THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
1895 
difficulty. A good highway passes almost through 
the center of the farm, which, if followed, will take 
one to the depot on the Boston & Albany Railroad, 
miles away. Lenox and Stockbridge are less than 
15 miles distant. A pretty mountain lake is a half 
mile down the road, where one can get good boating 
and fishing. A schoolhouse is a mile away, as is also 
the nearest neighbor. The post office and church are 
4% miles off. This distance from neighbors in New 
England, makes this place isolated, which is the great¬ 
est objection to the farm as a residence. But what 
can one expect fqr the price paid for this ? These 3(31 
acres cost me $700, less than $1.75 per acre, buildings 
and all. The owner had prospered there, but he had 
the Kansas fever, and seven years ago went West, and 
so put the place on the market. Then the buildings 
were in good condition, and he wanted $1,200 for the 
place, but in order to sell, he gradually dropped on 
the figures until it came into my hands at the price 
named. 
I did not buy this farm to sell it, but rather as an 
investment in the timber line for the future, being a 
believer in forestry culture. But 1 fail to see why an 
ambitious young man should not build up a beautiful 
home on such a property as this. It is not the stone 
pile that some people are wont to fancy the average 
New England farm. There is plenty of good arable 
soil and abundant water. The location is superb, if 
one wishes beautiful surroundings, and good markets 
are within easy driving distances. Less than five 
miles away, the railroad takes one’s produce direct to 
Boston or Albany, while nine miles in another direc¬ 
tion is a railroad on which produce may be delivered 
direct to New York City in a few hours’ time. Does 
not such a farm offer possibilities ? As an agricul¬ 
tural investigator who has seen much of the best 
farming land in the country, especially in the South 
and Central West, I believe that it does. 
I believe that these New England hills will again 
become seats of agricultural activity, and here and 
there evidences seem to point that way. Within two 
miles of this acquisition of mine, is a place owned by 
an Illinois farmer, who came East and bought a farm 
and settled on it with his wife and son and his wife. 
I understand that he is well satisfied with the change 
from West to East. Other farms can be bought for 
absurdly low prices now in Massachusetts, and one of 
these days they will be taken. It seems to me that if 
any one is to farm with brains, he can make a success 
here, and the required capital to start with is small. 
If, however, he wishes to do it in the old way, then 
he would better not try. But if he would try aright, 
then he may get a farm at a bargain in the effete 
East, which will, in my opinion, offer the best of pos¬ 
sibilities for a home, and at the same time afford 
him a good income. c. s. plumb. 
La Fayette, Ind. 
THE CHERRY AND THE BIRD. 
Net or Gun to Separate Them. 
Erof. J. Troop, of the Indiana Experiment Station, 
had some new varieties of cherries that were fruiting 
for the first time. It was necessary to keep them on 
the trees until thoroughly ripe. English sparrows 
and robins didn’t care for this experiment—they cared 
more for the cherries, and stood ready to strip the 
trees at the first sign of color. In order to protect the 
trees, they were covered with bird netting (made of 
twine) just before the fruit began to ripen. Fig. 101 
shows how the trees looked while thus protected. 
Prof. Troop gives results as follows : “ When the 
fruit on the covered trees was ready to pick, the ex¬ 
posed tree was completely stripped of every cherry, 
thus showing what the result would have been to the 
others had they not been protected. The question has 
often been asked, Will it pay ? As already stated, the 
trees were young, having been set but six years. Each 
tree bore a half bushel or more of fine fruit this year, 
which sold for eight to ten cents per quart. The trees 
were of the round-headed type, about 10 feet high, so 
that the labor involved in covering was comparatively 
slight. The amount of netting required for each tree 
was about 75 square yards, which cost four cents per 
square yard. As soon, however, as the fruit from 
these early trees was gathered, the netting was trans¬ 
ferred to later varieties, and the same process re¬ 
peated. So that, when the experiment was completed, 
the account stood as follows : 
To 75 yards netting at 4 cents.$3.00 
By 16 quarts of cherries at 10 cents. $1.60 
By 18 quarts of cherries at 8 cents. 1.44 
It will be seen that in this experiment the accounts 
nearly balanced at the end of the first year. With 
careful handling, this netting will last 10 years or 
more ; so that the question—Will it pay to use it ?—■ 
will depend largely upon circumstances. Judging from 
our own experience the past season, where, in testing 
varieties of fruits, it becomes absolutely necessary 
that the fruit should remain on the tree until fully 
ripe, there seems to be no question about the expedi¬ 
ency of covering the trees.” 
Shoot the Robber Robins. 
Some of The It. N.-Y. contributors have defended 
the robin. I deem him utterly unworthy of it. In 
years of experience, I have no knowledge of any act 
of a robin of greater utility to the horticulturist than 
the eating of an occasional angle worm or wormy 
cherry. So long as any grapes are left on the vines, 
the robins sit lazily on the trellis, or nearby trees, too 
full (of grapes) for utterance of their overpraised 
songs, or to fly to an adjoining field, even when I 
shoot their companions. They seem to prefer the 
black to the white grapes, and the hitter escape so 
long as any black varieties remain. Of the blacks, they 
seem to prefer Bacchus and Clinton to any of the 
larger varieties. They pick holes in many more than 
they eat. The English sparrow is an angel compared 
with the robin. Although very plentiful, they do no 
damage except to eat some of my sunflower seeds. As 
I write, I can see them busily engaged in picking the 
black aphis from the leaves of an apple tree near the 
wiudow. They apparently get a dozen or more from 
the underside of each leaf. 
Many writers mourn the growing scarcity of our 
song birds, robins in particular, and accuse sportsmen 
of exterminating them. Judging from an experience 
of 35 years, I believe the robins to be as plentiful as 
at any time. This is the case, too, with many of 
our song birds, as meadow lai'ks, bluebirds, wrens, 
thrushes, red birds, etc. Some of our game birds, too. 
are quite as plentiful in late years, as at any time 
since I was a boy, as doves, quail, woodcock, etc. On 
the other hand, some birds have been badly deci¬ 
mated, as the wild ducks, turkeys, pigeons, ruffed 
grouse and snipe. Red-headed woodpeckers and blue 
jays are less plentiful, also, the former probably 
CHERRY TREE COVERED WITH BIRD NETTING. Fig. 101. 
because there are far less dead trees than when a 
‘’deadening” was a feature of every well-regulated 
farm. 
Is it not possible that our song birds have been 
much over-estimated and praised by our ornithologic- 
ally informed horticulturists ? A great ado has been 
made over the extinction of the birds when no such 
extinction was occurring, and it has been claimed that 
the growing scarcity of birds is the cause of the great 
increase of injurious insects. uo our song birds eat 
curculios, codling moths, cabbage, tomato or tobacco 
worms, squash or Colorado potato bugs ? Is it not 
probable that they eat many of the parasitic enemies 
of these injurious insects, and thus, in reality, injure 
rather than benefit the horticulturist and farmer? 
Shelby County, Ohio. e. p. kobinson. 
IMPROVED CORN CULTURE. 
HILLS VS. DRILLS. 
No question more perplexes the average farmer than 
the one as to whether it is better to plant corn in hills 
or drills. The experiments made point unmistakably 
to the fact that the same number of stalks placed 
equally distant in drills, will give a larger yield of 
both grain and stover, than when crowded into hills. 
A marked instance was the experiment made at the 
Cornell Experiment Station. Planted in hills three 
feet apart each way, with three kernels in a hill, the 
product was 10% tons of green corn, or 4,431 pounds 
of dry matter. Planted in drills three feet apart with 
one kernel to each foot of drill, thus making the same 
number of stalks to the acre, the product was 12 tons 
of green, or 5,292 pounds of dry matter. Here was an 
increase due to drill culture of over 14 per cent in the 
green product, and of nearly 20 per cent in the dry 
matter and an equal increase in the feeding value. 
Experiments made elsewhere, agree substantially 
with this, and these results also accord with common 
sense. We know that corn is a sun plant, and that to 
do its best, it must have all the sunlight possible, so 
that when planted separately, the sun has a better 
chance to reach every stalk and every part of that 
stalk, than when crowded into hills. More than this, 
when planted separately, each plant can send out its 
311 
roots, and the corn will more fully occupy all the soil 
than when in hills. 
The objections urged to drill culture, are that 
it is more difficult to keep clean, and to do so 
requires more hand or manual labor, aud that 
when ripe, it is more work to cut aud put it into 
shocks. The validity of the first objection, varies 
much with soil and the prevalence of perennial weeds, 
such as Canada thistle, dock, quack, etc., but depends 
more on the corn grower and his manner of cultiva¬ 
tion. It is true that where corn is handled as it is by 
the majority of corn raisers, where most of the work 
is done by the cultivator, and the hoe is depended 
upon to clean the weeds fi-om the hill or row, it does 
take more hand work to keep the drills free from 
weeds than it does the hills. But where the land is 
not too much infested with Canada thistles, it is not 
half so much work to keep the same field equally 
clean when in drills, as when in hills. Even quack, 
with the proper handling of the corn, can be easily 
kept down or eradicated. The reason for this is, that 
when in drills, the harrow can be used much more 
freely than in hill culture. When a harrow is used, 
occasionally a hill will be taken out or covered so as 
to be smothered ; if in hills 3% feet apart each way— 
the common distance—an area containing more than 
10 square feet will be left with no plants, and the 
corn raiser can hardly afford to lose so much space. 
When in drills, the harrow may take out a stalk here 
and there without any diminution in yield, as the 
adjoining stalks will fill in the spaces. 
The trouble with the majority of farmers when they 
plant in drills, is that they use too much seed. They 
seem to think that the corn must be sowed, and so 
they use from a peck to a half bushel of seed per acre, 
when from four to six quarts is plenty, depending 
upon the variety and ske of the kernels. Then they 
do not begin the cultivation soon enough. The time 
to kill weeds, is before there are any weeds to kill. 
In other words, just as they germinate. The least 
stir or movement of the soil ends the tiny plants, when 
if left a week or 10 days, they could hardly be killed 
if plowed up. Neither do they cultivate often enough 
for the best good of the corn or entire destruction of 
weeds. Lastly, they do not use the right kind of tools. 
On my farms, we nearly always plant in drills, using 
a planter which leaves a track showing just where the 
row of corn lies. We follow the planter, often the 
same day and always before the corn has sprouted, 
with a cultivator. We use a cultivator with teeth or 
pads very narrow and run it as near the row as pos¬ 
sible without disturbing the corn. We also run it as 
deeply as we can, and not tear up any sods. By using 
any of the riding cultivators, and straddling the rows, 
one man and team will easily go over 12 acres or more 
in a day. This mellows the soil, throws a little earth 
over the corn row, and when followed in a couple of 
days with a smoothing harrow, the whole surface will 
be stirred and left as “clean as a garden.” The corn 
will now be up in a day or two, aud get a good start 
before any weeds will again appear. As soon as the 
first leaves of the corn are fully unrolled, we again go 
over the field with the smoothing harrow crosswise of 
the first harrowing. Again in a week, we give it an¬ 
other harrowing, and often a fourth and fifth with 
several days intervening. Our aim is to harrow so 
often that no weeds can start, and so often that if, in 
going over one way any corn is covered, the next 
time will uncover it before it is smothered. The 
great secret in using the harrow in the corn field, is 
to be sure to harrow once before the corn is up ; this 
fills the depressions over the corn, and subsequent 
harrowings do not bury the plants. 
By now using the riding cultivators with teeth con¬ 
trolled by the feet, the corn can be cultivated shal¬ 
low, with the teeth running so close to the corn on 
each side as to cover all weeds and grass that started 
after the last harrowing. When the corn is from 10 
to 20 inches high, by putting on a pair of smoothers 
next to the row, enough soil can be thrown to the 
corn so that, coming from both sides at once, it will 
rattle around the corn, and cover all plants of all 
kinds that may have previously escaped. Everybody 
knows that in the hot weather of summer, grass or 
weeds covered will be as effectually killed as by dig¬ 
ging out. 
As will be seen, by our mode of corn growing in the 
drill system, the field is gone over three times with 
the riding cultivator, which is equivalent to putting 
one day’s work of man and team on four acres. We 
go from three to five times over with the smoothing 
harrow, and as a man and team will easily go over 20 
acres in a day, this is equivalent to one day on five 
acres. Combined, this is equal to one day of one man 
and team on 2 or 2% acres, or, at $4 per day for man 
and team, the whole cultivation does not cost over $2 
per acre, and not an hour of hand labor is necessary, 
unless there may happen to be a stray thistle or dock 
which has withstood the harrow and cultivator. 
There is some truth in the objection that it takes 
