1510 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 30, 1922 
,-i certain quantity of power, awl the Commission 
iii-rauges Dm financing on the strength of township 
guarantees. There must he an average of three 
farmers to a mile of transmission line. Local com¬ 
mittees have the organizing of circuits in hand, but 
gel expert- advice, estimates and assistance from 
held engineers of the Commission. In 40 townships 
canvasses are complete. Farmers are rated as 
"Hood." ‘‘Fair” or “Indifferent." according as they 
are progressive enough to need power. 
SERVICE COSTS.—Now the interesting thing 
about the "power for the farm” movement is not 
the technique of distribution, but the cost of power 
t > the farmer, what use he gets from il. and the 
saving to him and his family in labor and money. 
That is the essential point. The Hydro-electric Com¬ 
mission figures the cost of low transmission rural 
lines, with transformers, etc., at about $1,200 a mile. 
The capital cost is charged to the farmers on a cir¬ 
cuit in the form of a service charge of so much 
per year. The service charge is calculated to wipe 
out the capital cost of the local distribution line in 
2<- years. The power charge is for current only, and 
is based on the cost of the primary generation and 
distribution. The farmer himself pays all expenses 
o wiring inside his own road-line, and buys his own 
motor and other equipment. For instance, a farmer 
whose house and barn are located MO rods from the 
road-line would pay about $00 for line to buildings, 
$150 for wiring house and barn, and $M00 for a five- 
horsepower motor. 1Xis capital cost would be $500, 
and as lie would be taking what the Commission 
classifies as “Light Farm Service.” his service 
charge would be $00 and his consumption charge 
$25. lie would pay $S5 annually for his current for 
lighting and household appliances and a live-horse¬ 
power motor. Some farmers close to large distributing 
centers get their power as low as four cents a kilo¬ 
watt hour, and the most remote and smallest users 
pay as high as 1<> cents. The average is six cents. 
Fanners within is miles of any large oily, which 
gets a special low rate from the Niagara system, on 
account of large consumption, share the benefits of 
the low city rate. Two or three dollars a month is 
all their power costs them. 
SAVING BY J'OWER USE.—Is there a saving 
from the use of power at, say $300 per year, to the 
average farmer? Some concrete examples taken 
from Ontario’s experience may he worth noting. 
Farm No. 1 pays $S5 a year. The barn work done 
was the chopping of 1.000 bushels of grain, the pulp¬ 
ing of 1.200 bushels of feed. 00 hours of milking, 
with an immense amount of pumping and a lot of 
feed cutting. The house was lighted, a washing 
machine operated, an electric iron ami a toaster 
used. On farm No. 2 the cost is $100. There were 
5.000 bushels of chopping. 35 hours of pulping. 150 
hours of milking, 3 75 hours of pumping. 2 <mi iiours 
for the washing machine and $10 worth of wood for 
ironing was saved. At 20 cents an hour Diis work 
would have cost about $300. The labor thus saved 
was applied elsewhere. On farm No. M the cost is 
$151. There were 4.000 bushels of chopping/ 3.000 
of pulping. 200 hours of milking and separating. 00 
hours of feed cutting, and a lot of pumping not. 
tabulated. The liouse service consisted of washing 
machine, vacuum cleaner, toaster, iron and small 
hake oven. 
VARIED SERVICE.—The cost of power service 
varies, of course, with the type required. Some 
fanners want a much heavier service than others. 
The Hydro-electric Commission has. from a wide 
experience with all grades of farm users, set up 
eight or nine classes. They are hamlet service 
(small-house lighting), house lighting, light farm 
service, medium single phase farm service, medium 
three-phase farm service, heavy farm service and 
special farm service. "The hamlet service takes a 
two-thirds of a horsepower rating; house lighting 
1 1/M horsepower; light farm service four horse¬ 
power: •medium single farm service <t 2/M horse¬ 
power; heavy farm service 12 horsepower, and spe¬ 
cial service 20 horsepower. The total annual cost, 
for service and current, for hamlet service is $2.1.11: 
for house lighting $39.53; for light farm service 
$s<j.74 : for medium single phase $112.30; for medium 
three-phase $120.sd; for heavy farm service $220.M7, 
and special service $354. 
COMPARISON OF RATES—Any New York Slate 
former who is taking power from a private company 
mul using it in his house and for general ham pur¬ 
poses will he able, from his knowledge of the cost. 
t<> get a fair comparison of his cost with the rates 
indicated above. Electrical service charges are a 
complicated affair, but any farmer knows how much 
power he is charged for and how much his annual 
hill comes to. In Ontario cities manufacturers pay 
an average of $l v per horsepower per year, ai>d the 
vales quoted to the farmers are not so materially 
higher as to indicate any discrimination. Indeed, 
private companies that charge $50 and $90 per horse¬ 
power would not lie able to give rates at all ap¬ 
proaching those quoted by the lug Government sys¬ 
tem in Ontario. The Ilydro-electric system is based 
on the generating of huge quantities of power and 
the selling of it at cost. It represents an investment 
of $120,000,000. The United Statps has large power 
generation from coal, hut is relatively not nearly as 
far advanced as Ontario is in the utilization of 
water powers. george w. afsten. 
(Continued next week.) 
Dormant Budded Trees 
N article in a recent issue headed “Plant Dor¬ 
mant Budded Trees" was sent to us by a cus¬ 
tomer who was buying .Tune-budded peach trees from 
ns. The technical nursery terms, “dormant budded" 
trees ami “.Tune-budded” can best he described as 
follows: 
Dormant buds are seedlings budded in August or 
early September. In March these have the tops cut 
off down to the bud and the inserted hud makes a 
vigorous start. Sometimes a planter will buy these 
Here we have pictured all that is left of a giant ash 
tree, which in its best days measured 19% ft. in cir¬ 
cumference. Now its heart litis been eaten out. If the 
old tree could talk no doubt it would be quoting Shakes¬ 
peare, "To what buse uses we may return. Horatio!" 
seedlings with the dormant hud in them, and after 
setting he has to cut the top back, and either stick 
this to]i alongside the tree, or put in a larger stick 
to designate the spot, for only about one inch re¬ 
mit ins above ground. 
T. II. T.'s answer should have been about as fol¬ 
lows: We cannot recommend dormant budded trees 
for the following reasons: First, oftentimes the buds 
do not start after transplanting, thus leaving you 
seedling suckers to rebud. and tints put them hack 
one year. Secondly, digging up the trees retards the 
growth, and Die buds make usually but feeble 
growth. Thirdly, these trees have to have natural 
suckers removed at least twice, and that means 
considerable work and time to do it. as the trees 
are from 10 to is ft. apart. Fourthly, the little 
slumps are so small and difficult to see that early 
cultivation is difficult, and a falling clod may break 
off the single shoot that has started from the eye of 
the hud. Fifthly, the use of the ground is allowed 
one more year for inter-cropping and fruiting held 
hack one year. 
June buds are trees budded in June, and the buds 
have been handled so that they make from 12 to MO 
inches growth, according to season and varieties. 
New Jersey. w. c. b. 
Using Rabbits as Fertilizer 
There are many jack rabbits in this country; big fel¬ 
lows weighing 0 to 12 lbs. each, and they become quite 
a nuisance. Drives on them result in killing thou¬ 
sands. Would they he of much value to bury for 
fertilizer around fruit trees? (Would it pay one to bury 
four or five around eight-year-old apple trees? (>r 
how should they be handled when soil is sandy and in 
need of ft fertilizer? j. b. w. 
Trinidad, Wash. 
S O many trees have been girdled by rabbits that 
il seents something like “poetic justice" to use 
the dead bodies as fertilizer to grow more trees. 
The truth is that rabbit meat is worth more as food 
for humans, liens, or animals, than it is as fertilizer. 
Where hens or hogs are kept it will pay host to feed 
the rabbits and then use the hones around the trees. 
In some parts of the country we are told that rab¬ 
bits and even woodchucks are canned during the 
warm weather and fed to poultry in the Winter. 
It seems almost a shame to bury a big rabbit in 
the ground when thousands of people in the cities 
are lacking food, yet we can understand how such a 
use may he true economy. Half a dozen of these 
rabbits planted around the tree, about 5 ft. out. 
would soon make themselves felt. We have experi¬ 
mented with dead chickens in this way, and found 
that suelt manuring forces the tree into a quick 
growth and green foliage. Available nitrogen is the 
chief element supplied. The hones do not give avail¬ 
able phosphorus, and there is little or no potash in 
the animal body. But the rabbits will surely make 
the tree grow, though too many of them will produce 
light-colored fruit—lacking flavor. 
A One-man, One-horse Farm 
R EGARDING late cultivation ill corn, 1 wish to 
say that a few dollars invested in the 
right implement will solve that question. There is 
no necessity of tearing off the roots, provided a 14- 
tooth harrow cultivator is used and set quite shal¬ 
low. The soil is well stirred, many weeds which 
start late in the season are killed, and it is easy for 
horse and man to cover a large area. 
Regarding the cover crop sown iu corn in 1921, I 
arranged a combination with which I covered in my 
sweet cornfields a variety of cover crops and some 
permanent seeding. This combination consisted of 
the following: A light 14-tooth harrow cultivator, 
with spike teeth, from which I removed the rear 
tooth, replacing it with a fan-shaped accessory, 
called a pulverizer, with seven rods which dragged 
through the loose soil and mixed the seed also. This 
acted as a depth regulator, and the result was a 
very smooth seed bed. and as I am careful to run 
my rows very straight and at a uniform distance 
apart, the strip left untouched along the row is very 
narrow. 
I operate a one-man, one-horse project near a 
Massachusetts city, and with care in laying out my 
fields I have been able to dispense with much hand 
labor. ROBERT F. EMERSON. 
Massachusetts. 
Do Your Boarders Pay Their Bills? 
T IIE following from the Funner*' Guide is a good 
way of presenting a great truth. Most of us 
are keeping bogus hoarders on our farms. They 
may be cows. hens, fruit trees, tools, or hired men. 
They do not pay. We have a general feeling that 
they are bogus, hut we caunot prove it by figures. 
So we keep on feeding them for their society: 
Some farmers are like successful hotel meu. Others 
are in the class of second-rate boarding-house keepers. 
The difference is in the way they collect. A successful 
hotel man not only feeds his guest well and makes him 
thoroughly comfortable, loit quickly knows whether lie is 
able to pay. If unable, nut he goes. Sentiment plays 
no part in the matter. It is a cold cash proposition; 
no pay. no stay. 
But in the case of the other,individual, faith, hope, 
and uncertainty play a prominent part in making him 
what lie is—a second-rate boarding-house keeper. He 
welcomes the new guest with great faith and with visions 
of revenue. He never knows just what it cost him to 
keep a guest, and when payments lag. lie demurs, but 
hopes on, trusting that something will turn up and it 
will <• 0)110 out all right in the end. 
How is it iu your hostelry? Are all the guests pay¬ 
ing up promptly, a little more than they are costing 
you? When you walk down the line of mornings, can 
you tell to a certainty which cow is in arrears with her 
board bill? And. if so. do you eject her, or do you carry 
her account, hoping that she will receive funds from 
somewhere? Do you know which hens are standing ymt 
off or making only partial payments on their weekly bal¬ 
ance? And can you spot quickly the ones that are pay¬ 
ing up promptly, a little in excess of their keep? 
What do you do with delinquent boarders at your 
place? 
The weather here is unusually cold for the time of 
year. In November the mercury stood 5 degrees below 
zero. This morning. December II. it was 5 degrees be¬ 
low. There is snow enough for light sleighs. _ Butter 
mid eggs are scarce and as a consequence high in price. 
There is quite a little lumbering going on. shipping 
about a carload a day. using trucks and teams for haul¬ 
ing. c - B - F - 
Bennington Co., Vt. 
