HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARMERS' MONTHLY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Trustees for Aid to 



Agriculture 



STAFF 

 Rolund A. I*:iyne, County Agent 

 Mildred W. Itoiee, 



Home Demonstration Agrent once." 

 Norninn 1-^. Wliippen, County Cluh A^ent 

 Mnry Dimoiid, Clerk 

 .Mary Sullivan, Asst. Clerk 



Office First iMational Bank Building 

 Northampton, Mass. 



Entered as second class matter Nov. 9. 

 1915, at the Post Office at Northampton, 

 Massachu.setts, under the Act of March 

 8. 1879. 



"Notice of Entry" 



"Acceptance for mailing at special rate 

 of postage provided for in section 1103, 

 Act of October 3, 1917. Authorized Oc- 

 tober 31. 1917. 



Price, no 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 

 Milton S. Howes, Cummington 

 Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hadley 

 Warren M. King, Northampton 

 John A. Sullivan, Northampton 

 Charles W. Wade, Hatfield 

 W. H. Atkins, Amherst 



It has been argued that birds to be used duced the grain bill materially and at 

 as breeders should not be forced, but I be- the same time I find that the cows are 

 lieve that the breeders should be laying in better condition than they were when 

 well. To my mind, they are better than I started keeping records. Recently I 

 birds that have not been laying to capaci- went into a neighbor's barn. He has the 

 ty. My losses have been less than 3 per- same number of cows that I have. He is 

 cent in the laying stock. I have no hen feeding twice as much grain every day 

 hospital and never intend to have one. and is not producing as much milk as I 

 When a bird is not right, she is killed at fm. When we went into the barn the cows 



were restless and acted hungiy. My cows 



are always contented as they have full 



stomachs. I found that by .studying my 



production and feed records that I could 



cut my grain bill by increasing the 



amount of hay and silage fed every day. 



"In 1923, we tried to grow certified After ten months' experience, I know that 



seed potatoes but the paient stock had this system pays." 



too high a percentgae of di.sease. This 



Arlin Cole Orows Certified Seed 



In telling how he produced Certified 

 Seed Potatoes this year, Mr. Cole of 

 Chesterfield said: — 



year, Prof. Abbott located a source of 

 disease free seed in Vermont which we 



Bagg Grows Alfalfa 



Earle H. A. Bagg of South Hadley did 



used. The seed was disinfected with not have any Alfalfa four years ago, 

 corrosive sublimate as soon as we got it. To-day he has 12 acres. Here is the 



It was then spread out to green as it , story he told : 



comes up quicker than ungreened seed. "We have 125 acres in our farm and 

 We fall plowed our potato piece as it keep 2.5 cattle and 4 horses. Four vears 

 was a witchgrass sod. In the spring, it ago my experience with the hay crop was 

 was thoroughly disced and then gone over that when I seeded down I got good crops 

 once a week with the acme harrow till of Timothy and Red Top for two years 

 the piece was planted. This, with the and then the crop was awfully poor. I 

 cultivation, controlled the witchgrass." called up the County Agent to see wheth- 

 "Fifteen hundred pounds per acre of er he really did know anything or not. 

 5-8-7 fertilizer was used in the drill. The After looking around, he suggested that 

 piece was sprayed seven times, using a lime might help. Now I had always heard 

 5-5-50 Bordeaux mixture. While there that lime makes fathers rich and sons 

 was no blight, the sprayed part of the poor. As I have a family of boys, I did 

 field had better color foliage than a part not want to leave them a poor farm to 

 of the field which was not sprayed so remember me by. Anyway, I bought a 

 many times. We got 1414 bushels of carload of lime, 

 potatoes fiom 4 acres or an average of 

 353 bushels per acre. One piece of a half 



acre yielded 185 bushels or a little above straight alfalfa and a larger piece using 

 the average for the whole piece. The 

 County Agent and Prof. Abbott believe 

 j that the seed we have produced will give before to Timothy and Red Top. We 

 Notice IS hereby given that in the better results than the most of the certi- took a very small hay crop ofl' from this 

 month of October 1924 two sworn { fied seed that will be .shipped in. field, then plowed and manured it. Then 



statements were filed with the Northamp- , j • ,, ^ j, ■ ,i , 



. r> , ai i. i.- ii .L ^, TT i-u ■ V ^ • r.-,, ,^ We harrowcd in 11 tons of agricultural 



ton Post-ofiice, stating that the Hamp- Chapin Keeps Oram Bill Down ,. m. c i. j-.l j 



, . „ , ' , T,T i^i 1 • L l"^e per acre. The first year after seed- 



f r. u"""!^ Farmers' Monthly is pub- Harry Chapin of Granby reported on i^g, ^e took off three crops which gave 

 hshed by the Hampshire County Exten- the benefits he has received from keeping about 5 tons per acre. Last year we had 



the dairy records advocated at Extension three cuttings that were as good as the 

 Schools the last two seasons. He reported ^ fii-gt year. This year we got two cuttings 

 as follows:— that gave about 4 tons per acre. Since 



"Last February 1 attended the Dairy \ the first year, I have seeded some alfalfa 

 Farmers' School, held in Granby and de- every year. This year I put in 6 acres, 

 cided to try the Dairy Record Service 

 which the County Agent offered. The 

 first month that I sent in a report, I did 



STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP 



"Four years ago, we started our first 

 alfalfa field. We tried one acre with 



alfalfa, clover and timothy. This piece 

 only gave half a hay crop when seeded 



sion Service; that there are no stock 

 holdei's; that Roland A. Payne of North- 

 ampton is editor; that Mary Dimond of 

 Greenfield is business manager; that the 

 officers of the organization are: Edwin 

 B. Clapp of Easthampton, President; 

 Charles E. Clark of Leeds, Vice-presi- 

 dent; Warren M. King of Northampton, 

 Treasurer; Roland A. Payne of North- 

 ampton, Secretary. 



DemonNtratorM Report at Annual Meetingr 



Continued from page 1, column 1 

 two hours a day, starting about the mid- 

 dle of November. I use the Diamond 

 Gasoline lanterns that have 300 candle 

 power each. It costs about 75 cents per 

 month to light the birds or 25 cents per 

 lantern. I have found that the birds 

 come down best in the morning, so I use 

 the lights from 5.00 A. M. till daylight. 



"Since using lime, I find that I can keep 

 Red Clover on the land three years in- 

 stead of one. The original piece of al- 

 a little shifting of the ration before I falfa has been used three years and is still 

 sent in the report as I did not want it | going strong. The County Agent says 

 to look too bad. Even then, I averaged j that pasturing will kill it, so I am 

 less than 3 pounds of milk for every , pasturing the original field this fall to 

 pound of grain fed to the cows. The next | see if he is right this time. All of my 

 month, I increased the hay and silage for seeding has been done in early August, 

 every cow and found that by doing this \ This year I seeded some after taking off 

 that I could get 4 pounds of milk for an oat crop and it is coming good. I use 

 every pound of grain fed. I have been ' Grimm seed and use the soil and glue 

 following this system now for about 10 method of inoculation. I believe a lot of 

 months and after the first month have j other farmers could do as well with al- 

 averaged 4 pounds of milk or more for I falfa as I have if they would let the 

 every pound of grain fed. This has re- i County Agent help them to get started." 



