458 
TIIH RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 8 
What Gives the Water Backbone? 
At an average of eight cents a quart for strawberries 
and fair prices for other products, we figure that 
nearly 25 tons of water were sold in baskets from this 
farm. The rains that descended and the floods that 
came were captured—at least a part of them. This 
water did not cost a cent—it was a free gift. 
“ Hut that is hardly a fair statement,” says Mr. 
Taber. “ Heavy fertilization and deep and thorough 
cultivation were needed to capture this water. Those 
plants never could have taken that moisture from the 
soil if the latter had not been in such a condition that 
it could store up and render available what the plants 
needed.” 
“ You believe in heavy feeding, then ? ” 
“ Certainly, there is no use trying to farm without 
using large quantities of manure or fertilizer.” 
“ Do you use both ? ” 
“ Yes, we keep but little stock, and do not make 
much manure. We use quite a good deal of the 
Mapes fruit and vine manures, and also haul large 
quantities of stable manure from town.” 
“ It pays you to buy stable manure, then ? ” 
“ As a mulch on our berries only. If we could get 
anything else that would answer for a mulch, we would 
not buy manure. We could get the same results 
easier and cheaper with fertilizer. We pay $1.50 per 
load in the town stables. Two men and a team can 
haul four loads a day to our field. We estimate that 
it costs $1.00 per load to haul it, saying nothing of the 
cost of spreading it. It is, therefore, costly stuff. We 
can buy the fertility cheaper in fertilizers, but straw¬ 
berries need something to act as a mulch.” 
“ How do you handle the manure ? ” 
“ As it is hauled from town we spread it over a large 
compost heap on level ground close to our strawberry 
bed. iWe keep the heap well trampled down so that it 
does not firefang or leach out. When the ground freezes 
so that we can drive over the strawberry bed, we load 
the manure right into our Kemp’s spreader, and it is 
an easy matter to put it over the berries. That spreader 
has saved us an immense amount of work.” 
“ How do you use the fertilizer ? ” 
“ We have a McKenney drill with boards arranged 
underneath so as to drop the fertilizer in bands about 
two feet wide where the berry rows are to be. We 
use both manure and fertilizer on the berries.” 
“ On what crops have fertilizers given you the best 
results ? ” 
“ I should say on potatoes. My soil is not good po¬ 
tato ground naturally, yet with fertilizers I grow large 
crops of good quality. With stable manure alone we 
cannot grow good potatoes ; they are strong and rank 
and 1 smell like a cow yard ” when cooked. I would 
never use stable manure except on corn or as a mulch 
for fruit.” 
“ I noticed a Western paper advising a farmer to 
try 150 pounds of potato manure on an acre to test it. 
What do you think of that ? ” 
“ Perfect nonsense. If they had said 1,500 pounds, 
there would be more sense in it. I believe that 150 
pounds per acre will do more harm than good. The 
crop may be stimulated a little at first, but will not be 
permanently helped by such a little dose. Think of a 
man putting one load of manure on an acre and ex¬ 
pecting good returns from it. That is what 150 pounds 
of fertilizer amounts to. If a man would only stop a 
moment and think that a bag of fertilizer means no 
more than one big load of manure, he would see how 
foolish it is to expect big returns from a small dose of 
fertilizer.” 
“ You have used fertilizers a good many years ? ” 
“ Yes, and year by year my faith in their value in¬ 
creases. I want only the highest grades. It does not 
pay to feed slow acting fertilizers to quick feeding 
plants like small fruits and grapes. They need food 
that is soluble and ready at once and this the ferti¬ 
lizers will supply.” 
The Strawberries Stay by Them. 
Some would-be wise men are now trying to tell us 
that the strawberry is bad for rheumatism. Its acid, 
they say, gets in the blood, and gives us the twinges 
and “ cricks” in our joints that all rheumatic people 
abhor Be that as it may, the strawberry crop does 
not stiffen any of the joints of the Taber’s business— 
most of us would stand the twinges for the sake of 
the berries anyway. 
At Fig. 164 (p.ge 459) we reprint a picture printed 
last year, because it shows our newer readers a view 
in the Taber berry patch. The legged crates show 
how they pick—half a dozen boxes at a time. Each 
picker has a card like the one shown here, which is 
punched when presented with the two crates. No 
money is paid until the card is fully punched, so this 
prevents pickers picking a few quarts and then quit¬ 
ting. The field is staked off so that pickers have their 
own space to work in—generally one on each side of 
a row; thus making certain pickers responsible for 
each row. The picture shows that there is nothing 
very fragile about the pickers. 
“ How much land have you in berries,” I asked. 
“ About acres this year.” 
“ What about the crop ? ” 
“ I have mostly Bubach, Gandy, Crescent and Jessie. 
I try all the promising newer varieties, as I want the 
best. 1 am ready to discard any variety as soon as I 
can get something better. I have a few Timbrels for 
trial. I like the looks of Parker Earle, Yale and sev¬ 
eral others. We generally pick two crops, but some 
rows give extra promise, and we pick them three 
times. We always set out in the spring—in rows four 
feet apart. We never let spring-set plants bear any 
berries. The plants grow in matted rows like those 
shown in the picture.” 
“When you plow under vines what crops do you 
plant?” 
“ We like to seed to some sort of grass. If Scarlet 
clover would do here I would use that. I know of a 
man who seeds down with turnips. The turnips shade 
the young grass and also give a profitable crop to sell 
in the fall. I think I shall try the plan.” 
“ Did you notice that picture on page 347 of Thk R. 
N.-Y. (here it is again at Fig. 163) showing how a 
nine-inch cut was made through the center of the 
matted row, leaving narrow rows of year-old plants ? ” 
“Yes, and it would work in small plots. Take those 
row? shown in the picture. Only the center portion— 
one-third of the whole—represents two-year-old plants. 
Cut that out and you will have two narrow rows of 
last year’s runners, good for another crop, but it must 
all be plowed in because the center is done bearing. 
With a tool that would slice out the center, we could 
undoubtedly go on year after year, letting the plants 
set themselves and simply cutting out the old ones. We 
have no tool strong enough to do such work on a 
large scale, though it might do in a garden.” 
“ What about irrigation ? ” 
“ We have been thinking about it for sometime, 
and believe we shall have to come to it. Our land 
borders on a little lake, and we think of putting a 
steam pump there for forcing water all over our berry 
ground ” 
“ You could probably fix it so as to wet the whole 
thing over in two or three days.” 
“ We want to wet it all over in half a day. Take it 
after picking over once. The vines are all spread open 
Fig. 163. 
and down. A good wetting would revive them at 
once and straighten them up. No windmill and tank 
would do that—we need steam power for it.” 
Odds and Ends of Culture. 
Mr. Taber’s grapes were in fine condition. About 
half the space is given to Concords, with Niagara, 
Moore’s Early, Worden, and a few vines each of newer 
varieties making up the balance. Heavy dressings of 
fertilizer are given this vineyard. 
“ Where do you put the fertilizer—close to the vines 
or between the rows ? ” 
“ It is broadcasted all over the surface. Where are 
the feeding roots of a grape ? The best of them are 
in the sunshine or out beyond the shade of the vines. 
Put your fertilizer where the sun strikes the ground 
if you want to get sunshine in your fruit.” 
“ I see you have plowed in berry plants here ; do 
you grow douole crops in your vineyard ? ” 
“ When we set out grape cuttings, we also set out 
strawberries between the rows. After two p ; ckings 
we plow the plants in. That is all the double crop¬ 
ping we do. We can feed the young plants so that 
they will not suffer, but we want no crops to grow in 
the space where the fruit crops ought to feed.” 
“ How can you plow so close to the vines and trees?” 
“ We use the Sherwood steel harness. Have had it 
many years and would not be without it. We use the 
Syracuse reversible sulky plow. We consider this of 
lighter draft than the walking plow ; we can get 
closer to the work and avoid all dead furrows by 
throwing all the furrows the same way.” 
“ I see by the color of these leaves that you use the 
Bordeaux Mixture ?” 
“ Oh, yes. It is a necessity for fruit men. We use 
a diluted mixture of six pounds of copper, four pounds 
of lime and 45 gallons of water diluted to twice its 
bulk. We use a knapsack sprayer, with a new stand¬ 
ard which we had put on. These sprayers are too 
cheaply made—not strong enough. We have had ex¬ 
cellent results with spraying potatoes for blight. East 
year the blight showed at two different times, but I 
sprayed at once and stopped the trouble.” 
“ Tomatoes and sweet corn pay pretty well ? ” 
“You can see from the statement of sales what they 
paid. We had one-quarter of an acre of tomatoes.” 
“ What do you do with sweet corn stalks ? ” 
“ We used to put them in the silo, but have given 
that up. Now we dry them in small bundles and put 
in shocks until hauled to the barn, where they are fed 
to the stock. Two years ago I lost four horses from 
eating too much ensilage.” 
It is about equal to a course at an agricultural col¬ 
lege to talk with Mr. Taber. He is full of the subject 
and long experience and study have made him a master 
of his business. Whatever he does is well done—he 
tries to find out why and how before he starts at it. 
IJe wants the best. What he has done at Pough¬ 
keepsie might be followed on a larger or smaller scale 
at any town or city in the country. h. w. c. 
THE GUERNSEY IS A GUERNSEY! 
NO JKKSKY ABOUT HKlt 
Either Dignified or Undignified. 
(Concluded ) 
.Fames Lawrence, of Massachusetts, another well- 
known breeder, says : “Of the three breeds of cattle— 
Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney—the Guernsey is by far 
the heaviest and most profitable, alike at the pail and 
for the butcher. The breeds are kept entirely distinct, 
all importations of live animals into th} island from 
any source whatever being strictly forbidden by laws 
passed in the last century. In this way the breed has 
received an individual character, as remarkable for 
its general excellence as for its special characteristic, 
the giving of rich milk containing a high per cent of 
butter. Externally the Guernsey is a fine-looking, 
good-sized animal, averaging about 925 pounds, of 
full, deep carcass, small bones and horns and mild and 
benignant head. In color she is yellow, lemon-fawn, 
orange-fawn or red, frequently shading into a peculiar 
brindle. Her hair is fine, and her skin peculiarly 
orange in color. This deep color is noticeable around 
the eyes, on the inside of the ears, upon the udder, and 
at the point of the tail. Internally she is of good ap¬ 
petite and thrifty, eating all that is offered her and 
flourishing on it.” 
Silas Betts, President of the A. G. C. C., and breeder 
and importer of Jerseys, says “Guernseys excel all 
other breeds in the color of their product. They will 
meet the demand for high-quality milk, now steadily 
increasing in all the large cities. They have been 
bred for generations for quality, and this is so uni¬ 
versally transmitted that any Guernsey (?) givingmilk 
of a poor quality and color should be rejected as of 
impure blood.” 
Ex-Gov. W. D. Hoard of Wisconsin, says of the 
Guernseys : “In form they are larger than the Jerseys, 
showing more length between the hips and shoulders, 
with a large, full paunch, broad at the flank and not 
quite so angular in build, .vet clear and distinct in the 
development of the nervous or dairy temperament. 
The tips of the shoulder blades are sharp and clear- 
cut, the neck thin and wide, the head long, clean and 
bony, with a high development of the nasal ridge. A 
marked peculiarity of the Guernsey is her power to 
color her butter at all seasons of the year, a deep golden 
June hue.” 
Willis P. Hazard, editor of the “Breeders’ Journal,” 
author of “ How to Select Cows” “Butter and Butter¬ 
making ” “ History of the Jersey, Alderney and 
Guernsey,” says: “The long-coutinued similar course of 
breeding which the Guernsey has undergone, gives it 
that power which we term potency—the ability to 
produce its like, to repeat itself, whether upon mem¬ 
bers of its own breed, or upon those of another. It is 
this quality which renders the Guernsey bulls so val¬ 
uable to stamp their get with the peculiar richness of 
their breed; this is so lasting that it takes generations 
to breed it out. We know of an instance where a bull 
was introduced 20 years ago, and the butter which is 
marketed from his descendants shows the same rich 
flavor to this day. The continuity of the Guernsey 
cow’s yield, is one of her most valuable traits, for by 
