68 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Feb. 4 
feeding his grain to cattle and hogs was necessary to 
keep up its fertility, and profitable at the prices then 
ruling for beef and pork. Later, when prices fell so 
low that feeding showed no profit beyond the value 
of the resulting manure, he quickly discovered that 
the latter was made at a loss, if he valued his labor 
at even a very low price, and a change was made to 
the dairy. In this specialty he was decidedly success¬ 
ful. The uniformly excellent quality of his butter 
soon created a demand which he could never fully 
supply, and he would have continued on this line but 
for the impossibility of hiring men who would not 
shirk, and, by carelessness and neglect, damage the 
herd and the business far beyond the amount of their 
wages. 
The Slaughter House Revives the Farm. 
Having occasion nine or ten years ago to visit the 
slaughter houses in Chicago, he was induced to experi¬ 
ment in a small way with dried blood and bone dust, 
which he could then buy for $17 per ton. The result 
was so satisfactory that he has yearly increased the 
amount used, until now he has no fears of exhausting 
the fertility of his farm, and, although the price of the 
fertilizer has advanced greatly, he can still use it at a 
profit and sell his grain at market prices. The crops 
grown on this farm are corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley 
and Timothy. I was surprised that no clover was 
grown, but was told that the extra labor required to 
make a crop of clover hay at a time when himself and 
man were needed in cultivating the corn, and the un¬ 
certainty of a crop of seed owing to insects, made 
clover unprofitable for him to grow. Two hundred 
pounds of dried blood per acre are applied to the corn 
at the first cultivation, sown broadcast between the 
rows and mixed with the surface soil by the cultivator; 
300 pounds per acre of raw bone flour are sown with 
wheat and barley, which are sown on the corn stubble 
and covered with a disc harrow. The oats also are sown 
in this way without plowing the ground, but receive 
no fertilizer ; neither does the rye, which follows the 
other small grains. Occasionally some of the rye is 
turned under in the spring, and the ground planted to 
corn. The standing corn is husked during October 
and November, and the stalks are left as they grew, 
and the horses and, on pleasant days the cows have 
the range of the fields during the winter. The Timo¬ 
thy is in permanent meadow and pasture unbroken 
for 10 years, and with an occasional dressing of bone, 
the meadow continues to yield over two tons of hay 
per acre, much of which is baled and sold, as is also 
some straw. Enough horses are kept to do the farm 
work and for road use. Two or three are biood mares, 
which usually raise colts each year, of the Clydesdale 
breed ; these, with a couple of Jersey cows for family 
needs, and a few pigs, compr'se the live stock of the 
farm; though Mr. McAllister thinks that about 100 
hogs to convert his 40-cent corn into $7 pork, would 
be good property to have just now. 
The average yield of this farm per acre is : 70 to 75 
bushels of corn, 30 to 33 of No 2 Hard Fife wheat, 20 to 
25 of rye, 70 of oats, 40 of barley, and 2)4 tons of 
Timothy hay. The farm work is done by the owner, 
assisted by one man hired by the season and one hired 
by the month, I believe, during harvest time. While 
Mr McAllister does not claim to be pur¬ 
suing the very best course in the use of 
chemicals, he has answered the question 
of profit for himself to his own satisfac¬ 
tion ; for by their use he is able to pro¬ 
duce and market his crops at a profit 
during seven months of the year, year 
after year, giving him five other months 
for improvements in different ways— 
highways for instance—and he has now 
one man and team at work hauling gravel 
to improve the road which passes his farm, 
being allowed for such work $3 per day. 
Will County, Ill. P. H. MONROE. 
A HOME-MADE POWER CONVERTER. 
There are thousands of windmills in 
the country that might be put to numer¬ 
ous uses with the aid of a cheap power 
converter. I send a rough sketch (see 
Fig. 23) of one that can be cheaply 
made, and is simple in construction : 
A is a ratchet wheel in which work a 
straight and a hooked ratchet, B, fastened to a lever, 
C, at one end ; the other end of the lever is attached 
to the mill rod. The frame can be made something 
like a grindstone frame, with the exception of two 
upright end pieces, which are long enough to hold the 
lever. With suitable gearing, balance wheel and pulley 
or band wheel (not shown in the sketch), one will 
have almost as good a power converter as a high- 
priced one. Almost every farmer has more or less old 
machinery from which he can procure the gearing, 
shafts, boxing, etc. The ratchet wheel one can have 
made at the foundry at very little cost. The black¬ 
smith can make it, but it is better to have it cast. 
Glenn County, Cal. h. k. hewett. 
GROUP OF SOUTH DOWN SHEEP. 
The Mark Lane Express prints the picture shown at 
Fig. 24. These sheep were grown on the farm of the 
Prince of Wales, and have been exhibited at some of 
the leading English shows. Such fat, round sheep 
ought to make good mutton, and if we had more like 
them on many of our rough, hilly farms, American 
sheep growing would be in better shape. The South 
Down is an excellent sheep to cross on the flocks 
found on the average farm. 
LEAVINGS. 
More Power to a Hydraulic Ram. —In answer to 
J. J. M., on page 5 of last issue, and others in pre¬ 
vious numbers, as to how to get the water to their 
buildings from a stream or spring on lower ground 
than that on which the buildings stand, I will tell 
how I have done, and the work is satisfactory. There 
is a large spring 35 rods from my house and about 25 
or 30 feet lower down. It rises out of the ground and 
runs with only a medium fall, not enough near the 
spring to force the water to my house by means of a 
hydraulic ram. In order to get fall enough I dug a 
ditch, commencing down the stream some distance 
from the spring and keeping on a lower grade than 
that of the stream, so that when I had got within 50 
feet of the spring, the ditch was about seven feet deep, 
and in it I laid tiles to carry off the surplus water from 
the ram. At this place I dug a well about seven feet 
square, and started from the bottom one ditch slant¬ 
ing up towards the spring and another towards my 
house ; then I walled the well up with cobble stones 
laid in water-lime and gravel mortar, leaving it about 
four feet square inside, with a hole for the pipe under 
the wall at each ditch. Then I set the hydraulic ram 
in the bottom of the well, using 1%-inch pipe from 
the spring to the ram and a half-inch galvanized iron 
pipe to my house, and it works splendidly, running the 
water into the kitchen and into a vat for setting milk, 
and there is a waste pipe to a trough in my barnyard. 
Fairview, Pa. t. m. r. 
The Christmas Rose. —It is a matter of wonder that 
this very satisfactory flower is so little known and ap¬ 
preciated among flower lovers. It is easy of culti¬ 
vation, readily propagated by division of the root¬ 
stocks, and while it likes a moist, rich soil, will grow 
and flower almost anywhere, and at a time when 
other garden favorites have succumbed to autumn’s 
cold. The plant is known botanically as Helleborus 
niger, or Black hellebore, and belongs to the Ranun- 
culaceas or Crowfoot family. It is a native of central 
and southern Europe. It is a low-growing, evergreen 
plant with large, deeply lobed leaves, which are dark 
green in color and shine on the upper side as though 
polished. The flowers are borne on stout, fleshy stems, 
and though two are often found on a stem, they never 
flower at the same time. In color they vary from 
purest of white to rosy pink, according to age and con¬ 
dition. Very old flowers are even bright red, but they 
have lost their beauty when they come to that stage. 
The buds as well as the open flowers bear some 
slight resemblance to a single white rose, which, with 
their habit of blooming all winter, gives them their 
name. In favorable seasons, the buds begin to show 
themselves late in October, and if the ground does not 
freeze they continue to bloom for weeks. A hard 
freeze injures the opened blossoms, but the buds only 
hang their heads and wait till a warm day comes to 
waken them to new beauty. They were in bloom up 
to Christmas here in Seneca County, N. Y., this season, 
and now that a foot or more of snow covers them, one 
could easily gather a bouquet by removing the cold 
covering. When taken from beneath the snow, it is 
well to put them in cold water and in a cool room 
until they are entirely thawed out. s. A. little. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of the 
writer to Insure attention. Before asking a question please see If It Is 
not answered In our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions 
at one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
Starting an Orchard in Potatoes- 
H. S., Nichols, Conn. —Supposing one to be trying 
the system outlined in “ Chemicals and Clover,” and 
desirous of starting an orchard at the same time on the 
same land. He has raised corn on the sod, and next 
spring is to plant the potatoes with 15 cwts. or more 
of special manure. Will his young trees live if planted 
there also, care being taken that none of the chemicals 
shall touch the roots? 
Ans. —Certainly, such a plan has been often carried 
out. Last year—page 214—we gave an account of a 
plum orchard in Pennsylvania started in about this 
way. The potatoes were planted in hills, three feet 
apart each way, and a plum tree was set in every third 
hill—nine feet apart each way. The field was then 
cultivated and worked as for potatoes. The trees 
made a fine growth and gave good returns. 
Some Facts About Clover. 
E. H. C., Carmel, Ind. —The question of clover is 
attracting unusual interest this winter in Indiana and 
Ohio institutes. There are a few points which are so 
unsettled that I want the latest information on them. 
1. It is claimed that clover is biennial. We all know 
that it often matures seed the first year—does it die 
on maturing the seed? Our farmers claim that it makes 
good meadow for three or four years, and that too with¬ 
out reseeding itself. Is it very irregular—annual, bi¬ 
ennial or perennial as conditions dictate ? Will one 
stool grow more than one seed stalk in succession aud 
mature seed more than once. 2. Does clover take ni¬ 
trogen from the air? Is the animalcule in the root 
tubercles a humbug? If not, in what way does the 
“ bug ” prepare the nitrogen of the soil-air so that the 
plant can take it up? Is it exuded in the form of ex¬ 
crement or as a sort of epithelial cast-off? 
Is it not possible that clover by living 
twice as long as wheat and eight times 
as long as corn is able to extract more 
nitrogen from the thin solution in the 
hygroscopic moisture? Clover also is said 
to expel twice as much water through 
its leaves and may it not thus take up 
more nitrogen from a “thin soup?” Third, 
may it not by the catalytic action of the 
acid juice of the roots decompose nitrate 
in the soil ? 3. Do such plants as thistle, 
dock, iron weed, clover, etc., not annuals, 
store food in the roots and bulbs for the 
next year's growth? Do they grow a new 
set of roots every spring and every time 
the seed stalk is cut ? If so, why is it not 
a good plan to cut clover every two 
months of summer to fill the ground with 
roots? See Storer’s Ag., page 360, Vol. II. 
Ans. —1. By clover we will assume 
that “Common” clover is meant, that 
is, Trifolium pratense. This is exceed¬ 
ingly variable in size and color of leaf, height, 
stem and flower. Our best information as to its 
longevity is that it is a short-lived perennial. This 
will only answer as a general definition. We believe 
that, in different climates and under different condi¬ 
tions, it may be considered variously an annual, a 
biennial and a perennial. The writer is satisfied that 
in certain parts of the South, Common clever is a 
perennial, while on the Rural Farm, and perhaps in 
the North generally, it is at most a biennial. Still it 
may be that certain plants may be selected that are 
real perennials in any climate where they will thrive. 
Group of South Down Sheep. Fig. 24. 
