HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARMERS' MONTHLY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Trustees for Aid to 

 Agriculture 



STAFF 

 Kdlaiid A. Payne, County Agent 

 Mrs. £dith 1>. French, 



Home Denionstrilti<iii Accent 

 Bella G. Erliard. Comity Club Aeent 

 Mary C. O'Leary, Clerk 



Office First National Bank Building 



Northampton, Mass. 



Entered as second class matter Nov. 9, 191.5. at the 

 Post Office at Northampton. Massachusetts, under 

 the Act of March 8, 1M7'.), 



*' Notice of Entry" 



"Acceptance for mailing at special rate of jiost 

 age provided for in section 110:5. Act of October 3 

 1917. Authorized October 31, 1917." 



I'rice. .'iO cents a year 



Officers of the Trustees 



Edwin B. Clapp, President 

 Charles E. Clark, Vice-President 

 Warren M. King, Treasurer 

 Roland A. Payne, Secretary 



Trustees for County Aid to Agriculture 



Edwin B. Clapp, Easthampton 

 Charles E. Clark, Leeds 

 Clarence E. Hodgkins, Northampton 

 William N. Howard, Ware 

 Milton S. Howes, Cummington 

 Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hadley 

 Warren M. King, Northampton 

 •John A. Sullivan, Northampton 

 Charles W. Wade, Hatfield 



ARE YOU A NO ACCOUNT MAN? 

 OR A BUSINESS MAN? 



Are you planning next year's business 

 on actual accounts kept in your 1921 

 farm business or are you guessing at 

 your plans? A check book and an ac- 

 count book are a necessity on any prog- 

 ressive farm. If you are not keeping ac- 

 counts or if you are not satisfied with 

 your pi-esent system, try one of the ac- 

 count books published by the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College. They are dis- 

 tributed by your County Agent and now 

 is the time to get one and start keeping 

 accounts. 



Most farmers like a simple account 

 book, one that requires a small amount of 

 time but still will tell them at the end of 

 the year where they made or lost money. 

 The Massachusetts Farmers' Account 

 Book is arranged on this basis and is so 

 simple that anyone can keep it with a 

 minimum amount of time. 



The most important part of any ac- 

 count book is the inventory. Without it 

 one cannot tell whether or not his farm 

 business has been conducted at a profit. 

 January 1 or March 1 are the two dates 

 usually .set for taking inventory. For 

 those making an income ta.x report, Janu- 

 Continued on page 5. column 2 



FERTILIZERS FOR 1922 



simple Mixtures Advised 



Director Sidney B. Haskell of the 

 Massachu-setts Experiment Station gives 

 the following advice to farmers of the 

 state regarding fertilizers for 1922: — 



"In canvassing the possible use for 

 fertilizer in your County, it seems to me 

 that we can practically come down to two 

 mixtures to be applied over a range of 

 crops; and to two raw materials to be 

 applied direct. These are as follows: 



1. 4-8-5, for potatoes, truck crops, and 

 miscellaneous garden crops; and 



2. 9-5-5, or an approximate of this, 

 for top-dressing permanent mowings, sod 

 orchards, and for use on truck crops 

 under conditions where a 4-8-5 may be 

 expected to have deficient nitrogen. 



3. Acid phosphate to be used with 

 manure for corn, and for whatever small 

 grains may be grown in your County. 



4. Nitrate of soda, or possibly sulfate 

 of ammonia, for top-dressing rotation 

 grass lands, particularly those which 

 have received manure within recent 

 years; for use in sod orchards, peach 

 orchards, and as a side dressing on 

 growing vegetable crops in case they 

 show deficiency of nitrogen. 



A formula which I believe will "stand 

 up" on keeping, which may be mixed 

 now and drilled in at the proper time 

 next spring, without trouble, and for 

 which materials are available are as fol- 

 lows : 



1,000 pounds (10 bags) acid phosphate. 

 150 pounds (3/4 bag) nitrate of soda. 

 100 pounds (1/2 bag Sulfate of ammo- 

 nia. 

 550 pounds (5 1/2 bags) 7-15 tankage. 

 200 pounds (1 bag) muriate oi potasn. 



Approximate analysis: 4% ammonia, 

 8% phosphoric acid, 5% potash. 



The above is based upon the fact that 

 on most farms it is impractical to weigh 

 out the fertilizer material to the last 

 pound. Neither is such nicety of opera- 

 tion at all necessary. I have tried to 

 select those materials which, as sold in 

 the common bag of commerce, may be 

 split up in easy fractions. Furthermore, 

 all these materials are relatively low- 

 priced, save only for animal tankage. 



For the second formula, 9-5-5, I sug- 

 gest the following mixture: 



500 pounds 7 — 15 tankage. 



400 ponuds ammonium sulfate. 



300 pounds nitrate of soda. 



600 pounds acid phosphate. 



200 pounds muriate of potash. 



Approximate analysis: 9i'/r ammonia, 

 5h'/r phosphoric acid, 5% potash. 



Unless this last mixture be very care- 

 fully compounded, and kept in a dry 

 place with the bags not piled one on the 

 other, it is liable to cause trouble physi- 

 cally. Please note the very lai-ge quantity 

 of more or less hydroscopic chemical ma- 

 Continued on page 7, column 2 



SUCCESSFUL AGRICULTURAL 



MEETINGS IN BOSTON 



Hampshire County was well repre- 

 sented at the Fourth Annual Union 

 Meeting of Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Organizations held in Boston, January 

 17 to 20. To give an adequate report of 

 all the sessions would be impossible in. 

 our limited space, so only a gist of a few 

 of the outstanding sessions will be given. 



To spray or dust seems to be the up- 

 permost question in the minds of fruit 

 growers. Dusting was ably presented 

 by W. H. Conant of Buckfield, Maine. 

 His talk was based on four years practi- 

 cal experience. The advantage of dusting- 

 are: 1) Labor saving; 2) Protection for 

 a maximum number of trees; 3) Even 

 distribution of material through the tree^ 

 4) No foliage injury; 5) Gives practical 

 control. He advised the following Dust 

 schedule: I. Scab Dust when blossoms 

 show pink; materials 40 lbs. Dehydrated 

 Copper sulphate, plus 10 lbs. Arsenate 

 of lead, plus 50 lbs. sulphur. II. Cod- 

 ling Moth Dust after petals fall; 85 lbs. 

 sulphur, 15 lbs. arsenate of lead. III. 

 Sooty Blotch Dust, late in July, using 

 plain sulphur Dust to be eifective must 

 be fine and pass through a 250 or 300 

 mesh seive and must be kept in a dry 

 place. 



Mr. Geo. Drew of Connecticut, stated 

 that for most fruit growers the greatest 

 value of a duster would be to supplement 

 the regular spiay equipment as dormant 

 and delay dormant sprays are best put 

 on in liquid form. Fruit growers know 

 that they can get practical control with 

 spraying but time is often a limiting 

 factor. Dusting has given fine control 

 on peaches for scab and brown rot. His 

 observation is that dust gives good con- 

 trol with insect and fair control with 

 fungus diseases. Pennsylvania results 

 show spray to be more eff'ective that dust 

 in controlling apple insects and diseases. 



The outstanding speech of the meet- 

 ings was made by the Hon. A. F. Lever,^ 

 Congressman from South Carolina, at the 

 banquet held Wednesday night. 



Mr. Lever declared that agriculture 

 will come back because it must come back. 

 "Deflation hit agriculture first but it is 

 a temporary matter. Other industry 

 cannot possibly become prosperous until 

 agriculture is on its feet. I can see no 

 practical nor ethical objection in farmers 

 of America having .some voice in deter- 

 mining the .selling price of the product 

 which they produce. We must develop a 

 better marketing system through careful 

 grading standardization and proper or- 

 ganization. I am a firm believer in or- 

 ganizing agriculture into commodity 

 groups .so that the farmer may be in a 

 position as a wholesaler rather than a 

 small retailer. 



Adequate storehouse facilities are im- 

 Continued on page ti, column 1 



