602 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
Sept.  17 
and  a  larger  lot  set  this  spring,  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of 
blackberries,  500  currant  bushes,  three  acres  of  grapes, 
three  of  potatoes,  five  of  sweet  corn,  some  smaller 
patches  devoted  to  vegetables,  such  as  peas,  tomatoes, 
asparagus,  beets,  etc.,  and  a  few  acres  in  apples, 
quinces,  pears  and  cherries.” 
“  What  varieties  of  grapes  do  you  grow  ?  ” 
“About  half  my  vineyard  is  Concords,  the  bulk  of 
the  remainder  being  given  to  Moore’s  Early,  Worden 
and  Niagara,  with  a  row  or  two  of  a  dozen  or  so  differ¬ 
ent  other  varieties.” 
“  Are  you  troubled  with  rot  in  your  vineyard  ?  ” 
“  A  very  little.  You  see  I  have  not  sprayed  these 
vines  this  season,  as  I  have  strawberries  between  and 
in  the  rows.  But  I  shall  begin  spraying  at  once,  for  I 
see  an  occasional  trace  of  rot.” 
“Where  do  you  market  your  berries  and  vegetables?” 
“  Right  here  in  Poughkeepsie.  Once  in  a  while  I 
send  a  few  surplus  crates  to  the  city  market,  but,  as  a 
rule,  the  home  market  is  ample.  I  get  better  prices 
and  save  freight  and  commission.” 
“  What  do  you  pay  for  picking  berries?  ” 
“One  and  a  half  cent  for  strawberries  and  black¬ 
berries  and  two  cents  for  raspberries.  My  proximity 
to  the  city  furnishes  me  with  all  the  pickers  I  want. 
I  could  not  well  handle  so  many  berries  if  more  re¬ 
mote,  owing  to  the  difficulty  there  would  be  in  get¬ 
ting  pickers.  I  have  had  100  in  my  strawberry  plan¬ 
tation  in  a  single  day.  This  photograph  (see  Fig.  241.) 
was  taken  when  fewer  were  employed.” 
“  What  fertilizers  do  you  use  ?  ” 
“Both  stable  manure  and  commercial  fertilizers. 
I  buy  annually  about  200  tons  of  stable  manure  from 
the  city.  This  is  mostly  used  as  a  mulch  for  straw¬ 
berries  in  the  fall.  I  also  buy  about  five  tons  annually 
of  Mapes’s  Fruit  and  Vine  Manure.  What  stable 
manure  is  not  used  for  mulching  is  spread  on  ground 
where  corn  is  to  be  grown,  and  plowed  under.  If  it 
were  not  for  the  mulching,  I  would  use  far  more  com¬ 
mercial  fertilizer  and  I  am  sure  I  could  do  it  profitably  ” 
“  Do  you  use  commercial  fertilizer  on  your  straw¬ 
berries  in  addition  to  the  mulch  of  stable  manure  ?  ” 
“Oh,  yes.  After  my  ground  is  prepared  for  setting 
out  the  strawberry  plants,  I  stake  it  out.  I  then  take 
my  fertilizer  distributor  and  so  arrange  if  that  1 
spread  the  fertilizer  in  bands  about  two  feet  wide, 
where  the  strawberry  rows  are  to  be.” 
“  What  raspbei  ries  do  you  grow  ?  ” 
“In  reds  I  have  tried  Cuthberts,  which  of  late  have 
not  done  first-rate  and  I  am  now  trying  Marlboro.  In 
blacks,  I  have  grown  Gregg,  Souhegan  and  Progress. 
The  Gregg  does  very  well  with  me — it  seems  to  flour¬ 
ish  on  my  soil.  I  like  the  Progress  very  well  also, 
though  I  have  not  yet  made  up  my  mind  permanently 
as  to  its  aggregate  merits.” 
“  What  potatoes  do  you  grow  ?” 
“  I  have  grown  a  great  many  varieties.  This  year, 
my  three  acres  are  mainly  planted  to  Early  Ohio, 
Stray  Beauty,  Burpee’s  Extra  Early,  Rural  New- 
Yorker  No.  2,  Empire  State  and  Early  Rochester. 
Burpee’s  Extra  Early  promises  well.  Rural  New- 
Yorker  has  the  fault  of  growing  too  large,  but  it  has 
one  remarkable  trait— it  grows  practically  no  small 
ones.  Almost  every  potato  is  of  marketable  size.” 
“  Do  you  grow  any  field  corn  ?” 
“  No,  only  sweet  corn  for  the  home  market.” 
“  What  about  tomatoes  ?” 
*•  I  have  Ignotum,  Livingston’s  Beauty,  Long  Keeper 
and  Mikado.  1  think,  all  things  considered,  the  Igno¬ 
tum  is  the  best  early  variety.  The  Beauty  is  properly 
named  and  I  like  the  Long  Keeper  for  the  main  crop.” 
“  Have  you  sprayed  your  potatoes  this  season  ?” 
“  Yes.  I  spray  them  with  half  strength  Bordeaux 
mixture,  adding  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  Paris-green 
to  50  gallons  of  the  mixture.  As  yet,  I  have  seen  no 
blight  among  them.  The  vines,  as  you  see,  are  all 
green  and  thrifty.” 
A  stroll  through  the  vineyard  showed  that  the  vines 
were  loaded  with  a  good  crop.  Practically  there  had 
been  no  rose  bugs  to  destroy  the  bunches.  The  latter 
on  Moore’s  Early  seemed  above  the  average  in  size. 
Strawberries  were  planted  in  the  rows  of  vines  and 
another  row  of  them  midway  between  the  rows  of 
grapes  in  a  good  part  of  the  vineyard,  but  the  high 
fertility  of  the  soil  guaranteed  good  crops  on  both. 
Returning  to  the  house,  Mr.  Taber  was  asked  if  he 
could  give  his  sales  for  the  year. 
“I  have  not  got  this  year’s  figures  in  shape,  but  I 
can  give  you  the  sales  for  last  year  if  you  would  like 
them.  Here  they  are.” 
SALES  FOR  1891. 
Strawberries,  789  bushels. $2, 377.29  Apples .  844.50 
Raspberries,  80  “  245.80  Blackberries .  21.55 
Currants,  20  “  65.40  Pears .  24.65 
Potatoes,  500  '■  350.00  Plums .  5.55 
Sweet  corn .  412  00  Vegetables .  6.76 
Tomatoes .  63.30  Rye,  straw,  corn  stalks _  185.41 
Grapes .  220.49  - 
Total . $4,022.70 
Paid  for  manure  and  fertilizer .  $350.00 
Labor  of  men .  700  00 
Picking  berries .  430.00 
Total . $1,480.00 
Receipts  over  expenditures . $2,542  70, 
“Of  course,  these  figures  do  not  take  into  account  the 
fruits,  vegetables,  etc.,  consumed  at  home,  a  large 
part  of  our  living  was  taken  from  the  farm’s  products, 
in  addition  to  the  above,  which  were  the  actual  cash 
sales,” 
There  is  a  lesson  to  be  learned  from  this  sort  of 
farming.  Not  every  one  can  do  it,  because  not  every 
farmer  has  the  environments  necessary  to  make  such 
farming  practicable.  But  all  over  the  country  there 
are  farmers  living  near  large  towns,  who  carry  on 
their  farms  in  the  old,  stereotyped  way,  growl  because 
farming  is  unprofitable,  while  the  residents  of  the 
towns  send  to  the  large  commercial  centers  for  their 
small  fruits.  There  are  other  farmers  in  this  section 
who  are  bright  and  wideawake  and  much  of  the  spirit 
of  modern  enterprise  among  them  may  be  attributed 
Eliot’s  Early  Pear.  Fig.  242.  Half  Section. 
to  the  work  of  the  Dutchess  and  Ulster  Farmers’ 
Club,  of  which  Mr.  Taber  is  the  present  president. 
The  Rural  wishes  there  were  more  such  farmers  as 
Mr.  Taber. 
A  Discussion  of  Fertilizers. 
Part  V. 
Suppose  a  man  wanted  to  build  a  house  and  there 
was  no  one  who  could  tell  him  the  quantity  and  kind 
of  materials  which  entered  into  its  construction.  Sup-, 
pose  a  number  of  men  were  in  the  same  fix,  what 
could  they  do  ?  Obviously  the  way  to  learn  about  the 
materials  of  a  house  would,  under  such  circumstances, 
be  to  take  a  house  apart— analyze  it.  Then  the  nails 
could  be  put  in  one  pile  and  the  boards  in  another  and 
the  timbers  in  another,  and  the  quantities  of  each 
Eliot’s  Early'  Pear.  Fig.  243. 
Three-quarter  average  size. 
could  be  measured.  Now  take  a  handful  of  hay.  Do 
you  know  what  it  is  made  of  ?  Certainly  not  from  its 
appearance.  The  only  way  to  find  out  is  to  take  it 
apart — analyze  it.  This  the  agricultural  chemist  does. 
He  takes  plants  apart  and  tells  us  how  much  of  each 
form  of  plant  food  enters  into  their  composition. 
Another  thing.  One  seldom  sees  two  cattle  or  two 
horses  that  look  "just  alike.  Each  knows  all  his  cattle 
apart  and  all  his  horses  apart.  There  are  slight  differ¬ 
ences  in  form  and  feature.  So  individual  plants  vary 
more  or  less  in  chemical  composition,  and  this  causes 
a  variation  of  course  in  the  analyses.  Then  this  is  a 
great  country,  and  plants  of  the  same  kind  differ  in 
different  localities,  with  different  soils,  climate,  etc. 
These  and  other  things  account  for  variations  in  com¬ 
position. 
If  you  should  burn  100  pounds  of  hay,  Timothy,  for 
instance,  you  would  get  about  4%  pounds  of  ashes. 
The  other  95%  pounds  would  turn  to  vapor  and  vanish. 
This  volatile  part  would  be  made  up  of  about  13 
pounds  of  water,  six  of  piotein,  29  of  crude  fiber,  45 
of  starch,  gum,  sugar,  etc.,  called  nitrogen-free  ex¬ 
tract,  and  2%  of  fat.  It  is  a  comfort  to  think  that  of 
all  this  amount  of  material  the  only  part  that  we  need 
to  trouble  ourselves  about  is  a  small  portion  of  the 
protein  and  of  the  ash.  There  would  be  less  than  a 
pound  of  nitrogen  in  100  pounds  of  average  Timothy 
hay,  although  some  here  in  Vermont  has  yielded  a 
pound  and  a  quarter.  There  is  less  than  half  a  pound 
of  phosphoric  acid,  and  about  a  pound  and  three-quar¬ 
ters  of  potash.  The  rest  of  the  ash  consists  chiefly  of 
lime,  magnesia  and  soda. 
Just  think  of  it — only  about  three  pounds  of  fertil¬ 
izing  materials  in  100  pounds  of  hay.  Nature  throws 
in  the  other  97  pounds,  and  sometimes,  often,  more; 
but  some  men  are  so  stiney  that  they  grudge  this 
small  amount  and  act  as  though  they  wanted  Nature 
to  throw  in  all  the  materials  for  the  crop.  It  is  true 
that  the  deficient  plant  food  in  100  pounds  of  hay 
costs  about  30  cents,  and  this  brings  us  to  the  cost  of 
fertilizing  material  in  a  crop. 
Reckoning  nitrogen  at  17  cents  a  pound,  phosphoric 
acid  at  seven  cents,  and  potash  at  four  cents  per  pound, 
there  would  be  deficient  plant  food  in  one  ton  of  each 
of  the  following  farm  products  to  the  amount  given  in 
the  figures  opposite  the  name  of  the  product : 
Red  clover  hay . 
....  $9.00 
Potatoes .  . 
...  $1.87 
Meadow  hay . 
....  5.10 
Mangolds . . 
...  1.19 
Corn . 
....  6.75 
Turnips . 
1.02 
Corn  stalks . 
...  4.39 
Beef . 
..  17.21 
Wheat . 
.  .  7.75 
Pork  . 
...  12.75 
Wheat  straw . 
....  2.69 
Live  cattle . 
.  .  11.78 
Rye . 
....  7.26 
Live  sheep . . . 
.  .  9.45 
Barley . 
....  8.00 
Eggs . 
...  8.05 
Barley  straw . 
....  3.32 
Milk . 
...  2.25 
..  7.43 
...  17.21 
.  3  06 
.48 
Oil  meal . 
....  21.11 
Cotton-seed  meal.... 
...  28.35 
The  above  figures  are  most  of  them  taken  from  the 
1890  Report  of  the  Pennsylvania  State  College.  Ac¬ 
companying  the  table  are  some  remarks  on  the  rela¬ 
tions  of  live  stock  to  fertility,  a  few  of  which  are 
selected  and  given  below. 
A  farmer  who  sells  $10  worth  of  wheat  sells  with  it 
about  $2.58  wTorth  of  the  fertility  of  his  soil.  The 
amounts  of  potash  and  phosphoric  acid  set  free  in  the 
soil  by  weathering  are,  in  most  cases,  comparatively 
small.  The  amount  of  nitrogen  gained  from  the  at¬ 
mosphere  through  the  cultivation  of  clover  and  simi¬ 
lar  crops  is  as  yet  undetermined.  On  the  whole,  then, 
it  seems  safer  for  the  Eastern  farmer  to  disregard 
these  natural  sources  of  supply,  and  to  endeavor  to  so 
plan  his  farming  as  to  replace  as  nearly  as  possible 
the  elements  of  fertility  which  he  exports  from  his 
soil.  To  replace  the  amount  of  fertility  which  crops 
take  out  of  the  soil  by  means  of  commercial  fertilizers, 
at  average  prices,  would  absorb  a  very  considerable 
portion  of  the  total  receipts  of  the  crop.  If,  however, 
the  farmer  instead  of  selling  his  crops,  feeds  them  to 
live  stock  upon  the  farm  as  far  as  possible,  the  condi¬ 
tions  are  greatly  changed.  The  farmer  who  sells 
chiefly  animal  products  can  replace  what  fertility  he 
does  export  from  his  farm  at  a  much  less  expense  as 
compared  with  his  receipts,  than  the  farmer  who  sells 
chiefly  his  crops.  A  further  advantage  in  the  keeping 
of  live  stock  appears  when  feed  is  purchased  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  that  grown  upon  the  farm.  If  a  ton  of  bran, 
worth  as  fertilizer  about  $12.45,  is  bought  and  fed 
upon  the  farm,  from  80  per  cent,  to  the  whole  of  its 
manurial  value  is  added  to  the  resources  of  the  farm 
in  addition  to  whatever  financial  gain  accrues  from 
the  feeding. 
This  is  the  strongest  statement  of  the  good  old 
orthodox  teaching  as  to  stock  feeding  being  the  basis 
of  fertility,  that  I  have  seen  for  a  long  time.  Just  lay 
it  beside  the  actual  experience  of  T.  B.  Terry  and  the 
chemical  and  clover  farmers.  I  have  been  trying  this 
teaching  for  some  years,  and  while  my  farm  has  per¬ 
haps  been  getting  rich,  I  have  had  hard  work  to  make 
both  ends  meet.  Now  I  am  adopting  ensilage  and 
chemicals  and  what  clover  I  can  grow.  But  dairy  far¬ 
mers  back  among  the  hills  must,  as  things  are,  keep 
stock,  and  I  can  see  only  one  practical  way  to  lessen 
the  weight  of  the  manure.  That  is  to  keep  the  best 
stock  and  feed  a  great  deal  of  protein,  in  other  words, 
make  as  rich  manure  as  possible.  Would  that  some 
Edison  would  arise  among  the  agricultural  chemists, 
and  invent  a  simple  method  of  taking  the  water  out 
manure.  Three-quarters  of  the  weight  would  then 
be  done  away  with,  and  a  lot  of  drudgery  taken  out 
of  the  stockkeeper’s  work. 
In  another  article,  I  hope  to  speak  of  the  ratio  of 
phosphoric  acid  to  potash,  and  the  use  of  potash  in 
securing  a  catch  of  clover. 
A  New  Pear,  Eliot’s  Early. 
In  the  fall  or  spring  of  1883,  a  pear  tree  was  sent  to 
us  by  the  late  James  Dougal,  of  Canada,  which  he 
named  Eliot’s  Early.  If  any  record  of  its  origin  was 
sent  at  the  time  or  since,  we  have  no  evidence  of  it. 
The  R.  N.-Y.  has  made  unavailing  efforts  to  put 
itself  in  communication  with  his  heirs.  Whether  any 
other  trees  of  this  valuable  early  pear  were  sent  out 
by  Mr.  Dougal  for  trial,  or  whether  any  stock  of  it 
was  by  him  or  others  propagated,  we  do  not  know. 
The  one  tree  sent  to  us  fruited  the  past  season  for  the 
first.  The  pears  began  to  ripen  July  10.  Several 
were  placed  in  the  cellar  July  17.  They  were  of  a 
medium  green  color,  with  a  dark  red  or  bronze  cheek. 
July  26  they  were  fully  ripe,  but  without  decay. 
