44 



THE LANCASTER FARMER 



[March 



tents are then heated to about 95°, which 

 converts the brains into a kind of lather, 

 makes the skins very clean and pliable. 



If you want to make your boots and shoes 

 pliable, wear much longer, and as near water- 

 proof as can be made, boil them in oil and tal- 

 low. If they are not perfectly dry, however, 

 they will be ruined, but if perfectly dry you 

 need have no fears to try it, and if you try it 

 once you will do it again. 



Our Local Organizations. 



LANCASTER COUNTY AGRICULTU- 

 RAL AND HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



The Lancaster County Agricultural and Horticul- 

 tural Society met in its rooms on Monday afternoon, 

 March 3rd, at two o'clock P. M. 



The following members were present : Calvin 

 Cooper, Bird-in-Hand ; W. H. Brosius, Drumore ; 

 J. C. Linville, Salisbury; Casper Hiller, Conestoga ; 

 S. P. Eby, F. R Diffenderffer, J. M. Jolinston, city ; 

 H.M. Engle, Marietta; Joseph F. Witmer, Para- 

 dise ; Johnson Miller, Warwick ; J. P. Wickersham, 

 R. B. Risk, city ; C. L. Hunsecker, Manheim ; John 

 H. Landis, Manor; Dr. Bollinger, city; E. S. 

 Hoover, Manheim. 



On motion, the reading of the minutes of last 

 meeting was dispensed with. 



Crop Reports. 



Casper Hiller said the wheat crop looks very well. 

 The mice have been doing havoc in the clover fields.- 

 The peaches are still all right. From one in seven to 

 one in thirty seems to be about the amount of damage 



Calvin Cooper endorsed what was said by the pre- 

 ceding speaker. Wheat seems to have done very 

 well. It looks green and thriving. He believed the 

 fruit crop was all right so far. He thought the open 

 ground had much to do in saving the crop. 



Joseph F. Witmer had not examined the grass. 

 The wheat looks very well. Tobacco has all been 

 stripped, but little has been sold. 



Johnson Miller said wheat came out remarkably 

 well. The late snow has been beneficial to the 

 fields. Tobacco is mostly stiipped. He believed we 

 should have an essay read before the society on the 

 growing of Havana seed. 



Johnson Miller said wheat came out remarkably 

 well. The late snow has been beneficial to the fields. 

 Tobacco is mostly stripped. He believed we should 

 have an essay read before the society on the growing 

 of Havana seed. 



W. H. Brosius had nothing new to offer. 



John C. Linville could find no peach buds on his 

 forty trees that are still alive ; all have been de- 

 stroyed. 



H. M. Engle remarked that in his neighborhood 

 all the peaches and some of the cherries are winter 

 killed. The thermometer at one time was eight de- 

 grees below zero — a temperature cold enough to kill 

 the peaches. Field mice have never been worse. 

 Osage hedges have been very much cut up. One 

 hedge he saw has hardly more than two dozen un- 

 girdled trees left. The rainfall for February was 

 four inches. 



J. C. Linville read the following essay on 

 Road Making. 



The time is near at hand when the supervisor will 

 make his annual round and dump a cart load of big 

 stones in a mud hole here and there, pile more dirt 

 on the tops of breaks that are already too high, and 

 perhaps run another furrow in the bottom of side 

 ditches that are already so deep that a loaded wagon 

 cannot be drawn out of them if the driver is so un- 

 fortunate as to get too near the side of the road. 

 This brings to mind the fact that no part of the 

 " civil service " needs reforming so badly as that re- 

 lating to our public roads. 



The average supervisor is generally a man who 



has failed to earn a living at anything else, and falls 

 back on the townships for his bread and butter 

 through the wages of his office. It Is needless to say 

 that he knows about as much of engineering as a 

 Patagonian knows of the differential calculus. Under 

 his supervision the roads always will be bad, no 

 matter what the road law is. 



In some townships in this county the roads are 

 sold, in short sections, to the lowest bidder, to be 

 kept in repair for three years. The system is a good 

 one theoretically, but a disgusting failure in practice. 

 The system is a failure because, first, nine tenths of 

 the contractors are not honest enough to fulfill their 

 contracts ; secondly, the supervisor is too stupid to 

 see that the road is not repaired according to con- 

 tract ; and, thirdly, because if he does see it he has 

 not nerve enough to compel its fulfillment lest he be 

 " sat down on " at the next election. It is doubtful 

 if, under the same supervision, the old plan of em- 

 ploying the hands by the township is any better. 

 Very few men are competent to "boss" a gang of 

 hands and have them do efficient work, and such 

 men get better positions than township supervisors. 



Assuming, however, that we have an efficient 

 supervisor, the first requisite is to have good ma- 

 chinery. A road machine, a stone crusher, a large 

 strong plow and smaller tools should constitute the 

 outfit. As most of the work on the road is done in 

 the forepart of the season, a portable thresher en- 

 gine can easily be hired to operate the stone breaker. 



The law very properly fixes the maximum grade 

 of a public road at five degrees, or about nine feet in 

 the hundred, and it should be the aim of supervisors 

 to reduce all grades on much traveled roads to this 

 standard. Many hill roads have a grade of twelve 

 or thirteen or even more feet per hundred. A road- 

 grade ought not, in any case, to exceed eleven feet 

 to the hundred. Where rock crops out on a hill there 

 is only one remedy — it must be macadamized. The 

 average " turnpike" is made up of all sizes, and es- 

 pecially big ones, dumped into the road and a few of 

 the largest ones broken on top and then covered with 

 dirt. Such a road is an insult to the common sense 

 of the community and a constant temptation to 

 teamsters to use language forbidden in the decalogue. 

 The big stones are soon on top and are a source of 

 continual annoyance. McAdam, the inventor of the 

 system, says the stones should be broken to the size 

 of about one inch cubes. They certainly ought not 

 to be over two inches in diameter. The breaker is re- 

 quired to reduce the stones. If the job is properly 

 done the road will last for generations with but little 

 repairs. No breaks are needed to turn the water off 

 this road. It will find the sides as easily as " rolling 

 off a log." Most hills have entirely too many breaks. 

 When breaks are made they should be wide on top 

 and the grade get easier near the summit, and the 

 water space above be broad and not deep. The man 

 who runs a break diagonally across the road should 

 be sent immediately to an insane asylum or the peni 

 tentiary. A good road has no deep side ditches, but 

 is rounded from side to side, and is road all over. 

 Teamsters may drive fully out to the sides and draw 

 their loads back to the center of the road. With the 

 improved road scrapers now in use two men and a 

 team of horses will do the work of twenty or thirty 

 men with shovels and do it infinitely better. The 

 hills on the main thoroughfares should be graded 

 first, and by intelligent management all the roads 

 could be made good in a few years, and the cost need 

 not be much greater than at present. Franklin's 

 motto, "VVhat is worth doing is worth doing well " is 

 as applicable to roads as to anything else. 



The public roads are an index of the thrift and in- 

 telligence of the community in which they are found. 

 The tendency of the times ie to light wagons and 

 faster driving. We must have easier grades and 

 smoother roads. 



While speaking of public roads, it may not be 

 amiss to consider the matter in its festhetic bearings. 

 The abominable habit of some farmers in letting 

 briars, carrot, dog-fennel, scrap dragon and other 

 vile weeds grow along their roadsides calls loudly for 

 reform . And then some men make the roadside 



near their buildings the depository of all the super- 

 annuated milk-pans, buckets, stove pipes and dilapi- 

 dated wagons, to say nothing of castoS articles of 

 female apparel and dead cats and dogs. 



It is fondly hoped that the day of better roads is 

 not far off. The worst bugbear in the way is the fear 

 of higher taxes. Oh ! Blaine, give that whisky tax 

 to pay our county expenses, so that we may lay 

 heavier local taxes, and have better roads. 



Dr. J. P. Wickersham opened the ball by saying 

 he had ridden over roads in almost every European 

 country. It was a delight to ride over the roads in 

 England, Switzerland, France and Holland. He 

 never knew how bad our roads actually were until 

 he came home from Europe. He believed in the enl 

 the government would finally be compelled to take 

 road making under its supervision. He rode for 

 hundreds of miles between rows of Linden and other 

 trees planted by the roadside. He went over great 

 grades, but never saw a break in all Europe ; they 

 are harmful to horse and carriage. 



W. H. Brosius thought the road making business 

 had attracted as much attention as any other ques- 

 tion that concerns farmers. Our present system is 

 not only a vicious one, but very defective. 



Joseph F. Witmer said the first way to get good 

 roads was to educate the public to the proper pitch. 

 Comparatively few people know what a good road is; 

 the supervisors are no exception. People really 

 don't know how a good road should be made. Peo- 

 ple ought to advise with the supervisor and give him 

 the benefit of their experience. The saving of 

 horses, wagons and harness on a .good road is enor- 

 mous. His idea was to have roads in such condition 

 that people would travel over them because it was a 

 pleasure to do so. 



S. P. Eby believed this county offered some obsta- 

 cles from the beginning to good roads. They have 

 not always been carried along the most favorable 

 routes. He thought we have not yet learned the art 

 of road making. The idea that we ought to have 

 road taxes at the very lowest possible point is i 

 mon. This is poor economy. No money is better 

 invested than that appropriated to roads. Our 

 supervisors do not understand making breaks. 



J. C. Linville agreed wi:h Dr. Wickersham that 

 there is no necessity for breaks in the roads, not even 

 in clay roads. The great sin in road making is in 

 using stones that are too large. We pay no tax that 

 gives us such good and quick returns as a well-made 

 road. 



Joseph I. Witmer believed the best plan would 

 to place the roads of an entire county under the 

 supervision of a competent engineer, who should see' 

 that the work on them was properly done. 



H. M. Engle, congratulated the writer on the 

 essay, on having stirred up this road matter. The 

 people will have to be educated up to the proper 

 point. That time will come, however, when this 

 evil will be remedied. Even our macadamized roads 

 are not so good as those found elsewhere. 



Tobacco Culture. 



C. L. Hunsecker read a long and very interestingi 

 essay on tobacco, its culture, uses and other facts 

 concerning it. It called forth some comment, which 

 was unfavorable to tobacco. It was denounced as 

 pernicious, even more offen.sive to some than whisky. 

 Tobacco, however, had its defenders, and some very 

 favorable things were said of the great advantagei 

 it has carried with it to laborers and those who cul 

 tivate it. It is hardly likely, however, that the cul- 

 ture or use of tobacco will be prevented by anything 

 that was said. 



H.M. Engle again advocated the offering of preml 

 ums to farmers' boys for the best crop of corn from 

 a limited area of ground. He believed the society 

 could do no better with its funds than use them in 

 this way. 



J. C. Linville favored the idea, and moved that 

 a committee be appointed to arrange the terms and 

 conditions of the competition. The Chair appointed 

 Messrs. Linville, Engle and Witmer a committee to, 

 arrange the necessary details. 



