3oo 
April 29 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
truth of the proverb that “ though you shall bray a 
fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet will not his foolish¬ 
ness depart from him ? ” While we were looking at 
these 50 steers standing about in all conceivable ways, 
with no one showing any disposition to “go for” any 
other, one disbeliever remarked that this dishorning 
craze was an inhuman practice and would be of but 
short duration. w. 
[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 oolumns. Ask only a few questions 
at one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
What To Do With Tankage. 
W. L. L. E., Ansonia, Conn. —Three or four miles 
from my farm is a ground bone factory. The owners 
buy the waste meat and bones from the butchers and 
cook them, taking out the bones and grinding for 
bone dust and taking out the fat for tallow. There 
are left as refuse the cooked lean meat and many small 
bones. I have bought some of this refuse and hauled 
it to my farm and used it for a fertilizer. I am a little 
in doubt to what crop I ought to apply it. I have 
six horses buried in a pile of horse manure. How 
would the fertilizing value of this raw meat compare 
with the cooked meat refuse ? 
Ans. —The material you speak of is dried by some 
manufacturers, ground and sold as tankage for $35 per 
ton. In its wet state it is not worth nearly as much 
because it contains from (50 to 80 per cent of moisture. 
One could only guess at its value. I would not pay 
more than $6 to $8 a ton for it. T think if it is fine 
enough, it might be put on corn land and plowed in 
in its green state. Probably for general use, compost¬ 
ing it with horse manure is as good a way as any to 
treat it. I should not compost it with ashes alone. A 
few ashes with horse manure and meat will hasten its 
rotting, but too much will retard it. The compost is 
suited for any crop that needs a fertilizer. The meat 
ard bone contain a good percentage of nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid, but no potash; so on crops and soils 
requiring much potash, ashes or potash salts should 
be used with it. There is probably no great difference 
in the fertilizing value of the raw as compared with 
cooked meat. [dk.] k. h. jenkins. 
Some Experiments on an Illinois Farm. 
a. JYi. Jl., larruiroa, 111 —i. will u pay lu txy 
mercial fertilizers when I can get an average quality 
of horse and cow manure for 35 cents a load, delivered 
on the land ? 2. Is the odorless phosphate or slag 
phosphate a reliable fertilizer? 3. If I tried the 
odorless phosphate and Mapes’s potato fertilizer, wood 
ashes, and nitrate of soda, each by itself, would this 
let me know just what my land needed ? 4. Jly 
sowing a little nitrate of soda with Mapes’s potato 
manure, would I have a complete manure for rush¬ 
ing early vegetables ? 5. What is the difference be¬ 
tween phosphate and superphosphate ? My land is 
rather heavy clay, and I got a big crop of sweet corn 
last summer from the manure. 6. I can’t raise Red 
clover successfully ; would it pay to raise Crimson 
trefoil, or Bokhara clover, to be plowed under? 
7. What is the best nozzle for spraying fruit trees 
with the Bordeaux Mixture ? 
Ans. —1. No, unless you want to grow potatoes on 
poor land. You are to be congratulated on your 
ability to get plant-food at such a low price. 2. Yes, 
but experiments with it have not been so carefully 
made that its real value can be known. Chemists do 
not agree as to how available its phosphoric acid is. 
3 Yes that would give you a general idea of the 
needs of your soil, except that phosphoric acid in the 
basic slag is not soluble enough to give a fair test. A 
quantity of superphosphate added to it. would be bet¬ 
ter. 4. Probably, but we should use them separately. 
Nothing would be gained by mixing them. Apply 
the nitrate alone in the spring. 5. A phosphate is a 
combination of phosphoric acid that is not soluble in 
water and consequently not available as plant-food. 
When treated with sulphuric acid the phosphate be¬ 
comes soluble in water and is then called a superphos¬ 
phate. An account of this was given on page 161. 6. 
We can only suggest that you try the grasses men¬ 
tioned in a small way. 7. Probably the Vermorel. 
Bones for Fuel and Fertilizer. 
A. T. S., Woodfords, Me. —I have a young apple 
orchard of five acres, and am anxious to find out the 
best and cheapest way to fertilize it. I do not under¬ 
stand The Rukal’s answer to W. W. H., on page 205. 
The writer says : “ All the loss in burning bones is 
the nitrogen,” and a ton will leave 400 pounds of phos¬ 
phoric acid which, at $10 per ton, would cost four 
cents per pound. Now 400 pounds at four cents per 
pound would be $16. Now four cents is but little 
more than half the price of phosphoric acid. I can 
get green bones for $10 per ton, and the fuel for burn¬ 
ing them can be utilized in heating my house, as I 
use about 16 tons of coal and a large amount of hard 
wood a year. All my ashes are sifted around my 
fruit trees, so that in burning the bones in my boiler 
the ashes would be much better and would not cost 
any more for handling. Now what is phosphoric acid 
worth per pound at wholesale, and what is the differ¬ 
ence in value, for orchard application, between a ton 
of finely-ground bones and one of green bones burned 
and mixed with the ashes ? I can get the bones after 
they have been boiled for $15 per ton : which would 
be the cheaper—those that have been boiled or the 
green ones ? 
Ans. —We made a mistake in figuring. At $10 per 
ton, the price would be 2% cents a pound. You can 
burn the bones in your stove or furnace. They give 
out a fierce heat and also a strong smell—perhaps the 
latter would be too great a nuisance, though we think 
that by burning them in small quantities with wood, 
and with the drafts open it would not be too bad. As 
far as possible keep the wood and bone ashes separate 
from the coal ashes. As we explained on page 224, 
the latter are practically worthless as a fertilizer. 
The wood and bone ashes mixed together will be ex¬ 
cellent for the orchard. The average trade values of 
phosphoric acid range from seven to two cents per 
pound, according to its solubility in water. That in 
bone ash would probably be worth four cents. 
Green bones vary much in composition, depending 
largely upon the amount of meat and grease on them. 
As an average of 134 samples, the Massachusetts Sta¬ 
tion gives four per cent of nitrogen and 23 % per cent 
of phosphoric acid, the best having 4.7 per cent of 
nitrogen and 32 per cent of phosphoric acid, and the 
worst 1.62 per cent nitrogen and 15 per cent phos¬ 
phoric acid. The finely-ground bone for sale may 
average 3% per cent nitrogen and 20 per cent phos¬ 
phoric acid. Bones when burned give nearly 56 per 
cent of ash. A sample of bone ash from South 
America gave 36 per cent of phosphoric acid and 49 
per cent of lime. A bone meal with the above analy¬ 
sis would be worth over $35 per ton. The 400 pounds 
of phosphoric acid in the bone ash will be worth 
nearly $16. What you lose is the value of 60 or more 
pounds of nitrogen, worth from 7 to 14 cents per 
pound, according to the fineness of the bone. We 
might say that one has no right to burn up this 
amount of nitrogen and thus lose it, but with ordinary 
farm tools and methods it is next to impossible to 
make the bones available for plant food in any other 
way. If the boiled bones are soft enough to smash 
up with a heavy shovel, get them at the price named. 
Treatment of Tree Seeds. 
D. V., Liberty, Neb. —1. How should I proceed to 
sprout Osage orange seed? 2. What is the best method 
of raising cedars, spruces and other evergreen trees 
from seeds? 
Ans. —1. Soak Osage orange seeds from four to six 
days before sowing, in warm or cold water. Sow when 
the ground is in good condition or any time after that 
until corn planting. Sow in drills six inches wide, 
seattering the seeds thickly in the drills. If in con¬ 
siderable quantity, put the drills 2 % feet apart to leave 
room for horse cultivation. 2. Red cedar seeds should 
be collected before winter and mixed with fine earth 
or sand, and be buried during the winter and the next 
summer and winter, and sown the following spring, 
and then treated as other evergreen seeds—-spruce, 
pine, fir, arbor-vitaa, etc, seeds should be 6own broad¬ 
cast in beds, four feet wide and raked in. Shade with 
lath frames or brush during the first and second years. 
B. DOUGLAS. 
BrlURiiifi: a Meadow Back to Timothy. 
B. M. M , Springivater, N. Y. —How shall I renovate 
an old bottom meadow without plowing? The Timothy 
has run out and instead, we have a fine bottom of 
unsalable hay. Will it be advisable to harrow thor¬ 
oughly with an old-fashioned straight-tooth harrow 
and then sow the Timothy and roll down ? If so, 
at what time is it best to do the work ? 
Ans. —In this case it will be far the best to plow the 
land and put in a crop of corn if it is not too wet for 
this grain, and get the wild sod thoroughly rotted, 
when it will furnish food for another term of the 
Timothy. If the land will bring corn it may be the 
best way to follow this crop with oats, next year, seed¬ 
ing with grass with the oats. The suggested harrow¬ 
ing would not loosen the surface sufficiently to make 
a proper seed bed for the Timothy, and consequently 
the labor would be thrown away. It may do for the 
improvement of a meadow that has bare spots where 
the grass has been winter-killed, or where for any 
reason it has died out, to take this irregular method 
of restoring it, but it is only a makeshift anyway. In 
any case the best way is to make a new beginning 
and do the work in a good and lasting manner. In 
this case it will doubtless be useful to give the land a 
liberal dose of lime—25 bushels to the acre for instance 
—as soon as the old sod has been turned, and harrow 
it in when the preparation is made for the corn. Most 
likely the land has abundance of inert organic matter 
in it, and lime will be the best thing to develop this 
into available plant fbod. 
Potatoes On Wet Ground. 
T. S , Vincennes, Ind .—A friend of mine has a piece 
of black muck land: the muck is four feet deep then 
comes gravel. The ground was plowed last year but 
not planted with anything. He asked me how it 
would do for late potatoes this year ? I told him I 
thought the crop would be heavy, but the quality not 
good. He asked if there was any special fertilizer 
that would improve the quality of the potato on that 
kind of soil. Is there? 
Ans. —The trouble with such soil is that it is usually 
too wet. Potatoes need a light, open, well drained 
soil to do their best. Cold, wet soils always produce 
“ soggy ” potatoes—though the yield is often large. 
Unless the soil is first made into suitable “ potato 
land ” fertilizers will improve the quality but little. 
Sowing Oats Like a Checker Board. 
S. E. S., Adamstown, Pa .—In seeding oats would it 
be advisable to drill 1% bushel one way and the same 
amount the other, making three bushels to the 
acre, with 200 pounds of superphosphate to the 
acre ? 
Ans. —We do not think this double seeding will pay 
and we speak from experience. Fifteen years ago 
The R. N.-Y. tried the experiment of drilling in both 
oats and wheat both ways. There was no increase in 
the yield of grain Enough is as good as a feast. If 
we drill in two bushels of oats per acre, or sow them 
broadcast the soil is soon filled by their roots. Thicker 
seeding unless the season happens to be very wet will 
reduce the yield. 
The Butter Maker’s Share. 
J. P., Ontario, Canada —I have 12 Jerseys and think 
of getting a No. 2 Baby separator. My farm man¬ 
ager’s wife will attend to the dairy, but will have 
nothing whatever to do with the care or milking of 
the cows, this being done, as well as the running of 
the separator, by the ordinary farm attendants; she 
will simply make the butter and attend to the usual 
dairy routine. I find cows, feed and attendance. 
What proportion of the butter should I allow her as 
remuneration ? 
Ans. —The question asked is one that requires much 
consideration. In making an estimate, we assume 
that the care and cleanliness of the dairy-house or 
room fall on the butter maker, that, in short, she 
does all the work pertaining to the butter making— 
after the milking is done—which includes handling 
the buttermilk, etc. To do this work properly will 
require not less than a quarter of a day, every day in 
the year, and the percentage of butter she should 
receive should be enough to pay her fair wages for 
the time and labor. With these data before you and 
the knowledge of local prices for wages which we are 
ignorant of, you should be able to come to a con¬ 
clusion. In this part of the world, such labor would 
be (without board) worth from $1.25 to $1.50 per day. 
Assuming the average production of butter to be 10 
pounds and the price 25 cents per pound, the butter 
maker should receive from 12 to 15 per cent of the 
butter. If we have placed the estimated production too 
high, a modification of the figures might be necessary. 
Artichokes, Nitrate and Fertilizers 
J. A. T., Washington, Ft.—1. One seedsman recom¬ 
mends the raising of Jerusalem artichokes for feeding 
stock ; will it pay to do so here in the North ? 2. Can 
nitrate of soda be used in connection with superphos¬ 
phate on ordinary farm crops at a profit ? 3. I wish 
to experiment a little with potatoes, using a standard 
potato fertilizer; what should be added to it and 
in what proportion ? 
Ans. —1. We do not know of any one who advocates 
artichoke growing except those who have stock for 
sale. We investigated the matter some years ago, and 
the verdict was, “ Don’t do it unless you want to learn 
at the school of experience.” 2. We do not know. 
Suppose you had asked : “ Can I use salt on my food 
with profit ? ” All we could answer would be, “ Yes, 
if your food needs it! ” Nitrate of soda supplies but 
one necessary element of fertility—nitrogen. In many 
soils this element is lacking, and an application of 
nitrate will at once increase the crop, provided potash 
and phosphoric acid are also present. Unless we hnew 
that potash was not needed, we should prefer to use a 
complete fertilizer or to add muriate of potash to the 
nitrate and superphosphate. 3. We should use the 
potato fertilizer alone in varying quantities and test 
against it sulphate of potash, nitrate of soda, and 
superphosphate singly and in different combinations. 
See the table on page 225 for making up these mixtures. 
