"Che  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
580 
carcasses  to  be  handled,  and  the  animals  did  not  suf¬ 
fer  from  any  contagious  disease,  probably  the  most 
economical  way  will  he  to  utilize  both  the  feeding 
and  the  fertilizer  Values  of  the  carcass.  In  doing 
this  the  dead  animal  is  chopped  up  as  finely  as  pos¬ 
sible  with  a  broad  ax.  The  pieces  are  then  put  into 
vats  or  cookers,  and  thoroughly  cooked,  until  the 
meat  separates  from  the  hones.  The  hones  are  then 
taken  out.  and  vegetables  like  small  potatoes,  tur¬ 
nips,  or  even  chopped  hay  are  added  to  the  meat 
and  cooked  still  farther.  This  makes  a  thiek  soup, 
which  can  he  fed  to  great,  advantage  to  hogs  or  to 
hens.  In  other  cases  in  eold  weather  tin*  carcass  is 
chopped  into  small  pieces,  and  then  Imng  up  in  the 
henhouse  where  the  poultry  pick  it  apart  and  skin 
the  meat,  from  the  lames,  or  after  boiling,  the  meat 
is  dried  in  a  kiln  and  ground  or  crushed  up  for  beef 
scrap.  In  still  other  cases  the  meat  is  cut  from  the 
lames  and  canned  in  largo  till  cans  or  jars  and  kept 
until  warmer  weather  for  poultry  feeding.  This 
saves  the  food  value  of  the  carcass,  which  is  con¬ 
siderable.  The  lames  left  after  this  process,  are 
divided  into  two  Hasses.  The  hard  leg  hones  and  the 
skull,  are  usually  very  difficult  to  pulverize  with  or¬ 
dinary  farm  machinery.  These  can  often  la*  sold  to 
good  advantage  to  hut  toil  or  knife  handle  makers, 
The  softer  hones  can  be  cooked  under  high  pressure 
or  steamed  in  a  vat  to  drive  the  fat  out  of  them. 
After  drying  they  may  la*  crushed  in  a  lame  grinder, 
treated  with  sulphuric  acid,  or  packed  in  layers  of 
unleached  wood  ashes  for  about  three  months  in 
order  to  soften  them.  Something  of  this  plan  would 
probably  he  best  where  there  were  only  a  few  car¬ 
casses  t<>  be  handled.  On  a  larger  scale  it  Would  he 
necessary  to  invest  in  a  tank  of  good  size  and  ap¬ 
paratus  for  developing  high  steam  pressure,  sul¬ 
phuric  acid,  a  kiln  or  drier,  and  a  hone  grinder.  It 
is  a  business  requiring  considerable  skill  and  ex¬ 
perience  to  handle  to  the  best  advantage,  and  as 
stilted,  if  there  are  only  a  few  of  the  carcasses  it 
will  he  found  more  economical  to  feed  Die  meat  to 
hogs  or  hens,  sell  the  harder  hones,  and  crush  the 
softer  ones  as  we  have  described  here. 
Building  Up  Poor  Sandy  Soil 
I  have  some  land  that  is  very  poor,  as  it  has  had 
nothing  : *n  it  in  tin*  past  20  years.  It  has  been  lying 
idle,  anil  is  quite  wild  and  foul  with  wild  black  berries 
and  oilier  stulV.  a  sandy  loam  in  Southern  New  Jersey, 
about  is  miles  from  the  seashore.  JI*>\v  may  1  improve 
it  in  the  shortest  time  possible,  so  as  to  make  it  profit¬ 
able  and  to  produce  some  crops V  What  will  bring  it 
up  to  a  state  of  fertility  so  that  I  can  get  clover  to 
grow  on  it?  J.  B.  S. 
< ’ape  May  Co.,  N.  ,T. 
1111  plan  we  would  use  here  for  getting  a  poor 
sandy  soil  in  shape  to  grow  clover  would  be 
somewhat  as  follows:  First  clear  it.  break  up  the 
wild  growth,  and  if  necessary,  drain  it.  About 
June  1st  cow  pens  would  be  sown,  to  he  turned  un¬ 
der  Sept.  1st.  Then  a  heavy  seeding  of  rve  would 
be  made,  and  this  allowed  to  stand  until  some  time 
in  .Tune.  When  the  rye  began  to  form  in  the  heads 
this  would  be  turned  under.  Between  this  time  and 
August  15  to  20th  the  ground  would  he  gone  over 
frequently  with  an  Acme,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
good  coat  of  pulverised  limestone  could  In*  applied 
at  the  rate  of  two  tons  per  acre,  and  worked  into 
the  surface  soil.  'This  frequent  harrowing  will 
make  a  firm  seed -hod  and  conserve  the  moisture. 
After  seeding  the  ground  would  be  rolled-  If  con¬ 
ditions  were  anywhere  near  favorable  such  a  plan 
would  result  here  in  a  fair  to  good  stand  of  clover. 
After  clover  is  well  established  the  ground  can  soon 
be  brought  to  the  point  where  it  will  produce  profit¬ 
able  crops. 
If  one  does  not  mind  the  expense  almost  any  soil 
can  he  put  in  shape  to  grow  clover  in  one  Summer 
by  the  free  use  of  stable  manure.  A  heavy  coat  of 
this  spread  event)  and  turned  under  very  shallow, 
followed  by  heavy  liming  with  ground  limestone  and 
thorough  preparation  of  the  seed  bed,  will  usually 
bring  satisfactory  results.  The  expense,  though,  is 
usually  greater  than  by  the  first  method. 
Too  many.  I  fear,  do  not  give  full  thought  to  that 
one  item  expense.  I  often  get  letters  from  people 
who  believe  they  can  bring  their  tainilies  and.  with 
their  savings  of  a  thousand  dollars  or  so,  buy  a  good 
big  block  of  the  cheap  sandy  land  in  South  Jersey 
and  make  a  splendid  living  growing  truck  crops. 
They  say  they  know  this  land  is  poor,  hut  they  also 
know  on  good  authority  that  this  land  can  be  made 
to  produce  good  crops  just  as  soon  as  some  humus 
is  put  in  it:.  They  also  know  that  a  few  crops  of 
rye  and  cow  peas  plowed  under  will  put  it  there. 
But  they  forget  the  main  point.  It  costs  money  to 
grow  even  rye  and  cow  peas  to  be  turned  under,  and 
it  takes  time.  There  is  seed.  Cost  of  plowing,  har¬ 
rowing,  etc-.,  cost  of  equipment  (which  is  just  as 
necessary  as  though  money  crops  were  being  grown), 
interest  on  the  land  and  equipment,  as  well  as  taxes 
and  living  expenses.  These  items  count  up.  and 
where  practically  all  of  the  land  is  of  the  same 
poor  sandy  type  there  is  no  income-  The  family 
must  live,  and  unless  there  is  some  fertile  soil  be¬ 
ing  farmed  at  the  same  time  the  poor  soil  is  being 
brought  up  in  fertility,  or  an  income  from  outside, 
there  will  soon  lie  both  a  poor  soil  and  a  poor  farm¬ 
er.  Those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  conditions  in 
the  sections  of  South  Jersey  where  these  poor  sandy 
suils  are  to  be  found  would  better,  if  they  are  bound 
to  do  so.  try  farming  in  some  of  the  sections  where 
fertile  farms  are  to  be  found,  even  if  they  do  cost 
more  money. 
According  to  my  views  the  man  who  buys  land 
at  -$17  an  acre,  grows  and  plows  under  two  or  three 
crops  of  cow  peas  and  rye,  and  puts  on  20  to  20  tons 
of  stable  manure  along  with  lime  and  fertilizer, 
then  sells  that  land  for  $100  an  acre,  is  playing  a 
losing  game.  trucker,  jr. 
“  Barium-Phosphate” — A  New  Fertilizer 
There  is  now  being  introduced  to  this  locality  a  fer¬ 
tilizer  compound  called  “Rnrium-Ubosphate”  which  is 
vary  new  to  me.  never  having  seen  this  ninteri.nl  listed 
or  discussed  as  a  fertilizer.  The  circulars  say  it  is  a 
mixture  of  lime  phosphate  with  an  alkali,  sulphide  of 
barium,  and  phosphoric  acid  con  out  exceeding  that  in 
acid  phosphate.  Will  you  tell  something  about  this, 
we  who  use  fertilizer  have  some  real  information V 
Kingsley,  I’a.  c.  t.  o. 
I  We  can  hardly  do  better  than  print  the  following 
letter  from  Prof.  (>eo.  W.  Cavanaugh  of  Cornell.] 
I1E  material  is  not  barium  phosphate,  but  con¬ 
sists  of  a  compound  of  barium  and  phosphate. 
As  1  understand  the  process,  raw  phosphate  rock  is 
mixed  with  barium  sulphate  and  some  form  of 
Franklin  Dye,  Secretary  N.  J.  State  Board  of  Agriculture.  Fig.  206 
oal-bon,  and  heated  in  a  furnace.  This  heat  causes 
a  reduction  of  the  barium  sulphate  to  barium  sul¬ 
phide.  The  reduction  process  does  not,  I  believe, 
change  the  calcium  phosphate  in  the  rock  phos¬ 
phate.  The  result  then  is  a  mixture,  essentially  of 
rock  phosphate  and  barium  sulphide.  As  far  as 
the  solubility  or  availability  of  the  phosphate  goes 
my  understanding  is  that  it  is  exactly  like  any 
other  rock  phosphate  of  equal  fineness.  When  the 
material  is  applied  to  a  soil  the  barium  sulphide 
reacts  with  moisture  to  form  alkaline  products  of 
barium  and  sulphur.  The  solubility  of  these  al¬ 
kaline  barium  compounds  is  greater  than  the  solu¬ 
bility  of  the  corresponding  lime  compounds. 
1  have  no  doubt  that  the  use  of  this  material  may 
quite  frequently  be  followed  by  marked  beneficial 
results  in  the  soil.  I  am  inclined  to  attribute  such 
results  not  to  any  availability  of  the  phosphate 
but  rather  to  the  alkaline  action  of  the  barium 
compounds.  Barium  is.  I  believe,  not  a  plant  food, 
and  yet  because  of  the  solubility  of  the  compounds 
present  real  constituents  of  plant  food  in  the  soil 
may  he  rendered  available,  r  am  inclined  to  think 
that  this  material  is  to  be  classed  with  another  pro¬ 
duct  which  is  on  the  market,  called  limed  phosphate, 
which  consists  of  a  mixture  of  rock  phosphate  and 
quicklime.  In  this  case  also  good  results  may  fol¬ 
low  its  use  but  will  be  due,  in  my  opinion,  more  to 
the  alkalinity  of  the  lime  than  to  the  solubility  of 
the  phosphate. 
If  there  be  any  chemical  reaction  between  the  bar¬ 
ium  and  phosphate  to  make  real  barium  phosphate, 
such  action  would  be  to  decrease  the  solubility  of 
the  phosphate  rather  than  to  increase  it.  While  as 
yet  1  have  no  experimental  data  on  which  to  draw 
April  8,  1916. 
T  am  inclined  to  think,  on  theoretical  grounds,  that 
where  either  of  these  products  gives  beneficial  re¬ 
sults  the  same  results  may  he  confidently  looked 
for  by  the  use  of  lime,  or  lime  and  rock  phosphate. 
GEO.  W.  CAVANAUGH. 
R.  N.-Y. — We  believe  the  introducers  of  this  phos¬ 
phate  do  not  make  any  .particular  claim  for  avail¬ 
able  phosphoric  acid,  but  we  understand  that  an¬ 
alysis  shows  about  one  per  cent,  available. 
A  Specimen  Contract 
There  have  been  so  many  questions  about  a  suitable 
contract  to  be  made  between  a  farm  owner  and  a  man¬ 
ager  where  the  latter  is  to  have  a  share  in  the  earnings 
that  we  print  the.  following  document.  It  was  made 
between  an  owner  and  his  manager,  and  thus  far  is 
working  well.  Every  such  contract  is  peculiar  to  itself, 
and  must  be  arranged  to  consider  personal  qualities  on 
both  sides : 
UTS  agreement  made  this  fourth  day  of  Decem¬ 
ber.  1915,  between . ,  party  of  the  first 
part,  and .  party  of  the  second  part.  The 
party  of  the  first  part . hereby  agrees  to 
work  satisfactorily  for  the  party  of  the  second  part. 
. as  working  foreman  on  his  farm  in  the 
.  County  of  Columbia,  State  of  New  York, 
and  to  do  any  work  that  he  may  be  called  upon  to 
do  in  connection  therewith,  from  the  first  day  of 
April.  1916,  to  the  thirty-first  day  of  March,  1917. 
inclusive. 
In  consideration  of  the  services  to  be  performed 
the  party  of  the  second  part  agrees  to  pay  the 
party  of  the  first  part . ’...the  sum  of  thirty 
dollars  ($20)  per  month  to  be  paid  on  or  before  the 
5th  day  of  the  month  following  the  month  in  which 
the  above  mentioned  services  are  rendered,  and  one- 
half  of  the  remainder  of  the  cash  receipts  from  the 
sale  of  bull  calves,  milk,  grain,  fruit,  vegetables, 
etc.  after  the  cost  of  all  labor,  grain,  seed,  fertilizer, 
blacksmith  work,  tiling  silo,  thrashing,  supervisor 
for  advanced  registry  work,  veterinary  services,  re¬ 
pairs  to  machinery,  etc-,  have  been  deducted.  Said 
. agrees  to  furnish  also  the  free  use  of  a 
house,  henhouse  and  yard,  and  sufficient  wood  for 
one  stove. 
It  is  further  agreed  that  during  the  term  of  this 
agreement  said . shall  have  the  privilege  of 
keeping  two  (2)  tuberculin -tested  cows  and  raising 
their  female  offspring.  In  consideration  of  the  afore¬ 
said  privilege,  said . shall  have  the  milk  and 
male  offspring  from  the  above  mentioned  cows. 
In  witness  whereof  we  have  hereunto  subscribed 
our  names,  etc. 
The  farm  consists  of  1S5  acres,  about  15  or  20 
in  wood  lot.  Eleven  acres  of  apples,  and  11  of 
pears,  about  five  years  old,  17  head  of  cattle,  nine 
milking  cows,  two  having  recently  freshened,  and 
three  move  to  freshen  in  the  coming  three  months. 
The  services  of  hired  men  are  paid  by  the  owner, 
and  taken  out  of  the  expenses  of  farm.  Each  party 
pays  one-half  of  their  board,  not  included  in  farm 
expenses.  Interest,  insurance,  and  such  are  not. 
taken  out  of  farm  profits. 
Starting  a  Field  of  Alfalfa 
I  have  a  piece  of  land  that  I  wish  to  seed  to  Alfalfa 
this  season.  It  was  in  emu  last  year  and  is  creek  sand 
and  gravel;  will  grow  Alfalfa,  as  shown  by  test  pint.  I 
have  a  patch  of  about,  three-quarters  acre  of  same  kind 
of  land  just  a  few  hundred  feet  above  this  corn  stubble 
that  was  seeded  six  years  ago  and  I  have  nit  four  crops 
each  season  except  the  first  year.  This  %-tiere  had 
neither  lime  nor  inoculation,  but  had  been  heavily  ma¬ 
nured  four  or  five  times  and  planted  f<>  potatoes  each 
year  with  rye  for  rover  crop.  IIow  will  it  do  to  sow 
rum  stubble  to  buckwheat  as  Bonn  as  ground  warms  and 
turn  it  under  after  a  good  growth,  or  shall  I  break  it 
now  and  seed  if  thi.s  Spring?  This  land  is  clean  ex¬ 
cel)!  plantain,  and  I  find  that  very  hard  to  get  rid  of.  I 
expect  to  use  both  linn*  and  inoculation.  E.  e.  vf. 
Burlington,  W.  Vu. 
OUR  experience  with  Alfalfa  on  this  soil  is 
your  own  best  guide.  I  should  not  grow  and 
plow  under  a  crop  for  Alfalfa  the  same  season  as 
seeding.  Alfalfa  loves  a  firm  seedbed,  and  a  crop 
plowed  under  just  before  seeding  does  not  provide 
this  requirement.  I  would  suggest  plowing  this 
ground  early  in  the  Spring  and  treating  it  just  as 
you  treated  the  other  piece  that  was  so  successful — 
perhaps  seeding  a  little  earlier.  (Jive  it  lime  and 
inoculation  as  you  propose.  Don't  be  afraid  of 
plenty  of  lime. 
The  proper  variety  of  corn  for  any  section  is  one 
that  will  ripen  within  the  season  and  one  that  will 
use  the  whole  season.  Corn  taken  from  West  \  ir- 
ginia  into  New  York  would  be  a  failure.  It  would 
not  ripen.  On  the  other  hand,  corn  taken  from  New 
York  to  West  Virginia  would  ripen,  but  probably 
would  not  be  the  most  profitable  because  it  would 
not  use  the  whole  season.  A  good  variety  of  corn, 
grown  for  a  number  of  years  in  your  locality,  will 
probably  do  more  for  you  than  anything  you  can 
import.  It.  will  perhaps  be  a  variety  that  the  sea¬ 
son  can  use  (mature)  and  that  can  use  the  season. 
F.  L.  AIXEN. 
