68 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
February 
mant state—early in the spring or late in the fall is 
the best time to plow an orchard. The next best tool 
to use after plowing is the spring-tooth harrow. I 
have used the Cutaway some. My orchard land being 
free from stone, the spring-tooth harrow will make a 
fine mulch, which will be a great help in the months 
of August and September, when the tree needs the 
most moisture. 
The best one-horse plow I have used in the orchard 
is the Wiard No. 10 B. The handles and beam are ad¬ 
justable so that it may be run close to the trees with¬ 
out injury. It is a good one. F:r one-horse, after 
cultivation I would use a one-horse, spring-tooth cul¬ 
tivator ; it will not catch on the roots of the trees. 
Here in Wayne County, N. Y., I have never seen a 
good crop of apples and a crop of grass on the same 
land, especially when the grass is cut for hay ; so I 
cultivate. I would not sow rye. Trees 30 years old 
would shade all the ground, so I would not sow any¬ 
thing any more than I would in a corn field, for I 
want the sheep to have the run of the orchard. It is 
best to stop cultivating with the month of June or by 
July 1. GEORGE CATCHPOLK. 
SANATORY MILK FOR A SANITARIUM. 
NOTUING LACKING IN THIS LACTEAL FLUID. 
(Concluded.) 
[EDITORIAL COKRB8PONDKNCB.] 
Drink and Bed for the Cow. 
“ I see you have arrangements for watering in the 
stable.” 
“ Yes, at this end of the stable we have the Buckley 
watering device ; at the other we have a device of our 
own get up. Both are satisfactory as we have them 
fixed, for you see we have them both provided with 
covers. This prevents the scattering of feed and litter 
into the water, which is the great objection to the 
Buckley device, as it necessitates frequent cleaning. 
The cows soon learn to raise the covers when they 
wish to drink, and when they have finished, the covers 
diop back in place. The water is always warmed for 
the stock,” 
“I notice that your cows are all fastened in 
stanchions.” 
“ Yes, we use the swing stanchions, which give the 
cows considerable freedom ; not so much, perhaps, as 
chain fastenings, but they are very convenient.” 
“ Don’t you use any straw or peat moss for bedding? 
I see that all the stock is bedded with shavings.” 
“ No ; we raise little grain excepting oats, and the 
straw is all used for feed. We have used peat moss, 
but don’t like it. It is full of lumps and makes a very 
uneven bed, and besides soon becomes saturated with 
moisture and makes a regular mud.” Mr. Cotton 
afterward informed me that he would rather pay the 
regular price for shavings than to have the peat moss 
as a gift. The shavings come baled from the lumber 
yards and planing mills at Tonawanda and Oswego. 
They were formerly a waste product to be got rid of 
either by burning or tl. rowing into the river. Some one 
finally conceived the idea of baling and making a mar¬ 
ketable commodity of them. At the Sanitarium Farm 
hundreds of bales were stored, they being bought by 
the car-load.” 
“Horns Off!” The Silos and Their Contents. 
“ Some of your cows seem to be hornless. Do you 
practice dishorning ? ” 
“ To some extent. If cows are inclined to be ugly, 
we take off their horns, and it lakes the fight all out 
of them. There is a cow that gored the other cows 
terribly when we brought her into the herd. We took 
her horns off, and it took the fight all out of her.” 
“ Do the cows ever experience any ill effects from 
the operation ? ” 
“ Not if it is properly performed. It is like other 
operations ; the operator must know his business, have 
proper tools and facilities, and the job takes but a few 
seconds. Much injury has been done by those who 
don’t know how, but a bungler has no business ever to 
try to dishorn an animal.” 
“ What corn do you grow for ensilage ? ” 
“ The common dent corn.” 
“ At what stage is it cut ? ” 
“When it begins to glaze, at the time when we would 
cut it for the grain. Step in here and see our silos. 
There are 10 of these. They are filled as full as possi¬ 
ble and then weighted. Here is the cutter. You see 
it is a big one, and this carrier with an extension 
when needed, carries the ensilage into any of the 
silos. The corn when cut in the field is loaded on low 
wagons provided with slings ; the wagons are driven 
alongside the cutter, a horse is hitched to the rope and 
the corn is slung up and swung on the cutter plat¬ 
form without any hand-lifting.” 
Power, Prickly Comfrey and Pigs. 
“ What power runs the cutter ? ” 
“This engine in here. It also cuts all the corn 
stalks; we have some of these, as we cut and husk 
some corn for the grain. We also grind all our corn 
and oats, and the power may be adapted for anything 
for which it is needed. ” 
“ I saw a windmill a ways back here ; is that the 
source of your water supply ?” 
“ Not for these buildings ; that furnishes the water 
for the annex. The supply here comes from a spring 
some distance back in the fields.” 
“ Do you feed any Prickly Com^rcy ?” 
“ Yes, we grow several acres of it every year, and 
feed it through the summer for green feed.” 
“ What is your method of culture ?” 
“ No special method. We simply plant it on good 
soil in rows about 28 inches apart, and cultivate thor¬ 
oughly after it comes up.” 
“ You said that little grain except oats was grown ; 
do you seed with oats ?” 
“ Yes, we have little trouble. We sow only clover 
seed as a general thing.” 
“ Do you keep many horses ?” 
“ Only enough to do the farm work and for driving. 
We use shavings for bedding them also, as you see.” 
“The barns seem warm. IIow are they con¬ 
structed ?” 
“They are double boarded with tarred paper be¬ 
tween. It seldom freezes in here.” 
“ I hear a great deal of pig talk ; are the porkers to 
be seen ?” 
“ Yes; we will go and look at them. It is very 
nearly feeding time, which accounts for tlreir making 
so much noise.” 
The pig house is a long, low building cheaply con¬ 
structed, and not nearly so comfortable or cleanly as 
the cow stables. It has an alley along one side, and 
through this a car runs on a track from which the pigs 
are fed. Near the eenter is a large kettle, where the 
feed is cooked. There are hogs of all sizes up to per¬ 
haps 150 pounds. They are fattened and killed when 
they get somewhere near the latter weight. “ What 
do you feed ?” I asked. 
“ We get all the swill from the Sanitarium. This is 
cooked up here in this kettle and bran is added. All 
the skim-milk is fed to the pigs. We feed more corn 
to those we are fattening to kill. You see it is an 
easy job to feed. The swill is dropped into this car 
and this is run along through the house and the swill 
dipped into the troughs.” 
“ How many hogs do you keep ?” 
“ About 400, pigs and all. We kill a number every 
week for use in the Sanitarium.” 
A Fertilizer Factory and Its Work. 
“ This is our fertilizer factory down below here,” 
said my guide as we approached a building that cer¬ 
tainly wouldn’t have been taken for a perfumery 
shop. “We manufacture our own fertilizers. We get 
bones, carcasses of animals, etc., from the country 
around, the farmers bringing them here. We steam 
the bones to soften them. They are then broken up, 
dried and ground up in the Scientific grinding mill, 
and make an excellent fertilizer.” 
“ What do you use for potash ?” 
“ Unleached ashes mostly. Of course, with so much 
stock, we make large quantities of stable manure, and 
this enables us to raise good crops.” 
Here we have a farm supporting a cow or young 
animal on considerably less than two acres, a hog to 
the acre, not to mention the horses, buying little feed 
excepting bran, and growing richer every year. No 
fancy stock is kept or sold, but the definite object of 
furnishing healthful products is accomplished on a 
large scale, while the fertility of the farm is cheaply 
maintained. f, h. v. 
Two Crops on Four Acres. —The ground was plowed 
and thoroughly prepared before drilling in the peas 
at the rate of four bushels to the acre. The first sow¬ 
ing was done April 2, and the last on the 13th. We 
began picking peas June 21 and finished on the 28th. 
We picked from the four acres 26,920 pounds, for which 
we were paid $430.72, at the rate of $1.60 per hundred¬ 
weight. As fast as peas were picked, the ground was 
plowed, turning pea vines under; and part was planted 
with Refugee beans June 30, and the remainder July 
4. We began picking beans August 28 and picked up to 
September 15, when we left off, but could have picked 
a ton or two more after that date had the canning com¬ 
pany been able to handle them. We picked 22,420 
pounds of beans, receiving for th 2 m $459.60. The com¬ 
pany paid us from $1.35 to $2.50 per hundredweight, 
according to size, The seed peas cost $40 and the 
beans $12. Te picking cost 12 cents per bushel of 30 
pounds. Pea picking cost $107 65 and bean picking $90. 
The beans were hand weeded at the rate of five cents 
per hour, but as I had kept them well cultivated from 
the time I could see the rows, the weeding cost only 
$4 75. I find it is easier and cheaper to cover and 
smother weeds when they are first appearing than it 
is after they get large. I used half a ton of phosphate 
that cost $14. I have not taken into account my time 
plowing, etc., but have given only the cash outlay. 
Erie County, N. Y. jas. bufton. 
[Ererr query mnst be aooomp&nled by the name and address of the 
writer to Insnre attention. Before asklnK a question please see If It Is 
not answered In our adyertlslng oolumns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
A Talk About Wireworms. 
A. W. B., TTiomaston, Me.—Our heavy land in this 
vicinity is infested with a worm which makes it almost 
impossible to raise good, marketable potatoes. It re¬ 
sembles a wire-worm in shape, is yellow in color, and 
has legs only on the head end. It bores into the 
potato, eating inside the skin, sometimes eating almost 
half the potato. Can The R. N.-Y. name it and sug¬ 
gest a remedy ? 
Ans. —From the brief description I diagnose the case 
as a severe attack of wireworms. However, I would 
much prefer to see specimens of the culprit before 
going into detail in regard to preventive methods. 
There are many species of wireworms committing 
depredations on farm crops, so I cannot name this 
potato pest without seeing it. The wireworm question 
is one of the hardest nuts that economic entomologists 
have had to crack, and we have by no means yet got¬ 
ten at the meat. Extensive experiments at the Cornell 
Insectary for three years revealed the fact that none 
of the old, oft-repeated, supposed remedies, as salt, 
summer fallow, buckwheat, coating of the seed in dif¬ 
ferent preparations, etc., was effective. And no 
method that we could devise reached the worms. We 
do not know much about the life histories of wire- 
worms ; no one has seen the eggs of the beetles ; no 
one knows just how long they live as wireworms. Our 
observations on their life histories revealed one quite 
vulnerable point. We found that the change to a 
snapping-beetle took place in July and August, and 
the beetles did not emerge from the soil until the fol¬ 
lowing spring. The puf 00 and newly formed beetles 
were very tender and soon died if their little earthen 
cells were crushed, thus injuring them or exposing 
them to outside iofluences. These facts led us to 
recommend that farmers plo w and thoroughly pulverize 
the infested soil in the fall, thus breaking up these 
cells and destroying the pupaa and adults. In short, a 
short rotation of crops, keeping the soil well stirred 
in the fall, we believe, will rid the soil of the pests. 
Farmers who practice this claim that they are not 
troubled with the pests. In Bulletin 33 of the Cornell 
Experiment Station for November, 1891, will be found 
an exhaustive, 80-page discussion of our experiments 
and conclusions. m. y. slingerland. 
Old-Fashioned and New-Fashioned Churns. 
“Subscriber,” No address —Can as good butter be 
made with such churns as the Union and Lightning as 
in the barrel churns? Can the butter be washed and 
salted in the granular form in them ? They have re¬ 
volving dashers inside like the old-fashioned Blanchard. 
Ans. —It is not generally considered that as good 
butter can be made with the churn that has any floats 
or revolving dashers inside it. The difficulty of getting 
butter with a good grain is very much greater with 
this kind of churn, and they are practically univer¬ 
sally condemned by all butter makers. There is no 
churn better than a good barrel or box churn without 
any inside contrivances whatever. Butter can be made 
with churns like the old-fashioned Blanchard, and 
with extreme care, of a very fair quality, but it is not 
good economy to use a machine requiring a large 
amount of skill when one requiring less skill will do 
the work in a more satisfactory manner, h. h, wing. 
Professor of Diiry Husbandry. 
A Mixture for Sweet Potatoes. 
R, C. M , Cheswold, Del .—The following mixture was 
used in growing sweet potatoes last year and gave 
satisfactory results : Three parts of a phosphate claim¬ 
ing an analysis of two to three per cent ammonia, 
seven to nine available phosphoric acid and one and 
one-half to two per cent insoluble phosphoric acid, 
and potash (sulphate) four to five per cent and two parts 
sulphate of potash, increasing the per cent of potash to 
about 22. By using acidulated South Carolina rock in 
place of the above phosphate in the same proportions 
with the sulphate of potash, I can reduce the cost of 
the mixture $7 per ton. Will such a fertilizer be 
likely to give as good results as the former on land 
which by testing with several different manures and 
fertilizers, proved to my satisfaction that potash is the 
great need of the soil in producing a crop of sweet 
potatoes ? 
Ans. —The dissolved South Carolina rock contains 
no ammonia, and in order to supply what the super¬ 
phosphate contained you must add blood, bone or 
something containing nitrogen. Your last year’s mix¬ 
ture of sulphate of potash and superphosphate con¬ 
tained, say, 30 pounds nitrogen, 100 available phos- 
