1891 
645 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Business . 
FARMER BOYS AND THE SEED BUSINESS. 
What are the Chances for Promotion? 
The following note was received from a boy in North 
Carolina. The answers are typical and fair as we believe. 
In this business, as in any other, more depends upon the 
boy than upon the job. Some boys will fight their way 
up anywhere ; others can never grow alone. 
“ I am 17 years of age and have lived on a farm in North 
Carolina all my life. I do not like farming here, but think 
I would like to get on a large seed or fruit farm or some¬ 
thing of the sort. Is there any chance for a boy to start 
on a large seed farm and work up into the business ? 
Where would he have to start and what wages would he 
get ? Is there any chance for society ? Do the seedsmen 
employ such large gangs of hands as they represent in their 
catalogues ? Which would afford the best opportunities 
for promotion, the warehouse or the field ? ” 
Steady Employment for Earnest Workers. 
We are not very well posted in regard to the chances for 
a boy in the seed business. Our specialty is and always 
has been the growing of nursery stock, our seed-growing 
being small, most of our seeds being grown by contract by 
other growers. In the nursery business we do not think 
there is much chance for a progressive boy to work him¬ 
self up to a high position or large salary. If he has land 
of his own and wants to learn the business to start for 
himself after he has acquired a sufficient knowledge, it 
would, of course, be desirable to work for some large firm 
for a number of years. We employ in our business about 
150 men for eight months of the year, and have to cut them 
down to 30 or 40 through the winter. Experienced help or 
new help that take hold through the summer with vim 
and show that they are trying to work, can always depend 
on steady employment. Most nurserymen are located 
some little distance from town, and the chances for so¬ 
ciety, of course are not as good as in towns" or cities. We 
should suppo that for any farmer’s boy the be3t place to 
strike, either m the seed or nursery business, would be in 
the field gi\ .ng him information, so that in later years he 
could work for himself. storks & harrison co. 
Chances with a Seed Dealer. 
The point to be first determined by this inquirer is ex¬ 
actly what department of horticulture he wishes to take 
up. At the outset it would be well for him and others to 
clearly understand that farm work is much the same in all 
sections of the country, and that if it is distasteful to him 
in North Carolina it will be equally so wherever he goes. 
This applies to the operations connected with the daily 
routine. It would be better for him to abandon the idea 
entirely unless he is willing to take his chances with his 
daily companions, and school himself to the idea that he 
will meet competition at first only on the lines of his capa¬ 
bility to perform manual labor. After he has demonstrated 
his ability in this respect, then if he is superior to others 
in Intelligence, and is enthusiastic, painstaking and studi¬ 
ous, his emploj ers will quickly perceive it and without 
doubt opportunities will come to him enabling him to prove 
his worth, and advancement will follow. If these do not 
present themselves he will find for himself other fields 
where his ambition will have scope, and seek some other 
employer who perhaps will have more discernment than 
the first. He should be cautioned against the allurements 
of “ society ” as it is generally understood for a young 
man just beginning life, who is dependent on his own ex¬ 
ertions, for it is demoralizing and certain to retard him in 
his efforts to attain success. His evenings and spare 
time had far better be spent in reading good horticultural 
literature and digesting the knowledge acquired from the 
daily routine. This will prevent him from becoming a 
mere machine, an unthinking part of the machinery of 
the place where he is employed, and will develop the facul¬ 
ties on which alone he can hope for future success. 
If he wishes to go into fruit farming, we think that the 
best preliminary training would be with some large prac¬ 
tical grower, many of whom are to be found In all sections 
of the country. Probably a greater variety of small fruits 
are being cultivated by growers in New York and New 
Jersey than elsewhere. Fruits are largely grown also at 
the South, and in the vicinity of Norfolk, Va., he can 
doubtless find the employment he seeks. There, too, he 
will find vegetable growing done on a large scale, and as 
the two go hand in hand it might be as good as any other 
locality for him to try his fortunes, or even better. 
In regard to wages, we presume that for the first year at 
least he would not get more than enough to be self sup¬ 
porting in a very modest fashion. 
Should he desire to go into the seed business, we consider 
that his best plan would be to secure employment with 
some large seed house, as most of these have extensive 
trial and stock seed grounds where an all-around know¬ 
ledge of field cultivation can be obtained, while his exper¬ 
ience in the store or warehouse will give him the necessary 
technical and commercial training. The sample field is 
now a most important part of every well conducted seed 
establishment, and here will be found growing samples of 
all the varieties offered for sale, as well as the new kinds 
which are tested to establish their merits. The young men 
from the “store” are taken regularly to these grounds and 
given practical lessons in cultivation ; here are spread be¬ 
fore them the various vegetables and their varieties grow¬ 
ing side by side, where comparison is easy, and they receive 
instructions from some one who has risen from the ranks 
and who is well fitted to impart it. This perhaps is his 
best field; for the supply of good, practical, intelligent 
seedsmen is scarcely equal to the demand, and if he is in¬ 
dustrious, intelligent and ambitious his advancement will 
be rapid. In no other way can so good a general knowl¬ 
edge of the seed business be obtained, for the reason that 
successful seed raising is so much a matter of soil and 
climate that tut few varieties can be advantageously 
grown for seed in one locality and the seed dealer has to 
draw on all parts of the world for his supplies, experience 
having shown that certain things can be grown better and 
more profitably in some sections than in others. Hence, 
if this correspondent were to enter the employment of 
a seed grower in New York State, for instance, he would 
obtain practical knowledge of only a very small part of the 
varieties handled by the seed dealer. The difference be¬ 
tween a seed grower and a seed dealer is greater perhaps 
than he imagines, and he must not confound the two to¬ 
gether. As a rule, the former confines himself to a few 
things which can be grown in his locality, while the latter 
has to keep a fall line of everything likely to be in demand. 
Hence, it would be better for him to secure a position with 
the latter, as it will give him more scope. In addition to 
this, it might be mentioned that the majority of seed 
growers proper, attend themselves to the business part of 
their interests, and his chances for acquiring a business 
training would be limited. peter Henderson & co. 
DUPLICATING A “BEST CROP OF WHEAT.” 
On page 590, S. M. purposes to use 150 pounds of fertil¬ 
izer per acre on wheat hereafter, being convinced that it 
will pay, although he has never tried it on his farm. It is 
quite possible that he may be disappointed. Although 
the ardent advocates of chemical fertilization do not seem 
inclined to credit it, yet it is a fact that some soils do not 
make any returns for the application of commercial fertil¬ 
izers. A few years ago I raised an average ot 32 bushels 
of wheat to the acre on a 13-acre field, five acres of which 
consisted of much thinner soil than the rest of the field, 
and this part did not yield a proportionate share of the 
crop. 
I tried to bring the thin part up to an average condition 
by the use of a fertilizer, but the crop with which it was 
used was poorer than usual. One test is not at all conclu¬ 
sive, but my neighbors on either side made similar tests, 
and could get little or no benefit. One of these has hoped 
against hope, continuing to test the fertilizers, and last 
year he fertilized a strip through a rather thin wheat 
field, and no one was able to locate the strip from the ap¬ 
pearance of the wheat. The only benefit I have ever seen 
in this section of the Ohio River bottoms from fertilizers 
was a good stand of Timothy on a rather poor soil, and it is 
questionable whether the fertilizer caused this, in view of 
its repeated failure at other times. 
A fertilizer agent frankly admitted to me a year ago that 
there seemed to be no benefit from an application on our 
bottom lands. We have used clover for many years, and 
there are thin ridges that do not grow the crop as well as 
they formerly did. On these I have been using barn-yard 
manure, but the supply of it is always limited, and a profit¬ 
able use of commercial fertilizers would be a boon to us, 
but such use seems to be an impossibility. No one has 
ever cared to try the liberal applications that are reported 
in The Rural’s accounts of the Jersey chemical farming, 
but we reason that if 150 or 200 pounds make no returns, 
then 1,000 pounds will not pay. All this leads me to advise 
S. M. to leave an unfertilized strip through each wheat 
field and report the result through The Rural. 
It is in S. M.’s success in seeding wheat on corn ground 
that I am especially interested. I have found it nearly an 
impossibility to get a large crop from this kind of ground, 
and as I have about 20 acres to seed, a discussion of the 
best method would be valuable. The soil is a clay loam 
with some tendency to pack. My custom has been to cut 
the ground with a disc harrow and then drill, a boy follow¬ 
ing the drill with a hook to keep the hoes clean and watch 
the feed. The disc harrow leaves the top soil in small 
flakes and clods, and the corn stubs prevent much firming 
and pressing of the ground with the smoothing harrow 
and roller. I have drilled without any preparation of the 
ground, but my soil is too firm for that—not enough loose 
dirt. 
Unless some Rural readers suggest a better way, I shall 
use the cultivator first, running crosswise of the rows and 
leveling the ground. While I try to pra tice level cultiva¬ 
tion, yet in drilled corn the ground is ridged to quite a 
considerable degree when cultivation ceases. Then I will 
cut lengthwise of the row with the disc harrow, following 
the drill with the roller. One trouble seems to be that the 
ground is too compact without preparation, and when it is 
loosened up the corn stubs prevent firming it. Then again, 
I fear that the corn roots feed so near the surface and so 
rankly, that there is insufficient plant food for the young 
wheat. I cannot follow corn with any other crop than 
wheat with profit, and the chief profit in the wheat exists 
too much in its protection to a stand of clover. 
My difficulty in getting a good crop of wheat after corn 
seems somewhat general in this State, as I infer from con¬ 
siderable observation. If The Rural can obtain some 
light on this point from its readers, it will have scored 
another victory in its line of specialties. ALVA agee. 
Gallia County, O._ 
IMPLEMENT NOTES. 
Post Anchor.— It is quite astonishing to note how iron 
and steel are superoe ling wood in the making of fence 
posts. The iron posts are smaller, neater and far more 
durable than the wooden ones, lasting as long as the wire 
used with them. In many places they are also cheaper 
than wood. One trouble with the iron posts has been that 
it was difficult to make them firm and solid. It does not 
pay to drive them far into the ground, and they are too 
slender to take a “firm hold.” We have now a “post 
anchor ” that seems to do away with this trouble. In the 
base of the posts are two apertures, through which strong, 
iron blades are driven diagonally into the ground, the 
heads of the blades being so arranged that when driven 
home they grip firmly to the side of the post and to each 
other. The post when thus erected is held not only by its 
own base, which is in the ground to the depth of a foot 
and a half, but also by the two interlocking blades or 
braces so that it is next to impossible to overturn it. This 
device is made by the Anchor Post Co., New York city. 
Perkins Wind Mill. —Many farmers will take advan¬ 
tage of the good crops this year and buy a new wind mill. 
They have long listened to the noise of the wind playing 
around their buildings and longed for a chance to put the 
lazy giant at work. They now have the chance. A good 
mill will do lots of the work that is now wearing the mus¬ 
cles out of their backs. Before you buy send to the Per¬ 
kins Wind Mill Co., Mishawaka, Ind., for catalogues. 
A New Corn Harvester— New machines of this sort 
are patented every week nowadays. The latest is shown 
at Fig. 234. It is drawn by two horses hitched on either 
side, at the rear, as shown. It “straddles” the row, the 
cutting being done In front by means of two knives placed 
in the form of a V. Suitable cog wheels cause the feeder, 
shaped somewhat like a turnstile, to revolve. This catches 
the stalks, holds them against the knives and forces them 
back upon the swinging rack. When a sufficient load is 
placed on the rack it can be opened at the bottom and the 
load dropped out while the machine passes on, or the 
stalks can be bound and then dropped. Levers to contro 
every movement of the machine are supposed to be within 
reach of the driver, who sits in the rear. 
The Cutaway Harrow. —Is the Cutaway harrow as 
good as the disc for fining ground and killing weeds in 
preparing ground for garden truck ? 
Ans. —The work of the Cutaway is superior to that of the 
disc harrow for the reason that It digs and chops the soil 
rather than slices it. The surface left by the Cutaway is 
not so good for seeding, and the draft is heavier. 
Subsoil Plows.—T he discussions In The Rural about 
subfoiling have been very Instructive to me. They have 
fully explained why in some cases and some years subsoil¬ 
ing has been profitable to me, and in others not. I have 
been in hopes that some of the correspondents would men¬ 
tion what plow they are using; but have been disap¬ 
pointed. N. s. 
Westfield, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—Most of our correspondents, we believe, used 
a plow made by the Ames Plow Co., Boston, Mass. 
Combined Plow and Disc Harrow.—The R. N.-Y. has 
chronicled several attempts to produce a tool that will 
work the soil more thoroughly than is done by the ordin¬ 
ary plow. It seems to be generally admitted that the best 
time to harrow or fine soil is as soon after plowing as pos¬ 
sible. Hence inventors have tried to produce an attach¬ 
ment that will fit easily to the plow and add but little to 
its draft. Some weeks ago we showed one of these attach¬ 
ments In the form of a row of stout knives that were to 
run by the side of the plow and slLe and tear up the fur¬ 
rows as turned over. Another effort is shown at Fig. 235. 
Proposed Plow and Disc Harrow. Fig. 235. 
This has just been patented. It is simple and easily under¬ 
stood. A stout wooden arm or frame at the end of the plow 
holds six small discs which revolve and cut the soil as the 
plow turns it over. This will run lighter than the other 
and to that extent at least is an Improvement over it. 
Rigby Potato Digger.— It is claimed that this digger 
will take out more potatoes per dollar of its cost than any 
other. We receive a good many letters from parties who 
want a good, serviceable digger and still do not have work 
enough to justify them in buying a high-priced machine. 
The Rigby will suit such people well. It gets the potatoes 
out. The circulars give a good picture of the machine and 
show how it works. Send and get them from Rigby & 
Burleigh, Houlton, Maine. 
