Lessons Jersey Potato Growers Are Learning, 
his marketing difficulties, and was 
pretty well satisfied with himself and 
things in general. lie suddenly came 
back to earth when the bottom dropped 
out of the market in the height of the 
1020 harvest. Starting out at the be¬ 
ginning of the season at record prices, 
‘•spuds” tobogganed at the rate of a 
dollar a barrel a day. Farmers who 
began on a Monday morning at .$10 a 
barrel found themselves accepting $.1 
a barrel the following Monday. Shortly 
potatoes went as low as $3 a barrel, 
dropping to less than $2 before the 
season was over. This situation cre¬ 
ated a stir unprecedented in potato 
circles. The psychological effect was. 
on the whole, wholesome. Conserva¬ 
tive growers who had been inclined to 
look askance on proposals in the line 
of co-operative marketing suddenly be¬ 
came amenable to new ideas. The up¬ 
shot of it all was that some new local 
co-operative marketing organizations 
were formed, resulting in the New Jer¬ 
sey Co-operative Potato Growers’ As 
sociation. which successfully completed 
its first season’s work, just past, with 
the product of 20.000 acres contracted 
for and marketed. In other words, 
this association in its initial year sold 
for its members close to 3,000.000 
bushels, bringing a return of over 
$3,000,000. This association, however, 
was not a novel conception at this 
stage. The co-operative idea was born 
in Jersey potatodom hack in 190S, when 
the Monmouth County Farmers’ Ex¬ 
change. patterned after the Potato Ex¬ 
change of the Virginia Eastern Shore, 
was launched. Through the example 
of this body, and its signal success, the 
leaven of co-operative marketing has 
been working, coming to a head with 
the demoralization of the potato mar¬ 
ket of 1920 and 1921. 
Sunflower Silage Experience 
Y OU ask for my experience with 
sunflowers as silage. Two years 
ago I planted ’about 4^4 acres, about 
two bushels of corn and one-half 
bushel of sunflower seed. About one- 
third of the land was a little too wet 
to raise good corn, but I got a good 
crop of sunflowers. I had my silo 
full, which is 12x30 ft., and without 
the sunflowers I would not have had 
my silo more than one-half full. Let 
me say right here that when I put 
that crop in the silo I did not have 
much faith in those large stalks mak¬ 
ing good silage, but I have used almost 
all kinds of silage—clover, millet, oats 
and peas, and corn—and I believe the 
sunflowers as good as any of them. 
Last year I planted about the same 
amount of ground, and had about two 
acres left after filling my silo. We 
had to cut and set this up. which was 
some job. We ran them through the 
cutter; the rollers crushed the dry 
stalks, and the knives cut them about 
1 in. long, which made them in finite 
fine pieces. The stock ate them all up. 
but I don’t like this way. The silo is 
the place for sunflowers: it is cpiite a 
hard job to out this fodder, as lots of 
the stalks were from 12 to 14 ft. tall, 
and some of them we measured were 
f>!4 in. around. The largest ones we 
had to cut twice in two in order to 
handle them. We would cut about as 
high as our head, and again at the 
ground. If any man thinks lie can 
handle such heavy fodder full length 
he will change his mind by the time he 
has loaded about one load and run it 
through the cutter. 
I am keeping 30 head of cattle on 
100 acres: will have silage enough to 
run me through, and am feeding silage 
to all my stock. My cows are doing 
well, making seven cans of milk from 
20 cows. I would like to ask the 
readers of The R. X.-Y. who have fed 
this kind of silage to tell me what 
they think of it. and give the reasons 
they don’t like it. if they have any. 
I am thinking of putting up another 
silo next Summer, and planting about 
six or seven acres of corn and sun¬ 
flowers, so you see I am well pleased 
with the silage. Two of my neighbors 
who laughed at my posy-pot. as they 
called it. two years ago. and saw it 
again last year, are going to raise sun¬ 
flowers this Summer. It is quite a job 
to plant sunflowers and corn and keep 
them mixed well, as they will separate 
in the corn planter and run a few rows 
of corn and then sunflowers. You have 
biggest year or nearly $3,000,000, and a total of other associations continued their business inde- to keep stirring them. I use a two-horse corn- 
$21,000,000 since its beginning. Its example has pendently. With the help of the State Farm Bureau planter. guy blowers. 
been 1 oil owed in other parts of the State, so that Federation some steps have been taken to bring all Broome Co., X. Y. 
today New Jersey has eight farmers’ associations the locals together into a single State potato-selling 
concerned with the marketing of potatoes, either association. There is a strong 
principally or in connection with other crops. Some, of such a move, hut a basis for 
like the Monmouth Exchange, are farmers’ stock factory to all parties, has not ye 
companies, declaring annual dividends; others are ENTHUSIASTIC GROWERS 
imrelj co-operative non-capltalized organizations, the biggest things the Jersey po 
They are the South Jersey Farmers’ Exchange, the mind today. There are a lot o 
Burlington ( ounty Farmers Exchange, the Mercer potato game, hut these are tli 
t ounty Co-operative Association, the ITightstown The Jersev growers are notato 
Field Gullies that Need Filling. Fig. 226 
Notes From New England 
S TRAWBERRIES UNDER GLASS.—While most 
of the early strawberries on the market come 
from the South, there are a few men in New Eng¬ 
land who make a business of growing strawberries 
under glass, and fruit grown in this way always 
brings a much higher price than that which is im- 
