Changes in the Dairy Country 
I have* a 153-acro farm, 20-cow dairy, producing milk 
for the Now York market; in other words, l have all 
my eggs in one basket. It is impossible to produce 
milk at the price we are receiving for it. namely, giving 
the dealer 75 cents on every dollar for retailing it. and 
paying $45 per ton for feed. At the present time I 
have 11 head of purebred Ilolsteins, remainder grades; 
had thought of adding a lot of poultry, but this is a 
pretty cold country here, and it does not look very 
good to me. Now for my plan. I thought I would 
keep about 50 or 75 laying hens, reduce my dairy to 
about 15 cows, keeping the purebred*, raising their 
calves. In a short time I will have a big dairy of 
purebrods. as some I have now are good ones. I have 
several good foundation cows, and' a grand sire, bred in 
the purple, I prepared ground, about one acre, with 
good cultivation from sod plowing, raised corn and po¬ 
tatoes last year. This ground is a good sandy loam; 
one part of it. \\ acre, had not been plowed for 50 
years. It is all very rich. I thought of putting out 
5.000 straw berry plants and increasing it some each 
year until I get about two acres. This plan has al¬ 
ways looked good to me. Our seasons are late here, and 
these berries would cotne in after most of the others 
are done, and I believe a good price would he received 
for them. Wild strawberries grow every where here in 
the valleys, also on top of the highest bills. 'What kind 
to plant? How about the ever-bearing, as they appear 
to he the most talked about? What kind of manure, 
raw or composted? w. it. n. 
Otsego. N. Y. 
prices are high. The farm manure, reinforced with mal size, but no such monster egg lias ever before 
acid phosphate, will l»e excellent for this fruit grow- appeared. Its equatorial circumference was 7 y 2 in. 
: ng. and its polar circumference was Uy 2 in. It weighed 
These are only a few of the suggestions which a little over 0 y 2 ounces, which means that it was the 
might be made to owners of small dairies in the hill equivalent, by weight, of 3U normal hens’ eggs. It 
country. The markets, the soil and the man must was believed at the time that the act of expelling 
he studied before deciding just-what to do. hut such an immense egg would kill the ben that laid it; 
there is no doubt that changes are coming fast and this, however, was not the case, as tlie bird seems 
they must be provided for in time. to have entirely recovered from the performance of 
_this unusual feat. 
A Big Egg From An Egg Laying 
Contest 
T HERE appears to he a wide diversity of opin¬ 
ion among farmers as to the proper time to sow 
clover seed. Like so many other farm operations, 
there can be no set time as to date that can be relied 
upon as the exact proper time for this; but the old 
rule to sow when the ground is in a honeycombed 
condition is a good one to follow. My practice has 
been that whenever this condition is present, wheth¬ 
er it he in February or April, I sow the seed, and 
have yet to record a failure from freezing out of the 
young plants, while when some later and long con¬ 
tinued dry weather prevails, it has often been killed, 
because the seed was sown on a surface too clo.-e 
and smooth to allow of the young plants getting a 
good root-hold. A marked instance of the ability of 
the young clover plants to withstand frost occurred 
to me some years ago. 1 had sown the seed on a 
25-acre field very early. The weather during the 
fore part and middle of April was unusually warm 
and Spring-like, and the seeding had a good start, 
the young plants appearing evenly over the whole 
field. At this stage we had a return of unusually 
cold weather for the time of year, the ground being 
frozen quite hard for three nights in succession. As 
I was always endeavoring to keep my work up to 
and a little ahead of the season, this appeared a 
good opportunity for "I told you so” to he heard 
from, and I was informed that my seeding was null 
and void. I did not sow any more seed on that field, 
and I never had a better crop of clover than grew 
that year. 
The clover seed was sown quite early on this farm 
this Spring, 1922, and the young plants were show¬ 
ing up good and even over the field when the weath¬ 
er changed to much colder, and for two nights the 
thermometer registered around 26 degrees, hut the 
clover has come through the ordeal all right. Again, 
a few years ago, there was part of a clover meadow 
that, because of scarcity of labor here, was left until 
after harvest, and then it was found to be so ripe 
and badly tangled up that it was left aiul plowed 
under in the Fall. The next Spring the young clover 
plants showed tip thick and lusty wherever they were 
scattered over the surface or not plowed under too 
deep. It looks as if nature in her wisdom had made 
ample provision for the perpetuation of plant Species. 
New York. n. e. cox. 
F OR some weeks I have been wanting to break 
into your ‘‘big egg" contest. I am afraid I 
waited too long, because apparently one of your 
readers has got us trimmed. Still, I want you to 
know that the egg laying contest at Stores may very 
possibly be a good second. I am pinning to this let¬ 
ter a little squib that I put in our weekly story 
about the contest, and I am enclosing a photograph 
of the hen and of the big egg she laid. 
Stores r*. (>. Conn. wm. f. Kirkpatrick. 
The note mentioned by Prof. Kirkpatrick follows. 
T HIS man's location is in Central New York. 
rather far hack from the main railroad lines, 
in what may be called the hill country. Ilis case is 
typical of many. The tendency in the millc business 
is to follow the history of manufacturing and crowd 
out the smaller dairies. That largely happened in 
New England, and seems to bo working out in New 
York. The extended use of the milking machine and 
the perfection of efficient barn equipment enables 
one man to care for a greater number of cows than 
is the case where hand work is mostly employed. 
This machinery and equipment makes it necessary 
to employ considerable capital, and as time goes on. 
the business is quite sure to settle into the larger 
plants. The smaller units will hardly lie able to 
compete with the larger dairies, and will slowly fall 
out, except in cases where some special advantage 
can he secured. 
Thus it is that all through the dairy sections 
farmers who have kept cows for many years are 
looking for profitable side lines. They will be driven 
to it in time, and some of them will find the change 
most profitable. In some cases even the cows have 
been entirely given up. and chemical fertilizers sub¬ 
stituted as plant food. Such men are producing po¬ 
tatoes, fruit, seeds, grain and hay for sale, and are 
better off than when they kept a dairy. It is not 
possible for all to do that, and the plan suggested 
by W. B. R. will be better for them. This means 
getting rid of all the grade or inferior cows and 
keeping a small herd of purebrods. This man will 
find that the production of good heifers, for some¬ 
one else-to feed and keep, will pay better than milk 
production. There is a tendency to crowd big 
dairies close to the large cities, and on high-priced 
land it is not considered wise to produce all the 
milking stock. Farmers back among the hills can 
do such work better, and thus, by raising and selling 
high-class heifers, they can make as much net profit 
a* they could selling milk. Much the same will be 
true of raising pullets, Back among the cold hills 
it is a question if Winter eggs can be produced at 
any profit. The bill farmer can hardly expect to 
compete with 4he large commercial egg farms within 
short haul of the city market. They have the advan¬ 
tage in equipment, markets and purchasing power. 
But they cannot produce the needed pullets to ad¬ 
vantage. Most of them buy their stock each Fall, 
and here is where the hill man can 
him start with | 
(limit Egg CompUred irith Normal Size. Fig. .28.2 
The hen is shown at Fig. 2S3 and the eggs, in com¬ 
parative size, at Fig. 2S2. The largest egg ever re¬ 
corded at Stuns was laid during the forty-fourth 
week by Rhode Island Red hen No. 383, owned by 
Judge W. li. Card of Manchester, Conn, in order 
I------—-—-- When a Horse Rolls 
R. I. Red Hcii Which Laid Giant Egg. Fig. .283 yESTERDAY evening a man, driving along the 
I road past the farm stopped and told me that 
to picture in one’s mind the appearance of such an I had a horse down in a straw rick. I had turned 
unusual egg. it will he well to remember that the the stock across the road for a time, and expected 
standard egg weighs two ounces and that it. meas- to bring the horses back before sundown and put 
lives about 0 V 2 in. one way and from 6 to 614 iu. them up for the night, and was on the lookout for 
the other way. liens in the contest not infrequently them when they should get near the gate. I saw 
lay eggs with two yolks that will run up double nor- both 011 top of the ridge near the middle of the field, 
and later noticed but one. and sup- 
find opportunity. Let 
the best stock of some breed like Leg¬ 
horns, and buy pedigreed males as 
carefully as he would a hull for his 
herd. Hatch all he can each Spring, 
and run them at large through the 
Summer. In the Fall, before cold 
weather conies on, sell all but about 50 
of the finest, to bo used as breeders, 
and make no effort to produce Winter 
eggs. Handled iu this way. pullets can 
lie produced sit a low cost. There would 
be a ready sale for them, and there 
will he no need of expensive equip¬ 
ment. Heifers and pullets will pay 
better on such a farm than milk and 
g ou the straw blown over 
the rick on the ground had rolled over, 
getting liis back fitted nicely into a 
depression, with his feet sticking up 
iu the air. and as helpless as a sheep 
upside down in a trough. This rick is 
about 200 ft. from the house, and in 
plain view, but the horse was on the 
opposite side, and could be seen from 
the road beyond the house, but was 
not visible from the house at all. 
I removed some straw ou one side, 
and proceeded to roll him over so he 
could get his feet underneath again, 
when lie promptly got up. He had 
been down about an hour, and was not 
much the worse for the experience, but 
had lie not been found lie would most 
certainly have died, probably before 
morning. This recalls two other ex¬ 
periences with horses, both rolling into 
a ditch of cold spring water, and at 
A considerable number of such farm¬ 
ers are doing well with small fruits, 
such as strawberries and raspberries. 
We know of several cases where suit¬ 
able fields on the hills have paid well. 
There is not great danger from late 
frost, and, as a rule, the fruit ripens 
late, so that it reaches market when 
At a picnic in Wayne County. N, Y., a group of farm women gave an object lesson 
of some of the old-time fashions. It was possible to find a supply of old-fashioned 
clothing—nearly every farm can show its quota—and so these women gave the 
young folks an idea of what grandmother wore. No short skirts or low necks 
there. How do you like it? 
