VOL. LII. No. 2274. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 26, 1893. 
PRICK, THREE CENTS 
$ 1.00 PER YEAR. 
AN A L FALFA FIELD. 
SIZED UP WITH A BABY. 
“ Seeing is believing,” so I inclose a photograph of 
my Lucerne field, taken July 20, at the time of the 
second cutting. Two swaths around the field had 
been mown when the photographer chanced along, 
and we set the junior partner of the firm down for a 
measuring stick, so that The Rural readers could 
judge of the height of the crop. It proved to be 
heavier as we got in further, but probably this spot 
represents a fair average, and the crop stood up quite 
well. The first cutting nearly always falls down 
badly. Already the field is green again, and could 
we have a good rain, it would probably make a ton to 
the acre at the next cutting. It was nicely in bloom 
when cut this time, and made the finest, sweetest hay 
in the world. I nearly made a serious mistake in this 
hay-making. It was quite succulent, and I did not 
start the tedder until the afternoon, when it was ted- 
dered over twice. Then it was teddered again next 
morning, and at noon was found to be quite dry; in¬ 
deed, the leaves 
were entirely too 
dry. We began 
raking, however, 
and loading with 
the hay loader, 
but nearly all the 
leaves fell off, 
and after putting 
on one load we 
left the field. The 
ground was green 
with fallen 
leaves. After 
dusk when the 
dew was falling 
—or rising—we 
raked the rest of 
the crop, and the 
next morning 
cocked it with¬ 
out loss of leaves 
or blossoms. 
When put into 
the mow, it was 
of a beautiful 
green color, and 
will make the 
cows and lambs 
smile this winter, 
I am sure. Per¬ 
haps, after all, 
this was the best 
plan in the end ; 
for the stems proved to be none too dry after the 
crop had been cocked, although so much exposure 
would have been bad in catching weather. 
About Irrigation. — Tell the correspondent who 
asks about irrigating asparagus, etc., on sandy soil 
with a wind-mill, that unless he has a great supply 
of water within six feet of the height to be reached, 
and a market for high-priced stuff and lots of it, he 
should put in a rotary or centrifugal pump and a 
large aeromotor, or, surer, a gasoline engine. Does 
he know that to apply an inch of water on the ground 
he would unavoidably have to apply from six to sixty 
inches along the furrows and ditches ? I said “ un¬ 
avoidably,” yet something can be done to make the 
water go further. I have frequently helped it along 
by stirring in ciay, and making a fine mud which set¬ 
tles along the furrows and effectually puddles them. In 
truth, I have known flood-water to come off the hills in 
Utah so “thick” and “greasy,” that the ground could 
not be wet with it. I am a crank on the subject of 
irrigation, but know that the first thing one must 
have is water, and the last thing one will need is 
water. Better not irrigate at all unless one can do so 
thoroughly, and keep it up. With good cultivation 
and a deep soil plants will stand any amount of 
drought; but once irrigated and led to depend on an 
artificial supply of moisture, the thing must be kept 
up or the plants will suffer. A dry Lucerne field will 
do fa : rly well in parts of Utah ; but after it has been 
irrigated a year or so, it will suffer greatly from neg¬ 
lect The trouble incurred in irrigating is greatly 
overestimated by the inexperienced. I once irrigated 
90 acres alone, and then had time for chores and to 
cook for several men. Facilities for irrigation are a 
fortune East or West, only one must not try to move 
a mountain with a grain of mustard seed. 
Ohio. J E. WING. 
R. N.-Y.—The photograph was rather weak, so 
that the Alfalfa does not show as distinctly as we 
could wish. The comparative height of the crop is 
well shown, however. There is no yard-stick like a 
healthy baby, and this little Wing gives a good 
illustration of the flight of new methods and ideas. 
Speaking of the effect of dry weather on clover, this 
letter from a friend in Germantown, O., is interesting: 
“ Last year when I plowed a couple of acres of 
corn the last time, I sowed the land to Red clover. 
There was a fine rain the same day, and the seed was 
washed into the mellow ground, and came right up, 
and with a good subsequent summer and fall, the 
growth of clover was all any one could wish. This 
spring, being very wet, I did not get the patch plowed 
for corn again until late in May, when the clover 
was knee-high and all in bloom. This season I have 
done the same thing, and sowed the seed some time 
in July, but we have had no rain since, consequently 
the clover seed has as yet not germinated, and the 
season being now so late, I cannot well hope for last 
year’s success in this new experiment.” 
Everywhere it is the same. Water ! Water ! Water ! 
In a dry season like this the evils of crop thirst are 
ve 1 y evident. Among other things such seasons teach 
some farmers that it might be better to crowd harder 
the few fields that might possibly be irrigated than to 
spread work over the whole farm. 
“Certified Milk.” 
A CERTIFICATE OF WHAT? 
HEALTH FOR THE LITTLE ONES. 
Part I. 
A Great Dairy Scheme. 
It is hot! Bacteria are now enjoying their annual 
picnic. Good and pure milk is now a scarce article. 
The pastures and the cows are drying up together, and 
the little that is yielded is more beset with dangers 
than at any other time. An unclean pan or can, a 
little dirt or manure dropped into the milk by the 
milker, a stagnant pool of water near where the milk 
is set or from which the cows drink, sour and ill¬ 
smelling food : supply one or all of these things, and 
add this roasting weather, and you have the cause of 
the death of thousands of little oneB who ought to be 
alive to-day. That is a strong statement, but the 
proof is ample to support it. Milk is the most im¬ 
portant article of food known to humanity. Without 
it the population of the world would nearly end with 
the present gen¬ 
eration. How im¬ 
portant that this 
supremely neces¬ 
sary food should 
be free from di¬ 
sease : doubly 
so, when we 
think on what a 
slender thread 
the little lives 
hang that are ac¬ 
tually dependent 
upon it. Yet 
think a moment 
and realize how 
the bulk of this 
milk is produced. 
The labor is 
mostly unskilled 
—the impression 
is that anybody 
can feed and milk 
a cow. Much of 
it is produced in 
dirty, ill-smelling 
places, from cows 
covered with filth 
and often rank 
with disease. 
When we buy 
oat-meal or meat 
we have a fair 
idea of the way 
it was prepared. At any rate we are to cook it before 
eating, and thus destroy any disease germs it may 
contain, and which are unnoticed by the nose. When 
we buy milk in the ordinary market, we do not know 
how it was made or handled. It may have been made 
from foul-smelling brewers’ grains, perhaps the cows 
had tuberculosis or drank green, stagnant water. 
Perhaps the milk was never properly cooled or aired. 
We know nothing about such milk—we just buy it 
and use it, and often the first intimation that some¬ 
thing is wrong is the sickness or death of the little 
one whose absence makes such a hole in the home. 
Now, “ Certified Milk” is milk that is guaranteed to 
be as free from disease as human agencies can make 
it. The certificate guarantees that every possible 
precaution has been taken to insure an absolutely 
pure article. It is the purpose of these papers to de¬ 
scribe at length the first dairy where certified milk 
has been made a specialty. We give some space to it 
because it is an important matter—indicating one 
of the greatest dairy openings ever thought of in 
this country, or in any other for that matter. 
'J ' 
An Alfalfa Field, with a Baby for a Yard-Stick. Fig. 191. 
