i8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
January 13 
What They Say. 
Doubi.k Baknyakds.— On almost all farms on which 
the writer has ever been, he has noticed only one barn¬ 
yard, where there ought to be two or more ; the cows 
run loose in the yard where their droppings stick to 
the men’s feet, the wagons, rollers, etc., while passing 
through the yard, and they dodge into open doors and 
out of opened gates, etc., to say nothing of more 
serious consequences. A neighbor had one of these 
yard", and a mischievous cow cropped off a horse’s 
tail just as an advantageous sale was to be consum¬ 
mated. When the horse’s tail had grown out, and the 
horse was again about to be delivered to the buyer, 
this same thing happened again. Moral : Have two 
yards. J u. i.. 
East Carlton, N. Y. 
LiTTBK I’OTATOKS FROM CuTTlNGS. —In ThK R N.-Y. 
for December 23, T. E. P., Newton, Conn., tells how he 
would treat a s nail tuber or a piece of tuber in order 
to get the most out of the tuber. A few years ago, 
when the Early Sunrise was introduced, I received a 
small tuber from the introducer, and in order to make 
the most of it, I began operations in the latter part of 
February, by cutting the same into single eyes, as T. 
E. P suggests, and carefully planting them in flower 
pots. As soon as the shoots had reached a height of 
three inches, I cut off the tops and placed them in the 
sand of the propagating bench in the greenhouse, and 
these were potted as soon as rooted, which was in 
eight or ten days. A second and in some cases a third 
crop of cuttings was taken before the first of May, 
when I had nearly 300 nice plants, in addition to the 
12 or 13 eyes from the original potato. I began count¬ 
ing my prospective yield, on the basis of a good hill of 
large potatoes from each potted plant, bu; judge of 
my disappointment when my plants in the three and 
four-inch pots began to form tubers the size of peas 
and smaller before I got them transferred to the open 
ground, when not more than three and four inches 
high: Some of the plants revived and made a second 
crop of young potatoes after being set 
out, but none grew to more than an inch 
in diameter, and my crop, much of it 
ripened up in a short time after trans¬ 
planting to the open ground, and the 
product was more like a sack of seed 
peas than potatoes. These diminutive 
tubers I saved until another year and 
planted, with the result of a fairly good 
yield of merchantable potatoes. I would 
like to know if others have had any 
similar experience in starting potatoes 
from cuttings under glass, and growing 
them forward five or six weeks until planting time. 
Idaho Agricultural College. kobert milliken. 
Down with High Wagons —I was interested in John 
(lould’s quicH way of filling his silos, page 777. His 
force certainly did a good day’s work Tne p cture 
on page 778, however, appealed to my sympathy for 
those boys, and prompts me to tell you how we ac¬ 
complish quite as much when we want to make things 
“hum,” i.nd much easier, for the boys, at least, and 
possibly, for the man who cuts the standing corn : A 
man is provided with a short scythe—such as we use 
in cutting hazel brush—hung to a regulation snath. 
Hoy No. 1 grasps a hill of corn or, if the corn was 
drilled, as many stains as he can easily gather in; the 
scythe cuts it at one stroke and they move forward. 
An armful is quickly cut when. No. 2 takes the place 
of No 1, who hands his load to the driver of the low 
wagon alongside, steps to the front, crosses the row 
being cut and already has bis hind about the next 
hill when No. 2 has his arm full. In this order they 
move across the field; no intermission in the regular 
stroke of the scythe, no friction anywhere; the man 
looks only to his scythe, the boys to the corn, and the 
driver to his load, which he begins at the rear end of 
the wagon to build, piling as high as the stakes, mov¬ 
ing forward and finishing at the front end. By load¬ 
ing in this way the driver has solid footing on the 
wagon bed while loading, easily and quickly relieves 
the boys of their loads, and is in position, at the finish, 
to quickly take the reins and get out of the way of 
wagon No. 2. 
It is asking too much of two boys to lift from the 
ground to a point as high as their shoulders (see Fig. 
251, page 778),* more than 50 tons in nine hours, and 
unnecessary; because the corn as it stands in the field, 
is already half loaded, a stroke of a knife at the roots, 
a slight impulse from the hand, and the stalk loads 
itself across the low wagon until half the load is laid. 
We practice this way of cutting and loading when in 
no hurry, or when help is scarce. I insist that a high 
wagcn is out of place on the farm, for any use or par- 
pcse whatever, and especially, in handling ensilage. 
A temporary bridge at the cutting table, quickly made 
of a few fence posts and planks, enables the team to 
raise the load, on a low wagon to the height of a high 
one, saving the boys a lift of two or three feet in 
height which, on 50 or 60 tons a day means two very, 
very tired boys. We should remember that, as the 
boy is bent, so the man inclines. The great need of 
our farms to-day is straight men and boys, both physic¬ 
ally and morally. The best farmer is always a lean 
farmer, often leaning toward the town, and the town 
seems to have a lien on his best faculties, if not on his 
farm. Did you ever see a bent fat man? 
Lily Cache. p. h. munroe. 
Heai.thfueness of Peat Bedding. —Your interro¬ 
gation mark on page 796 against the assertion that peat 
bedding has hygienic properties, inasmuch as it tends 
to destroy noxious bacteria, challenges further ex¬ 
planation, as I believe this to be a subject of sufficiently 
great importance to interest a majority of The Rur^d 
readers. I’eat bedding possesses not only the faculty 
of firmly retaining infectious micro-organisms, but of 
absolutely destroying them, as has been proven by the 
exhaustive investigations of Professor Shroder, of Mar¬ 
burg University. The mixing of dry ground peat with 
the evacuations of cholera-infected persons destroyed 
all cholera bacilli inside of two days, whilst if allowed 
to remain without this admixture or if diluted with 
water, they kept alive and ready to infect and propa¬ 
gate for months. Relying on the accuracy of his in¬ 
vestigation, the seaport of Bremen—although cases 
of infection were repeatedly carried there—escaped 
the late ravages of the cholera, because the applica¬ 
tion of ground peat was at once enforced in all closets 
and manure cisterns. It has besides been proven that 
foot and-mouth disease of cattle, and sheep rot are un¬ 
known in stables where peat bedding is used, and it is 
not out of the way to predict that it may afford equal 
immunity from the widespread scourge of hog cholera 
and murrain of cattle. Here is a large field for inves¬ 
tigation open to all farmers and veterinary surgeons 
who are able to experiment with peat bedding, a field 
in which every effort—however small or humble—may 
contribute to establish a knowledge of incalculable 
value to national interests. Lastly, it is to the inves¬ 
tigations of Dr. Fiirst that we owe the knowledge that 
the fungoid disease, which has hitherto decimated 
the silkworm, is rapidly exterminated by the simple 
application of peat bedding. J. f. sarg. 
Hessenhof, Germany. 
THE FARMER AS A WRITER. 
One of the curious facts of the present day is that 
while a great deal of fault is found with the English 
written by graduates of city schools, high schco’s, 
and even the colleges, the agricultural papers contain 
thousands of pages written by farmers not well edu¬ 
cated, which are clear and vigorous in style and ex¬ 
pressed in good English. I do not know how much of 
this is due to the editor’s revision, but I do not think 
editors spend a great deal of time in writing over 
articles from farmers. Farmers think; they are 
deeply interested in topics connected with their busi¬ 
ness, they have ideas; and when a man has ideas 
about a subject and is interested in it, he can usually 
find words to express his thoughts. You may put a 
pump, no matter how finely painted and polished and 
perfectly constiucted, into a dry well and you can get 
no water. So if a high school or college graduate has 
no ideas, is not interested in living, practical subjects, 
his training will not enable him to write. 
A farmer may have good ideas and may know many 
valuable ways of doing farm work ; if he can sit down 
and write them out in a bright, clear and entertain¬ 
ing manner and send them to The R. N -Y. or some 
other good farm paper, they will go out to help and 
guide thousands of brother farmers. My experience 
is that “to him that hath shall be given.” If a man 
tells others what he learns, he will be pretty sure to 
learn more for himself. But the man who tries to 
hoard his knowledge will find it a profitless task. 
You remember Bunyan’s riddle. “ There was a man, 
some did account him mad, the more he gave away 
the more he had ! ” It is a great help for a clear 
headed, thinking farmer to write out his thoughts or 
tell his experiences and ways of attaining success. 
A man is successful, and others want to know how 
he achieved success. Then they sometimes get tired 
of hearing about success and want somebody to tell of 
failure. And I must say this feeling sometimes comes 
to me. Some writers are nearly always successful 
and one almost tires of reading about how much 
money these men are making, and how nicely every¬ 
thing turns out that they lay their bands to. But 
when a man is doing well it is a good thing for him 
to try to help others do well. It is best to write about 
our failures, if we can so do it as to help others to 
avoid making the same failures. 
Maty farmers and farmers’ wives have thoughts 
and ideas which ought to be written out and printed ; 
but it is not easy for those unaccustomed to writing 
to write for publication. Let a person get so full of 
a subject that he or she cannot keep still, and a well 
written article is often the result. Some people find 
it easy to write; it “ comes natural to them” people 
say. But to write so that one’s writing is easily read, 
the words correctly spelled and the sentences clear 
with correct punctuation, requires generally much 
training. Farmers need to be able to write out their 
ideas in clear and forcible language so that they can 
tell the editors of their home and political papers what 
they want. 
It does a farmer a great deal of good to write for 
farm and other papers. To write he must think, and 
mental work balances physical labor. It helps to do 
away with the feeling of isolation, if you can sit down 
and write to ten or twenty or fifty thousand people. 
A man may live in a humble and lonely farmhouse, 
seeing only a few people, an insignificant and unim¬ 
portant person, and yet with his pen he may speak to 
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. There 
was never a time when, nor is there another country 
where, a farmer or a farmer’s wife can reach so many 
people as can those of this land. A dweller on the 
farm who has good ideas and can put them into good 
shape for printing can wield a powerful influence for 
good. But it generally takes long practice to become 
what may be called a ready and successful writer for 
farm papers. 
Two qualities which a writer needs are patience and 
humility. He must not think too much of what he 
writes, and must be content to wait or to have his arti¬ 
cles returned or thrown into the basket 
that is ever yearning for rejected manu¬ 
scripts. The writers of articles may 
know more about many things than 
I the editors, but the editors know what is 
I required for their papers, and he is a 
wise writer who accepts the editor’s 
judgment without a murmur. The col¬ 
umns of farm papers of the best class 
are crowded with valuable matter, and 
^ when an editor has plenty of good 
material on hand and pouring in, he is 
not tempted to use poor articles. 
A very necessary qualification of a writer is to be 
pointed and condensed. If you want to know how to 
do it, study the editorials of The Rural New-Yorker. 
I know of no other paper devoted to agriculture which 
contains so much of value on its editorial pages, pre¬ 
sented in such attractive and effective form. They are 
good models of conciseness and brevity in form. Brief, 
pointed, practical, these are three guide-words for be¬ 
ginners. But clearness should never be sacrificed to 
brevity. I have never forgotten a Rural article by 
Dr. Hoskins entitled “ Boiled to Death.” 
^ There are plenty of topics to write about, many of 
which are almost untouched by the average writer. 
The psychological side of farm life is very seldom 
written about, and yet it is of the greatest import¬ 
ance. But what every editor delights to get is a sim¬ 
ple, plain statement of success achieved and how it 
was brought about, something that is not egotistical, 
but which will help others to attain success. 
J. W NEWTON. 
LET THIS WAGON SAVE YOUR BACK. 
One of the most convenient of farm wagons is rep¬ 
resented at Fig. 6. The general plan of construction 
is pretty clearly shown. The front wheels are very 
low, and the forward end of the body rests on the 
bolster. The hind wheels are the ordinary height of 
hind wagon wheels, and the axletree may either pass 
directly through and the frame be hung to it, or it 
may be of iron and bent, passing under, thus putting 
it out of the way, and leaving the platform entirely 
clear. Planks or boards according to the strength re¬ 
quired, are nailed across, and a stout plank bolted to 
the under side of the bed pieces at the rear end forms 
a step for easily getting upon the platform. The sides 
opposite the hind wheels are to keep the load from 
obstructing the latter. The plan of this wagon is 
very simple, and almost any one should be able to con¬ 
struct it. The front wheels are supposed to turn under 
the bed pieces, making short turns possible. 
The uses to which such a wagon may be put on a 
farm are various. One of the most common is the 
carting of green corn, either for ensilage or soiling 
purposes. One man can load and unload articles on 
this that would tax the strength of two men with the 
- 
'‘‘A ... 
The Hicks Low-Down Wagon. Fig 6. 
