494 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
TULY 4 
WHAT IS “ONE MAN’S WORK?” 
Any Profit In The Hired Man’s Labor ? 
1. In your part of the country how much work may 
one man safely plan and start In the spring ? “ What is 
the extent of one man’s work ?” 
2. Would it pay the average farmer to get along with¬ 
out the hired man and simply do what he can alone ? 
3. How much more can one man do with the help of 
improved tools than with the old-time implements ? 
4. What five tools are of most value to you in your 
farming ? 
Hire Sheep Instead of Men. 
With good fences and not much extra work where a 
variety of crops is raised maturing at different times, a 
competent man ought to do the work on 60 acres of im¬ 
proved land, with the exception of day help while thrash¬ 
ing, drawing hay, corn fodder, wheat, etc. I am thinking 
of increasing my flock of sheep to such an extent that they 
will consume all the hay and coarse grain raised on the 
place. I do this to get around this labor question. They 
are easily cared for in summer and winter, and at present 
prices of wool and mutton, they are profitable. With 
3heep as the main “crop,” I believe it would be posUble 
here for one man to care for 200 acres, except during hay¬ 
ing time. 
Large farmers, practical men, who have their farms paid 
for, raise their crops at le3S cost, because they have large 
fields and good teams, and their machinery costs them less 
per acre, hence they make a profit on their hired man’s 
labor because of these conditions. The renter who hires 
men, as a rule, I think, loses. There are too many shares 
to be given to too many men and too heavy expenses to be 
paid to leave a profit for him. 
Again, many men have more land than they can prop¬ 
erly work ; perhaps they have boys growing up to aid them 
in the future, and they do not like to sell it. The only 
thing they can do is to let it remain idle and grow up to 
weeds, or hire men to aid them. They may not make any¬ 
thing on this hired labor, but sometimes help at the right 
time will save a crop, and if one does not make anything 
on the extra labor, it will enable him to 
get pay for what he has done himself. 
In the harvesting of hay and grain I 
think a man can do four times as much 
with the improved tools of to-day. In 
other farm work, perhaps, there is not so 
much difference. 
The most valuable tools for me are: 
the mower, the Tiger self-dump rake, the 
double harpoon hay fork, the wheelbarrow 
clover and Timothy seeder, and the spring- 
tooth harrow. C. L. H. 
Ingham Co., Mich. 
Must Know How to Manage Labor. 
In this locality there are few, if any, 
farms on which one man’s labor is all that 
is used. Some few, with the aid of day 
help in the busy periods, manage to carry 
on farms of from 25 to 75 acres ; but even 
these are few, although farms in this local¬ 
ity are not large, most of them being from 
100 to 150 acres; and farms of this size 
furnish employment for from three to five 
men for nine months in the year. As 
sweet potatoes are our main crop this is 
necessarily so, as 20 acres of sweet potatoes 
will take the entire time of two men from 
March 1 to July 15 to grow the crop. Much 
other truck is also grown, all of which 
takes hand labor. 
In regard to the second question, it all 
depends on the man. If he were a good 
worker but did not understand how to 
use the labor of others, he certainly could make more 
dollars and cents from his own efforts, but I think it 
would be as unwise for every farmer to attempt to reduce 
his farm and do his work unaided as it would be for the 
large factories to close up and let the village workman 
make our implements and tools. Some farmers can handle 
the labor of two or three men to advantage ; but double 
that and they are lost; the men seem to work after each 
other and his extra help do not work at a profit. 
Other farmers seem best suited when handling several 
men. They are always with their men, thinking they can¬ 
not afford any loss of time on so many hands. I think 
most if not all depends on the capabilities of the man. In 
thinking over successful farmers in this locality I find 
nearly all of them are men who have known how to make 
a profit from the labor of others and who have not been 
afraid to employ sufficient men to carry their work abreast 
of the season, and run their farms to their full capacity. 
As to question three: An implement’s worth is not always 
measured by the extra quantity of the work it enables a 
farmer to do, but because it enables him to do his work in 
a superior manner, and it is not generally the farmer with 
the most and best tools who accomplishes the most work ; 
but with good implements he can do the work more thor¬ 
oughly and grow better crops. Many tools, however, do save 
labor. We now use for ridging sweet potatoes a machine 
that enables a man to do three times the amount of work 
that he could accomplish in the old way with hoes. The 
“ puncher and tongs ” used for setting out sweet potato 
plants is another great labor saver, and certainly the im¬ 
proved riding corn cultivators save an immense amount 
of labor, although we use them much more frequently in 
our corn fields than we did the plows and harrows of the 
past. 
T1 e five tools that save me the most labor, excluding 
my mo arer, binder and hay rake, which would otherwise 
come first, axe my sweet potato digger, sweet potato 
ridger, riding corn cultivator, hay elevator and carrier in 
the barn and the puncher and tongs for setting out plants. 
I think we are on the eve of a day that will show us many 
new improvements, and the old-time implements, even the 
plow, will be cast aside or reserved for certain conditions. 
Penn’s Grove, N. J. E. G. B. 
Three-Horse Farming In Ohio. 
In this county the farms are usually either 80 or 160 acres. 
An 80-acre farm is considered a three horse farm, and a 
160-acre a six-horse one, and so on. What is meant by this 
is that after the pasture and garden, buildings, etc., are 
taken out of 80 acres, one man can work the farm, as many 
do in this county, with three horses. I have a neighbor, a 
first-class farmer (a tenant), who has done the following 
amount of work this spring : He put out five acres of oats, 
28 acres of corn, about one acre of potatoes, and worked 
for another man two days in planting corn with his team. 
I feel safe in saying that one man can put out 25 acres of 
corn, six to eight acres of oats, and from one to three acres 
of potatoes, and cultivate them all in good order and be 
ready for his clover hay by Jane 25th, in a fair season, if 
supplied with good tools for each division of the work, 
viz.: a three-horse breaking plow, a 50 tooth harrow, a 
roller, check row corn planter, and a crusher, and with 
good haying tools and one hand to help he ought to put up 
15 tons of hay and put in shocks 40 acres of wheat by using 
a self-binder. There are plenty of farmers here who aver¬ 
age that much per hand. The conditions are favorable 
here for getting this amount done, for our land is level, 
and, as a rule, easily cared for. 
As to dollars and cents made out of hired labor, I don’t 
believe there is one in five that makes any money by hir¬ 
ing. The man who is making the most clear cash here is 
the one that is farming just what he can do himself with 
a little day hiring in planting and harvesting times, and if 
farming with hired help won’t pay in Miami County, 
Ohio, I don’t believe it will pay anywhere; for we have a 
soil that will produce anything that will mature in this 
latitude and that can be eat-ily worked. It is either a 
black loam or red clay, underlaid with gravel. 
As to the amount of labor saved by labor-saving tools, I 
TENT OF A CALIFORNIA FUMIGATOR. Fig. 182. 
believe that with the exception of breaking up the land, 
one man can now very nearly do as much as two men could 
under the old system. I consider the mower, the hay rake 
and tedder, the binder, the horse fork and potato planter 
the tools that save the most labor for farmers here. I am 
an advocate of farming a less area and doing it better. I 
think I have abundant evidence within a stone’s throw of 
where I live to prove the superior advantages of this plan. 
Those men who are farming with three teams have from 
60 to 90 acres of corn out now for three men to tend. Now, 
on June 16, only four-fifths of their corn is plowed over 
once, and very little of it has ever seen a harrow or roller. 
We had a week of very wet weather, and it just upset 
them. On my farm three of us are able to do a man’s 
work. We have 45 acres of corn. We are now plowing it 
the third time, and we have rolled and harrowed a good 
deal of it. Our truck patches are all clean and hoed. Our 
garden is fine and clean, and our corn is as nearly per¬ 
fectly clean as it can be, while the soil is mellow and as 
nearly level as we can leave it with the two-horse culti¬ 
vator. We expect to plow right along just as fast as we 
can until about one-half of the clover heads are brown, 
and then stop and make our hay, which will be about June 
25. Anybody can answer the question, which one is likely 
to have the most corn. The six-horse farmers are at a loss 
in many ways. I think they have no time to attend to 
the truck patches or gardens, and no time to care for any 
berries or small fruits, and consequently they have none, 
which is a grave mistake. They have no time to attend 
to the various little things on the farm which can and 
ought to be raised for home use, and the surplus marketed, 
the proceeds to go towards cost of living. They must put 
in all their time on their main crops, which are corn, 
wheat and hay. Their expenses for living, etc., must 
come out of these crops. It is true that they handle more 
money than the small farmers, but not so much in pro¬ 
portion stays with them. Their women folks never know 
what rest is. They are always cooking and doing for the 
hands, and in harvesting and thrashing times a small 
army must be cared for, and consequently they are worn 
out and broken down in health, and see little or no en¬ 
joyment, all for the sake of a man who likes to do business 
with a big auger. The old rhyme, “ A little farm well 
tilled, a little barn well filled,” is just as true now as it 
ever was. DARIUS ROSS. 
Miami Co , Ohio. 
One Man’s Labor In Kansas. 
Our country, being for the most part prairie is more 
easily cultivated than the billy lands of the Eastern States. 
One man and three horses can plant and cultivate 40 to 45 
acres of corn and also put in 10 acres of wheat and 10 of 
flax or oats without employing much hired help. The 
corn crop on an average, would amount to 2 000 bushels, 
the oats to about 400 bust els and if wheat is sown it would 
average 15 to 20 bushels to the acre and the flax from 10 to 
15 bushels. A 16-inch three-horse plow is much used here 
and the plowing of three acres is considered a fair day’s 
work, so that in 15 days, if the weather is favorable, the 
corn ground can be plowed. This is done about the last 
week in March and the first week in April. About the 
20th of April the corn is planted : one man can do the work 
as the check rower is almost universally used. No further 
attention Is paid to the corn till it is three or four inches 
high when cultivation commences, a walking cultivator 
being used. It is now cultivated three or four times 
over, seven to eight acres being considered a fair day’s 
work. 
As a matter of dollars and cents, farmers who lay out 
just about what work they can do themselves, are doing 
much better here. Those who have 160 to 200 acres of 
land and put in 60 or 70 acres in crops, leaving the rest in 
pasture and meadow, are making money and their lives 
are not a continual worry as they would be if they had a 
number of hands employed and a big business to look 
after. 
I think a man can accomplish three times the amount of 
work with our labor-saving machinery that he could do 
with the old-time implements. The self-binder, the gang 
plow, the cultivator, mowing and thrash¬ 
ing machines are our great labor saving 
devices. scott elliott. 
Anderson Co., Kan. 
KILLING INSECT PESTS WITH HY¬ 
DROCYANIC ACID. 
The California orchards are on so large 
a scale, and so much capital is invested 
in the fruit-growing industry, that every 
incentive has been given to the inventors 
of that region to build insect-de&troyiDg 
apparatuses. It is certain that the best 
and cheapest spraying systems in use in the 
United States are to be found in California. 
At the present time the orchardist in such 
fruit districts as the Santa Clara, Napa 
aEd Sonoma Valleys sprays four large trtes 
simultaneously by using four hose with 
proper nozzles, leading from a i ank 
mounted on a two-horse wagon. A strong 
force-pump supplies the necessary pressure. 
But no system that has been tried in 
California has attracted more attention 
than the recent applications of hydr^cyan c 
acid gas to the destruction of insect life. 
This is done by means of a tent so large 
that it can be dropped over the largest 
orchard tree. Some of the very tallest orange 
trees in southern California have been fumi¬ 
gated by this process, with gratifying suc¬ 
cess and at a very small expense, wnen the 
effectiveness of the method is considered. 
Every insect can be destroyed without injuring the tree. 
At Fig. 182, a fumigating apparatus at Pomona, in Los 
Angeles County, is shown at the moment when one tent is 
about to be dropped over the tree. At each movement of 
the wagon, two trtes are fumigated. The earlier appar¬ 
atus only had one tent, but now two are used so as to save 
time. There is no patent extant upon the apparatus, or 
the U66 of hydrocyanic acid. Some people in the southern 
counties have been try ing to secure patents, but there is 
little or no danger that they can succeed. 
The State Horticultural Report for 1890 contains ad¬ 
mirable working plans, drawn to scale, which show the 
exact construction of the fumigating tents used in Orange 
County. Any person can build one from these plans, 
which are essentially the same as those of the Pomona 
apparatus. S. W. Preble, of Tustin City, was the builder 
of the apparatus figured. 
The formula for generating the gas varies, but one of 
the best is as follows: Take one part (by weight) of dry 
potassium cyanide, one part of sulphuric acid, and two 
parts of water. The generator is a lead vessel like a water 
bucket. The tent is placed in position, the cyanide is 
placed in the generator, then water is added, and lastly 
the acid. The operator then withdraws and leaves the 
fumigation to proceed for about 15 minutas. An orange 
tree 18 feet high and 14 feet across the branches required 
the following quantities: 15 ounces of cyanide of potas¬ 
sium, 30 fluid ounces of water, and 15 ounces of sulphuric 
acid. This is according to Prof. D. W. Coquillett's “In¬ 
sect Life.” Some variations of the formula are given in 
the State Horticultural Reports. The apparatus is often 
used at night, or, if used during strong sunlight, black 
tents are preferred in order to lessen the effect of the light 
rays which affect the gas. Despite all drawbacks, how¬ 
ever, the method promises to be very extensively used in 
closely-settled orchard districts. The owner of an appar¬ 
atus usually contracts to operate on an orchard at a fixed 
price per tree. It introduces a new industry—that of the 
“ professional fumigator.” Charles Howard shinn. 
