1893 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
447 
Farmers' Club Discussion. 
Continued. 
which a decaying * sod gives it. I have 
noticed several instances that have led 
me to believe that the mechanical condi¬ 
tion has more to do with the yield than 
the average farmer gives it credit for. J 
think that with good culture, on the 
black prairie soil of Illinois and Iowa, 
profitable crops of corn can be raised 
continuously; but I believe it is still more 
profitable to grow corn in a rotation. 
“ Mistering ” The Hired Man. 
Mrs. E. E. S., Clay County, Texas — 
I am glad the le’.ter by Carrie Meigs was 
published and that the hired men are 
answering. I wish Carrie would con¬ 
sider two or three ideas from another 
standpoint. How are the hired men usu¬ 
ally lodged, what sort of rooms and beds 
are given them? In scores of farm houses 
I know of the men are given positively 
miserable bed3 in the attic, which is the 
hottest in summer and coldest in winter. 
They get ragged old bedding, often with 
no sheets, straw pillows, no table, chair 
or toilet articles whatever. The hired 
man’s bed and room in many fine houses 
I know of are simply places where he can 
crawl away and stretch out to sleep with 
poorer accommodations in proportion 
than are furnished to the sheep and 
cattle he cares for. There is no need to 
go into particulars about the rooms. 
Any observing person has seen the shame¬ 
ful way many men are lodgod. 
Again, what right has a man’s wife or 
daughter to command his help? What 
merchant’s or mill owner’s wife and fam¬ 
ily presume to give orders to his men? I 
think if such a thing were to happen the 
men wouid rebel at once. It is all right 
for a farmer’s daughter to help her 
father. Out-of-door work is far pleas¬ 
anter to many women than in-door. Oar 
cities would not be overcrowded with 
half paid clerks and dressmakers, fewer 
girls would find their way to brothels 
and police stations if they did help their 
fathers. We have scores, or hundreds of 
successful women farmers, but they are 
mostly widows. Agriculture is an ideal 
occupation for women, but if a woman 
is to “ boss ” the men they should know 
when they are hired that she is their 
“ forewoman ” and she should learn to 
handle her men with tact, just as she 
would handle scholars or sewing girls. 
A woman can succeed anywhere with 
tact and will fail anywhere without. If 
a good mistress makes a good maid, will 
not the rule work equally well as to mas¬ 
ter and man ? 
A bit of personal experience : we never 
have much trouble with our hired men. 
They are well fed, have good, clean beds, 
in clean rooms, with mean, wholesome 
furnishings. We are not too familiar with 
them. I never call my husband’s help by 
their given names. A man who works for 
us on the farm is as conscious of having Mr. 
placed before his name as the man who 
serves you behind the counter. He is 
one of the family in all respects con¬ 
sistent with his character and work. He 
is not “ snubbed ” or put upon, and we 
can always keep our help as long as we 
want them. It is the exception ever to 
have any trouble with them. I am a 
warm friend of the laboring man. I 
earned my own living before marriage. 
I rather think I earn it now. Neither 
my father nor any of my family has been 
a hereditary capitalist, and we were 
brought up to honor a man for his worth. 
A gentleman never appears in better 
light than on a farm among his help. If 
there are flaws in his character, they will 
show in the clear light of personal, 
every-day contact, and his best will help 
better all he comes in contact with. 
Potash in Western New York. 
Edw. F Dibble, Livingston County. 
N. Y.—A few weeks since, I observed in 
reading The R. N.-Y., that there was 
quite a little discussion on the question 
of potash, and the best and most valu¬ 
able form in which to purchase it. 
Every person can purchase the best 
grade of muriate, if he insists on obtain¬ 
ing it, and it has always been my ex¬ 
perience in the purchase of a fertilizer 
that the best is always the cheapest, and 
I know of no other source from which 
we can get potash in as soluble a form for 
as little money as that of the high grade 
muriate of potash containing 98 per cent 
of pure muriate. If there is one element 
more than another in which our farms in 
western New York are deficient it is 
potash. The old farmers who came into 
this country 50 years ago can well re¬ 
member the enormous crops qf wheat, 
corn and barley the land produced after 
the timber had been cut and burned. It 
was then new and fertile and full of its 
virgin wealth ; but year after year it was 
robbed of its fertility, the potash, phos¬ 
phoric acid and ammonia were taken 
from it and it was so depleted in its plant 
food that much of it became nearly 
worthless for farm purposes. 
It is a travesty upon intelligent farm¬ 
ing in western New York that the aver¬ 
age yield of wheat for the past 10 years 
is only in the neighborhood of 12 bushels 
per acre. When one realizes the very 
small yield on the average, and then 
realizes that to obtain that average 
thousands of acres must have yielded 
less than 12 bushels, it can be readily 
seen that either our system of farming 
is at fault or our lands have been injured 
and ruined by continual cropping with¬ 
out placing a sufficient amount of plant 
food back in the soil to take the place of 
that used up by previous crops. About 
five years ago, I came into possession of 
the farm 1 am now living on, which had 
been terribly abused for the previous 20 
years. During the 10 years before my 
purchase, it had never paid one cent of 
profit upon its cultivation, in fact, in 10 
years the owner had lost about 83 000. 
The neighbors said the farm was worth¬ 
less and of no value, but I have been 
making a number of experiments during 
the past few years with fertilizers and 
find that the ordinary manufactured fer¬ 
tilizer put upon the market is by far too 
deficient in potash for my soil. 
It is a very easy matter for me to lur- 
nish ammonia or nitrogen for my soil by 
the cultivation of clover and plowing it 
under. This year for potatoes, for in¬ 
stance, I shall plow under clover that 
would yield at least two tons of dry 
clover per acre at the time of plowing 
under, and the mass, as it decays, will 
furnish more nitrogen per acre than I 
could obtain from a number of tons of 
ordinary fertilizer. Then I make on 
this farm every year 300 or 400 tons of 
manure, which gives us great quantities 
of nitrogen and phosphoric acid, and 
then, by adding potash liberally to my 
soil, I get the grain and yield. A fertil¬ 
izer that has given me good results, in 
fact, better than anything else, is made 
of the following ingredients: 1,800 pounds 
of high-grade acidulated bone-black that 
analyzes at the Experiment Station at 
Geneva, N. Y., 17.33 per cent available 
phosphoric acid, with 200 pounds of muri¬ 
ate of potash. 
This fertilizer used a year ago on 13 
acres of oats, 150 pounds per acre, pro¬ 
duced a yield of 95% bushels per acre for 
the entire field, and the oats were not 
over three feet high ; the straw was very 
stiff, of heavy weight, and I attribute 
this large crop, with heavy grain and 
short straw, to the fact that by using a 
large amount of potash, v ith plenty of 
phosphoric acid, more grain was pro¬ 
duced than if I had used a fertilizer as 
made and put upon the markets by the 
different firms. Then the expense is 
another item to be taken into considera¬ 
tion. The actual cost was but 825.35 per 
ton. Other experiments with various 
kinds of fertilizers on potatoes and grain 
have proved that a fertilizer three times 
as strong in potash as those ordinarily 
put upon the market will give me the 
best results. I think that if farmers 
who use fertilizers, in other States as 
well as New York, where the land has 
been used for fertilizing purposes for 50 
years or more, would make careful tests 
with ordinary fertilizers along with those 
rich in potash in a good soluble form, 
they would find that they could get bet¬ 
ter crops by using the potash fertilizers. 
The “ Off ” Fruit Year Off ! 
POT-GROWN 
STRAWBERRIES. 
Selected varieties for family and market should be 
planted In July or August, In order to get good re¬ 
sults the following season. Handsome Catalogue, 
with latest Information as to varieties and culture, 
ready July 1st. Free. 
ULLWANGEK & BARRY, 
Mount hope Nuhsekiks, 
63d Year. Rochester, N. Y. 
.J. W. W., Pueblo, Colo. —In reference 
to a discussion in a late Rural under the 
head “ Need Apple Trees Take a Year 
Off.’’ about five or six years ago I hired 
an acre of ground at Troy, N. Y., on 
which were two old Baldwin apple trees 
that had been very much neglected, but 
they both bore an excellent crop, each 
on alternate years, so that every year we 
had all we wanted for family use. 
When I was a boy, my father lived in 
Grafton County, New Hampshire. He 
was an amateur in regard to fruits. I 
believe that he was the first to bring the 
peach to a success in that region of ex¬ 
cessively cold winters. This he did by 
letting the ground freeze hard all around 
the trees, and aiding the process by fill¬ 
ing the soil with water and when well 
frozen binding the limbs of ‘he trees 
thickly with straw and putting a thick 
covering on the ground as far as the 
roots extended, placing b:ards over it 
and never removing them until spring 
was well opened. In consequence he 
had the largest peach trees that I have 
ever seen and they were abundant bear¬ 
ers of delicious fruit. As regards apple 
trees, he used to say that trees set out in 
the autumn would bear in the years al¬ 
ternate with those set out in the spring. 
Have fruit growers ever tried that plan? 
If you name The Bukal New-Yorkeu to our 
advertisers, you may be pretty sure of prompt 
replies and right treatment 
A LONG PROCESSION 
of diseases start from a torpid liver and im¬ 
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them, too. Take it, as you ought, when you 
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In building up needed flesh and strength, 
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For Dyspepsia, “ Liver Complaint,” Bilious¬ 
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or they’ll pay you $500 in cash. 
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS. 
Young men an<1 women r repared tor buHnees, pro¬ 
fessional stuales and < lL/.enehlp. 
Economic*. t,ivi< - *, politics, History, Liter¬ 
ature, Rhetoric. Hook-keeping;, Mathe¬ 
matics, Sciences, Languages, etc. 
Fee 1100 per year. Send for circular. 
GKO. GilNTON, President, 
34 Union Square. N.Y. 
KEYSTONE.."' 
WASHING 
ACHIN£, 
Made of White Cedar. 
Clothes last one-half longer In avoid¬ 
ing the washboard, We warrant It to 
wash as clean ns can bo done by hand 
In less time. Head $4 for a machine be¬ 
fore the territory is taken, and save 
agents’ profits. If not satisfactory, we 
will refund the money. Write for 
prices and description. Territory free 
anti exclusive right. KEYSTONE 
MEG. CO., Harrisburg, Pa. 
Please mention this paper. ..jitJ 
ENGINES, 
Threshing Machines. 
Best Machinery at Lowest Prices. 
A. B. FARQUHAR CO., York, Pa. 
Three Posts to the 100 Feet. 
Height: Five feet, the standard. 
Spaced: Close at the bottom where prowls the ob¬ 
trusive pig. Wide at top where sweeps the 
unobstructed view. 
Strength: To stop the mad career 
Of running steeds 
Th mgh wild with fear. 
Every foot of every panel, a perfect self regula¬ 
tor. Tnls Is the ready made fence built by the 
PAGE WOVEN WIRE FENCE CO., 
Adrian, Mich. 
The Page Wire Fence Company of Ontario, Ltd. 
Walkervllle, Ont. 
WALL PAPER 
■ W buy handsome papor ant 
4c. to 60c. a roll. 
Send 8o. for 100 line 
_ _ samples. Si 1 .OO will 
juy handsome papor and border for a large 
THOS. J MYERS. 1210 Market St . Phila.. Pa. 
Special Reduced Price for 
ONE Month. 
BY A. A. CltOZIEK. 
A collection of errors and superstitions entertained 
by farmers, gardeners and others, together with 
b lef sclentldc refutations. High y 1 teresttng to 
students nd intelligent readers of the new and at¬ 
tractive in rural literature, and of real value to 
practical cultivators who want to know the truth 
about their work, t rice $1, reduced to 75 cents. 
THE RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
Cor. Pearl and Chambers Sts., New York. 
A BIG FRUIT CROP REQUIRES PROPER HANDLING. 
A big crop on any one farm demands a big evaporator if evaporated. The 
small farm with a big crop demands a way to use the surplus and waste fruit. The 
U. S. Cook Stove Fruit Drier fills the 
bill. It has been thoroughly tested 
and approved. It is the latest, cheapest, 
best. A veritable little bread winner. 
Weight, 25 pounds. Metal base. Can 
be used on aDy kind of stove. Dimen¬ 
sions : Base, 22x16 inches; Height, 26 
inches. Eight galvanized wire-cloth 
trays, containing 12 square feet of tray 
surface. No extra fire. Always ready 
for use. Its capacity ample for domestic 
use, up to two bushels ol fresh fruit 
per day. Price of the drier alone, 87. 
Special price to our subscribers only 
85; or, better still, together with a 
three years’ subscription, 87. This will 
pay your own subscription for three 
years from the date of expiration of 
time already paid for. New subscrip¬ 
tions may he substituted if preferred. 
Shipped by freight at purchaser’s ex¬ 
pense; cost 50 cents to about 8L accord¬ 
ing to distance. THE RURAL PUB¬ 
LISHING COMPANY, Cor. Chambers 
and Pearl Streets, New York. 
