856 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 28 
labor. The load of cotton shown weighs 6,000 pounds. 
Many a farmer has had a hard struggle to haul two 
bales into a Southern town. This road is macadam¬ 
ized with three layers of broken stone of different 
sizes well spread and packed. The picture is taken 
from the Year Book of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture—an excellent volume that all farmers should ob¬ 
tain from Washington. h. w. c. 
HOLDING COHN FOR A HIGHER PRICE. 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PRACTICE. 
It is profitable, sometimes, to crib corn for an ad¬ 
vance in price, and would be in many more instances 
if the owner had the good judgment to know the best 
time to sell. It is a strange freak in human nature 
that leads men, when they have a good thing, to let 
it slip away in hopes that it may be better. When 
corn is once in the crib, it is very hard for some men 
to get a price that they believe will be the highest of 
the year. I know of a farm which rented for 1894, 
for $800. A crop of corn of 7,000 bushels was grown 
and cribbed. When cribbed, it could have been sold 
at 38 cents per bushel—bringing $2,660. During the 
summer of 1895, the owner was offered 54 cents per 
bushel, amounting to $3,780. He still thought that it 
was not too late for hot winds to blast the corn of the 
West and Southwest, and as he lived in the drought- 
stricken region of southern Ohio, it was hard to be¬ 
lieve that such wonderful crops were being grown in 
other localities. The corn was finally sold at 28 cents 
per bushel, bringing $1,960, $700 less than it would 
have brought when husked, and make no account of 
the shrinkage, and $1,820 less than it would have 
brought if sold at the highest price offered. His good 
crop of 1894, caused a rise of rent of $200—and the fall 
of 1895 found him with a much lighter crop, worth 25 
cents at the railroad. 
Another farmer had 2,000 bushels and held it to sell 
with the first mentioned farmer, thinking that the 
large amount would command a better price. An¬ 
other probably has as much still lying in the crib. 
Another tells of 50-cent old corn that he fed to $3.40 
hogs, and will doubtless crib his new corn if he has 
any surplus. Still another farmer has a rail pen of 
corn that he could have sold, no doubt, at 50 cents in 
the pen. For this man, money has a very strong 
fascination ; still with the hope of securing a couple 
of dollars more on the lot, he let the chance slip, till 
it decreased in value more than one-half. 
A score of, such instances could probably be found. 
Also many where men have been fortunate to sell at 
a high price, after having stored the corn. But I 
very much doubt whether the fortunate sales will 
aggregate enough to give a balance in their favor 
over the unfortunate ones. The misfortunes named, 
can, in no way, be charged to the actions of middle¬ 
men or speculators. It is well for a farmer when he 
thinks of storing his large and bulky corn crop to 
consider well the question whether he will be justified 
in building cribs, when it is uncertain whether to 
him belongs the ken of knowing when to sell and get 
the top price. jokn m. jamison. 
Ohio. 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Some Delaware Plums. — I have been reading S. 
D. Willard’s article in The R. N.-Y. in regard to rais¬ 
ing plums. How many trees did he pick the past 
season, to get 40,000 pounds of fruit ? I had quite a 
crop of Japan plums. From 150 Abundance, 10 Ogon 
and .10 Kelsey trees, I shipped 3,992 eight-pouud bas¬ 
kets, or 31,936 pounds of fruit. On the same ground, 
between the trees, I have 1,200 currant bushes, from 
which I picked 956 quarts of currants. The plums 
and currants netted me $650—all from 1% acre of 
ground. The plum trees have been set five years, and 
the currants four years. I have the Carman grape ; 
it is very fine, and the more one eats of them, the 
more he wants. The bunches are large and very com¬ 
pact. Three bunches among mine weighed 12, 16, and 
18 ounces each. The vine is a strong grower and 
heavy bearer. l. e. Anthony. 
Delaware. 
R. N.-Y.—We should have said, 40,000 eight-pound 
baskets ! 
Are Hand Separators Practical ?—The query of 
G. E. G., in The R. N.-Y. of December 7, is one so 
frequently asked, that I wish to reply to it. I ordered 
a separator of the Vermont Farm Machine Co., last 
spring. We were all agreeably surprised at the large 
gain in the amount of both cream and butter. During 
the warm weather of July and August, the gain was 
fully 40 per cent above what we obtained in the 
creamer. At the present time, the gain is not so 
great in cream and butter ; yet it is quite satisfac¬ 
tory, and the skim-milk is in fine condition for calves 
and pigs which drink it as greedily as they would 
whole milk- Of course, the skim-milk is not so fatten¬ 
ing, but both calves and pigs do well upon it, and 
with the addition of a small quantity of oil meal, it is 
very nearly a perfect ration. It certainly does not 
pay to feed 25-cent butter or 50-cent cream to calves 
and pigs to be sold for four cents. Ours is the first 
hand separator in this county, and many of our dairy¬ 
men doubted its utility ; but every one that has seen 
ours in operation, has been surprised and delighted at 
the effective work it does. It has a capacity of 300 
pounds per hour, and does the work true to the 
minute. It has an improved gearing which makes it 
very easy to turn. Thousands of farmers would find 
a cream separator tenfold more profitable as an in¬ 
vestment than the best self-binder on the market. 
Yet a binder is considered almost a necessity on every 
farm. JOHN l. shawver. 
Ohio. 
A Mash for Fowls. —Put the cut hay or fodder into 
a tight box, preferably a double one with sawdust as 
a non-conductor between the two boxes, sprinkle on 
top the corn meal, middlings, etc., adding a very 
little salt, pour on enough boiling water to scak and 
swell the mash and leave it fairly dry in the morning. 
Experience is the only guide to the amount of water. 
Stir well with a fork, mixing it thoroughly. Put on a 
tight cover, and cover all with old sacks or carpets, 
and leave until morning, when it will be found to be 
soft and savory. Not only fowls, but hogs, cows or 
horses will readily eat these mashes and thrive on 
them. Young hogs and brood sows do especially well 
on them ; for the latter, avoid using ground rye, 
or rye for fodder ; in fact, I have found it a bad crop 
for any stock, useful only in brown bread, and as a 
substitute for pollen for the bees in the early spring. 
The mashes of pumpkins, squashes, potatoes, mangels, 
etc., should be taken from the fire boiling, and 
mashed with wooden mashers at once, and the bran 
or other substances added and quickly stirred in until 
good and thick ; then cover, wrap up tight and close, 
and leave until morning. While not at all necessary, 
I have always thought that the fowls ate with better 
relish and thrived better, when a very small portion 
of salt was added to the mash. When the fowls seem 
to need something loosening, a little linseed meal in 
the mash will produce the desired effect. When too 
loose, as the bran in the mashes will often have this 
effect, cotton-seed meal will correct them and at the 
same time give them a nutritious and egg-stimulating 
ration. G. D. coleman. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of 
the writer to insure attention. Before asking a question please 
see whether it is not answered in our advertising columns. Ask 
only a few questions at one time. Put questions on a separate 
piece of paper.] 
WHAT PEARS BEST ENDURE NEGLECT? 
VARIETIES REST ON POOR, DRY SOILS. 
We notice that such pears as Clairgeau, Anjou, etc., on poor 
soil or in time of drought, grow small, and are of inferior quality; 
such conditions are pretty sure to produce inferior fruit. Can 
you name any varieties that will best retain quality under such 
circumstances ? 
As a rule, the finer the quality of fruit, the more it 
is impatient of unfavorable conditions. In New Eng¬ 
land, the Bartlett will do better under unfavorable 
conditions than most other varieties ; succeeding well 
even in the poor, sandy soil of the Merrimac Valley. 
Louise Bonne also stands hardship about as well as 
any without much impairment of size and quality. 
Easter Beurre is a pretty tough pear as against hard¬ 
ships. But it is many years since I have had much 
experience with the standard pears, as the Russian 
varieties are the only kinds that are thoroughly at 
home in northern New England. 1 have several hun¬ 
dred of these in my grounds ; but only a few varie¬ 
ties as yet have borne fruit; and none of these has 
proved to have much keeping quality, or is of more 
than medium size. t. h. hoskins. 
Nature’s inexorable law prescribes that man, 
whether lazy or inordinately grasping, shall not suc¬ 
ceed in securing “something for nothing and no ex¬ 
ception seems to exist in the case of the pear tree. 
Some varieties, when starved, take refuge in unpro¬ 
ductiveness ; while others, like Sheldon and Winter 
Nelis, with lack of needful nourishment will manifest 
the deficiency in lack of quality ; still others may set 
a crop of fruit and carry it forward till compelled, by 
sheer exhaustion, to abandon the effort midway. Of 
course, even with a supply of plant food in the soil, 
this may become so locked up by drought, as to be 
unavailable. In such case, I doubt whether a practic¬ 
able way out ©f the dilemma is to be found in a 
choice of varieties- The remedy should rather be 
sought in thorough and persistent cultivation of the 
soil. Perhaps the most effective method of avoiding 
such difficulty by a selection of varieties, would be to 
choose those which mature early ; and for that reason 
are more likely to escape liability tc drought. 
T. T. LYON. 
All the old varieties of the pear, of west European 
origin, fail to endure our summers or winters in this 
part of Iowa. The Russian and Mongolian varieties 
endure drought remarkably well. The past three 
years have been drier than any known since the 
prairies were settled ; yet on our most unfavorable 
soils, these pears have made growth, and matured full- 
sized fruit where even our native forest trees have 
dried up. The Russian apples, also, endure drought 
remarkably well. Many varieties the past season, 
bore fruit larger than usual on soils where thinner 
leaved varieties dropped their fruit when half grown. 
This great difference in the ability of varieties to 
endure drought, has been noted by hundreds in the 
West this season. j. l. rudd. 
A Water Ram That Gets Tired. 
James Hoyt , New Canaan, Conn. —I have read with much in¬ 
terest the article on “ A Well-bred Hydraulic Ram” in The R. 
N.-Y. of November 30. We have three rams on our place, two of 
which work to our complete satisfaction, but the third one does 
not. We have thought it owiug to the spring being too light; it 
runs for four or five hours, then stops, and we have to keep start¬ 
ing it up again. It would be of great advantage to us if it 
could be perfected. I would like to ask J. C. Senger if, in digging 
the well deeper, he struck any new streams, or in any way in¬ 
creased the supply of water, or whether it was the siphon that 
added to the flow, causing the continual stream. In other words, 
where does he get the extra water ? Docs it come from the miry 
ground around, or has the large enclosure any influence ? Does 
he think that we could, by building such a wall, or by deepening 
the well itself, maintain a uniform stream, through the ram? 
Does he see any difference in the power of the ram, when the 
water gets near the bottom of the pipe? If the stream through 
the pipe has increased, will he tell us how ? 
ANSWERED RY .J. C. SENGER. 
If the surroundings of Connecticut springs are as I 
have found them from Lake Erie to the mouth of Cape 
Fear River, Mr. Hoyt must have noticed that the 
immediate vicinity, before the spring is “opened,” is 
of a miry nature ; but that the soil dries out as soon 
as the water can flow freely. The mire is not the 
source of water, but the result of water oozing through 
crevices in which both soil and rock abound. This 
water, no matter how high one may be situated, 
comes from a still higher level. From the very nature 
of water, it flows out of the ground, upward, down¬ 
ward or sideways, wherever opportunity offers. If 
the first opening is not sufficiently large, a portion 
flows to a lower level, and so on. In excavating for 
“springs,” the object is not so much to find new 
streams as to remove obstructions to the one before 
us. We try to get water through the bunghole in¬ 
stead of the spigot before too much gets away through 
the many cracks. This is what I did when I dug 
deeper. By making a dam near the spring, we can 
raise the water to a given height beyond which, ordi¬ 
narily, it will not go. This was the object of my 
cemented wall. During the resting hours of the 
ram, it stored up the water to a given height. The 
storage and natural flow, however, did not keep the 
ram running till bedtime. 
To increase the storage capacity, 1 deepened and 
widened the spring below the feed-pipe. To utilize 
this, the siphon was necessary to draw it up. If Mr. 
Hoyt will read my article again, he will notice that, 
practically, all my water was obtained by digging 
deeper to give the adequate outlet, and that I took 
precautions not to have any leachings from the mire. 
The ram was started about 5 A. m. , and stopped j ust be¬ 
fore bedtime by one of my little boys. During the 
intervening hours, enough water accumulated to more 
than help out the natural flow on the following day. 
Mr. Hoyt omits the most necessary data to enable me 
to give him any specific pointers ; but I am more than 
satisfied that, if he will follow my plan, he will be 
even more successful than I was, provided he has five 
or six feet fall, and will stop the ram at night. Not 
taking minor points into consideration, the height of 
the water level determines the quantity of water a 
ram will raise. It follows, then, that as the water 
level is lowered, the flow from the delivery pipe will 
be diminished. Possibly the “air sniff” or device that 
regulates the air supply to the air chamber, needs 
looking after. May be the air chamber needs empty¬ 
ing, and the leather valve renewing. Sometimes the 
air in the chamber becomes absorbed, and unless a 
fresh supply is admitted, the ram will not, cannot, 
work well. 
Work of the Snowy Tree Cricket. 
F. C. M., Leech's Corners , Pa .— I send two peach branches. 
What has filled them, so full of holes and little eggs ? The young 
branches of my peach trees and grape vines are getting worse 
every year. Is there any way of destroying them besides cutting 
out the branches ? I also send a piece of an apple branch from 
a young tree, that has some kind of a scale on it, which finally 
kills the branch. 
Ans.—T he peach branches sept bore the familiar. 
