1895 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
599 
while it is an almost impossible thing to keep a Lom¬ 
bard orchard free from black-knot, neither of the 
others is at all liable to its attacks. Second. Lom¬ 
bards, when ready to pick, are quite subject to the 
plum rot, and rot quickly after picking, while the 
others, particularly the Fellenberg, are good keepers, 
either on or off the tree. Third, when the market is 
overstocked with plums, one must beg buyers for 
the Lombards, while the others will be in quick de¬ 
mand. Then, by having more than one kind, we pro¬ 
long the season. Lastly, Lombards are a low-priced 
plum, while all the others will sell for much more 
money. Last fall, when Lombards were hard to sell 
at two cents per pound, Fellenbergs under the name 
of German prunes, were selling quickly at (5 to 
cents, and more were wanted. j. s. woodward. 
DIGGING POTATOES BY HAND. 
Potato diggers do not work well in my soil, and we 
dig by hand. Deep planting, therefore, is not practi¬ 
cable. If I set men at work to dig them, they spear 
the potatoes ; and I have found the most successful 
method is with a two-horse plow, to 
plow a trench each side of the row 
of plants, making a trench, say, eight 
inches wide. By bearing against the 
land side in plowing this furrow, we 
loosen the soil around the tubers, so 
that they may be readily taken out, 
and I do not injure the tubers. This 
method also saves moving tons of 
earth by hand—the most expensive 
method. We also use the potato crates 
on our place, and sort directly from 
the ground to the crate. Many people 
haul them to the barn floor, to sort 
when they have more time, but this 
duplicates work, and increases the 
expense of handling, as well as in¬ 
jures the tubers to a certain extent 
by additional handling. When dug is 
the best time to sort them ; it is light 
work, and boys can do it readily. We 
distribute the crates about 15 feet 
apart, so that the boys do not have 
so far, or so heavy a weight, to carry. 
A man is a brute who will make a boy 
carry a basket full of potatoes, but in 
this way he simply goes from one 
crate to the other, and can do rapid 
work. I had one boy pick (500 bushels 
in six days ; when this was talked over 
afterwards, and this statement was 
laughed at and doubted, the boy tried 
to see what he could do, and he picked 
150 bushels for me in nine hours. 
There is another point in digging 
these potatoes: the slowest man on 
the job always sets the pace for the 
rest of the men, and no matter how 
slow that one man is, the others will 
not go ahead of him in their work, 
and if you wish to make money out of 
farming, you must adopt the “ factory 
system.” When I have 12 men digging, 
the slowest one of the lot sets the 
pace if I have them working side by 
side ; so I have adopted this plan : 
I divide the men up across the field, 
so that each man must dig his share of 
each row. If one man is slow, it will 
be seen, and he will be ashamed, and 
will endeavor to keep up. The men 
have no one to talk to, and each man’s 
pride will keep him up with the work 
of the fastest man. 
I have found that it took a long time for the men 
to hear the horn, when time to go to work, while at 
noon, it would be heard across a 10-acre field in less 
than a quarter of a second. I have this plan : no pota¬ 
toes are allowed to be loaded in the wagon for the 
last load, until the horn blows for dinner at 15 minutes 
to 12 o’clock ; then we have all the time needed for 
loading up before going home. I tried this last fall, 
and one of the boys hitched the team to the wagon at 
the farther end of the field ; one boy got up into the 
wagon and drove the team, another placed the crates, 
and the men said, “ You need not stop the team, for 
we will get them on all right,” and they had loaded 
45 crates of potatoes on the wagon, and were out of 
sight in eight m nutes from the time the horn blew. 
_ C. E. CHAPMAN. 
Wanted, a Hedge Puller. —Wanted, a machine to 
pull or grub out Osage orange hedge. The cost per 
rod must not be more than 10 cents, or the machine 
cost more than $100. We have a six-horse traction 
engine to run it if necessary. F. z. 
Moray, Kan. 
ON A NEW JERSEY HOG FARM. 
A RATCII OF BERKSHIRE BACON BREEDERS. 
A Neglected Part ot the State. 
In the western part of Morris County, N. J., at an 
elevation of 1,200 feet above the sea, lies the Wills- 
wood Farm, the home of recorded Berkshire swine 
and registered Guernsey cattle. It is a sightly place, 
on the crest of Schooley's Mountain, overlooking a 
broad expanse of mountain and valley. Originally of 
a rocky formation, the labor of clearing off the orig¬ 
inal forest, and of removing the rocks was great. The 
latter are now in evidence in the shape of substantial 
houses, barns, hoghouses, fences, etc. Less than three 
decades ago, the first building was started here in the 
forest. Now the soil, well cleared is very productive 
of all the ordinary farm crops, fruits, etc. The eleva¬ 
tion insures a delightful climate, though sometimes 
rather cold in winter, and somewhat bi’eezy at times 
when the gentle zephyrs come sweeping over the 
mountains. The purest of water, combined with 
other favorable conditions, renders this an ideal place 
for the production of vigorous, healthy stock. Thou¬ 
sands of acres in this vicinity are either not farmed at 
all, or on the skimming system. Proximity to mar¬ 
kets and natural advantages should fill this country 
with profitable dairy and stock farms. 
Where the Herd Came From. 
Less than a dozen years ago, the foundation of the 
present Berkshire herd was laid. The object has been 
not so much to make it a source of profit from the 
first, as to build up a herd second to none. The Berk¬ 
shire is an English breed, and from this country some 
of the best animals to be found have been imported 
for breeders. Importations are not made for the pur¬ 
pose of selling animals, unless after they have served 
their purpose in the herd. All pigs are carefully 
culled, and none that cannot pass muster is used as a 
breeder or offered for sale as such. 
By a complete system of books, a record of every 
animal and every litter of pigs farrowed is kept. 
Numbered ear tags are worn by each, and a complete 
history of date of birth, pedigree, description, date of 
sale, purchase, etc., are given. There is no hit-and- 
miss business about it- A would-be purchaser is fur¬ 
nished with a complete description and pedigree of 
any animal he may select, before the sale. Every one 
is recorded in the American Berkshire Association 
Record, and all imported animals in the British Berk¬ 
shire Herd Book. All hogs sold are shipped by ex¬ 
press, and are recorded, transferred, crated and 
delivered to the transportation company with a suffic¬ 
ient supply of food, free of charge. 
Culling Out the Scrubs. 
“ All this culling and registering and recording 
costs money,” said Mr. Seward, the proprietor ; “yet 
some people expect to buy such stock for about ordi¬ 
nary hog prices. The trouble is that they don’t re¬ 
alize the care, labor, trouble and expense involved in 
carrying on such careful, painstaking work. They 
imagine that all that is necessary to build up such a 
business is to get a few breeders, put an advertise¬ 
ment in the papers, and—fill the orders. Here are 20 
pigs that we have culled out, and shall make into 
pork ; they don’t come up to our standard, and while 
we shall probably get as much for them as it has cost 
to raise them, if we figure in the extra care and labor 
expended on our stock, there is likely 
to be a loss. 
“ Here is another thing I would like 
to have explained. This litter of pigs 
is several months old ; up to a few 
weeks ago, they were all thrifty and 
growing finely. Now you see that one 
is scrawny and thin, with no apparent 
cause. He eats well, but doesn’t seem 
to thrive. Had I had a customer for 
him, and shipped him off, and had he 
developed this condition, the customer 
would probably have considered him¬ 
self cheated. Yet who could have 
foreseen any such condition?” 
One of the finest sows here is Dorcas, 
25762, imported in dam and farrowed 
at Willswood Farm in July, 1889. Her 
latest litter of pigs consisted of nine, 
which at 100 days old, weighed 927 
pounds, the heaviest weighing 120 
pounds and the lightest 89. I’retty 
good family! Some of those being 
exhibited at the fairs this fall, are the 
boar, Rex of Willswood, 32416, and the 
sows Thea, 32417, Erna, 32402, and Car¬ 
man, 32401, which will be exhibited 
as a herd. This boar is a fine, blocky 
animal, well-built, with heavy hams, 
well-boned, symmetrical and standing 
strongly and squarely on his feet. All 
the animals of this breed seem to have 
good bones, as they carry their great 
weight well. The boar, Executive 
of Willswood, 33935, is of very large 
size, though not so finely built. At 
eight months of age, he weighed 350 
pounds. Others shown at the fairs are 
Mischief, 32411, Pallas, 37051, Zeus, 
37056, Cassiopia, 37045, Pandora, 37052, 
and for a boar and sow under six 
months, Apollo of Willswood, 37043, 
and Crusa, 37046, both fine animals now 
about four months of age. 
How They Are Fed; A Hoghouse. 
The Berkshires are great grazers. 
The dry sows will nearly get their liv¬ 
ing on good pasture, and sometimes are 
wintered largely on mangels. The 
feeding is varied greatly according to 
the apparent needs of the animals, their 
condition, and the effects of the feed. 
In general, the ration for the old hogs 
consists of 200 pounds of wheat bran, 100 pounds of 
wheat middlings, 50 pounds of old process oil meal. 
Show animals receive a little corn meal in addition. A 
ration is being tried with some old hogs on grass, con¬ 
sisting of 100 pounds wheat screenings ground fine, 
100 pounds wheat bran, and 25 pounds oil meal. Other 
experiments are in progress, but results are not yet 
certain enough to mention. In winter, a ration has 
been fed to the old hogs consisting of 100 pounds 
ground wheat, 200 pounds wheat bran, and about all the 
mangels they will eat, together with an ear or two of 
corn each per day in winter. Pigs under four months 
receive a mixture in the proportion of 50 pounds wheat 
bran, 150 pounds wheat middlings, and 20 pounds of 
oil meal. These rations are always fed in the form 
of a mush made with water, with a little salt added, 
and what little milk is available is also used. All re¬ 
ceive, also, an occasional feed of the P. and B. Com¬ 
pound. Efforts are always made to obtain cheaper 
rations, provided they fill the other requirements. 
The importance of good, sound feed was shown by a 
recent experience. (Some pigs became sick, evidently 
caused by the feed. After careful search, dhe trouble 
LOOKING OVER THE GREAT PEACH ORCHARD. Fig. 187. 
ONE MILE THROUGH CONNECTICUT AVENUE. Fig. 188. 
