232 
February  12,  191(5. 
She  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
Stable  manure  or  green  manures,  since 
they  were  set.  and  in  a  great  many  in¬ 
stances  the  vineyards  were  not  planted 
until  other  crops  had  failed.  Since  they 
were  established  there  has  been  a  steady 
depletion  of  organic  materials  in  the 
soil.  The  Keuka  Lake  section  is  even 
worse  in  t his  respect  than  the  Chautau¬ 
qua  and  Erie  district,  for  in  the  former 
much  of  the  top  soil  has  been  carried 
down  the  hillsides  through  washing  and 
erosion.  One  of  the  first  steps  to  be 
taken  in  the  restoration  of  these  washed 
soils  is  the  building  up  of  the  organic 
matter,  either  through  the  use  of  stable 
manure  or  the  turning  under  of  green 
manures. 
The  practice  of  turning  under  buck¬ 
wheat  is  a  good  one,  and  in  a  great,  many 
cases  in  the  Keuka  district  buckwheat  or 
rye  are  the  only  crops  that  can  be  grown 
satisfactorily  in  the  vineyard  till  the 
soil  is  improved  sufficiently  so  that  the 
nitrogen-gathering  plants  can  lie  utilized. 
In  our  experimental  work  at  Urbana 
we  have  not  attempted  to  grow  clovers 
at  all,  for  our  work  with  these  at  Fre- 
donin  on  the  run  soils  has  shown  that  it 
is  unprofitable,  but  that  after  a  course 
of  preparation  with  buckwheat,  barley, 
Winter  wheat  or  rye,  with  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  considerable  amounts  of  lime,  the 
clovers  can  be  successfully  employed. 
Ilairy  vetch,  a  nitrogen-gathering  plant, 
but  much  hardier  than  our  clovers,  has 
given  us  a  very  heavy  stand  for  turning 
under  at  TTrbana  and  this  without  any 
special  preparation  of  soil.  It  appears 
to  be  well  adapted  to  the  soils  that  are 
common  to  the  Keuka  region.  We  have 
used  HO  pounds  of  the  vetch  seed  with  a 
bushel  of  rye,  and  thus  far  have  got 
a  very  thick  stand  of  vetch.  The  rye 
supports  the  vetch  plant,  that  normally 
grows  close  to  the  ground,  and  this  facil¬ 
itates  plowing  it  under.  At  present 
vetch  seed  is  unusually  high,  so  that  only 
the  grower  who  is  in  a  position  to  grow 
his  own  seed  can  afford  to  use  it  exten¬ 
sively.  It  may  be  possible  still  to  buy  a 
mixture  of  vetch  and  rye  from  some 
seedsmen,  or  from  farmers  about  the  .State 
at  nominal  prices,  or  at  a  slight  advance, 
so  that  the  prospective  user  can  at  least 
start  his  own  seed  patch  the  coming 
Summer.  For  vineyard  purposes  this 
mixture  is  sown  about  August  1  by 
broadcasting,  and  then  lightly  harrow¬ 
ing  it  in.  The  following  Spring  it  will, 
under  average  conditions  have  made  a 
good  growth,  and  should  be  plowed  un¬ 
der  before  it  begins  to  lodge. 
For  those  vineyards  that  are  situated 
on  the  steepest  hillsides,  and  hence  are 
very  likely  to  wash,  rye  will  probably 
prove  more  beneficial  than  the  buck¬ 
wheat,  but  it  should  always  be  plowed 
under  early  in  the  Spring  before  it  draws 
on  the  soil  moisture  much,  and  the  stalks 
become  hard  and  coarse.  Much  of  the 
failure  with  rye  in  the  vineyard  can  be 
traced  to  the  delay  in  plowing  it  under. 
F.  E.  GLADWIN. 
When  you  write  advertisers  mention 
The  li.  N.-Y.  and  you' 1 1  get  a  quick 
reply  and  a  "square  deal.”  See  guaran¬ 
tee  editorial  page,  :  •  :  :  : 
Phosphates :  Their  Origin  and  Use 
half  a  century  it  has  given  grain  to 
English  laborers  by  the  exportation  of 
Herman  manure,  German  bones  and  Her¬ 
man  oil  cake. 
In  view  of  what  is  going  on  to-day 
that  seems  a  remarkable  statement,  yet 
at  the  time  English  farmers  had  been 
quicker  to  see  the  necessity  of  using 
phosphates  freely  and  the  advantage  of 
making  these  phosphates  as  fine  as  pos¬ 
sible.  In  another  part  of  this  old  book 
we  are  told  that  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  1.000  or  1,200  pounds  of  a  coarse 
bone  were  applied  to  the  acre.  It  was 
probably  made  as  fine  as  the  crude  mills 
of  that  period  could  crush  it.  Later,  as 
the  mills  were  improved  so  as  to  make 
bone  dust,  GOO  pounds  gave  about  the 
same  results,  while  after  the  use  of 
sulphuric  acid  in  the  bones  200  pounds 
give  as  large  a  crop  as  six  or  seven 
times  as  much  of  the  coarse  bone.  These 
figures  are  exaggerated,  yet  they  show 
the  great  truth  brought,  out  by  Baron 
Liebig's  discovery  of  the  action  of 
sulphuric  acid  upon  bone.  This  was  the 
real  beginning  of  the  modern  science  of 
fertilizing  crops,  because  it  made  the 
fact  perfectly  clear  that  available  plant 
food  meant  in  crop  production  what  cash 
or  liquid  capital  means  in  business.  In 
order  to  raise  crops  or  do  business  you 
must  be  able  to  obtain  available  plant 
food  or  cash  in  some  way.  The  English 
were  quickest  to  see  this  point,  and  to 
make  use  of  the  advantage  which  “super¬ 
phosphates”  gave  them.  A  “superphos¬ 
phate”  is  one  made  available  or  soluble 
by  acid.  So  England  scoured  the  earth 
for  bones,  reaching  out  into  the  deserts 
and  even,  as  it  is  said,  to  graveyards 
ami  battlefields.  It  is  the  same  old  story 
of  concentration  of  phosphorus  through 
plants  and  animals  into  bone.  As  I  have 
shown,  farmers  try  to  utilize  the  feeble 
chemistry  of  the  manure  pile  or  ash  pit 
in  softening  the  bones.  In  a  much  more 
powerful  and  rapid  manner  sulphuric 
acid  does  the  work.  It  is  hard  to  make 
its  work  entirely  clear,  but  we  will 
try  it  next. 
1  'tilt zing  Boxes. — I  keep  at  this  dis¬ 
cussion  of  bones  'because  it  is  the  basis  of 
all  successful  use  of  phosphates.  Except 
for  the  use  of  basic  slag  (as  we  shall 
see  later),  practically  all  our  phosphates 
come  front  some  form  of  bone.  In  every 
rural  township  of  this  country  there  will 
be  40  tons,  more  or  less,  of  bone  wasted 
each  year  or  used  so  that  half  of  its 
value  will  be  lost.  The  need  of  saving 
all  potash  wastes  lias  been  forced  upon 
us  by  the  shortage  of  Herman  supplies. 
The  high  price  of  superphosphates  ought, 
to  make  us  save  the  bones.  The  sim¬ 
plest  way  of  saving  them  on  the  farm  is 
to  burn  them.  This  has  been  done  for 
many  years.  Darwin  in  "The  Voyage  of 
the  Beagle”  tells  how  in  the  Falkland 
Islands  the  natives  killed  a  steer,  cut  the 
meat  from  the  bones,  and  used  the  latter 
to  roast  their  dinner.  Of  course  they 
preferred  “rare”  beef,  and  they  merely 
scorched  or  burned  the  beef,  but  the  bom  s 
will  burn  quite  readily.  I  have  known 
farmers  who  burn  the  hones  in  the  kitchen 
stove  along  with  wood.  The  ashes  from 
such  stoves  contain  potash  and  a  largo 
amount  of  phosphorus,  and  are  very  good 
for  use  on  fruit  or  garden  crops.  The 
burned  bones  give  what  is  known  as 'bone 
ash.  The  burning  drives  off  all  the  nitro¬ 
gen.  and  the  bone  ash  is  not  as  available 
as  the  crushed  bone,  hut  there  are  cases 
where  burning  will  pay — when  no  other 
plan  for  fining  the  bone  is  practical.  For 
we  must  remember  ns  the  foundation  fact 
in  all  use  of  phosphate  that  the  point 
is  to  make  the  bone  as  fine  as  possible. 
IIot  Water  anti  Steam. — With  smal¬ 
ler  animals  like  chickens,  cats  or  dogs 
the  usual  plan  is  to  bury  them  entire  be¬ 
side  a  tree  or  bush.  The  body  decays 
and  feeds  the  tree,  and  the  small  bones 
slowly  give  up  their  plant  food.  We 
have  scon  tree  roots  fairly  hunched  where 
chickens  or  cats  were  buried,  and  with 
parts  of  these  softer  bones  fairly  eaten 
up.  Some  farmers  buy  carcasses  of 
horses  or  other  animals  and  work  them 
up  for  feed  or  fertilizer.  In  one  case 
such  a  farmer  has  a  big  iron  kettle  set 
on  an  arch  with  plenty  of  wood  to  burn 
under  it.  The  carcasses  are  cut  up  with 
an  ax  and  the  pieces  put  into  this  kettle 
with  water.  They  are  then  fully  boiled 
until  the  bones  separate.  Small  potatoes, 
carrots  or  other  roots  and  even  chopped 
cornstalks  are  boiled  with  the  meat  into 
a  thick  soup  which  makes  a  great  feed 
for  hogs  and  poultry.  The  boiled  bones 
are  taken  out  and  sold.  The  larger 
ones  find  sale  for  manufacturing  pur¬ 
poses,  while  the  smaller  ones  are  crushed 
for  fertilizer.  In  other  cases  the  bones 
are  put  into  a  stout  vat  made  of  plank 
in  which  arc  steam  c-oils.  There  they 
are  kept  in  live  steam  under  hard  pres¬ 
sure  until  the  fat  is  driven  out  of  them. 
This  fat  is  skimmed  off  and  saved,  and 
the  steamed  bones  are  taken  out  for  fin- 
E.  Frank  COE 
FERTILIZERS 
The  Business  Farmer's  Standard 
for  Over  55  Years 
Reliable  Agents  Wanted 
I  Write  to  Agency  Manager 
The  Coe-Mortimer  Company  I 
51  Chambers  Street,  New  York  City  II 
Nothing  on  Earth  Like 
STANDARD  icrwin  ATI  ONI 
0  NlTKo«»*-OVflH*MC  UACTIKIA  " 
terClOTt*S.AirAtW,.6W«i.-~<OrMtR  USUHW 
H.'MI  .mmJ  Fertflixm‘  fur  jirminring  lugger 
eio|m  »f  1Vs|,B«Sftt,  Alfalfa,  CIovi.t  ulul  nil  l.sgunies. 
We  liaen  a  l.ariilHomi'lr  culi>r«<i. Illnstraieil  ui.’itruzine 
t\a’le«1  the  "  l^gitice  Grower.-*1  It  sells  fin  10c,  but 
we  will  mall  you  o.ie  copy  fi<«  if  you  mention  Dept. 
82,  and  tell  us  tho  name  of  your  sccl  dealer. 
Earp-Thomas  Farmogerm  Co.,  Bloomfield,  N.J. 
Q0D  SEEDS 
COODAS  CAN  BE  GROWN 
Prices  Below  All  Others 
I  will  give  a  lot  of  new 
sorts  free  with  every  order 
I  fill.  Buy  and  test.  Return 
if  not  O.  K. —  money  refunded. 
Big  Catalog  FREE 
Over  700  illustrations  of  vege¬ 
tables  and  flowers.  Send  yours 
and  your  neighbors’  addresses. 
R.  H.  SHU M WAY, Rockford,  IIU 
TIMOTHY 
Extraordinary  big  values.  Now 
LESS  THAN 
WHOLESALE 
to<J  reelcancii  seed. 
Quality  guaranteed.  Sold  subjoin,  y 
prices  on  A'.xike,  Hlue  Grass,  Clove 
grass  and  nil  Held  aooiia.  .Samples,  prices  and  big 
Bole  profit-sharing  Heed  Guido  Free.  American  Mr 
SEEP  Co..  Dept.  Slid.  gird  and  Roby  St, 
•al.  Lowest 
aw,  i.iuvit,  m  m  in  fw  and  mixed 
Samples,  prices  and  big  valu- 
.  LUTUAC. 
Cliieagt),  Ill. 
Experimental  data  is  lacking  that 
shows  vineyards  in  the  Eastern  part  of 
the  United  States  have  been  benefited  to 
any  great  extent  from  the  plowing  under 
nf  crops  sown  between  the  rows.  But  judg¬ 
ing  from  the  beneficial  effects!  reported 
with  tree  fruits  and  general  farm  crops 
about  the  State  and  elsewhere  it  is  as¬ 
sumed  that  such  practice  will  justify  itself 
in  the  end  with  the  vineyard.  We  should 
not  expect  marked  results  within  a  short 
time,  for  it  should  be  remembered  that 
most  vineyards  have  had  but  a  scant 
supply  of  organic  matter  returned  to  the 
Fining  Bones. — There  are  various  soil,  either  through  the  application  of 
ways  of  handling  these  cooked  bones.  - 
If  a  farmer  has  good  power  lie  can  buy  r  --  — > - - — - - — - — ■ — 
a  hone  mill  and  grind  and  crush.  The 
softer  bones  work  up  fairly  well  in  this 
way,  but  the  hard  leg  or  skull  bones  re¬ 
quire  great:  power  in  order  to  make  them  _ 
fertilizer  fine,  and  some  sort  nf  chemical 
action  is  needed.  The  softer  bones  after 
Cooking  may  be  buried  in  horse  manure. 
This  will  soften  them  further  so  that 
they  call  lie  smashed  with  a  hammer  or 
heavy  slmvel.  This  will  not  make  them 
fine  enough  for  use  as  mixed  fertilizer,  fVU 
hilt  they  ",-;n  I,  \v<* !  V  e* 
frail  !  :*e.-  1  f  ;  l.mm  i  m m.  • 
for  the  liquid  manure  these  cooked  bones  EsSgw 
ina.v  1"  put  into  it  and  kept  covered  by 
the  liquid.  This  will  ae|  npmi  (hem  some-  K 
what.  <  >r  the  cooked  hones  ina.i  be  B»gj 
pacha -I  ill  layer.-  of  Itnlenehri]  Wood  I 
ashes  and  In  *a  :  -  *  :  .ttSol 
Look  not  for  Btiokhorn  mu!  other 
weed*  in  clover  thi*  year.  Voryfittlopure 
seedtobeliad.  Our*  iapraotloally  tree  from 
«  weed  seeds  nod  waste.  Much  tho  cheapest 
A  W  to  sow.  All  other  varieties  of  field  nceils.  Haru- 
pb»  and  la.trii«t!«a.ullow  •«  Knott  Good  SrriT' Free. 
Write  today.  (I.M.8C0TTA  80X8  CO*  ISO  Jlalubt., Mary. vllle.O. 
OATS,  BARLEV,  WHtAT,  POTATOES 
All  New  varieties.  Largest  yiolders  known, 
Best  quality,  Trices  low.  New  Catalog  FREE, 
G.  A.  READ,  Krnd’s  Farm,,  Charlotte,  Vt' 
Sweet  rinvef  See/!- White  and  large  yellow 
oweei  Liover  oeea  jJftr8e  or(jeis  ]eSs 
R.  E.  FURDY,  -  -  Falmouth,  Kv 
“Sammy,”  asked  the  teacher,  “what  is 
a  cameo?”  “Please,  ma'am,  it's  an  ani¬ 
mal  that  wears  a  hump.” — Youth's  Com¬ 
panion. 
-BEST  STRA  INS  GROWN 
SEND  FOR  PRICKS. 
J.  B.  QUIRK,  North  Madison,  0. 
corns.  Tn  addition:— 
“NORTH  WEST”:Grass  Seed  Has  Qualities  of  EARLINESS.  HARDINESS 
and  PRODUCTIVENESS— due  to  the  severe  conditions  under  which  it  is  grown. 
"NORTHWEST”  seed  is  grown  in  the  States  along  the  Canadian  Border  adjacent  to 
the  Black  Bill  and  Rocky  Mountain  districts.  The  superiority  of  “Northwest.” 
Alfalfa  lias  long  been  acknowledged.  Clover,  Alsike  and  Timothy  Seed  produced  in 
the  NORTHWEST  has  a  like  advantage. 
“NORTHWEST”  clover  is  EARLIERIon  account  of  the  short  season  at  which  it 
matures. 
It  is  HARDIER  because  it  has  survived  the  extreme  Northwest  winters  with  the 
freezing  and  thawing  of  both  spring  and  fall.j 
It  is  MORE  PRODUCTIVE  because  of  its  extra  vitality. 
“NORTHWEST”  grass  send  will  succeed  where  other  brands  fail.  Less  seed  is 
needed  per  acre,  The  cost  is  not  more  than  for  other  good  seed.  If  you  believe  in  good 
seed,  write  us  for  “Northwest”  Samples  and  Catalog.  No  charge.  Have  a  full 
line  of  seed  grain  and  other  farm  seeds. 
A.  H.  HOFFMAN,  Inc.,  Box“V”  Landisville,  Lane.  Co.,  Pa 
HAY  FROM  NORTHWEST  GRASS  SEED 
