Hampshire: county 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



Vol. VIII. 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS., JULY, 192.3 



No. 7 



FARMERS' WEEK AT M. A. C. 



Interesting Program Planned 



There's just one .satisfactory way to 

 "do" Farmers' Week at the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College. Come early and 

 stay late every day and bring all the 

 family. 



There is more to hear and see and talk 

 about at Farmers' Week than anybody 

 can take in all alone. If all the family 

 attend you can go home feeling reason- 

 ably sure that you are taking with you 

 just as much as you could possibly have 

 secured of the helps to farming and home- 

 making, of the suggestions and ideas and 

 inspiration of the Farmers' Week 

 speakers, of the convention discussions 

 and the outings on the college grounds. 



Summer Farmers' Week is the biggest 

 single event on the year's calendar of the 

 College Extension Service. It is held at 

 the Massachusetts Agricultural College 

 the last week in .July every summer — 

 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Fri- 

 day, July 24-27. 



The principal agricultural organiza- 

 tions in the State join the college in de- 

 veloping worthy programs to be held dur- 

 ing those days. The Massachusetts Fruit 

 Growers' Association membership can be 

 counted as accurately in the M. A. C. 

 orchards at Farmers' Week demonstra- 

 tions as at the annual meeting of the 

 association. And the Massachusetts 

 Poultrymen's Association have held their 

 annual convention at the M. A. C. poultry 

 plant every summer for ten years. Bee- 

 keepers, Vegetable Growers, Tobacco and 

 Onion Men, General Farmers and Dairy- 

 men have important sessions during these 

 days. Hundreds of farmers and many 

 farmers' wives and not a small number 

 of fanners' sons and daughters count 

 among the most profitable days in the 

 year those spent at M. A. C. Farmers' 

 Week, soaking in new ideas about their 

 own farm and home jobs, checking up on 

 what the college has to offer them, and 

 getting a few days' vacation at the same 

 time. 



And this year the College promises an 

 even more substantial Farmers' Week 

 program than any pi-eviously held. 



If you have been to Farmers' Week 



before, this invitation to come again will 



be all the stimulus you need to mark the 



days off on your calendar. If you haven't 



Continued on page 8. column 1 



MISS ERHARD RESIGNS 



It was with the deepest regret that the 

 Trustees of the Hampshire County Ex- 

 tension Service accepted the resignation 

 of Miss Bena G. Erhard as County Club 

 Agent. In the four years that club work 

 has been under her direction, it has gi-own 

 by leaps and bounds till now Hampshire 

 County is one of the leaders in the state 

 as regards Boys' and Girls' Club Work. 



Endowed with endless enthusiasm and 

 interest in boys and girls, Miss Erhard 

 had the ability to transmit this enthusi- 

 asm to the boys and girls with whom she 

 worked. In the same way she was able 

 to arouse the enthusiasm and interest of 

 adults in this work with the result that 

 these people acted as local leaders of 

 about one hundred groups of boys and 

 girls. In this way club members have 

 grown from a little over five hundred in 

 1920 to nearly a thousand in 192,3. 



Miss Erhard leaves the County early 

 in .July to take up similar work in Barn- 

 stable County about the first of August. 

 With her will go best wishes for success 

 from the Trustees and members of the 

 staff of the Hamp.?hire County Extension 

 Service as well as those of the people of 

 the county who have known her so well 

 in the past four years. 



TIMELY POULTRY TOPICS 



By W. H. Allen, Poultry Specialist, 

 New Jersey 



Mites are now making their appearance 

 in the laying and colony houses. Mites 

 can easily be eliminated from the hen 

 house by painting the roosts, roosting 

 closets and nests with a strong coal tar 

 disinfectant such as carbolineum or crude 

 carbolic acid. 



100 birds should eat at least 10 pounds 

 of grain and 10 pounds of mash a day. 

 If your flock will eat 12 pounds of grain 

 and still continue to eat 10 pounds of 

 mash, give it to them. 



If your young stock start dying in 

 June, make a careful examination to find 

 out the cause. 



1st. Open the crop and look for a 

 dull greenish or golden yellowish long 

 legged beetle. There is a poison in this 

 beetle that will kill a chick under four 

 months of age. These beetles live on 

 flowering shrubs, grape blossoms and 

 Continued on page 11, column 3 



SUMMER SEEDING 



A supply of plant food and lime which 

 is adequate to grow a good ciop of hay 

 is the first essential to successful seeding, 

 irrespective of when the seeding is done. 

 That fact is generally recognized and 

 needs little comment. Few men would- 

 make the mistake of sowing grass and 

 alfalfa without liming the land and using 

 either manure or fertilizer or both. 

 There is, however, a great difference in 

 the kinds of fertilizer which different far- 

 mers use for seeding down. The major- 

 ity, perhaps, use one of the so-called 

 "seeding down mixtures" containing two 

 to three per cent ammonia, eight to twelve 

 per cent phosphoric acid and two to six 

 per cent potash. Without manure, such 

 mixtures are entirely suitable. With 

 manure, the complete fertilizer is unnec- 

 essary. In such cases, expenditures of 

 the same amount of money for acid phos- 

 phate and a more liberal application per 

 acre is better business. 



This statement in no way minimizes 

 the importance of ammonia and potash 

 for the hay crop. Both are essential, but 

 if supplied in manure there is no point 

 in adding a little more in the more ex- 

 pensive commercial forms. There is a 

 good reason for adding more phosphoric 

 acid because manure is only half as rich 

 in this plant food as in the others. Fur- 

 thermore, clover and alfalfa will not 

 thrive their best without a liberal supply. 

 Apparently, too, the beneficial soil bac- 

 teria respond favorably to the use of 

 phosphoric acid. 



The most successful growers of alfalfa 

 and clover, both alone and in mixture 

 with grass, make a regular practice of 

 using .500 to 1,000 pounds per acre of acid 

 pho.sphate before seeding down. We have 

 noted, in some cases where a part of a 

 field had less acid pho.sphate than the re- 

 mainder, that the clover and alfalfa to 

 live over to the second year nearly as 

 well where the application of acid phos- 

 phate was stinted. 



The second requisite to success in seed- 

 ing grass and clover is a firm seed bed. 

 This applies particularly to summer seed- 

 ing. On a loose, soft seed bed, there is 

 not sufficient capillary rise of water to 

 keep the young plants growing, in a dry 

 period. A shower may start them but 

 the next dry spell finishes them. With 

 Continued on paprf- 2, roiumn 2 



