72 
them  have  come  into  bearing.  It  is  remarkable  that 
they  should  be  productive  at  so  early  an  age,  but 
their  chief  claim  to  distinction  is  found  in  the  size 
and  quality  of  their  fruit 
PROFITABLE  CHERRIES.— As  would  naturally 
be  expected,  the  largest  financial  return  from  the 
orchard  thus  far  has  been  from  the  cherries.  Two 
varieties  are  grown — the  Montmorency,  which  has 
much  the  larger  number  of  trees,  and  the  English 
Morel lo.  The  latter  gave  a  commercial  crop  the 
third  year  after  they  were  set.  and  the  Montmorency 
came  into  pretty  full  bearing  a  year  later.  The 
two  varieties  are  now  about  equally  productive. 
There  is  no  difference  in  the  market  price,  but  the 
Montmorency  is  the  first  choice  of  a  majority  of 
the  purchasers.  Owing  to  a  great  change  in  trade 
conditions  the  marketing  of  a  large  crop  of  cherries 
must,  be  done  in  a  very  different  manner  from  that 
of  earlier  times.  A  dozen  years  ago  great  quantities 
of  this  fruit  eouhl  be  sold  to  city  and  village  stores, 
where  they  were  disposed  of  to  housekeepers  to  be 
canned  at  home.  Now,  except  in  farmers’  families, 
home  canning  of  fruit  is  almost  a  lost.  art.  Canned 
fruit  is  still  used  in  nearly  all  households,  but  the 
canning  is  mostly  done  at  factories  instead  of  at 
the  homes  of  the  consumers. 
CANNING  THE  CROP.— In  1914  the  crop  of 
cherries  in  this  orchard  amounted  to  about  12  tons. 
As  plans  to  have  the  fruit  cared  for  at  a  cannery 
miscarried,  one  of  the  farm  buildings,  which  had 
been  used  for  ice  and  dairy  purposes,  was  promptly 
equipped  and  over  ten  tons  of  the  cherries  were 
canned  at  home.  This  involved  a  great  deal  of 
work  and  required  considerable  time  at  a  busy 
season.  The  method  adopted  was  more  expensive 
than  the  factory  process,  but  the  quality  of  the  pro¬ 
duct  was  sn  much  finer  that  it  insured  a  ready  sale 
at  a  price  which  gave  a  fair  margin  of  profit.  Owing 
to  unfavorable  weather,  the  crop  of  3915  was  a  little 
smaller  than  that  of  1914,  but  it  somewhat  exceeded 
11  tons.  The  fruit  was  sold  direct  to  a  large  can¬ 
nery.  When  the  trees  in  the  new  orchard  come 
into  bearing  a  plant  to  care  for  the  fruit  produced 
in  both  places  will  probably  be  expected  on  the  part¬ 
nership  farm. 
ORCHARDS  ANI>  ALFALFA. — The  orchard  on 
the  home  farm  is  remarkable  for  the  vigor  and 
productiveness  of  the  trees  and  the  superior  quality 
of  the  fruit.  It  is  a  living  and  positive  proof  that 
the  people  of  New  York  do  not  need  to  send  to  the 
West  for  fancy  fruit.  Its  excellence  is  due  to  three 
causes — good  stock,  good  land,  and  skillful  man¬ 
agement.  With  the  exception  of  the  kitchen  and 
small  fruit  gardens  the  two  farms  are  given  to  or¬ 
chards  and  Alfalfa.  For  a  long  time  a  fine  herd  of 
Holstein  cows  was  kept  and  milk  was  shipped  to 
the  Syracuse  market,  but  10  years  ago  it  was  de¬ 
cided  to  ship  the  Alfalfa  rather  than  to  feed  a 
considerable  part  of  it,  and  the  cows  were  sold.  The 
silo  is  now  used  for  storing  fruit  and  vegetables. 
In  addition  to  the  area  of  the  farms  Mi*.  Pai'sons 
rents  considerable  land.  All  told  he  cuts  about  175 
acres  of  Alfalfa.  J.  E.  it. 
Proportioning  Concrete 
CONNECTICUT  correspondent  criticises  the  ad¬ 
vice  occasionally  given  in  these  columns  with 
regard  to  the  proportioning  of  conei*ete  mixtures, 
suggesting  that,  these  proportions,  being  those  re¬ 
commended  by  the  cement  manufacturers,  are  dic¬ 
tated  by  the  self  interest  of  those  who  have  cement 
to  sell  rather  than  by  engineering  experience.  A 
proportion  often  advised  for  much  of  the  work  about 
the  farm  is  one  part  of  cement  to  two  parts  of 
sand  and  four  parts  of  gravel,  or  a  1-2-4  mixture; 
our  Connecticut  friend  asserts  that  his  experience 
has  shown  that  one  part  of  cement  to  10  of  com¬ 
bined  sand  and  gravel  is  sufficient,  and  that  a  rich¬ 
er  mixture  is  simply  a  waste  of  cement. 
This  criticism  was  submitted  to  the  engineering 
department  of  one  of  the  large  cement  manufactur¬ 
ing  concerns,  and  their  comment  invited.  Quoting 
from  their  reply : 
“The  mere  fact  that  certain  concrete  seems  to  be 
giving  satisfaction  is  not  conclusive  that  it  will 
continue  to  do  so.  The  disintegration  of  weak  and 
porous  concrete  by  the  action  of  frost  and  other  at- 
inosphex*ic  agents  takes  more  or  less  time.  Concrete 
is  a  structural  material,  just  as  is  steel,  iron  and 
timber,  and  there  are  probably  more  varieties  of 
concrete  in  i*eferenee  to  strength  than  there  are  of 
any  other  structural  material.  No  builder  would 
attempt  to  use  a  weak  timber  joist  where  it  was 
the  intent  of  the  designer  to  use  a  strong  one,  un¬ 
less  the  diffei’ence  in  the  strength  of  the  timber  is 
ovei*come  by  the  use  of  a  sufficient  number  of  ad¬ 
ditional  joists;  yet  every  day  some  one  tries  to  do 
this  very  thing  with  conci*ete,  because  of  lack  of 
C/>e  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
knowledge  of  this  wonderful  and  most  useful  sti’uc- 
tural  material. 
"Results  of  authentic  tests  of  the  strength  of  con¬ 
crete  having  the  proportions  of  one  part  of  Port¬ 
land  cement  to  two  of  well-graded  clean  coai'se 
sand  to  four  of  clean,  hard  pebbles  from  *4  to  1  po 
inch  in  size,  show  that  generally  a  compressive  load 
of  2000  pounds  per  square  inch  will  be  about  suffi¬ 
cient  to  crush  it.  Because  of  many  uneex-tainties 
of  construction  and  usage,  and  of  the  effect,  of  high 
stresses  on  the  recuperative  powers  of  concrete  and 
steel  reinforcing,  no  greater  load  than  25%  of  the 
above  should  be  permitted  to  exist.  Some  may  con¬ 
tend  that,  a  safety  factor  of  four  is  too  large;  why 
then  is  the  same  factor  used  with  steel,  a  material 
which  is  manufactured  under  far  better  supervision 
and  inspection  than  is  most  concrete?  In  fact,  the 
only  component  part  of  concrete  which,  without  ex¬ 
ception,  is  made  under  adequate  supervision  and 
inspection,  is  the  Portland  cement.  Timber  struc¬ 
tures  are  designed  on  a  safety  factor  of  10,  because 
of  the  uncertainty  of  the  strength  of  timber.  Ce¬ 
ment  manufacturers  do  not  lead  Hie  way  in  pro¬ 
portioning  the  mixtures  for  concrete.  We  endeavor 
to  spread  at  large  the  best  practice,  which  is  en¬ 
tirely  based  upon  that  of  engineers  and  the  results 
of  tests  made  at  various  experimental  stations  over 
the  world,  including  those  under  direct  supervision 
of  govei’innents  and.  universil  ies.  The  mixtures 
which  we  have  suggested  are  not  only  based  upon 
theoretical  experiments,  but  represent,  the  general 
practice  in  the  concrete  industry  as  carried  on  by 
the  leading  structural  engineers  and  contractors 
and  as  required  by  nearly  all  State  and  city  building 
ordinances.  These  proportions  have  been  adopted 
in  a  general  way  as  standard.  Of  course,  in  large 
constructions,  very  often  there  are  economies  made 
by  variations  from  them,  due  to  extreme  care  being 
taken  in  proportioning  the  aggregates  with  the  ce¬ 
ment,  based  upon  tests  of  the  particular  material 
being  used.  This  sort  of  procedure  is  out  of  the 
question  with  unscientific  persons  doing  concrete 
woi*k  and  also  on  small  jobs."  m.  b.  d. 
The  “Oregons a  New  Poultry  Breed 
fA  number  of  readers  have  asked  about  the  “Ore¬ 
gons.”  A.  pen  of  these  birds  has  been  entered  at  the 
Stores  egg-laying  contest.  We  sent,  to  the  Oregon  Agri¬ 
cultural  ( 'allege  for  the  facts,  and  have  received  the 
following.] 
UR  stock  that  we  call  the  “Oregons”  has  been 
bred  up  during  the  past  seven  years  from  an 
original  cross  of  Barred  Plymouth  Rocks  and  White 
Leghorns.  In  some  of  these  crosses  the  Barred  Rock 
male  was  used  with  the  ‘While  Leghorn  bens  and  in 
others  the  reverse,  and  we  seemed  to  get  practically 
the  same  results  either  way.  After  the  first  cross 
purebred  White  Leghorns  were  used,  and  the  “Ore¬ 
gons”  now  have  some  five-eighths  to  seven-eighths 
Leghorn  blood,  the  balance  Barred  Rock.  In  all  the 
crosses  males,  as  well  as  females,  of  high  laying 
pedigree  were  used.  The  main  purpose  in  the  cross¬ 
ing  was  to  determine  whether  or  not  high  egg-laying 
v  as  a  matter  of  heredity.  By  crossing  we  made 
sure  that  the  vigor  of  the  stock  was  not  lacking. 
Without  this  knowledge  we  would  not  know  whether 
any  increased  production  secured  was  due  to  heredi- 
tai*y  laying  tendencies. 
Another  purpose  in  the  crossing  was  to  develop, 
if  possible,  a  variety  that-  excelled  as  a  general  pur¬ 
pose  type  of  chicken,  having  high  egg  laying  its  first 
characteristic.  There  seemed  to  he  too  great  a  gap 
between  the  Mediterranean  breeds  and  the  American 
breeds  when  it  came  to  furnishing  the  average  con¬ 
sumer  with  a  table  fowl.  Plymouth  Rocks  of  stand¬ 
ard  weight  ax*e  too  lai*ge  for  the  average  consumer; 
the  Loghoi’iis  too  little  meat.  Our  problem  is  to 
funiish  a  chicken  four  to  five  pounds  in  weight.  I 
think  a  chicken  of  such  size  will  greatly  increase 
the  consumption  of  poultry.  Ilowevei*,  egg-laying 
was  the  first  consideration,  and  I  think  we  now  have 
in  our  strain,  the  “Oregon,”  secured  a  chicken  that 
breeds  true  to  high  laying.  These  fowls  are  white 
in  color,  with  medium  large  comb,  rather  close- 
feathered,  yellow  legs  and  skin,  and  laying  a  white 
egg.  While  the  crossing  was  an  advantage  in  cer¬ 
tain  ways,  the  main  tiling  in  producing  the  high  lay¬ 
ing  qualities  was  in  the  selection  of  high  layers  as 
breeding  stock. 
We  sent  pens  to  the  Missouri  and  Stores  laying 
contests  to  try  them  out  under  different  conditions. 
At  Stores,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  week  the  "Ore¬ 
gons”  wei*e  eighteenth  in  the  list,  having  risen 
from  thirtieth  place  to  eighteenth  since  the  end  of 
the  first  week.  We  expect  to  see  them  still  further 
improve  their  position.  In  the  Missouri  contest  the 
“Oregons”  won  the  silver  cup  in  November  with  106 
entries.  At  the  Panama  Exposition  we  had  three 
pens  entered,  one  of  “Oregons,”  one  of  Leghorns 
and  one  of  Barred  Plymouth  Rocks.  The  White 
January  15,  1916. 
Leghorns  finished  first  place  and  the  “Oregons"  and 
Rocks  tied  for  second  place.  The  conditions  there 
were  not  good  for  heavy  production,  and  the  records 
were  rather  low.  We  now  have  four  hens  of  the 
“Oregons”  with  records  of  over  300  eggs,  and  the 
pen  records  are  also  very  high.  In  all  our  breeding 
work,  trap-nest  selection,  of  course,  bus  been  the 
basis.  Selection  lias  been  rather  a  question  of  book¬ 
keeping  more  than  following  any  theory  of  type. 
Oregon  Agi*i.  College.  [prof.]  james  dryden. 
Plowing  Under  Immature  Crops 
Frequently  we  have  heard,  all  over  the  country, 
farmers  remarking  that,  green  stuff  often  burned  the 
land.  Is  it  possible  that  any  farmer  can  believe  that? 
In  my  opinion  the  bad  effect  often  seen  on  the  following 
year's  crop,  is  caused  by  plowing  in  immature  stuff. 
Just  like  an  unripe  potato,  the  starch  and  protein, 
fats,  etc.,  are  worthless,  in  fact  nature  lets  all  her 
humus  come  to  full  time  until  killed  by  frost.  We  live 
on  an  island  that  is  3  y2  mile  from  Charleston,  S.  0.,  and 
it  produces  the  finest  cotton  in  the  world,  some  men  con¬ 
tracting  their  crops  for  60  cents  per  pound  before 
planting.  This  cotton  does  not  go  to  England,  but 
mostly  to  Li s3e,  France.  xr.  b.  g. 
Young's  Island,  S,  C. 
E  have  seen  cases  where  plowing  under  a 
green  and  sappy  crop  appeared  to  injure  the 
soil.  Such  cases  are  often  reported  to  us  as  evi¬ 
dence  that  green  manuring  does  not  pay.  As  far 
as  that  goes,  we  might  easily  prove  that  human  be¬ 
ings  have  injured  themselves  through  drinking 
water  or  eating  bread  or  even  breathing  air,  if  they 
took  in  a  poor  quality  of  these  things,  or  if  they 
used  them  improperly.  Our  investigations  show  that 
when  complaint  is  made  about  green  crops  one  of 
two  things  has  happened.  A  very  young  and  im- 
mature  ci*op  was  plowed  under  during  warm  weath¬ 
er.  This  fermented  rapidly  and  added  considerable 
acid  to  the  soil — the  seed  being  put  right  down  into 
this  sour  place  it  could  not  of  course  develop  prop¬ 
erly.  The  use  of  lime  right  after  plowing  under 
this  crop,  with  the  lime  well  hareowed  in,  would 
have  overcome  this  objection,  and  our  experience  is 
that  it  pays  to  use  lime  under  these  conditions.  The 
other  cause  for  ihe  trouble  which  has  come  to  us 
is  poor  plowing.  The  green  crop  is  simply  tucked 
loosely  under  the  soil,  and  left  open  without  thor¬ 
oughly  packing  down.  The  result  is  that  this  mass 
of  organic  matter  right  under  the  surface  of  the 
soil  is  open  to  the  air,  dries  out  quickly  so  that 
the  moisture  is  lost  from  the  upper  soil,  and  cannot 
rise  up  from  below  this  coarse,  open  mass.  The 
result  is  that  the  soil  dries  out  rapidly  and  the 
young  crops  cannot  obtain  a  fair  supply  of  moisture. 
The  remedy  for  this  is  to  i*oll  or  pack  with  a  heavy 
drag  as  soon  after  plowing  as  possible.  That  crush¬ 
es  the  green  crop  down  firmly,  preventing  entrance 
of  nil*,  so  that  the  cover  crop  plowed  under  holds 
moisture  instead  of  giving  it  up  rapidly,  as  is  the 
case  when  it  is  left  open. 
Apple  Pomace  as  a  Fertilizer 
IIIS  article  is  very  valuable  as  a  fertilizer,  but 
only  after  it  has  been  allowed  to  decay  thor¬ 
oughly  upon  the  land,  and  lose  its  acidity.  After 
being  spread  it  should  be  allowed  to  lie  on  top  of 
the  ground  for  a  year  or  two  before  being  plowed 
under ;  otherwise  it  makes  the  soil  so  sour  that 
it  is  not  possible  to  obtain  good  crops.  We  have 
never  had  any  experience,  or  known  of  anyone  who 
spread  lime  with  the  pomace,  but  if  this  was  done 
it  would  probably  so  neutralize  the  acid  that  it 
would  be  possible  to  use  the  soil  earlier  than  with¬ 
out.  the  lime.  We  have  seen  fields  where  the  pomace 
had  been  spread  year  after  year,  and  which,  after 
being  left  long  enough,  raised  the  best  crops  of  corn 
and  oats  that  we  have  ever  seen. 
J.  I*.  Case  &  Sons,  who  formerly  owned  this  busi¬ 
ness,  never  allowed  a  pound  of  the  pomace  to  leave 
the  premises,  but  Spread  it  all  on  their  land  and 
obtained  the  very  best  results  from  its  use.  Apple 
pomace  is,  however,  more  valuable  as  a  food  for 
cattle  than  as  a  fertilizer,  and  we  have  been,  for 
the  past  two  years,  introducing  it  for  this  purpose 
among  the  farmers  around  Flemington,  N.  J. 
Practically  none  of  this  article  is  allowed  to  go 
to  waste  in  Massachusetts,  and  we  know  of  one 
mill  in  that  State  where  about  4,000,000  pounds  of 
apples  were  ground  this  year,  which  did  not  have 
enough  pomace  to  supply  the  farmers  in  its  sec¬ 
tion.  These  people  drove  as  far  as  14  or  15  miles 
to  the  mill  to  get  the  pomace,  and  paid  for  it  be¬ 
sides.  We  do  not  think,  however,  that  pomace  will 
be  available  for  either  fertilizer  or  feeding  for 
many  more  years,  as  it  is  beginning  to  be  in  demand, 
in  a  dry  form,  for  use  in  the  manufacture  of  jellies 
and  other  apple  products.  In  fact  the  pomace  is 
better  suited  for  the  production  of  apple  jelly  than 
are  the  fresh  apples  themselves. 
NEW  JERSEY  COLDER  VINEGAR  WORKS. 
Hunterdon  Co.,  N.  J. 
