Z ~he  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
Frank  of  Peach  Hill 
By  Geo.  B.  Fiske 
(Continued  from  page  S90) 
CHAPTER  IX. 
IIIS  CITY  FRIENDS. 
As  soon  as  my  house  and  premises 
were  in  decent  shape  I  urged  my  uncle 
to  come  out  and  visit  me,  and  one  Sun¬ 
day  about  noon  they  appeared  walking 
along  the  road  below  the  hill  and  up  the 
path.  Uncle  Ed  and  Lena,  he  grown  a 
bit  stouter,  and  she  blooming  brightly  in 
all  her  Spring  finery  and  lively  young 
manners.  I  took  them  over  the  lot.  but 
Lena's  shoes  were  too  thin,  and  she  soon 
went  back  to  the  cabin  to  wait. 
“You  must  have  put  in  some  hard 
work.  Did  you  do  it  alone,  Frank?” 
im i uired  my  uncle. 
“Yes,  but  only  by  making  two  men  of 
myself;  one  for  the  forenoon  gang,  four 
to  twelve  with  half  an  hour  for  break¬ 
fast,  and  then  the  afternoon  gang  of  one 
man  from  one  o'clock  until  eight.” 
“It  doesn't  seem  to  hurt  you  any, 
Fiank,  you  are  thin  around  the  face  but 
van  are  filling  out  well  on  the  chest  and 
shoulders." 
"Xo,  I  stand  it  pretty  well  now,  but 
I  felt  almost  a  wreck  the  first  five  or  six 
weeks/’ 
When  we  returned  to  the  cabin  Lena 
was  looking  over  my  library,  which  com¬ 
prised  little  but  free  bulletins  from  the 
stations  and  a  few  catalogues  and  papers. 
“Oh,  Frank,  what  do  you  find  to  do 
here?"  she  exclaimed. 
“Do?  Well.  I  work,  eat  and  sleep, 
that's  all.  except  go  to  church.” 
“Church?  Say.  isn’t  this  a  dead 
town,  though?  If  you  only  had  a  grapho- 
phone  or  something!" 
That  reminded  me  of  an  old  French 
horn  which  I  had  been  plugging  away  at 
for  sometime  in  the  city  and  here.  I 
hunted  it  up  and  tootled -ootle-ooed  away 
to  amuse  my  guests.  Lena  tried  to  sing 
me  one  of  the  newest  songs.  Avhile  to 
go  with  it  I  tootled  out  something  as  best 
I  could.  Then  we  compared  notes  on 
city  and  country  life.  I  told  of  the  auc¬ 
tion,  the  farm  meetings,  the  church  and 
the  neighbors,  how  I  had  tried  to  trap 
a  hawk,  how  I  fooled  the  crows  by  tar¬ 
ring  the  seed,  how  old  Red  and  White 
had  disappeared  one  day,  and  I  had 
found  her  in  the  jungle  with  a  big, 
gawky  calf  down  by  the  pond  hole,  and 
how  I  lmd  driven  downtown  one  day  and 
my  horse  had  stumbled  and  fallen  on  his 
knees  before  a  whole  buggy  load  of  gig¬ 
gling  women  and  girls. 
“Oh.  well,  anything  for  a  change,” 
commented  my  uncle.  “You  don’t,  find 
it  so  bad,  do  you  Frank?” 
.  “I  never  Worked  so  hard  in  my  life 
nor  felt  so  lonely  and  I  never  had  so 
little  money  to  spare,"  I  confessed. 
“It's  a  wonder  to  me  you  have  done 
so  much  with  what  you  had."  declared 
T'nele  Ed,  “but  you  must  he  about  at 
the  end  of  your  rope.  I  am  going  to  let 
you  have  fifty  dollars,  and  I  hope  you'll 
make  good.” 
Lena’s  talk  was  of  the  schools  and 
the  shows  and  what  “he  said"  and  “she 
said"  and  didn’t  I  like  this  fellow  and 
that  fellow  of  the  city  until  I  became 
quite  jealuns.  Rut  at  this  time  of  my 
life  I  was  so  overworked  and  so  eager 
in  my  farm  schemes  that  I  was  poor  soil 
for  the  emotions.  However,  Lena 
seemed  quite  amused  with  such  show  of 
resentment  as  I  could  muster,  and  teased 
me  about  my  clothes  and  the  awkward 
gait  she  claimed  I  had  put  on  from 
stumbling  about  in  my  fields  and  fur¬ 
rows.  Before  they  left  I  set  forth  the 
best  eatables  I  had  been  able  to  provide 
for  the  occasion,  and  I  walked  down¬ 
town  to  the  car  line  with  them. 
“Write  to  nxe  often;  I’m  lonesome,”  I 
said  to  Lena  in  parting. 
“Call  and  see  us  this  Winter,”  in¬ 
vited  my  uncle  as  lie  handed  me  those 
prom’sed  6ct.v  very  useful  dollars. 
CHAPTER  X. 
ItlLLTOP  AND  MEADOW. 
My  story  of  the  Hummer  would  he 
chiefly  my  struggle  with  the  potatoes 
and  poultry.  My  trees  gave  me  little 
trouble  that  season.  Some  that  did  not 
look  green  and  thrifty  enough  to  suit 
me  I  touched  up  with  a  spoonful  of  ni¬ 
trate  of  soda.  Home  folks  had  advised 
to  cut  them  back.  There  were  good 
peach  growers  in  the  vicinity  that  I  met 
once  in  awhile.  Home  said  to  cut  back 
root  and  top  and  some  only  the  top  and 
some  admitted  that  they  did  neither.  As 
I  was  pressed  for  time  I  did  little  prun¬ 
ing  and  found  the  trees  flourished  well. 
My  miscellaneous  crops  were  not  touch  to 
brag  of,  blit  I  had  plenty  of  garden  stuff 
to  use  and  a  bit  of  field  beans  which 
helped  feed  me  in  Winter.  After  selling 
the  fattened  calf.  I  had  a  can  of  surplus 
milk,  eight  or  nine  quarts,  which  I  set 
out  by  the  roadside  each  morning  for  the 
collector  to  take  in  as  he  drove  by. 
(Continued  next  week) 
Fitting  an  Old  Farm  for  Pasture 
I  recently  acquired  a  70-acre  farm, 
which  is  very  thin  laud,  which  has  grown 
up  to  briars,  weeds,  etc.,  for  the  past  five 
years.  Xext  month  I  purpose  to  plow  up 
same,  sow  to  buckwheat,  turn  under  for 
green  manure,  lime  and  seed  down  to  per¬ 
manent  pasture  in  August,  the  object  be¬ 
ing  to  get  a  permanent  pasture  as  snou 
as  possible.  Can  you  suggest  any  im¬ 
provement  on  the  proposed  course  of  ac¬ 
tion,  and  also  the  best  grass  seed  mix¬ 
ture  for  the  purpose?  R.  G.  J. 
Pennsylvania. 
We  should  add  two  pounds  per  acre 
of  turnip  seed  when  seeding  the  buck¬ 
wheat.  It  does  not  seem  possible  that 
the  turnips  catt  make  a  profitable  growth 
when  seeded  in  this  way,  but  they  do, 
and  they  add  to  the  total  organic  matter 
and  available  potash.  Y'ott  will  not  kill 
out  the  blackberry  vines  by  plowing  in 
June.  The  best  time  to  do  that  is  in  Au¬ 
gust-  At  that  time  the  vine  roots  are 
weakened  and  plow  and  harrow  will 
destroy  them.  After  plowing  under  the 
buckwheat  use  the.  spring-tooth  and  disk 
harrow  freely,  getting  out  all  the  brier 
roots  possible.  Rake  them  up  and  burn. 
935 
We  should  use  a  ton  of  lime  to  the  acre 
if  possible  when  seeding  down.  The 
great  hulk  of  se  1  for  pasture  should  be 
Blue  grass,  with  Red-top,  White  clover 
and  a  little  Timothy  and  fescue  grass 
added.  Your  experiment  station  at 
Htate  College  P.  O.  will  send  you  advice 
about  seed  mixtures. 
Shavings  in  the  Manure 
There  arc  many  questions  about  the 
use  of  shavings  nr  sawdust  iu  the  ma¬ 
nure.  The  shavings  usually  contain  an 
acid  which  in  large  quantities  has  a  bad 
effect  upon  the  soil.  Until  this  acid  is 
neutralized,  large  quantifies  of  such  ma¬ 
nure  would  be  likely  to  injure  the  soil. 
After  the  shavings  have  been  sweefeue  I 
or  neutralized,  they  would  do  no  more 
damage  than  straw  or  other  forms  of  bed¬ 
ding,  When  the  sawdust  is  freely  use! 
to  absorb  the  stable  liquids,  there  will  be 
very  little  damage  from  its  use,  as  riiese 
liquids  are  alkaline  and  will  sweeten  the 
shavings.  Also,  when  the  shavings  are 
left  in  the  manure  pile  long  enough  to  go 
through  a  partial  fermentation,  there 
would  be  no  danger.  In  such  cases  it 
would  he  as  safe  to  use  the  shavings  ma¬ 
nure.  as  it  would  manure  where  straw 
was  used  for  bedding.  Often,  however, 
great  quantities  of  the  shavings  are  used, 
and  the  manure  is  hauled  away  every  few 
days,  so  that  it  is  not  thoroughly  sweet¬ 
ened.  In  such  cases  we  should  not  use  it 
except  in  connection  with  a  good  dressing 
of  lime.  It  might  be  used  as  a  top¬ 
dressing  on  meadows,  them  Highly  exposed, 
to  the  weather  during  the  Winter,  but 
where  the  manure  is  to  be  plowed  in,  and 
is  taken  fresh  from  the  stable,  you  should 
be  on  the  safe  side  and  use  at  least  half 
a  ton  of  active  lime  thoroughly  worked 
into  the  soil. 
Preparing  for  Alfalfa 
If  the  ground  for  Alfalfa  is  plowed 
now,  and  harrowed  with  the  Acme  narrow 
after  every  rain  -say  three  or  four  days 
after  -there  will  be  no  weed  seed  left 
alive  by  August  lo,  and  the  Alfalfa  will 
have  the  ground  to  itself.  Cun  be  put  in 
with  the  Acme,  but  I  prefer  a  weeder.  In 
tuts  way  I  have  a  perfect  stand  with  no 
weeds.  a.  c.  w. 
New  Jersey. 
“If  we  lived  in  former  times,  my  dear, 
this  baby  of  ours  could  have  filled  an  im¬ 
portant  public  position.”  “What  kind  of 
a  position,  my  love?"  “Town  crier.” — 
Baltimore  American. 
QUALITY, 
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