620 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 29 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker 
Oor. Ohamberi cmd Pearl St $., New York. 
A Natiaaal Weekly Jearnel for Country and Suburban Henaea. 
KLBBBT B. CABMAN, Bdltor-ln-Cblef. 
HBBBEBT W. COLlilNGWOOD, Manafirlng Editor 
JOHN J. DIliIiON, BuslnesB Manager. 
Vowrlghted 1894. 
Addresa all bnilnesa oommunioationa and make all ordera pay¬ 
able to THE BUBAL NEW-TOBEBB. 
Be anre that the name and addreaa of aender, with name of Post 
offloe and State, and what the remittance la for, appear In every letter. 
Money orders and bank drafta on New Tork are the aafeat meana of 
tranamlttlng money. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1894. 
Is there any way of destroying' stumps by boring 
and pouring in some substance that will decay them ? 
That is a question dozens of men ask. Who can 
answer it ? ^ 
Those men who give an opinion this week about the 
different forms of nitrogen in a fertilizer, mix their 
own goods and have used many different combinations. 
Their opinions are, therefore, valuable—more so, per¬ 
haps, than the opinions of an equal number of scien¬ 
tists. ^ 
On many farms there is a power of some sort— 
horse, steam or the like. It was probably bought for 
a special purpose and small effort is made to use it in 
all the places where it could be made useful. It is 
good economy to look about and see how many 
machines it will move. That washing machine—page 
622—is an example of what we mean. 
* 
We understand that the business done at that Kan¬ 
sas City poultry packing house—which we described 
some weeks ago—is increasing right along. The man¬ 
agers are now trying to interest the farmers of Kan¬ 
sas and Missouri in turkey raising. This company also 
offers higher prices for high-grade poultry containing 
a good proportion of the blood of Plymouth Rock or 
similar breeds. This Western business is being de¬ 
veloped with great care and will, ere long, make itself 
felt in every poultry market in the country. 
« 
That is an instructive discussion of swine breeding 
on page 614. There are probably two chief causes for 
the small litters : Too much corn feeding and a set of 
sows that are naturally unproductive. This short ad¬ 
vice from a skillful breeder is about right: 
Dlapoae of every aow and buy plKs out of a large Utter, or buy a bow 
that la in the habit of farrowing a large litter. 
That is the first thing to do, and the next is to get as 
far away from corn-feeding the sows as is possible. 
Corn is good for pork, but not for progeny. 
tt 
Mr. Dawes (first page) doesn’t consider fertilizers 
of much account in his peach orchards. If his soil 
were a poor, sandy one, the case might be different. 
As it is, it seems to be a tolerably strong one, upon 
which the natural timber was chestnut, oak and other 
hard woods. It is also, to some extent, underlaid by 
a slowly disintegrating rock, and this may account for 
the fact of fertilizers being unnecessary. Barnyard 
manure is not good for fruits, usually, as it tends to 
make too strong a growth of wood ; but potash and 
bone are usually an advantage. 
* 
A MEAN little fraud was exposed in Jersey City this 
week. A man advertised for farmers to distribute cir¬ 
culars, promising to pay $4 per 1,000 for such distribu¬ 
tion, the only condition being that “as evidence of 
good faith,” the distributor should pay five per cent of 
this price to the advertiser. He was to send this 
money and “ order ” 5,000 or more circulars and re¬ 
ceive 820 after distribution. Needless to say, the cir¬ 
culars were never sent. The “ five per cent” went 
into the advertiser’s pocket and that ended it. This 
fraud received nearly 8150 per day in the mails. 
tt 
Mb. Augub’s article, on page 626 , is well worth read¬ 
ing. We will not discuss at this time the failure of 
scientists to make themselves understood by common 
people. The point we are after now is that unless a 
farmer can form a fairly accurate idea of what his 
products cost him, he never can sell to advantage. In 
manufacturing or other business, men are forced to 
meet competing prices, and to figure on offers for their 
goods that vary greatly. Without knowing what their 
goods have cost, they would be all at sea—simply at 
the mercy of those who compete with them. In the 
case of the farmer, he may be offered a certain price 
for his potatoes to-day. The problem is, shall he sell 
or hold ? What he raises potatoes for is the margin of 
difference between the cost of a bushel and the price. 
If the price offered to-day gives a safe profit above the 
cost, his safest plan is to let them go. You see, the 
whole thing depends on a knowledge of the cost. With¬ 
out an approximate idea of that, figuring on prices is 
largely guesswork, and guesswork ends only in mess- 
work. ^ 
In many orchards the trees are set too closely. Not 
only does this prevent a free circulation of air and sun¬ 
shine, but it renders cultivating and gathering the 
fruit more difficult. Fruit needs a free circulation of 
air, and exposure to the sunlight to mature most per¬ 
fectly. It is noticeable how much more productive 
isolated apple trees often are. Spraying, now con¬ 
sidered so necessary to best results, is also rendered 
difficult where trees are too closely planted. There 
is nothing gained by such close planting, but, 
on the contrary, everything gained by giving the trees 
more room. 
Mb. Scott, on page 615, thinks the housewife will 
succeed best in making a good cow from the heifer 
calf. Certainly the baby cow, robbed of its own 
mother, should not be entirely deprived of the “ gen¬ 
iality of motherhood.” There is little danger of the 
calf’s rations being insufficient if the housewife has 
the oversight. Woman has made it a part of her 
mission to look after the creature comforts of the race, 
and in these days of incubator chicks and skim-milk 
calves, the mother’s help is needed more and more out¬ 
doors. Put machinery into the kitchen to allow her 
time to give some attention to the motherless animals. 
She will be the happier and they will thrive the better 
for it. 
The Russian thistle has been found in Ohio growing 
along railroad tracks in various localities. The seeds 
of this pest are often carried long distances by live 
stock—in fact, it spreads mostly along public high¬ 
ways over which stock travel. A subscriber in Clark 
County, Ind., sends us this note : “I have found sev¬ 
eral plants of the Russian thistle. I think the seed 
must have been dropped by wild duck as I found them 
near a straw stack.” We do not believe this weed 
will ever prove as troublesome in the Eastern States 
as it has out West. Continued cultivation is sure to 
kill it out. It spreads in the far West because it can 
grow unchecked on great tracts of Government land, 
and thus seed whole counties unchecked. 
• 
Afteb working hard all summer to grow a crop, 
it’s foolish to let it waste, or to lose a part by neg¬ 
lecting to harvest it on time. Potatoes are reported 
as a very light crop, and good prices are now being 
paid at country shipping points. Tney should be dug 
as soon as the skin sets, dried perfectly and stored in 
a cellar where the temperature can be kept uniform. 
Pall rains and cooler weather favor the germination 
of rot germs, and make it harder work to dry them. 
The earlier the crop is dug the better will be the 
color. Every time a pile of tubers is moved it will 
sweat and lose weight. Sell direct from the field if 
you intend to dispose of them before January 1. The 
added weight of soil and moisture will make up for 
any ordinary rise in price. 
« 
A BIG, fat, over-grown baby is often praised and 
favorably compared with a smaller child. Look ahead 
25 years, however, and you are quite likely to see the 
big baby turned into a fat lubber of a man, while the 
smaller one, though not so large, excels him in manly 
attributes and capacity for doing profitable work. It 
is very much the same with calves. The fat, beefy 
heifer seems handsomer to some people and would 
probably be selected in preference to the lighter and 
more delicate animal, which, to the experienced eye 
possesses the ideal dairy shape. The man who selects 
the fat calf must wait several years to learn that he 
has picked out a beef cow. In order to make a profit, 
a farmer must know how to deal in futures—that is, 
what the future has in store for certain animals— 
what their material traits will develop into with good 
treatment. ^ 
Thousands of our readers have sowed Crimson 
clover seed this fall in patches varying in size from a 
garden patch to acres. The record of these patches— 
the way they pass the winter and the use made of 
them in the spring—will not only make an interesting 
experiment, but will pretty well settle several import¬ 
ant points about this plant. Here is an experiment 
we hope some of our readers will try on a part of the 
clover: When the frost sets in hard, so that the 
ground is frozen solid, broadcast the clover thickly 
with stable manure. We believe this will help carry 
the plants through the winter. In the spring the 
clover may be cut or pastured, and then plowed for 
corn, in which case the manure will go where it ought 
to, anyway. Try this on part of the clover. 
“ OuB hens live well since wheat got so low,” said a 
grain farmer recently. “ We throw out all they want 
to eat.” “Do they lay better than they did when yoU'- 
fed more corn ?” was asked. “ Oh, yes, we get a. 
great many more eggs. Hens pay the best of anything > 
if we don’t try to keep too many. Wheat makes ex¬ 
cellent feed for growing hogs, too. It is slow work 
fattening them, if they are owanted very fat, but for 
growth it can’t be beat” Thus the testimony accumu¬ 
lates in favor of wheat as a feed. But it seemed 
necessary to have a big reduction in the selling price 
before its real value was discovered. It costs so much 
more, however, to grow wheat than corn, that the ex¬ 
act future status of wheat as a stock food is a little 
uncertain. The acreage sown this fall seems less than 
common ; the amount fed is considerable, so that the 
probable price will be higher. So also will be that of 
corn. Will the amount of wheat fed be as great 
under the higher price ? 
ft 
An interesting problem in agricultural education is 
brought up by a woman in New York State. Her son, 
a boy nearly 20, is offered the practical charge of a 
creamery if he will thoroughly fit himself as a first- 
class butter maker. Now the question is, where shall 
he go to obtain the necessary training ? Some of his 
friends say, “Go to Cornell and take a course in dairy¬ 
ing under Prof. Wing.” Others advise him to go into 
a first-class creamery as workman and thus see by 
actual observation how such work is actually done. 
With such divided council no wonder it is hard to de¬ 
cide. Our advice would be to go to Cornell and take 
the course in scientific dairying as a basis for future 
work in the creamery. The necessary practical knowl¬ 
edge may be obtained later by experience and obser¬ 
vation, but the true science of dairying can only be 
learned from a competent instructor at a school. 
Without understanding the basic principles of dairy¬ 
ing the practical man can never fully succeed. 
ft 
BREVITIES. 
Our folka were cuttlog corn laat week when up the road there came, 
A tramp as hollow as a gourd—a no«e like candle Uame. 
“ I want a Job,” says he, "All right, pitch In and cut,” says I. 
" We’ve got an awful sight of corn and frost la getting nigh.”. 
That night. Just after supper time, John got his tlddle out 
And sawed awhile—he's practiced now a year or so about. 
But running up and down the scale is all that he can do. 
The tramp he got that Udule when he saw that John was through. 
First off, he sort of touched the strings until they sung like birds, 
‘Twas like a piece of poetry—all mnsic and no words; 
But all at once a harsher note came creeping In like sin. 
And good and evil seemed to fight within that violin, 
First good seemed coming out ahead, then evil threw him down. 
Then good again crawled up on top. then evil’s voice would drown. 
They had It that way, nip and tnca, till good gave up and fell. 
And evil screeched his triumph in a very devil's yell. 
And then the tramp laid down the bow with shaking hand and head 
And swaying line a drunken man he staggered off to bed. 
“That’s funny music now,” says I, "1 can't make bead or tall 
Of such as thatl” but mother says-her face all white and pale, 
" He played his own life's story like an echo from the past. 
Oh, pray that good may try again, and win him back at lastl” 
Bvkb try drilling In grass seed ? 
Do you want teeth on your corn cutter? 
WHAT Is the largest leak on your farm 7 
Dox’t be too late getting the fires started. 
Too many of our weekly papers are weakly. 
What is science but applied common sense ? 
Who can find the third man in the first page picture? 
To "eradicate the milk wetd” knock her on the head. 
Does “ freedom of the nose ” Ic a pig mean more or less pork ? 
Every bite Jack Frost gets at that cow, means a bushel of grain. 
The Babcock tester has sired more Improved cows than any 600 bulls 
you can name. ^ 
You never will find a worse winter than the coming one for sup¬ 
porting scrub stock. 
There are 2,460.086 cows and heifers In milk In England. John Bull 
Is pretty well cowed. 
Subjects for the symposium prizes are coming In lively. Some ex¬ 
cellent Ideas are being advanced. 
The great State of Colorado is covered one mile deep with the best 
consumption cure known—pure, dry air! 
Don’t wear out you fingers sizing potatoes when holes will do It. 
Your finger Is more valuable to the world than a holel 
What a chance for some Inventive genius to make himself heard 
from Is offered by that question about the well on page 617. 
DOES the horse that "hangs back” on an even doubletree have an 
easier haul to pay for It? What else should he hang back for? 
The mare Allx has trotted a mile In 2.03^, thus knocking one-fourth 
of a second from the record of Nancy Hanks. Breeding makes the 
mare go. 
If you could borrow $1,000 at five per cent how could you Invest It at 
a profit on your farm—aside from paying debts or mortgages? Would 
you buy stock, fertilizers or what? 
Our correspondent, on page 616, gives one reason whj young men 
make the best grape pickers. They can get out In the wet and cold 
weather If need be 1 But women make the best packers, says Mr, 
Snow. 
Now Is the time experiment stations ought to have complete In¬ 
formation about feeding wheat to stock ; how to feed It to the best 
advantage, and alt about It. They are very dumb on this Important 
subject. 
Considerable waste molasses Is produced at beet sugar factories 
In France and Germany. The latest plan is to mix It with bran, meal 
or palm-nut meal, dry Into cakes, and use for feeding csttle. It has 
not given good results with other stock. 
Do you want to know how to make 150 an hour? Take the poorest 
five cows In your herd before they get a chance to eat another mouth¬ 
ful of your grain and hay, and kill them. You will save $5 each by re¬ 
fusing to winter them. This is what is known as "heroic” treatment' 
—but there Is money In It. 
