38o 
June 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
of butter every day, besides giving the calf one-third 
of the milk at every milking, and this she does on 
grass, without any grain ration. I know that I 
have had the benefit of an early spring, giving us a 
chance to plant much earlier than ever before. I 
know that we have a good garden. I know that I 
have a much better start with my crop than I had a 
year ago at this time. My potatoes are nearly large 
enough for the table, and my earliest field corn is 
knee-high, and has been worked out three times- I 
know that just now we are experiencing a very wet 
spell, the ground being thoroughly soaked with water. 
I know that less cotton is being planted than last 
year, and more corn, potatoes, etc., and more grain 
has been sown than formerly. I know that where I 
put a surplus load of manure on the corn ground, that 
was not needed on my garden, the corn is one-third 
larger than on any other portion of the field. Further¬ 
more, I know that The Rural is the best paper pub¬ 
lished of its class. it. r. 
Choctaw Nation, I. T. 
R. N.-Y.—“ Potatoes all coming up ? ” 
Farmer Z.—“ I am afraid not. I planted just be¬ 
fore the heavy rains, and I think one acre at least will 
rot in the ground. ” 
R. N.-Y.—“ Shall you replant ? ” 
Z.—“ No, it won’t pay now. We will plant corn on 
that acre. ” 
R. N.-Y.—“ Plow again ? ” 
Z.—“ No; just harrow over the piece and plant corn 
in the hills between the rows of potatoes. Then if we 
have, say, half a stand of potatoes, they can still grow 
and mature between the hills of corn, and we will get 
a fair corn crop anyway.” 
R- N.-Y.—“ Is the soil rich enough for two crops ? ” 
Z.—“ If it is not we can easily put on more fertilizer 
when the corn shows the first sign of needing it. 
That’s where fertilizers beat manure. You can put 
fertilizer on corn that is two-thirds grown and see the 
effect at once. You never could do that with manure.” 
Corn Cob Pipe Factory. —Our pipe factory here in 
Washington, Mo., commenced work about 16 or 17 
years ago on a very small scale with two hands. Now 
from 60 to 70 are employed and about 120,000 pipes a 
week are turned out. What the profit is I can’t say, 
but the proprietors are all considered wealthy. The 
corn is of the largest size from 2% to 3 inches in diam¬ 
eter, and the farmers shell it through the winter as 
they use it, taking the cobs to town whenever they 
have a lot on hand, getting from $15 to $20 for a load 
with side boards. Clover ground makes the best cobs, 
as they have to be solid and heavy, for a light, loose 
cob is of no use. It almost looks as if this kind of 
corn can’t be raised anywhere else, as there are two 
men here, besides those at the factory, who buy up cobs 
and ship them. A. k. 
Missouri. 
An Asparagus Buncher. —Till last year I never found 
an easy method to bunch asparagus : then I made a 
buncher which answers the purpose very well. I took 
a smooth piece of two-inch plank two feet long. About 
eight inches from the top I described a circle five 
inches in diameter and at equal distances in the cir¬ 
cumference bored half-inch holes, in which I drove 
pins projecting six inches. I then set the plank up 
on end on the table behind my lot of asparagus, and 
stretched a half or quarter-inch rubber band, such as is 
used for holding legal papers, over the ends of the 
pins. Then when I had sorted out enough asparagus 
for a bunch, I ran the end of it through the rubber, 
and pulled it off on to the middle, and it is held firmly 
and in good shape till tied, and much more evenly and 
smoothly than another person could do it. When the 
bunch is tied, the rubber is slipped off. If one has a 
lot of bands, be can put up 50 or 100 bunches before 
tying. I found this better than the help of another 
person. The rubber band is better than the real one. 
G. 8. PAINE. 
Plums in Poultry Yards. —Mr. Burton, who has 
had good success with plums and poultry thus de¬ 
scribes his practice : 
“ The plum trees in our poultry yard yield a fine 
crop almost every year. They are troubled but very 
little by the curculio. Not a weed or a spear of grass 
grows among them. The birds kill the grass, and such 
coarse weeds as they avoid are cut off with a hoe, so 
the ground is perfectly bare. After the trees have 
bloomed. I go among them two or three mornings 
each week with a little wheat in my pocket and a mal¬ 
let in my hand. At that time the fowls are very hun¬ 
gry and naturally are right at my feet and all around 
me. With a mallet I strike the stub of a branch— 
which has been previously sawed off for that purpose 
—a sharp blow, and at the same time scatter a few 
grains of wheat on the ground under the tree. The 
fowls fairly tumble over each other to get the grain, 
and every bug, beetle and worm that falls goes into 
their crops with it. I do this very early in the morn¬ 
ing while the beetles, worms and bugs are chilly and 
off their guard, and while do’ng it wear a slicker to 
keep from being drowned in dew. The plums are very 
fine and better than any large fruit we grow.” 
Apple trees do well in the poultry yard and yield 
excellent crops. I have seen them fairly loaded with 
fine fruit when those in the orchard were bearing 
nothing to 6peak of. They should be trained rather 
high—not less than'five feet—and the fowls prevented 
from using them for perches by having the flights of 
one wing cut off. With a pair of strong, sharp scis¬ 
sors the wings of a large flock can be pruned in a short 
time, and, if done in the spring, will stay done until 
after moulting in the fall. 
I have also grown some splendid Kittatinny black¬ 
berries in the poultry yard. The canes grow Bix to 
eight feet long, and most of them were trained along 
the fences. Those away from the fence were cut back 
to four feet. The fowls never troubled the berries 
until they began to turn red, and then they were shut 
out and kept out until the fruit was gathered. The 
berries were very large, luscious and sweet—simply 
immense I fred grundy. 
" — - _ _ 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of the 
writer to lnsnre 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 pleoe of paper. 1 
CORN AFTER CORN. 
FOR HOW LONG WITHOUT CHANGE? 
In your opinion how long can corn be grown year after year on the 
same ground without change of rotation to another crop ? What would 
be the best treatment as to plowing, manures or fertilizers to keep up 
the yield ? Could It be done with fertilizers alone ? Some farmers 
would like to grow ensilage oorn year after year on the same field If 
they could feel sure of keeping up the yield. 
My experience does not warrant a positive answer 
to this question, but my opinion is, most decidedly, 
that it can be grown indefinitely, if proper plant food 
is supplied by chemicals or barnyard manures. My 
practice is to grow corn two successive years on the 
same land, seeding it with Timothy at the last culti¬ 
vation, and putting in corn again after two or three 
years. Timothy hay brings $18 per ton in this market, 
hence it is the best paying farm crop, and too dear a 
food for cattle. I have grown corn on the same land 
three successive years, and the last crop was as good 
as the first. A. j. coe. 
New Haven County, Conn. 
I now have a piece of land planted with corn which 
will make the sixteenth time it has been planted to 
that crop in the last 18 years. It is planted with fer¬ 
tilizer and has been for the last eight or nine years. 
The soil is very light and whatever is put on leaks 
through so that I use only about 800 pounds per acre. 
Last year the piece was planted with fodder corn which 
matured faster than the cattle could eat it; for that 
reason I had to cut and cure about six acres from 
which I got about 50 bushels of corn to the acre. 
Massachusetts. N. J. bowditch. 
Corn can be grown indefinitely on the same land if 
the ground is properly fertilized and handled, but the 
chances are that some kinds of weeds would become 
very troublesome and it is possible that some diseases 
of the corn plant might be more troublesome than 
they would be had the corn been one of a number of 
crops in rotation. I see nothing to hinder successful 
continuous corn culture, provided the farmer knows 
his business. It would be expensive because the clover 
plant would not come in to recover and conserve the 
plant food. The mechanical condition of the clover 
would also benefit the yield of corn; so except in rare 
cases there would be no sense in continuous corn cul¬ 
ture. To keep up the yield, fertilize with farm man¬ 
ures, potash and phosphoric acid. Farm manures, 
when properly made and preserved, have comparatively 
a high per cent of nitrogen. If the farmer used clover 
in a rotation of four or five years, he would not need 
to buy any nitrogen whatever, for his land would be 
as rich in this expensive food as the crops would stand. 
This is the case at the present time in the fields of the 
Cornell University. There is no reason why corn on 
most land should not be raised successfully and even 
profitably with fertilizers alone. I have just planted 
a field of five acres to this crop and it is the fourth 
continuous crop on this field. It is proposed to keep 
it in corn indefinitely or until it teaches us a lesson or 
fails to produce satisfactorily. i. p. Roberts. 
Director Cornell Experiment Station. 
Corn Is Like a Hog. 
In my experience corn cannot be grown after corn 
for two years id succession, under ordinary conditions, 
and be profitable. I once had a 30-acre field that had 
been pastured for several years, and was in good con¬ 
dition so far as fertility went, and I planted it with 
corn, putting on half a ton of bone per acre broad¬ 
cast. The crop, considering the size of the field, was 
the best I ever grew. As the field was full of briers 
(dewberries) and weed seeds, I thought it ought to 
grow another hoed crop, so I corned it again with the 
result of nothing like so good a crop and injury to the 
field. Corn is one of the grossest feeders we have ; it 
is the hog of the vegetable world ; a big crop of corn 
reaches far and wide—and deep—for its food; if this is 
there, it will get it. Follow corn after corn with no 
further feed, and the second crop has to get along 
with the leavings of the first. But one can grow corn 
after corn so long as he chooses if he will feed it. We 
grow hogs after hogs in the same pen year after year, 
and, if we feed the hogs of the tenth year as well as 
those of the first, we get just as good growth. In this 
comparison we must allow for the season and certain 
changes that are constantly going on in the soil, and 
sometimes we are surprised at the good crop of corn, 
knowing that it is not our merit that it is so good— 
though we seldom acknowledge it. In the bare hog 
pen the outcome all depends up6n what feed we put 
in every year; in the (hog) corn field a great deal 
depends upon what Nature has put in since our last 
crop was taken off. To bring the comparison—between 
corn and the hog—down to a common level, we can 
just as surely grow corn after corn on the same field 
successfully—I don’t say as profitably—for an indefi¬ 
nite number of years, as we can grow hogs after hogs 
in the same pen. Only supply the feed and the corn 
will grow. How to supply the feed is the question ; 
chemicals alone won’t do it, for all the vegetable mat¬ 
ter will become exhausted ; chemicals and green crops 
ought to do the business. 
Those farmers who would like to grow ensilage corn 
year after year on the same field would have a great 
advantage over those who grow the crop to be cured, 
for they would have more time at both ends of the 
corn season to grow a green crop to supply the vege¬ 
table matter. In sections where Crimson clover would 
grow, that would be my first choice for a humus crop ; 
it could be sowed at just the right time in the fall and 
would have ample time to mature in the spring, be¬ 
cause ensilage corn need not be planted so soon as a 
dry feed corn crop. Cow peas would answer in some 
sections, though they would not have time to make a 
full growth before frost, as they could not be sowed 
early enough. The So j a bean offers possibilities in- 
this line, as it does in many other farm lines. Rye is 
a sure crop for this purpose, but it will have to be 
plowed under in a very green state, which is a great 
objection. With a humus crop grown with the corn 
in the fall and so long as we can delay planting in the 
spring, and with the balance of the feed taken out of 
a bag, I don’t see why corn cannot follow corn year 
after yeir for an indefinite time. A. l. crosby. 
Baltimore Co., Md. 
Notes from the ** One-Horse Jersey Farm.” 
W. II. O ., Greenwich Village, Mass .—I was very much 
interested in the report of Mr. A. Johnson’s farm in a 
late Rural, and would like to ask a question or two : 
Can he tell what his hen manure analyzes before he 
adds the chemicals ? How much does he use per acre 
in pounds for potatoes ? Does he use any other ma¬ 
nure in connection with it ? Does he drop the fertil¬ 
izer on the potato seed, or cover the seed first? Is he 
troubled with scab when that kind of fertilizer is used? 
Ans. —I have no knowledge of what my hen manure 
analyzes, but it must be of the highest grade, as I feed 
the strongest kinds of food. I mix it with plaster and 
keep it dry. I use about one ton per acre, or twice as 
much as of any high-grade fertilizers. Even then it 
does not cost me half so much as other fertilizers 
would. I seldom use it in connection with other ma¬ 
nure for potatoes. My potato ground is where I have 
grown strawberries the previous year. I always ma¬ 
nure strawberries heavily with stable manure for two 
or three years. I can then take off a crop of cabbage 
and potatoes with my fertilizer in the hills. I always 
drop my potatoes in the furrows, kick a little earth 
over them, sow the fertilizer along the rows, and then 
cover with a plow before the vines come through. 
I harrow down and cultivate only. I have never been 
troubled with the scab. If I plant potatoes more than 
one year on the same ground, more than likely they 
will be worm-eaten. I find that as my ground has 
been heavily manured for the strawberry crop, my 
fertilizer answers with what little nitrogen is ob¬ 
tained from the hen manure; but on other soils not 
so well manured it would be an advantage to add 
nitrate of soda. 
The answer given in The Rural of M*a,y 6, concern¬ 
ing the amount of hay I sold in 1892, was correct. It 
was part of two years’ crops, but in addition to what I 
have already sold this year I have yet to sell of last 
year’s crop, about $200 worth. I have fed my stock 
almost exclusively on second crop hay, of which I cut 
considerable; I have sold this year $314 worth of po- 
