1884 .] 
AMEEIOAK AGEIOULTUEIBT. 
863 
Walks and Talks on the Farm. 
New Series.—No. 3. 
If you do not know what else to sow, sow rye. 
■Sow it at any time in August, September or Octo¬ 
ber. Last year, as fast as we dug the potatoes, 
we plowed the land and sowed rye. It is a good I 
•crop to seed with. Sow Timothy, or Herds’ grass, in 
■the fall, and the clover in the spring. But if you 
do not want to seed down the land, it will do no 
harm to sow rye, and tliat whether you want to 
pasture it in the spring, mow it for green fodder, 
cure it for hay, or let it ripen its seed. The ex¬ 
pense is little. Many farmers only sow a bushel 
of seed to the acre. I prefer to sow two bushels. 
1 want the crop thick enough to smother the weeds. 
I was on Mr. Loder’s farm the other day. He 
has a silo, and soils his milch cows in summer. 
His first crop ready to cut in the spring is rye. As 
fast as the land is cleared of the rye, he plows it 
and drills in Southern corn in rows three feet apart. 
He keeps the crop clean with the horse-hoe, cuts it 
in the fall, and puts it into his silo. Last year the 
frost cut it for him, and the silo was empty. How 
would white mustard do for eusilage ? 
In my experience, the trouble with any second 
crop is to get the land moist and mellow. The first 
crop draws out all the moisture, and leaves the 
land hard to plow, and still harder to reduce into a 
mellow condition. Of course much depends upon 
the character of the land. Light sand and mucky 
soil are easily worked, and it is not difficult to 
■grow one crop immediately after another.—“You 
mean,” said the Deacon, “it is not difficult to get 
the land into good shape. You recollect planting 
corn after a crop of early cabbage plants. You got 
the land in fine condition, and though it was heav¬ 
ily manured in the spring for the cabbage plants, 
the corn was absolutely poverty stricken.” 
“That’s all true. Deacon,” I said, “ and there is 
no fear of my forgetting it. It is one of the many 
agricultural facts that need explanation. There 
was manure enough, but it was not sufficiently 
available. The land perhaps lacked moisture. 
Moisture and shade would have favored nitrifica¬ 
tion of the organic matter of the soil and manure. 
A slight dressing of Nitrate of Soda and Superphos¬ 
phate, might have given me a good crop.” 
'‘All your men,” said the Deacon, “seem to have 
■great faith in Nitrate of Soda.” 
“Probably,” said I, “it will not pay cn ordi¬ 
nary farm crops—certainly not on corn, oats and 
wheat, at the present prices—but the market gar¬ 
dener, seed grower, or nurseryman, who does not 
■use it occasionally as, an auxiliary, is not living 
up to his privileges. I am satisfied that it is a 
mistake to suppose that true science will not 
greatly aid the farmer, the fruit grower, the florist, 
the gardener and the nurseryman. 
Farmers have to stand a good deal of abuse. It 
is said we use small barrels for packing our apples 
and potatoes. I do not think it was the farmers 
who introduced them, but rather the dealers and 
shippers. I know I stoutly opposed their use 
from the start. The farmer gets no advantage 
from them. The interest of the producer and (5)u- 
;sumer, sooner or later, is identical, and for my 
part, I should be glad to see all our barrels of one 
uniform size. Then we are .accused of putting good 
apples on the top and bottom of the barrel,and poor 
ones in the middle. There is some truth in this. 
But it is not entirely the fault of the fruit grower. 
The apple buyers come and look at our crop while 
growing. One year I sold my crop to a dealer, and 
he was angry because I put just as good apples in 
the middle of the barrel, as on the top and bottom. 
“ Why,” said he, “ I could take those same apples 
and make them worth half a dollar a barrel more.” 
And he told me how to do it: “ Pick your apples 
carefully. Do not sort them while picking. Place 
all the fruit from a dozen or more trees in along 
heap. If there is danger of rain, cover them with 
bags or canvas. When you commence to barrel, 
set the barrels alongside of the heap, take out the 
heads and lay them with the top hoop opposite the 
APPLES ARKANGED IN 
THE BARREL. 
barrels, so that they will not get mixed. You want 
to run three or four barrels at the same time. If 
the ground is soft, lay a wide plank alongside the 
heap for the barrels to stand on. You should have 
baskets that will go inside the barrel and turn over. 
Never pour apples into the barrel. Tell the men 
they must be even more careful than if handling 
eggs, and what is more important, see to it that 
they are careful. Do not leave them a moment. 
“Pick out a basketful of the handsomest apples— 
those that are of good size, good shape, smooth, 
and high-colored, especially at the stem end. 
Place these apples with the stems down at the bot¬ 
tom of the barrel. Commence at the outside, and 
place a ring of apples all round the bottom of the 
barrel, and then another ring, until the bottom 
is compactly covered, as shown in the engraving. 
The second layer of apples should also be selected 
with care, and so placed in the barrel that they 
will look well when examined. Fill up the barrel 
with apples, and as each basket is emptied into the 
barrel, if you see any handsome apples, take them 
out and place them in a basket for ‘liners.’ 
“ Let the men who are picking up the apples at 
the heap, have a basket into which they can place 
h.andsome apples for liners, and after you are fairly 
started, and the first barrel is nearly full, top it oil 
with handsome apples selected from the middle of 
the barrels that are being filled. Formerly buyers 
only examined the lined end or bottom of the 
barrel, but now they want to see both ends of the 
barrel. W'hen the barrel is one-third full, or as 
soon as there is no danger 
of disturbing the liners at 
the bottom, give it a shake, 
and then afterwards, as each 
basketful is emptied in, give 
the barrel a shake, and when 
you see a good apple, pick 
it out for the top or bottom. 
On the other hand, as you 
approach the top, select 
out any light-colored or 
inferior apple you happen to see, and place it in 
the barrel alongside, that is about half full. 
“Be sure and shake the barrels until the apples 
are as compact as possible. This is very impor¬ 
tant. Be careful to place the two top layers of ap¬ 
ples in good style, and then lay on the head and 
press it down into its place. You do not want the 
barrels so full that the apples will be mashed in 
pressing, but they must be so full that when 
headed up the apples will not move in the barrel.” 
I am not apologizing for men who place poor, 
wormy fruit in the middle of the barrel. I only 
say that dealers like to have fruit packed as above 
described. At any rate, it is a fact that I was held 
up to ridicule by a large and experienced dealer 
because I put just as good apples in the center as 
on the top and bottom of the barrel. Farmers are 
not dishonest, and they are not going to lose the 
foreign market. 
“ It won’t pay this year,” said the Deacon, “ to 
put poor apples into a barrel. Better sell them to 
the vinegar and evaporating establishments.”—“It 
never pays,” says I, “ to barrel poor apples. It 
might pay very handsomely to carefully select the 
apples, and put only the very best into the barrel 
—top, bottom, and middle alike. But in such a 
case, as a rule, you must sell to the consumers and 
not to the dealers. The dealer will seldom pay 
more than his regular price. Probably the men he 
is buying for, limit him to a certain figure. A New 
York fruit man once came to me and said, he want¬ 
ed a few barrels of choice apples, selected with 
the greatest care, and wrapped in tissue paper. 
He wanted them for a large dry-goods house, who 
sent them as Christmas presents to some of their 
manufacturing friends and correspondents abroad. 
For some years before his death, I used to furnish 
my old friend, Mr. Vick, Northern Spy apples for 
the same purpose, and 1 have heard him tell how 
much such apples would have brought on the other 
side if they were for sale. I am confident that if 
our apples get to Europe in poor condition, it is 
not the fault of farmers. At any rate, the remedy 
is in the hands of the exporters and dealers. Let 
the exporters tell us what they want, and we will 
meet their wishes. In the meantime let them stop 
abusing the farmer. If they want larger barrels 
they can have them ; if they want good apples, 
carefully picked and packed, they can have them. 
When people get tired of building telegraph 
lines and railroads, ditching and underdraining will 
have a little chance of securing the necessary capi¬ 
tal and labor. A low rate of interest ought to en¬ 
hance the value of improved farms. 
The Deacon thinks many farmers keep too many 
horses. I do not think so. But it is certainly 
a mistake to let horses lie idle. After winter 
wheat is sown, the horses on many farms do not 
earn their feed. We are busy with fall work, and 
as there is no plowingthat must be done, we prefer 
to let the horses stand in the barn rather than spare 
a man to drive them. It is a mistake. There is 
nothing pays so well as fall plowing, and getting 
land ready for spring sowing. The longer I live 
the more I am impressed with this fact. I say 
nothing on the disputed question in regard to 
breaking up sod-land in the autumn. It is possi¬ 
ble, as some claim, that there is a loss from drain¬ 
age. But if any one will plow my land in the fall, 
I will run the risk ! But what I have specially in 
mind is, land not occupied with any crop—corn- 
land, potato-land, bean-land, stubble-land, and 
weed-land. Stick in the plow if you can spare the 
time ; if not, harrow, or cultivate. Better still, do 
both. Light, sandy land, plowed and prepared in 
tfie autumn, can be sown in the spring without 
plowing. Heavy laud, if plowed and worked in the 
fall, may need plowing again in the spring, but the 
work will be easier and the land better. Keep the 
horses busy until snow flies. But the earlier the 
work is done, the better. One plowing while the 
land is dry, is worth two plowings when it is wet. 
It is discouraging work, plowing, harrowing, 
rolling, sowing, planting, and cultivating hard, 
clayey laud, that needs underdraining. It will pay 
well to underdrain it. Such farms as John John¬ 
ston’s and Robert J. Swan’s, and many others, were 
originally almost worthless, and are now exceed¬ 
ingly productive and profitable. Go where you 
will, you see more or less of such hard and unpro¬ 
ductive land on many farms. The remedy is uu- 
derdraining. But if this cannot be done, seed it 
down to grass. It does not pay to work it. 
One of the best implements for killing weeds is 
the mowing machine. If the land is so rough you 
are afraid to risk a new machine, take an old one. 
Said the Doctor the other day, “Did you ever 
think what a comparatively small area of land there 
is in the world embraced in the grass belt ? At first 
sight it seems strange, that the farmer who can 
grow grass should grow anything else.” The 
Deacon smiled at this remark, but remained silent 
for some time. “ Well,” he said at length, “ we do 
grow a good many weeds.”—“Yes,” replied the 
Doctor, “ and it requires more plant-food to pro¬ 
duce these coarse, rampant weeds, than to produce 
fine, nutritious grass. And aside from the differ¬ 
ence in dollars and cents, what a beautiful country 
we should have if this rough, weedy laud was 
seeded down with grass, and cut once or twice 
every year with the mowing machine. It would be 
an easy matter to scatter a little Timothy, or any 
other good grass seed on all the waste places in 
August and September, and this with the use of 
the mowing machine, and the scythe, or brush hook 
would greatly ehauge the aspect of the country. 
I do not know how much seed it would require to 
the acre (‘ about a peck,’ said the Deacon), but I 
know the seed is cheap, and it cannot but pay ten 
times over. 1 suppose it is not necessary to sow 
grain with the grass seed ?” 
“ No,” said I, “ but when you want to seed down 
land with Timothy alone, it is well to sow plenty 
of seed. As the Deacon says, a peck to the acre is 
enough, but half a bushel will do no harm. On 
moist, mucky land, I have had a grand crop of 
Timothy hay the next year, from seeding alone in 
September—the earlier the better.” — “A little 
rye,” said the Deacon, “ say half a bushel to the 
