HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARM BUREAU MONTHLY 



FARM BUREAU MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Farm Bureau 



A. F. MacDoucnll, County Asi-iit 

 Helen A. Harriman, Home I>eni. Acent 

 C. H. Gould, Hoys' anil Girls' Club Leader 



Office First National Bank Building 

 Northampton, Mass. 

 Entered as second class matter Nov. 0, 1515, at the 

 Post OflHce at Northamptou, llassachusetts, under 

 the Act of March 8, 1879. 



Price, 50 cents a year 

 $1 a year, including membership in Farm Bureau 



Officers of the Farm Bureau 



Leslie R. Smith, President, Hadley 



W. D. Mandell, Treasurer, Northampton 



A. F. MacDougall, Secretary 



ADVISORY BOARD 



Leslie R. Smith, Hadley 



Chas. R. Damon, Williamsburg 



Parley E. Davis, Granby 



C, E. Hodgkins, Northampton 



Warren M. King, Northampton 



Wm. N. Howard, Ware 



E. B. Clapp, Easthampton 



The Tractor 



The tractor has come to stay. The 

 demonstrations which have been taking 

 place every^vhere of late are most signi- 

 ficant. It is not perfect yet and many 

 farmers will wait for more improve- 

 ments, but it is already plain that it can 

 do a great deal of business even in fields 

 as small as those of New England. It 

 can be adapted to our peculiar needs, and 

 our farmers do well to be thinking in 

 terms of the new era. 



Extension Schools 



The college will provide a limited 

 number of extension schools in Hamp- 

 shire County in case there is a demand 

 for them. A team of expert instructors 

 in the science of home and farm will 

 conduct a course of five days in the town 

 concerned, giving high value in concen- 

 trated form. If any of the towns which 

 had it last year desire a shorter follow- 

 up course, that too might be arranged. 



Care of Hen Manure 



The waste from hen manure is most 

 unfortunate, particularly so because it 

 can be largely avoided. A little time 

 spent in taking care of it will be a good 

 investment this winter. Keep a couple 

 of barrels in the hen-house and scrape 

 the manure from the drop-boards into 

 them day by day. Add land plaster 

 enough to dry up the manure and thus 

 preserve its value. To make a well bal- 

 anced fertilizer, mix with one-third part 

 superphosphate. This is a little prac- 

 tice of economy which is highly worth 

 while. 



Poultry Pointers 



Nov? is the time to kill those hens 

 which one does not care to winter. The 

 average hen does not lay during the 

 three months she is moulting and during 

 that time she eats about 20 pounds of 

 food, costing about eighty cents. 



Prof. Quisenberry, in charge of the 

 American Egg Laying contest at Leaven- 

 worth, Kansas, has recently recommended 

 the following rations: 1 bushel sprouted 

 oats to 100 lbs. cracked corn, costing 

 $2.87 a hundred; and 100 lbs. beef 

 scraps, 150 lbs. bran, and 150 lbs. mill 

 feed, costing $2.70 a hundred. 



The following directions for sprouting 

 oats may be of interest. Use a shallow 

 tray, IS by 30 inches for 100 hens, with 

 a one-eighth inch hole in each corner for 

 drainage. Soak 6 quarts of oats over 

 night and put into tray. Cover with wet 

 burlap, wet down every day, and remove 

 the burlap after the grain begins to 

 sprout. With 8 trays, prepare one each 

 day, and by the time you have filled them 

 all the first will be ready to feed out 

 and fill again. 



In thinning the flock one must remem- 

 ber that late-hatched pullets are usually 

 very late in beginning to lay. It is a 

 question whether it is worth while to try 

 to keep them over. Incidentally, it is 

 becoming more and more accepted that 

 the commercial poultryman should make 

 some trap-nests and test enough birds 

 so that he can hold over only high pro- 

 ducing hens and their offspring. 



After all, the obvious and important 

 quality of excellence is constitutional 

 vigor. A man may be pretty sure that 

 a sickly appearing bird will not pay her 

 keep over the winter. 



The Balanced Ration 



What do we mean by "a balanced ra- 

 tion?" We mean this. All foods come- 

 under one of five great classes. 



1. Mineral and acid (fruits and vege- 

 tables). 



2. Protein (milk, cheese, eggs, meat, 

 fish, nuts, legumes). 



S. Starch (grain, foods, pastes and 

 potatoes). 



4. Sugar (sweets of all kinds). 



5. Fat (butter, lard, pork, oils). 



In a balanced ration all of these classes 

 are represented. A balanced ration is 

 essential to health. "See to it that at 

 least one food from each group is served 

 at least once a day." 



Rye 



It might be well to sow fallow land 

 with rye this fall. It can be readily done 

 on corn and potato fields, requires only 

 the roughest kind of culture, will give the 

 ground splendid protection during the 

 winter and good humus in the spring. It 

 might be bettor to hai-vest the crop in 

 the spring. Among other things rye 

 bread is fast coming into favor. 



The Secret of Orchard Success 



I. J. Moore of the Wisconsin station 

 has summed up the elements of success 

 in orcharding as follows: 



"A soil adapted to the fruit grown. 



"Planting of hardy varieties. 



"Care in planting. 



"An adapted and thorough system of 

 soil management. 



"Pruning which conserves the energy 

 of the tree and lightens the orchard 

 work. 



"Spraying of a character that will con- 

 trol pests and make fruit edible and 

 salable." 



(,'unchided trnni piiirc 1 

 the surfaces of the pine bark and on the- 

 undersides of the currant and gooseberry 

 leaves. These are blown by the wind 

 from pine to currant and from currant 

 to pine. Only pines with needles which 

 grow in clusters of five are subject to 

 this disease. When a seed is blowTi from 

 a diseased currant or gooseberry bush to 

 a pine, the seed .sprouts and a fungus 

 plant begins to grow in the soft wood 

 (not in the needles). Nothing seems to 

 result for several years but the fungus 

 is alive inside the pine, which finally 

 begins to swell, and blisters form in 

 cracks in the bark. These blisters are 

 full of yellov; seeds and are produced 

 every spring until the pine is dead. When 

 one of these seeds is blown to a currant 

 or gooseberry leaf, the fungus plant be- 

 gins to grow in the tissue of the leaf 

 (not in the stem). After about ten days, 

 small yellow clusters of seeds grow out 

 on the under surface of the leaf. There 

 are two kinds of these seeds on the 

 leaves; one kind can grow only when 

 blown to a pine, and the other only when 

 blown to other currant or gooseberry 

 leaves. 



Spraying, cutting the bushes back or 

 picking off the leaves is a waste of time. 

 It is a public service to destroy all your 

 diseased currant and gooseberry bushes. 



Easthampton, Hatfield, Enfield, Green- 

 wich, and Hadley are the only towns in 

 the county where no infestation of either 

 currants or pines has been reported. 

 Currant infestation is reported in the 

 other towns. Infestation on the pines 

 has been reported in Worthington, 

 Goshen, South Hadley and Ware. 



Most of the control work done has been 

 to record the number and location of all 

 currant and gooseberry bushes, whether 

 infected or not. Infected bushes are or- 

 dered removed. The number and loca- 

 tion of stands of pine are also recorded. 

 Mr. E. C. Filler, 44 Myrtle Street, 

 Springfield, has charge of towns east of 

 the river, and Mr. Charles Kenwood, 14 

 Maple Street, Northampton, is superin- 

 tendent for towns west of the river. 



