36o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 25 
Another Value of “ Starters.” 
1. It is now thought that aroma is mainly a product of 
bacterial action. Flavor (of the market kind) is also gen¬ 
erally held to be largely due to similar causes. Un¬ 
desirable flavors and odors are not infrequently trace¬ 
able to food eaten. I do not know that those which 
the market demands can be thus ascribed. 2. Since 
raw sweet-cream butter is at first rather flat in taste, 
the resemblance or relationship referred to, if exist¬ 
ing, is slight. 3. Ill health, particularly derangement 
of the digestion, may at times affect the milk and 
butter. 4. Certain foods contain oily matters, called 
by the chemist, “ essential oils,” which, in some way 
not clearly understood, appear to pass into the milk, 
and are thrown off from the system by this channel. 
These oils are usually of acrid odor and taste, and 
taint the milk. 5. Admitting for the sake of argu¬ 
ment—not that I think there is sufficient testimony 
to prove it—that market flavor in butter comes from 
the food, “ starters,” “ pure cultures,” etc., are of use 
in procuring uniformity. Bacterial growths do fre¬ 
quently -produce undesirable fermentations, and cause 
bad butter. Pasteurization and inoculation with pure 
cultures, would tend towards obviating this trouble. 
Vermont Ex. Station. Joseph l. hills. 
HOW NATURE IMPROVES THE SOIL. 
NATURAL METHODS OF SUPPLYING FERTILITY. 
(Concluded.) 
Roots and Food are Needed. 
Nature, or rather God, operating through her, in 
this world nursery of vegetable and animal living, 
loves and invites our reasonable, well-directed co¬ 
operation, but in our eagerness or forgetfulness of 
the foundational intelligence within the working 
system, we too often seriously injure the work and 
our intended benefit from it. No tree or other plant 
ever throws out a root too many in search of its food. 
Nature can and should be trusted for that. Plenty of 
roots and plenty of food, are demands that we are 
not at liberty to defeat and expect success, and be¬ 
tween ideal success and absolute defeat there are a vast 
number of degrees of impairment with which we are 
now contending, and from which we are suffering. 
Directly contrary to this method of Nature or God, 
see what we are doing. 
We recognize this first upper foot or so of soil as 
being the place for roots to form, live and feed, and 
we fertilize and cultivate it continually with no ends 
in view other than to establish roots and feed them. 
Yet we keep the plow at work traversing the whole 
of this region in which roots should grow, so effec¬ 
tually that it is simply impossible for the roots to 
exist or even to form there. Think of the unwisdom, 
(shall I not say, folly ?) of furnishing to this region 
animal manure, chemical fertilizers, and green crops 
for plowing under, and then with plow and cultivator, 
effectually excluding the roots for which all this is 
done, from access to the food thus supplied ! 
See how different all this is from Nature’s way. 
Think how few roots the plow turns up, because 
“they are not in it” and how many you would tear 
up and expose to view, if you were to go into the 
woods with the plow, and succeed in plowing as deeply 
as you do in your orchards! The result of this bad 
work is that our trees’ feeding roots are driven, and 
betake themselves, to the subsoil, as the next best 
resort, and the only place of refuge from our attacks. 
There they find some of the fertility we have thus sup¬ 
plied, which heavy rains have washed and dissolved 
down to them ; but the great bulk of it has been used 
by some other crop, or has passed in solution into the 
subsoil beneath where it happened to fall, and where 
even the subsoil roots of the trees are not, there to 
remain until, under a benign mulch, -when applied, it 
shall come up and become available to the roots whose 
presence the brooding cover shall have incubated to 
life and activity. 
Where to Obtain the Mulch. 
It is not difficult to obtain all the material needed 
for the most extensive system of mulching. Teosinte, 
Millo maize, fodder corn, and other similar products, 
may be grown in such excessive quantity to the acre as 
to supply all demands with very small outlay of money 
and labor. Just now the new plant Sacaline, or Sagha- 
lin, is being boomed for a most extravagant yield of 
nutritious forage, which is by some claimed to be very 
valuable for stock, and by others declared of little or 
no value for food. But the claim that it will grow any¬ 
where, in wet or dry, rich or poor soil, and will endure 
all of our extremes of heat and cold; and that, when 
once planted, it will live on without known limit of 
time, growing yearly more productive, and even yield¬ 
ing as high as 180 tons per acre in a single season, 
does not seem to be disputed. It is affirmed, too, that 
it will spread unduly by root and by seed, and thus 
become a real nuisance, while its friends declare that 
it may be grown from seed only-with much difficulty, 
while its rootage is not aggressive, and is easily ex¬ 
terminated when its destruction is desired. If half 
of what is said of this plant in these respects be true, 
it would seem to be just what is wanted for mulching. 
On my farm, I have a sandy ridge of four or five acres 
that has hitherto yielded me nothing; I intend to plant 
this with Saghalin and fertilize it well, hoping for its 
best returns, to be used simply as a mulch and surface 
fertilizer for trees, and to be applied just as cut from 
the ground. It may also be stacked as gathered and 
cured, and in the idle season in winter, may be cut 
with a horse-power cutter into short pieces, shoveled 
into the wagon box, drawn into the fields to be plowed 
in in the spring, and scattered thickly over the ground 
as one would put out manure, thus by cover providing 
Nature’s matrix for forming fertility, as well as fur¬ 
nishing fertility from its own decaying substance. 
That is what manure does when spread in the fall, 
and thus we may account for the increased benefits 
from fall spreading. 1 do not see why one may not 
inexpensively grow enough Saghalin thus thoroughly 
to manure, mulch and renovate all his land, so 
as to dispense with every other form of manure ; but, 
of course, all other manures may be surface-applied 
with the cover or mulch, to remain and leach down 
about trees and to be plowed in elsewhere as desired. 
It should be borne in mind that the explanation herein 
attempted as to how fertility generates under cover, 
may be fallacious, yet the facts remain that it does 
so generate, and may be made of great practical 
utility as a working system. 
This dispensing with cultivation in orchards, makes 
easy the growing of low-branched trees, and all the 
advantages resulting therefrom. I wish to add some¬ 
thing about a perfectly successful method of dwarfing 
all sorts of fruit trees, and greatly increasing their 
fruitfulness, and yearly and early bearing, and also 
something about the close planting which is thus 
made possible and profitable, woodbridge strong. 
Middlesex County, N. J. 
HOW TO GROW "FANCY VINELAND SWEETS.” 
FROM THE SEED TO THE STOREHOUSE. 
Part V. 
Cultivation and Digging. 
Nearly all manufacturers of cultivators make a 
special implement for cultivating sweet potatoes. 
The frame is somewhat shorter than that of the ordi¬ 
nary hoe harrow, and has but four teeth ; two on the 
center beam—one near the front and one at the back 
—and one at the rear end of each of the side beams. 
Two three-eighth-inch iron rods, one on each side 
running from the bolt fastening on the front tooth to 
the bolt in the rear end of the side beams, serve as 
vine lifters. These should be so adjusted that they 
will break the surface all the way up the side of the 
ridge, and if the plants are set in regular straight 
rows, scarcely any hand hoeing will be necessary. 
The back tooth of the cultivator should be eight 
inches wide for rows 2% feet apart, and wider if the 
rows are farther apart. The other teeth may be the 
ordinary 2% or 3-inch steels. As the season advances, 
shorter steels must be used on the sides, to avoid dis¬ 
turbing the tubers after they have set. An old pair 
that are nearly worn out answer the purpose admir¬ 
ably. If the ground is free from weed seeds, twice 
hand hoeing will be sufficient, once immediately 
after the first cultivation, and again in two or three 
weeks. The cultivator should be run through as 
soon as the ground is di*y enough to work after every 
shower, until the vines are too heavy to permit its 
passage, which may be at any time between the mid¬ 
dle of July and the middle of August. 
The experienced grower endeavors to get his pota¬ 
toes dug before the first killing frost, not for the rea¬ 
son, as many suppose, that they wdll not keep so well 
if the vines have been killed by frost, but because at 
this time the ends of a great many tubers show above 
the ground, and if they are frosted, the tuber is 
almost sure to rot; at any rate, the potato is spoiled 
for market. We generally begin to dig October 1, and 
try to be through by October 15. The digging is done 
either with a plow or with a digger made especially 
for the purpose. The regular diggers have discs 
attached for cutting the vines. If a plow is used, the 
vines must be cut by hand, with corn knives or 
sickles. I have tried a rolling coulter, but find that 
it cuts too many potatoes. I use a plow with a smooth 
point, taking care to keep it well under the hills, to 
avoid injuring the potatoes. With a little practice, 
the operator can leave nearly all the potatoes in sight. 
As the entire hill is on one stem, there are very few 
tubers left in the ground if the pickers do their duty. 
After the plowing, the soil is shaken from the pota¬ 
toes, and they are placed in small, loose heaps, four 
rows together, and allowed to lie an hour or so and 
dry off. We usually plow and shake out what we 
think can be attended to for the day, before beginning 
to pick up. As I mentioned in my first article, too 
much care cannot be exercised in the handling. If a 
tuber is bruised, or the skin broken, it is very likely 
to rot. If it doesn’t rot, it is spoiled for a “ Fancy” 
anyway. So I say handle carefully. 
The usual plan is to assort in the field as they are 
picked up. One man picks up “ Primes,” another 
“ Seconds,” and a third pulls off the small ones for 
feeding purposes. According to the analysis of -the 
New Jersey Experiment Station, the latter are worth 
15 cents per bushel as compared with the ordinary 
feeding stuffs. We feed them to everything, horses, 
cows, pigs and chickens—cooked for the latter. Five- 
eighths market baskets are used to pick up in, they 
being about the handiest thing we have found. They 
are taken to the storehouse as fast as filled, and 
emptied directly into the bins. s. t. d. 
Vineland, N. J. 
THE FAMILY HORSE. 
Where He Comes From; How Made. 
My conception of a family horse is one weighing 
from 1,100 to 1,200 pounds ; handsome, any color but 
gray, with not too much white in the face or on the 
legs ; of a nervous temperament, and of an absolutely 
fearless disposition; stoutly made, with wide, flat legs; 
as light in bone as can be and not have the least sus¬ 
picion of weakness ; good, tough feet not too round, 
and, above all, not in the least flat. It should have a 
good, open, free gait, but not at all big gaited ; a fast 
walker, and perfectly gentle for any one to drive that 
has had a fair amount of experience in such capacity. 
How to get such a horse, and how to bring him to 
this condition, is the question. The old-fashioned 
Morgan horse possessed all these qualifications except 
size. There are Morgans to-day that have size with 
the other qualities ; these qualities are the rule with 
the Morgans. 1 know of no other family that pos¬ 
sess them, except in rare, individual cases ; therefore, 
I would select the mare from which I expected to 
produce these, from the Morgan family. 
Many readers will undoubtedly take issue with me 
for selecting a horse of a nervous disposition for a 
family horse. A wide experience of my own, and a 
close observation of the horses about me, have taught 
me that the horse of the mild, easy disposition lacks 
courage, not only to keep up a stiff road gait, but to 
obey his driver in the face of terrifying objects and in 
cases of breakdowns. I have a Morgan mare so ner¬ 
vous that she will jump clear off the ground if a fire¬ 
cracker explodes or the exhaust steam from a locomo¬ 
tive goes off near by ; yet she will stand at the sta¬ 
tion unhitched when the cars are moving about and 
locomotives blowing off, and has never betrayed the 
trust we have placed in her. My wife and children 
drive her with safety. 
After securing the brood mare from which to raise 
family horses, too careful a selection cannot be made 
of a horse to which to breed her. Of course, the quali¬ 
ties we wish to perpetuate, must be possessed by the 
sire, if the progeny is to come up to our expectations. 
After the mare is safe in foal, my way would be to 
use her just the same as though she w r ere not; any 
decent man would not overdrive or neglect any good 
horse, more particularly a mare in foal. The chances 
for injury are so small, that I say, use her just as if 
not in foal, for three reasons : first, because the foal 
will be more intelligent just in proportion as the dam 
comes in contact with intelligent people. If any 
reader doubts this, I am ready to discuss this question; 
but it would be out of place here. Second, because 
the foal will be stronger and more healthy if the dam 
has regular work with plenty of muscle and bone¬ 
forming food. Third, because it will lessen the first 
cost of the colt if you do not have to charge him with 
the cost of keeping his dam in idleness. 
After the colt is foaled, it should be watched a few 
days to see that its bowels are all right, and it may 
then be turned out with the dam for the season if you 
have no work for her. If you have, so much the 
better for the future horse, as its intimate relation 
with man during the first months of its life, will do 
as much to make it a safe family horse in after years, 
as several years of thorough training after it has run 
wild for the first year, and is then only halter broken. 
I would feed liberally from weaning time until the 
spring it is coming one year old, when it should be 
turned to pasture as soon as the feed is good, and be 
allowed to run until it is time to get it up for the 
winter. It is now one year old past, and should be 
thoroughly broken and handled in the stable, and 
taught what a horse should know in the barn. After 
breaking both single and double, it may be turned 
out to take coarse food and grass until it is coming 
four years old, when it should be put to work at light 
team work as the spring draws near, and kept regu¬ 
larly at farm work during its four and five-year-old 
form. It will by this time, if handled by a careful 
man, have learned to be handy in getting about; to 
stand to have the wagons or stone boats, etc., loaded 
and unloaded, and have made muscle and strength. 
. 
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