142 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[September, 



JVst . )lding fish net, Lancaster county prison. 



Best nase of files, A. F. Spencer, city. 



Best boat. Dr. S. T. Davis, city. 



Bett dairy cabinet creamers, J. S. Connelly, Man 

 heim. 



Best force pump, best butcher koiret and chisel, 

 George M. Reeser, Bird. in-Hand. 



Best carriage bodies, Henry Mellinger, city. 



Best fruit evaporator, A. G. Pfoulz, Strashurg. 



Best display of gas fixtures and of brass work, 

 Flinn & Breueman, city. 



Beet display of oil lamps and globes, John P. 

 Shaum, city. 



Best display of rubber belting, of leather belting 

 and of mixed paints, A. C. Kepler, city. 



Best display of carriage wheels, iron troughs and 

 grates, H. M. Powers, city. 



Beet display of grave stones, Lewis Haldy & Sou, 

 city. 



Best display of spokes, hubs, &c., Philip Lebzelter 

 it Co., city, who have also best cutter and cabinet. 



Best shafts, felloes, etc., B. F. Skcin, city. 



Best aquarium of fish, C. B. and H. M. Herr, 

 Willow Street. 



Best fret work, Mrs. VV. O. Frailey,city 

 Diplomas Awarded. 



The Judges of Agricultural Implements make 

 special mention of and recommend diplomas to be 

 awarded to the fpllowing : 



Bush <fc Heisey, Elizabethtown, best pump trough. 



J. H. Stauffer, Salunga, oil stoves. 



Geo. Bard, Leacock, swivel or hillside plow. 



Geo. Bard, Leacock, combined treble plow. 



Eppler & Hoffer, champion pump. 



V. Andes & Sons, Iron troughs. 



W. D. Sprecher & Son, economy plow. 



T. C. Swigart, Pequea, Iron farm wagon. 



W. D. Sprecher &8on. Iron scoop. 



Eppler A Hoffer, Elizabethtown, grain fan. 



Jacob F. Bender, Columbia, slop cart. 



Jacob F. Bender, Columbia, dump cart. 



John Keeler, city, spring riding harrow. 



Carlisle Manufacturing Company, Carlisle, 

 upright engine. 



Horse power thresher and separator, Sheaffer, 

 Merkle & Co., Fleetwood. 



Economist point plow, W. D. Sprecher & Son. 



Cider mill and ,ress, W. D. Sprecher & Son. 



Chopping machine, W. D. Sprecher & Son. 



Churn, E. 0. Henry, city. 



Premiums Omitted. 



Best butter, Mrs. Fannie Bushong, Bird-in Hand. 



Best mare coli, between 3 and i years old, light 

 draught, John B. Kendig, Willow Street. 



Best geraniums, Isaac K. Merig, Leacock. 



Best canteloupes, C. Hiller & Son, Conestoga. 



Best parlor double heater, A. C. Kepler, city. 



Best steam and hot air heater, Flinn & Breneman. 

 Best Home-Made Dress. 



The premiums offered by Strawbridge & Clothier 

 for the best home-made dress were awarded as 

 follows : 



First premium, Mrs. Sue Wolfersberger, city. 

 Second premium, Mrs. Jordan, city. Third pre- 

 mium, Miss Pauline Kengier, city. 



AGRICULTURE. 



What Shall the Farmer Sell? 



A man once told us that he never sold anything of 

 material value olT his farai. What could he sell 

 then 1 We thought of only one product in all the 

 long list, and that was butter. After a little ques- 

 tioning we found he meant that he fed all his hay 

 and straw. This retaining of all fodder wai doubt- 

 less a wise action and he knew it. 



Theory and practice are sometimes widely sepa 

 rated. In theory, milk should not be sold from the 

 farm, as It contains much nitrogen, phosphoric acid 

 and potash. Those three are elements usually lack- 

 ing in a poor or wornout soil. If butter is made from 

 the milk, and it only Is sold, all of the three fertil- 

 izers are retained. Butter ii a pure fat and la made 



up of water and air elements. But, when we look 

 at it, the folly of everyone refusing to sell milk be- 

 comes evident. Here are the vast cities to be sup- 

 plied with milk. The millions of people without 

 cows must receive milk fiom the millions who have 

 them. If everything is properly adjusted— and we 

 do not say that it Is— the farmer who sells milk 

 should get enough for it to cover all expenses of re- 

 covering the fertilizing elements sold and make a 

 handsome profit besides. There ought to be a return 

 current from all consumers of soil products back to 

 the soil that has produced the good. 



In the same manner there are millions of city hors- 

 es to be fed with hay and grain, and this fodder 

 must come from somewhere. The farmers who sell 

 the hay, etc., should be well enough paid for it that 

 they may afford to purchase the amount of phosphor- 

 ic acid, potash and nitrogen, to make good the loss. 

 There may be many localities where a farmer can 

 feed all his own fodder to best advantage, but as 

 surely there are or should be others where it is the 

 wisest to sell the hay and grain and buy its equiva- 

 lent back as manure in one of its many forms. 



Farmers must sell something. They must sell a 

 portion of the fertility of their lands every year. 

 How to restore this over-wasting capital and get a 

 living income besides is the problem not to be solved 

 without study.— Press. 



" A Little Farm Well Tilled." 

 It has often been remarked of the agriculturists of 

 this country that they are land poor. The highest 

 ambition of the average farmer appears to be to be- 

 come the possessor of as much land as he can possi- 

 blj obtain. Ordinarily, if not always, this idea is a 

 very erroneous one — at least so it appears to us. A 

 small farm, well tilled, will give as large, if not 

 larger, returns than a farm twice the size poorly 

 cultivated. The expenses on a large farm are far 

 more, proportionately, than on a small farm. A 

 small farm can be thoroughly tilled, and every inch 

 of it made to reach its highest stateof productiveness. 

 If this principle were followed out, and our farms 

 divided into smaller holdings, a far diflTerent state of 

 cultivation would be seen in the valley than at pres- 

 ent obtains. Many farmers mortgage their farms to 

 purchase more land, when they already have more 

 than they can properly attend to. The money would 

 return them ten-fold more if invested in improved 

 breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs, and in labor saving 

 machinery, fertilizers, etc., to be used on the land 

 they already ovin.—Sridgelown (TV. S.) Monitor. 



A New Requirement in Modern Farming. 



A good farmer always needed skill, but in the 

 changed conditions of modern farming a different 

 kind of skill is needed from that required by our 

 fathers and grandfathers. This is more largely the 

 case West than East, but true in both. Formerly it 

 was mostly manual skill in the use of simple imple- 

 ments, such as the sickle, the ecythe and the com- 

 mon walking plow. Now the farmer needs to know 

 how to adjust, run and care for machinery. Ma- 

 chines properly handled call for little manual ex- 

 pertness to run them. But to manage the present 

 implements requires a degree of mechanical skill 

 that a large proportion of our farmers do not possess. 

 To comprehend the full extent of this change, com- 

 pare the modern threshing machine with the old- 

 fashioned flail, or the self-binding harvester with the 

 old sickle, or Its successor, the grain cradle. Every 

 careful observer must recognize the fact that the 

 lack of skill in using and caring for his machinery 

 is one of the most potent sources of loss to the farm- 

 er. We have known one man to use a mower for ten 

 years, without expending over thirty dollars in re- 

 pairs—or three dollars annually— while his neighbor 

 in cutting a smaller quantity of grass used up three 

 equally good machines in the same time. Compare 

 the expenses of this one item: First farmer expend- 

 ed one hundred and thirty dollars, plus, say seventy 

 dollars for interest— or two hundred in all— for ten 

 years. This is just twenty dollars per annum j quite 



an item you will say, for mowing tools alone, but 

 still much cheaper than mowing with the scythe. 

 The other wore out three machines, three hundred 

 dollars, to which add repairs, say same as the other 

 — thirty dollars, and interest on one hundred dollars 

 for ten years, seventy dollars; on one hundred dol- 

 lars, (the second machine for six years) forty-two 

 dollars; and on another one hundred dollars (the 

 third machine for three years) twenty-one dollars, 

 and you have a grand total of four hundred and six- 

 ty-three dollars— or forty-six dollars and thirty cents 

 per annum— an annual expense of more than twice 

 as much as the other. The same calculations con- 

 cerning the harvester, the sulky-plow, the hay-rake, 

 and other farm implements, make an enormous dif- 

 ference in the cost to a man who is unskillful in 

 using and caring for them. An important inquiry is 

 how the present difficulty can be remedied. — Ameri- 

 can Aqricutturist . 



Feeding Depleted Soil. 



Professor J. W. Sanborn, of the Missouri College 

 Farm, at Columbia, has been glancing at the agri- 

 cultural statistics of that State, and finds that the 

 wheat yield has gradually run down in twenty years 

 from 14 to 11.7 bushels per acre, and the corn crop 

 from 30.8 to 26.6. The significant figures emphasize 

 the unmistakable necessity of refreshing the soil, 

 whose fatness the pioneers have been extorting with- 

 out compensation. This point— with suggestions for 

 supplying the need — is illustrated by the following 

 statement : 



" Any one of the materials that constitute the 

 fourteen found in plants is available to the plant, re- 

 gardless of source (unless in poisonous compounds) 

 if only in soluble condition. Of the fourteen ele- 

 mentary materials that enter into the growth of a 

 plant, three or four of them are of but very limited 

 importance. If any one material of the other ten, 

 several of which are familiar to all, like lime, potash, 

 sulphur, iron, and phosphorus, are entirely wanting 

 in the soil, which fact never occurs except in arti- 

 cial soil, the plant cannot grow ; if present in de- 

 ficient available quantities the plant does not thrive, 

 cannot grow. Most soils contain, of these ten, seven 

 materials that are, according to the world's experi- 

 ence, in sufficient quantities to grow crops for long 

 periods, whose Unit, if any, is unknown. The three 

 which we need to furnish the soil are nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash, and sometimes lime and 

 magnesia. But of those three sometimes only two 

 are needed, and again often only one is needed. I 

 have farmed two farms ; the first required only 

 phosphoric acid, responding slightly to the use of 

 potash and nitrogen ; the second gave response in 

 increased crops to only potash. So wanting in pot- 

 ash was this soil that without any manure it soon 

 gave bntten bushels of corn per acre ; while by the 

 use of 64 lbs. potash per acre the crop was nearly 

 fourfold as large on sections side by side. This fer- 

 tilizer cost but about S2..50 for the locality in ques- 

 tion. The deficient material of a soil is like a weak 

 link in a chain." 



Several million dollars are annually expended in 

 each of several States for chemical manures, and 

 their use is extending rapidly westward. Ohio had 

 over 100 brands analyzed in 18S3 ; much is bought in 

 Illinois, and one firm alone sold eighty tons in Mis- 

 souri last year. Professor Sanborne is carrying for- 

 ward some tests to throw some light upon the con- 

 ditions under which it may be practicable to use the 

 chemicals in that State, and publishes the initial re- 

 sults in his Bulletin No. 7. 



Hort:cu .ture. 



Watering Newly Set Trees. 

 This is the rock on which most tree planters fall. 

 "Well," once said a gentleman to me, "those trees I 

 set out with the greatest care, watered them every 

 day, but could save only a part of them.'" No won- 

 der. Another gentleman wrote me that half a dozen 

 plum trees he had purchased and planted "were 



