262 
APRIL 4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
A PROPOSED SEEDING TOOL. 
At Fig. 89 is 6hown a proposed tool for which a patent 
has just been issued. It proposes to harrow, seed and roll 
at one operation. In front are a number of spring teeth to 
loosen the soil. Just behind them are the drills worked 
from the axle of the roller and behind these a heavy roller 
for covering and smoothing. The plan of rolling imme¬ 
diately after seeding is a good one, but we do not like the 
spring teeth. __ 
DRYING OUT RUBBER BOOTS. 
Many farmers would wear rubber boots more than they 
do if they knew how to get them dry inside. A wet rub¬ 
ber boot is about the most uncomfortable thing one can 
put on his foot. Mr. M. H. C. Gardner, of Orange County, 
N. Y., tried hot oats, hot sand and a hot oven, with poor 
success, and was about ready to give up rubber boots 
when he hit upon the plan for drying shown at Figs 90 
and 91. A stout wire is bent as shown at Fig. 90, with 
loops large enough to admit the boot legs. There is a hook 
at the back to hold the wire in place when put over the 
stovepipe, as shown at Fig. 91. The boots are thus out of 
the way, and when a fire is kept overnight they are per¬ 
fectly dry and warm in the morning. 
A MORTGAGE KNOCKED IN THE HEAD. 
Water Crops Wash It Away. 
That “one horse Jersey farm,;” weak eyes breed a good 
farmer; Leghorns Jill the pocket book; a strawberry 
for wet soils; hen manure worth more than the feed; 
backing up “Old Nitrogen.” 
An Old Story Told Over. 
About a year ago The R. N.-Y. rather startled its readers 
by printing a letter from a “one horse farmer” in New 
Jersey who had sold over $3,000 worth of produce in one 
year off a little 18 acre farm. Some of our readers seemed 
inclined to call this a “big story” and nothing more. 
Since then, a representative of The R. N.-Y. has visited the 
place. What follows is his report. The farm, the farmer, 
the crops and the profits are all realities. 
The Farmer and The Farm. 
Mr. A. Johnson was a jeweler by trade—he made himself 
a farmer after his eyes gave out at the delicate work of 
watch repairing. He excelled as a jeweler because he was 
careful and studious, determined to master every detail of 
his business, and fully alive to the changes in style and 
fancy of customers. He took to his little farm the trained 
mind, the keen observation and the unquenchable desire 
to go to the bottom of every new method or fact, that are 
bred into the successful workman or business man. He 
had bought a little place at Lincoln Park, N. J., just after 
the war when prices were inflated and land was sold for 
its prospective value for building lots. He ran in debt for 
his place, and was therefore forced to pay off a $3,000- 
mortgage out of the profits made on “ depreciated prices.” 
When first bought, the farm and house were all out of 
order. A shed was the only barn. There were no fences, 
and the only crops were wild grass, brush, briers and 
weeds. At first Mr. J. worked at his trade in Newark and 
tried to improve his little place by proxy—that is through 
the work of a hired man. This was a failure. It took all 
he could earn to pay expenses without paying off a cent 
of the mortgage. Hired labor, without “the master’s 
eye,” barely produced enough to pay for itself. When his 
eyes began to fail Mr. J. took what seemed a desperate 
step. He left his trade with its sure and steady cash pay¬ 
ments, and went to his little farm to try to make a living 
and save his home. He knew little about farming, and 
had for years been used to drawing a good salary in cash 
every week. He was now called upon to change his entire 
mode of life and to draw his salary whenever he could 
raise and sell produce. The farm was low and flat—strong 
soil, but apparently too wet and cold for anything but 
grass, and too level to admit of drainage. 
Breeding Up the Business. 
The jewelry business taught Mr. J. several things that 
helped him at farming. In the first place, he knew that 
no one man could “ know it all.” He learned the most 
valuable hints from papers and from conversation with 
friends in the trade. Why was it not the same in farm¬ 
ing ? To fix a watch he needed the best tools to be had. 
All watches were not alike. Put an ill-fitting and poorly 
adjusted attachment in one, and while the watch might 
crawl along it would be unreliable and of little value. The 
best watch was the simplest, with the least friction, com¬ 
plication and loss of power in its works. In these respects 
why was not a good farm like a watch ? It took him but 
a short time to see that if he followed his neighbors and 
produced hay, rye, second-class milk and poor crops of 
potatoes and truck, the mortgage would fatten on him; 
as it was, he wanted to fatten on the mortgage. Without 
knowing anything about chemistry he reasoned that 
water is tbe cheapest thing a farmer can sell—particularly 
from such a wet farm as his. In what form could he best 
sell water—in other words, what crops took mot water and 
least fertility away from the soil ? After studying the 
matter over, he decided that winter eggs and strawberries 
were his best water crops. Keep the hens busy in winter 
while the strawberry plants are asleeep, and let the hens 
take a vacation while the berries work like giants. For 
extra and surplus crops, take potatoes, onions, celery and 
cabbage. They will not interfere with the strawberries. 
They are all particularly well adapted to hen manure and 
the trimmings'and waste are all useful for hen food. Hav¬ 
ing made out his plan, Mr. J. went to work to learn the 
way to reach the best results just as he had studied his 
former trade. As he proposed to farm differently from 
his neighbors, he went out of the neighborhood to learn. 
Farm papers gave him many hints and ideas, and fre¬ 
quently put him on the track of a valuable fact. He 
realized that what men said in print might be absolutely 
true from a local point of view and yet misleading if 
taken without allowance or reserve by those with differ¬ 
ent soils and climates. So he kept his eyes open—testing, 
watching and observing, sifting the bit of gold out of the 
floods of words that came in upon him. The screen he 
used was common sense with a fine mesh. He began this 
12 years ago. Let’s see what he sold from the little place 
last year (1890.) An accurate cash record of sales and ex- 
A Proposed New Seeding Tool. Fig. 89. 
penses, with an accurate record of eggs laid, has been kept 
every day for the past 12 years : 
Strawberries. 
.2,601.22 
. 25.00 
. 90.00 
Pears and other fruits... 
. 99.96 
. 107.24 
Total. 
The mortgage has been paid; there is a surplus ahead, at 
least $2,500 have been invested in new barn and chicken 
houses and the farm, while it would not sell for as much 
as was paid for it, will produce a larger crop this year than 
ever before. Dees farming pay P Not always 1 Does a com¬ 
bination of brains, enterprise and faith pay ? Yes, and it 
will pay on any 18 acres of good land in this country. 
The Hen Holds the Farm on her Back. 
The day we visited the farm was perhaps the most un¬ 
comfortable of the winter—cold, raw and blustering. A 
respectable hen might well be excused from laying on 
such a day and yet that day the 380 odd hens presented 
Drying Rubber Boots. Fig. 90. 
their owner with a little over 200 eggs. From 60 to 75 hens 
are kept in each house. The houses are built of one thick¬ 
ness of matched boarding with one thickness of tarred 
paper inside. There is abundant window space in the 
south side. The floors—mostly of concrete, which Mr. J. 
prefers—are kept well covered with chopped marsh hay in 
which the hens scratch almost continually. A large box 
of dry road dust is placed under the windows. The roosts 
are about three feet from the ground with a sloping plat¬ 
form about a foot below them, on which the droppings fall 
and roll down into a gutter. The platform and gutter are 
kept well sprinkled with road dust in which carbolic acid 
has been mixed. The inside of the house is frequently 
whitewashed with a wash containing a little carbolic acid. 
Lice are not allowed to breed. The carbolic acid about 
the roosts is generally all that is required, but if it does 
not handle the pests, the roosts are washed with kerosene 
and the hens are caught and dusted with sulphur. 
’“ How often do these hens go out ?” 
“ They haven’t been out of the house since Thanksgiv¬ 
ing 1” said Mr. Johnson. “They don’t know what snow 
is except as we bring it in on our boots 1” The nests are 
clean and neat, each one containing a china nest egg. 
They are arranged under the manure platform, the 
darkest place in the house. Mr. Johnson does not claim 
that^he is pushing his hen business tolthe fullest possi¬ 
bility. He is getting along in years and has a good many 
irons in the fire. He does his own marketing, and that 
keeps him busy two days in every week. If it were neces¬ 
sary those hens would do even better. 
The Leghorn Lays Forever. 
The hens are all Leghorns, most of them a cross between 
the Whites and the Browns. White Leghorn cocks are 
generally used on the Brown or cross-bred hens. These 
cocks are bought from the best breeders in the country 
and selected with the greatest care. The hens are selected 
for their laying qualities. Mr. Johnson does not believe 
much in “type” so far as shape is concerned. A good 
laying hen acts like a layer—she is active, busy and “im¬ 
portant.” Generally she is of medium size, well-built and 
nervous, with a good head and comb, but her actions are 
the surest signs. A man who makes a business of poultry 
keeping comes to know his hens so intimately that he can 
tell the good layers at a glance, though it is impossible 
for him to describe to another just what the “ points ” of 
the layer are. These cross-bred hens give birds of all 
colors, though the browns largely predominate. There 
are birds here, known to be cross breds, precisely like the 
“Buff,” “Spangled,” and “Dominique” Leghorns 
exhibited at the late poultry show as “ new breeds.” At 
least a dozen or more are coal black, yet there is nothing 
but Leghorn blood in them. Mr. Johnson has bought 
some Black Minorca cocks which he will put with these 
black Leghorns and use many of the eggs for setting. The 
eggs are collected every night and an egg record is care¬ 
fully kept. In 1890, just 40,491 eggs were taken from the 
nests. The hens average from 135 to 140 eggs per year. 
The best average ever made on this egg farm was 160 eggs 
for a flock of 270 hens. No incubators are ever used. 
These layiDg Leghorns are not at all anxious to sit, but 
enough are induced to do so every year to keep up the 
stock of pullets. The Leghorns are better incubators 
than mothers. As nurses they are failures, so the chicks 
are reared in brooders, and their mothers are requested to 
lay again, which request they generally comply with after 
a little fussing. 
Maidens or Matrons; Leghorn Meat. 
How long shall a hen be kept ? Poultrymen have long 
discussions over this matter, but seldom agree. Mr. John¬ 
son’s flock seems about evenly divided between pullets and 
two and three-year-olds. He considers three years the 
limit; after this season the three-year-olds will all be sold. 
The old hens begin laying earlier than the pullets, and 
their eggs are larger, but they do not lay so many. The 
first pullet eggs, however, are so small that if nothing but 
pullets were kept the dealers would object. For these 
reasons the older hens are useful. The hens are marked 
on the foot with a common toe punch, one mark for each 
year. Two-year-old hens are used for breeding, about 15 
being put with one lively cock. Mr. Johnson says he sells 
the three-year-old hens, dressed, to special customers who 
declare the Leghorns to be the best roasters they can find. 
“ Just like a bird,” he says, “in breast meat.” After they 
quit laying they will fatten readily. He has sold hundreds 
of eggs to men who raise broilers exclusively. Most of 
them, however, are sold to one dealer who retails them. 
They are packed and shipped in neat baskets holding ten 
and twelve dozen each. 
The Feed That Brings the Eggs. 
The entire feed bill for the hens, one horse and two Jer- 
sey cows, besides the rye grown on the place, was $409 in 
1890. In 1889 it was $364.82. At half-past six every morn¬ 
ing the hens have breakfast served warm. This consists 
of boiled small potatoes, mashed and mixed with meal 
and bran with a little ground bone and pepper and a quan¬ 
tity of charcoal and chopped meat, all mixed together. 
Enough feeding dishes are used so that the hens will not 
crowd and walk over the food. The charcoal is brought 
from near-by charcoal pits, the grain is brought back 
from Paterson in the market wagon, and the meat bought 
at a lard-rendering house. At noon the hens have green 
food—one day the trimmings of cabbages chopped as fine 
as possible, and the next clover hay chopped and steamed. 
An hour before sundown they have a feed of whole grain, 
wheat and corn, almost two-thirds wheat. This is scat¬ 
tered in the hay, where they have to scratch for it. Oyster 
shells are kept before them all the time. Mr. J. says that 
many authorities claim that shells are not needed, but he 
notices that the hens like them, and he is tryiug to please 
the hens rather than the authorities. 
A Home-Made Chemical Fertilizer. 
Mr. Johnson used to pay over $450 for manures and fer¬ 
tilizers. Last year his bill was less than $100—to be exact 
$122 for manure and all seeds. Is that a saving worth 
making ? How did he make it ? He made a chemical 
combination of hen manure and brains. It is true he used 
some potash and phosphoric acid, but the brains did the 
work. He always knew that hen manure was valuable, 
but it gave him uneven results. When he used it on pota¬ 
toes it gave a vine about like “ Old Nitrogen ” in The R. 
N.-Y’s poem, page 161—all vine and little tuber. On no 
crop except corn did it give complete results, and he did 
not raise corn. What was the trouble with it ? It seemed 
to have too much of the stuff that made vine and leaf and 
not enough of that which made body and seed. In other 
words, it was a poorly balanced manure, like those repre¬ 
sented in the pictures in the poem. After experimenting 
and testing, Mr. J. found what the hen manure needed. 
Instead of using tbe clear manure he now uses a mixture 
of 400 pounds of sifted hen manure, 200 pounds of dissolved 
bone-black, 100 pounds of muriate of potash and 150 pounds 
of plaster. This mixture, on his soil, gives as good results 
as the best chemical fertilizer he can buy. He uses 1,500 
pounds on an acre of potatoes, in the trench above the 
seed pieces. This discovery—that nitrogen needs the help 
of potash and phosphorus—saves nearly $350 every year. 
Not only that, but it saves buying water in stable manure. 
Let the farmer sell all the water he can, but let him avoid 
