If the seed is started in the greenhouse transplant in 
May, just like cabbage and cauliflower 
the kale. Therefore, if the roots are in 
pots they can be placed directly over the 
pipes, getting plenty of heat, in some hot 
corner of the greenhouse under the benches 
where they will not take up valuable space. 
Keep the eye or crown just above the sur- 
face when planting because it will rot 
if buried. 
To blanch, inverted pots must be immedi- 
ately placed over the roots to keep them 
perfectly dark at all times, and it is best to 
cover the hole in the bottom of the pot. 
The greater the darkness the better the 
shoots will blanch and the more blanched the 
better the quality on the table. 
The eyes will commence growing in a 
very few days but no further attention is 
necessary except to cut the shoots when 
they are ready. Naturally, the younger the 
better, but if cut when very small the crop 
is shortened. I usually cut when the pot 
which is covering the roots is about filled 
with shoots, as I then get a fair crop and the 
shoots are not in the least tough or stringy. 
Home Mixed Fertilizer 
D° NOT attempt to combine poultry 
manure with wood ashes, for the 
ashes will liberate some of the nitrogen of 
the manure unless both are very dry when 
mixed and are put on the ground at once. 
Better mix the poultry manure with leaf- 
mold at the rate of two hundred to three 
hundred pounds of the former to three 
hundred to five hundred of the latter, using 
either of these amounts to one acre. Wood 
ashes may well be combined with either 
rotten sawdust, leafmold or muck. The 
latter should not be used unless it has been 
out and cured for at least a year. 
Sawdust has little fertilizing value, but 
may be added to the mixture as it will im- 
prove the tilth and moisture-holding capacity 
of the soil if it is a compact clay. The pro- 
portion in which the ashes and other ingre- 
dients are mixed is of little importance so 
long as not less than one thousand nor 
more thin two thousand pounds of ashes 
are used to one acre. 
The ash mixture should be applied broad- 
cast and well worked in some time before 
using the poultry manure mixture, which 
may be used immediately before planting 
seeds. 
THE GARDEN MVAIGAZAONGE 
These two applications should furnish 4 
good supply of plant focd for a garden and 
orchard. Phosphoric acid is the cnly ele- 
ment not abundantly supplied. It might 
be advisable to use from two hundred to 
four hundred pounds of acid phosphate per 
acre, or five hundred pounds of ground raw 
rock (“‘floats’”?) if you use large quantities 
of the organic materials —sawdust, mold 
or peat — with it. 
Pennsylvania. 
1p, 18, 1. 
Alfalfa as Poultry Food 
pees rightly used—fed green in sum- 
mer, and in winter in the form of hay 
or ensilage—will reduce the cost of feed at 
least one-half. A pound of dry alfalfa or 
alfalfa hay contains as much protein as 
one pound of wheat bran. Yet few poultry 
keepers seem to realize the value of alfalfa 
as a poultry food. I have found that in sum- 
mer, green alfalfa is of special value to 
poultry confined in yards where there is no 
grass growing. 
About ten years ago, I seeded a plot of 
land near my buildings to alfalfa. This 
has grown well and yields three or four 
large crops per year, which has been made 
use of in feeding poultry and other live stock. 
This plot in two or three years became so 
full of plantain and other weeds, that I 
decided to sow a small plot in drills and 
cultivate. 
I plowed a piece of rich garden soil, 
and harrowed it very finely and finished it 
off with the garden rake, until the soil was 
pulverized as finely as if for an onion bed. 
In April I sowed alfalfa seed rather thickly 
in drills two feet apart (eighteen inches is 
about right for hand cultivation, and the 
sowing may be done with a garden seed 
drill). 
The alfalfa grew so rapidly that the first 
year of sowing I cut three crops and the 
following year the yield was somewhat 
larger. The advantages of growing alfalfa 
in drills are that it can be grown on weedy 
ground and the ground kept clean with a 
horse or hand cultivator; it can be fed any 
time by applying f-rtilizers between the 
TOWS. 
The growth and color of the alfalfa indi- 
cates its needs. A weak growth that turns 
yellow generally indicates that both nitrogen 
and potash are needed. These are supplied 
by poultry manure and wood ashes, which 
should be applied separately and culti- 
vated in. 
Marcu 1908 
When the first blossoms appear, cut the 
alfalfa. Do not leave it longer. 
When used green for poultry, cut it as 
wanted, and cut it in very short lengths with 
a small hand feed or corn cutter—clover 
cutters are made especially for this pur- 
pose. The alfalfa is then put in boxes with 
slatted covers from which the hens can easily 
TEMOvenitaane 
The hens kept in yards eat it as readily 
as grain. Sometimes the hens are turned 
out in the alfalfa plot and allowed to pick 
the leaves. 
Green alfalfa is especially valuable for 
young chickens kept in runs. It can be 
cut finely for them, or tied up in bunches 
and placed where they can pick it as they 
wish. 
Some have succeeded with alfalfa ensilage, 
but there is considerable difficulty in keeping 
it in small quantities; hay is a much better 
form in which to keep it. The best way 
to cure alfalfa is to partly dry it in the sun, 
then put it in small heaps and cover with 
muslin hay caps. In three or four days 
open it to the sun for a short time and it is 
then in the best condition for storing for 
winter, provided the weather has been clear 
all the time. 
For feeding cut the hay with the clover 
cutter, steam it if you wish, and mix it with 
corn meal, or some carbonaceous food; not 
Green alfalfa, cut up fine, is much relished by young 
chicks in runs, or it can be given in a bunch to pick at 
with bran, as the alfalfa supplies the protein. 
Moisten the mixture with skim milk, and 
you have, when used with whole grains, 
shells, grit, etc., the most economical winter 
ration. 
My experience has been, when I have 
so fed my live stock as to get all the milk 
or eggs possible, with grain, common grasses 
or hay, that I could increase the produc- 
tion by feeding alfalfa and that with it I 
could get the maximum production at a 
minimum cost for iood. 
New York. W. H. JENKINS. 
A Poultry Ration 
ce Maine Experiment Station recom- 
mends for laying poultry 200 pounds 
wheat bran, too lbs. middlings, 100 lbs. gluten 
feed, 100 lbs. linseed meal, roo lbs. corn meal, 
100 lbs. beef scraps. This contains about 24 
per cent. protein, 7 of fat, 6 of ash, 7 of fibre 
and 46 of starchy matter. It should cost 
$1.50 a hundredweight at retail unmixed. 
