Progressive Farmers. 



The true farmer does not stop to count the cost of 

 Improvement, for his reason prompts him to believe 

 that he cannot go wrong by endeavoring to improve. 

 Every acre of his farm is cultivated to its highest 

 capacity, and his soil never deteriorates in quality. 

 lie rotates his crops with a view to increased fer- 

 tility, and he estimates his prollts by the amount of 

 expense entailed in securing that profit. The fail- 

 ure to realize immediate results does not discourage 

 him, for he knows that, through his judicious sys 

 tein of cultivation, the realization is but deferred for 

 a little while longer. He farms for profit and he 

 spends for profit. He knows nothing of stinted 

 economy, which saves to-day and robs to morrow. 

 The farm Is his bank, his workshop and his occupa- 

 tion, no stone being left unturned, and no portion 

 slighted at the cost of another part. 



A good farm means good stock. The squealing 

 hog has no place on it, but must be superseded by 

 the quiet thoroughbreds. The tangle-Heeced, small- 

 carcassed sheep cannot be allowed where only the 

 .Merino, the Cotswold and the Oxford Down are 

 adapted. The scraggy bovines of the past are seen 



no more, for the deep milking Holst.ein, the cream- 

 giving Jersey and the beef-producing Hereford have 

 occupied their places. The thoroughbred and the 

 Clydesdale plow the fields that formerly yielded to 

 the wind broken plugs, and the wagons and imple 

 ments are of the most approved labor-savinir pat- 

 terns. All this means capital and is expensive; but 

 when we consider the fact that it costs no more to 

 keep the best than the bad, and that expense means 

 profit in the end, the cost is not so formidable as it 

 seems. 



But th ■ manure heap is the most important of all. 

 A good farmer can be selected by the manner in 

 which he keeps his manure. The manure is the 

 wealth — the bank on which the check is drawn— and 

 it is imprudent to neglect it. Drenching rains and 

 scorching suns carry upward and downward the 

 soluble and volatile constituents of the unprotected 

 heap, and often great ditches are dug to allow the 

 black liquid riches to pass off and away forever. But 

 the good farmer works differently. He makes his 

 manure fine, attends personally to the process of 

 decomposition, protects it from the weather and en- 

 deavors to make it a ready food for the crops when 

 hauled to the fields. Farming pays well— to good 

 farmers. 



^ 



Effect of Draining. 



First. It removes the surplus water and prevents 

 ponding in the soil. It should be noted that if the 

 drains are used, tliey should be of sufficient size to 

 remove the surplus water in twenty-four hours. 

 Second. Il prevents the accumulation of poisons in 

 the soil which result from stagnant water, either 

 above or under the suface. Third. The ammonia is 

 carried down into the soil by the descending rain, 

 stored for the plant food instead of stopping on the 

 surface and passing off by evaporation, or borne 

 away with the surface waste. Fourth. It deepens 

 and enriches the soil by opening the ground, allow 

 ing the roots of the plant to go deeper into the earth ; 

 decaying after harvest, they form this subsoil into 

 surface soil, providing resources lor the pli.nt more 

 reliable, and making the same greund better for 

 cultivation for a greater length of time. Fifth. It 

 avoids drought, by enabling |the plant to thrust its 

 roots deeper into the soil. Sixth. The drainage in- 

 creases the temperature of the soil. In some cases 

 the average has been increased as much as ten de- 

 grees. Seventh. By securing the uniformity of con 

 dition for plant growth, it hastens the maturing of 

 the crop from ten days to two weeks. Eighth. It 

 enables the farmer to work his land in wet or dry 

 seasons, and insures a return for the labor bestowed. 

 With our land thoroughly drained we can carry on 

 the operation of farming with as great success and 

 as little effect from bad weather as any bus.ness 

 which depends on such a variety of circumstances. 

 We shall have substituted certainty for chance, as 

 far as it is in our power to do so, and make farming 

 an art rather than a venture. — Prairie Farmer. 



Fall Plowing. 

 Any one who has seen the best European farming 

 knows how important it is to thoroughly prepare the 

 soil for the seed. The working of the soil adds 

 nothing, but it helps in changing the form of the 

 plant food compounds, and thus plowing and har- 

 rowing becomes indirectly a source of nourishment. 

 The soil is a vast storehouse of plant food, which it 

 holds by virtue of its insolubility. Furthermore, it is 

 only through the action of the .lir and all those pro- 

 cesses, chemical and otherwise, which are covered 

 by such terms as weathering, nitrification, etc., that 

 these essential elemenls are brought into a soluble 

 form and made available for the use of the growing 

 plant. The chemistry of the soil, as it becomes 

 better understood, teaches in every line the import- 

 ance of a frequent stirring of the surface of the 

 cropped field. With this in mind it is to the pur- 

 pose to urge the importance of fall plowing. For 

 other than chemical reasons tlie stubble or sod may 

 be turned under this fall. Not only will the air cir- 

 culate more freely, and the processes of reducing 



the insoluble substance go on more rapidly, but the 

 mechanical texture of the heavy soil especially will 

 be improved. Should insects or their larvse, or 

 " worms " abound in the earth they will be turned 

 out of their'winter quarters and destroyed. Aside 

 from these advantages there is a luUin the farm 

 work at this season, and any plowing or other labor 

 with the soil will help materially to lessen the rush 

 and hurry that otherwise eomes with the busy 

 months of spring. The thoughtful and successful 

 farmer so plans his farming operations that one 

 season helps the next in more ways than one. — Anur- 

 ican Agric'dturiat. 



HORT2CL rURE. 



Pear Raising. 



It has often been said by those in a position to 

 know, that more money can be made from an acre of 

 ground planted in choice fruit trees than out of any 

 other crop, and after seeing what Mr. William 

 Weidle, of No. 542 East Orange street, has cropped 

 from his comparatively small lot, we are ready to 

 believe it. His small fruits, such as plums, grapes 

 and raspberries, are over, but his pears are still in 

 his cellar and show what his product has been in 

 that line. He has no fewer than thirty-six varieties 

 of this fruit, beginning with the earliest, the Giffard 

 and Bloodgood, and closing with the Glout .Morceau 

 and Winter Nellis, which come into season any time 

 from December until April. Between these early 

 and late kinds come the Bartlett, Seckel, Beurre 

 Bose, Buffum, Louise Bon dclersej', Flemish Beauty, 

 Lawrence, Sheldon, Beurre Did, Vicar of Winkfield, 

 Utbaniste and many others, all of the most approved 

 varieties. Mr. Weidle put into his cellar about one 

 hnnilred bushels of these luscious pears. He has 

 several plans of keeping them. Some are put on 

 trays and these are fixed on stands specially con- 

 structed for this purpose. Others are wrapped in 

 paper and put into boxes, while still others have 

 strings attached to their stems and are then hung to 

 nails driven in the joists of the floor above, where 

 they hang in huge masses from end to end. It re- 

 quires much attention to look after this fruit. As 

 some of it is ripening daily, the boxes must be ex- 

 amined every few days and the ripe fruit removed. 

 In warm weather it ripens much faster than in cold. 

 There is a market for all he has. Not only do hotels 

 and grocers buy them, but private individuals take 

 more or less every day. The price varies with the 

 kind and quality : fine fruit now sells from sixty to 

 seventy cents per half peck. It was a fine sight to 

 see all these pears strung along the joists, in the 

 trays and in the numerous boxes, and we viae not 

 long in reaching the conclusion that next to being a 

 newspaper reporter, the most delightful ocrupation 

 in the world was growing pears and eating them. 



The Effect of Dry Weather on Apples. 



Tiie effect which a protracted drought has on the 

 fruit of an apple orchard depends on location, condi 

 tion and the treatment of the trees. If the orchard 

 he on high laud, and is kept in grass cut at the 

 usual time, even a short drought will affect the 

 trees and the fruit. The first indication of injury 

 will be the turning of the leaves to a lighter color, 

 followed by the shedding of a considerable portion of 

 them ; the fruit stops growing, or grows very slowly, 

 and finally a considerable portion drops off. But if 

 the laud be kept well cultivated, no ordinary drought 

 will affect either the trees or the fruit, though tie 

 land be quite high and dry. When it is not conveni- 

 ent to cultivate the land, the trees can be protected 

 by mulching quite as well, if not better, than by cul- 

 tivation. An orchard should never beset on high 

 land unless to be kept cultivated or mulched. 



In many places this year the drought has been 

 so protracted that even trees on what is usually quite 

 moist land have suffered, and the fruit is much 

 below the usual size, and within the past week or 

 two a considerable portion has fallen off. 



A season like this leaches us how important it is 

 to not only make a good selection of land upon 



