No.  4380. 
Voi„  T.XXV. 
Published  by 
The  Rural  Publishing  Co. 
333  W.  30th  Street 
New  York 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
The  Business  Farmer’s  Paper 
Weekly,  One  Dollar  Per  Year 
Postpaid 
Single  Copies,  Five  Cents 
the  prod  net  iveness  of  hi x  land  icithout  the  animals. 
T  he  above  introduction  to  this  series  of  articles  is 
presented  hecanse  it  brings  forward  the  last  point 
and  then,  too,  it  is  presented  because  the  figures 
art>  worthy  of  careful  attention.  They  should  di¬ 
rect  the  very  foundation  of  our  governmental  poli¬ 
cies.  But  this  is  another  story.  The  further  one 
is  to  jump  the  longer  run  he  must  take.  No  here. 
If  we  are  to  get  at  the  vital  parts  of  the  manure 
question,  we  must  start  a  considerable  way  back  and 
lay  the  foundation  for  the  superstructure.  The  big¬ 
ger  the  building,  the  stronger  and  deeper  the  founda¬ 
tion  that  must  be  laid.  Soil  problems  especially 
lead  to  deep  and  often  apparently  remote  fundamen¬ 
tal  facts  and  processes. 
RELATION  OF  ANIMALS  TO  SOIL  IMPROVE¬ 
MENT  1  he  animal  gets  into  this  discussion  from 
the  point  of  view  of  soil  productiveness  for  two 
reasons :  First,  it  returns  to  the  soil  plant  nutrients 
(food)  that  were  in  the  feed  consumed,  and  second 
orners.  me  view  ot  the  essential  factors  of  produc¬ 
tiveness  must  he  broad.  To  a  large  extent  these 
factors  of  productiveness  must  be  seen  together  and 
treated  together.  To  dwell  <m  one.  however  good 
it  may  be.  is  like  urging  the  favorite  horse  in  a 
team  and  letting  the  others  lag.  A  smash-up  would 
be  invited  in  addition  to  the  failure  to  reach  the 
goal  on  winning  time.  So  in  soil  management  ma- 
Some  Fundamental  Facts 
A  NATIONAL  PROBLEM. — My  article  on  “Does 
Live  Stock  Maintain  Fertility"  in  The  It.  X.- 
1.  of  March  IN,  has  called  forth  some  comments, 
and  has  suggested  the  desirability  of  a  more  ex¬ 
tensive  discussion  of  this  vital  subject.  No  one  can 
fairly  deny  that  this  quest  ion  of  the  relation  of 
live  stock  to  the  maintenance  of  soil  productiveness 
is  one  of  the  most  pressing  national  problems.  It 
is  twin  to  another  problem,  namely  the  extent  to 
which  the  American  people,  who  with  the  English 
people  generally  are  called  “beef  eaters,"  will  be  led 
or  forced  In  increasingly  substitute  a  vegetable  for 
a  meat  diet. 
AN  I M  A LS  I  >EC’R  E  A  S  E  Plt( )PORT  l  ONATE LY.— 
The  transfer  of  human  diet  from  an  animal  to  a 
■vegetable  ration  under  the  pressure  of  I  lie  increased 
cost  of  meat  is  backed  by  figures  that  cannot  be 
wiped  out.  and  it  has  precedent  in  the 
experience  of  oriental  peoples.  King  - 
in  his  “Farmers  of  Forty  Centuries” 
call's 
Automatic  Canning  of  Corn  and  Pumpkin 
T\  /T  ACTIIXERY  FSED 
raw  material 
r  possible  for 
tory  to  make  a  financial  success  in  can- 
corn,  peas  or  pumpkin,  because  these  ar- 
roduets  that  are  handled  almost  exclus¬ 
ively  by  machinery,  and  very  little  hu¬ 
man  labor  enters  into^  their  prepara¬ 
tion  on  a  large  scale.  Take  corn  for 
instance.  Tt  is  brought  to  the  factory 
on  ordinary  farm  wagons  that  are 
driven  onto  a  platform  that  is  so  piv¬ 
oted  that  the  wagon  is  raised  at  the 
front  and  depressed  at  the  rear  end 
so  that  when  the  tailboard  is  removed 
the  corn  will  slide  from  the  wagon 
box  onto  a  conveyor  belt  that  takes  the 
ears  to  the  busking  machine  that  per¬ 
fectly  husks  the  ears.  Then  the  ears 
are  automatically  delivered  to  a  brush¬ 
ing  machine  which  brushes  the  silk  off. 
Then  they  pass  through  a  washer  and 
on  into  a  cutting  machine  which  cuts 
the  kernels  from  the  cob  and  scrapes 
the  cob  also,  so  that  all  of  the  milk  of 
the  corn  is  secured.  Then  the  grains 
of  cut  com  pass  through  or  over  a 
rotary  sieve-like  arrangement  of  wires 
and  brushes  that  take  out  any  par¬ 
ticles  of  cobs  or  silk  that  may  he  in 
the  corn.  Then  this  cut,  milky  sub¬ 
stance  of  corn  is  delivered  into  a  cook¬ 
er.  after  being  mixed  with  a  certain 
amount  of  sugar  and  salt.  In  this 
cooker  it  is  stirred  and  heated  to  ISO 
degrees  and  then  automatically  filled 
into  cans  which  are  automatically  de¬ 
livered  to  the  machine.  Then  the  tilled 
cans  pass  into  an  automatic  closing 
machine  where  they  are  sealed  and 
tlii'ii  delivered  into  crates  that  when 
tilled  are  carried  by  a  traveling  crane 
attention  to  the  fact  that  both 
the  Japanese  and  Chinese  people  eat 
very  little  meat,  and  that  is  confined 
almost  entirely  to  pork.  They  have 
learned  Unit  an  acre  of  land  can  sup¬ 
port  more  people  by  direct  Consump¬ 
tion  of  the  crops  than  by  consuming 
them  by  proxy  through  the  aid  of  an 
animal  that  destroys  a  considerable 
part  of  the  food  value  of  the  crop. 
FONT  OF-  ANIMAL  NET  RIM  EXT. 
— The  following  figures  are  not  exact, 
hut  they  are  comparative,  and  may  he 
worked  over  by  any  individual  who 
has  a  mind  to  do  so  for  his  particular 
situation.  In  them  appear  certain 
commercial  comparisons  that  are  cal¬ 
culated  to  make  the  farmer  as  well  as 
the  consumer  “sit  up  and  take  some 
notice."  They  also  give  a  body  blow 
to  those  sentimental  individuals  who 
are  easily  talking  about  bigger  crops, 
more  stock  and  cheaper  food.  If  these 
figures  do  no  more  than  set  up  a  train 
ot  thought  in  the  reader's  mind,  they 
will  serve  a  good  purpose.  The  fig¬ 
ures  show  the  amounts  of  dry  matter 
in  the  food  consumed  by  one  animal 
required  to  produce  one  pound  of  di- 
gestible  dry  matter  (human  nutriment  ) 
in  the  product  of  that  animal,  together 
tne  next  machine  m  the  line.  As  each 
machine  has  a  capacity  of  at  least 
20,000  cans  a  day  of  11)  hours  one  can 
easily  see  that  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  the  small  cannery  employing  hand 
labor  to  compete  with  the  large  one  on  even  terms. 
PREPARING!  I’FM PKIX. — Pumpkin  is  canned  al¬ 
most  in  till'  same  way.  The  most  important  machine 
in  pumpkin  canning  is  the  “pulper"  or  peeling  ma¬ 
chine.  This  machine  does  all  the  preparing  of  the 
pumpkin  and  delivers  the  finished  goods  ready  for 
tilling  into  the  cans.  The  pumpkins  when  delivered 
at  the  factory  are  split  in  halves,  the  seeds  removed, 
washed  and  then  placed  in  wire  crates  holding  a 
barrel  or  more,  placed  in  a  steam  box  and  steamed 
a  tew  minutes  until  soft.  Then  the  pumpkin  is 
dumped  into  the  pulping  machine,  which  is  simply 
•'  large  sieve  with  revolving  brushes  to  force  the 
I-ulp  through  the  sieve  and  retain  the  hard  skin  or 
shell,  which  is  delivered  at  the  other  end  of  the  ma¬ 
chine  as  “waste."  The  pulp  is  placed  in  what  is 
known  as  an  "automatic  cooker"  where  the  pulp  is 
heated  to  Lso  degrees,  and  then  by  the  same  machine 
filled  into  cans  the  same  as  corn,  and  then  cooked 
cr  processed  in  the  same  manner. 
The  first  column  is  the  one 
lion  as  a  whole  is  concerned  v 
shows  that  milk  is  the  product 
duced  by  animals.  The 
touches  the  consumer  and  tl 
housewife’s 
milrienl.  milk  next  and 
Five.  The  third 
<  ml  especially 
sou  determines 
Tile  farmer’s 
labor  and  risk 
ducts  is  fairly 
market  value  of  hi 
his  animal  products. 
(T)Mi*.\r:x<;  crops  ' 
proportion  as  crops  become 
able  the  farmer  will,  or  si 
ished  product  from  animal  t 
of  course  that  he  can  nrodi 
ivel.v  pro-  it  returns  part  of  the 
n  vitally  The  discussion  is  to 
From  the  lines.  Notice  that  til 
pomi  ot  View  pork  is  the  cheapest  meat  above  where  producti 
are  the  most  expen-  much-abused  term  wii 
column  and  its  relation  to  the  sec-  satisfactory  definition, 
concerns  I  he-  farmer.  That  compari-  now  it  means  producti 
whether  he  shall  keep  any  animals,  a  variety  of  materia 
problem  is  to  determine  whether  the  operating  in  the  soil, 
ui vi dyed  in  the  different  animal  pro-  all  of  them.  Tt  is  th 
paid  lor  by  the  difference  between  the  joint  lilness.  In  Ibis 
s  crops  and  the  market  value  of  speak  of  nroduetivei.es 
