310 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MAY 48 
one horse walking in the furrow (a), the other 
in (b), and we have the appearance as shown in 
Fig. 2. They are now to remain from one to 
two weeks, by which time the soil will have be¬ 
come warm and the weeds and potatoes will have 
started, the latter with sprouts from one to three 
inches long (as in Fig. 3). At this stage of 
growth, chain a 3x4-inch scantling, or rail, under 
the front of a heavy harrow and drive length¬ 
wise till the surface of the ground is nearly 
level, as shown in Fig. 3. This destroys all 
weeds and rolls all sodB, clods and stones be- 
Xfj-2 
tween the rows and leaves the rich, mellow earth 
just where it is wanted. A seoond harrowing, 
without the Bcantling, after the potatoes are well 
through, will usually be very beneficial. The 
next implement is a two-horse wheel cultivator, 
such as is used in the West. This implement, 
in skillful bands, will work the ground so close 
to the row that weeds have but a very small 
chance of escaping. Once cultivating each week 
till the potatoes are in blossom, and finally a run 
through the field to pull up, here and there, a 
weed that has escaped, and the work is com¬ 
pleted. 
To harvest them: procure a load or two of 
second-hand cement barrels, which can be pur¬ 
chased here in abundance at from five to eight 
cents apiece and, if cared for, will last five or 
six years; distribute them over the field ; start 
the potato digger, and drive fast, as the potatoes 
are thrown out much better than when the team 
walks slowly. I also have eight pickers, pro¬ 
vided with half-bushel baskets, picking the mer¬ 
chantable potatoes first and the smaller ones 
afterward. To complete the work, harrow thor¬ 
oughly to expose any that have been partially 
covered or skipped. 
We now have the large and small in separate 
barrels, not quite full two and a half bushels, so 
that they will not spill in loadiug. Two strong 
men will load ten barrels, or twenty-five bushels, 
in five minutes. As a rule, they Bhould be sold 
before digging, so that they may go direct from 
the field to the purchaser, saving all extra hand¬ 
ling and all extra time lost in hunting a pur¬ 
chaser after they have arrived in the market. 
On good land 1 have several times raised and 
marketed potatoes for ten cents and loss—once 
for eight cents—per bushel as the cost of labor 
and seed. From a few experiments, I have come 
to the conclusion that thirty eeuts per bushel 
direct from the field are equal to forty in May, to 
say nothing of the risk of freezing and rotting. 
Mr. J. J. Thomas, at the Ithaca Farmers’ Insti¬ 
tute last winter, stated that from numerous 
experiments he bad found that five inches is the 
best depth at which to plant, and that anything 
beyond very slight hilling was injurious. This 
so exactly coincides with my own experiments 
that I believe it to be the best practice for this 
locality. 
Cornell University. 
$arm dnmom|i. 
HIRING HELP AND OVERSEEING WORK. 
PROFESSOR W. J. BEAL. 
Most men have no tact in planning work or 
in directing others in their employ. Every day’s 
work they hire often costs them more than the 
return in increased yield of produce. Such 
people are very likely to be always complaining 
about the poor quality of their hired help, when 
the fault is often largely due to their own lack 
of good management. Such men find it most 
profitable to tend a small place and perform all 
or nearly all of their own work- 
in hiring a person, as in every other bargain, 
no matter how well you are acquainted or how 
intimate you may be, it is always the best way 
to have a definite understanding as to the duties 
to be performed and the wages to be paid, tho 
time, manner of payment etc. Draw up a plain 
statement in writing of the agreement and let 
both parties sign it. Specify the rate of wages 
by the day, week or month, and if one week is 
worth more than another, specify the price for 
each. In making bargains other points will 
suggest themselves to thinking farmers. If all 
would pursue Borne such plan, many a quarrel 
and misunderstanding would be prevented. 
Where the number of hands is large and the 
work of certain kinds, it is a good plan to 
arrange with hired help to furnish their own 
tools or a part cf them, as spades, hoes, etc. In 
planning work for others, much of the success 
or profit depends on having everything go off 
well and without frequent changes or delays. 
Every man should work to advantage and should 
as far as practicable, be kept continually at 
certain kinds of work which he can perform 
rapidly and in the host manner. 
Mr. Parbt of New Jersey, gives the following 
mode of managing a lot of pickers of berries. 
•‘As the berries are brought in for packing, 
they are carefully examiued and at least one of 
each ten or a dozen emptied in presence of the 
pickers; if they turn out all right, they are paid 
in white tickets, but if small, green, or faulty 
berries are mixed among the prime ones, or 
they are not put up as directed, a bine ticket of 
less value is given, a practice whioli has a 
Balutary effect, as it is mortifying for them to 
receive a blue ticket, which is the signal of had 
work, in the presence of others. This system 
works beautifully; it is a constant stimulant for 
right-doing.” 
For picking strawberries one and a-half to 
two cents per quart have often been allowed; 
for raspberries and blackberries, a little less. 
At these rates, a smart lad or woman will some¬ 
times earn a dollar and forty or fifty cents a day 
or even two dollars for picking one hundred 
quarts. 
In drawing manure, turning and spreading 
and in many other operations, frequent occasion 
must be had to time hands at a particular part 
of the work, and to experiment in doing it in 
different ways to learn and then practice the 
best way. 
To stimulate them and get the most work out 
of them, some find it necessary to “ hoe a row ” 
and lead all tho rest through thick and thin, all 
day long for the whole season. Others succeed 
equally well with trained foremen and give most 
of their own time to plans for the rest, and now 
and then pick np the odds and ends and see that 
all things go off smoothly. By this kind of 
preparation and foresight the employer will pre¬ 
vent many delays and accidents and be the 
better prepared to meet them when they do 
occur. “Do not begin any operation that can¬ 
not be carried through in the best manner; 
keep all operations iu a compact shape and 
everything up to time.” 
In every business it is very important that the 
proprietor understands all the details himself. 
He must know by personal experience and sound 
judgment just what is a good day’s work. Men, 
if loft to themselves, will very soon try the 
judgment of their employer and most likely im¬ 
pose upon him in all possible ways, unless he 
insist on a faithful performance of every duty. 
The director must have a quick eye to discover 
all slighted work and be able to show unskilled 
men how to perform correctly. He must insist 
on having the work done just as he wants it 
done. He should be concise in his directions, 
use but few words and not talk loud or too 
much. He will usually insist that no conversa¬ 
tion be carried on while the bauds are at work. 
He must have tho tact of correcting, reproving, 
stimulating men to great exertions without in¬ 
curring their displeasure. 
An employer will bo much more successful 
with his hands if he takes an interest in their 
personal wants aud tries to treat them on all 
occasions with courtesy aud respect. He must 
never lose his temper. 
Agricultural College, Lansing, Mich. 
--♦♦♦- 
SPREADING MANURE. 
A great amount of labor may be saved by 
spreading manure directly from the wagon or 
cart in which it is drawn into the field. This is 
not tho only advantage, as in this way the ma¬ 
nure may be scattered much more evenly over 
the ground. When it is thrown off into heaps, 
there always will be spots left without it and 
other places, where the heaps were, wbioh will be 
too rich : the grain is apt to lodge on these places 
or to fall down, from too rank a growth, and on 
tho spots between the heaps, it will be poor. 
When thrown from the load it can be carefully 
distributed and the places whore it is most 
needed receive an extra sprinkle, so that the 
crop will grow evenly and, if seeded with grasH 
seed, tliere will bo a good catch all over tho field, 
which cannot be the case when the manure is 
placed in heaps and spread from them. It is a 
good plan to get tho manure on, and into the 
soil as rapidly as possible, aud this can bo 
done better by spreading directly from the load. 
Every rain washes it iu then just where it is 
wauled, and when the plow or harrow comes 
along, it is covered up so that all of the plants 
can reach it. As manure is moat valuable while 
decaying, it is best to bring it in contact with 
plants as soon as possible, hence it is best to 
clew the barn-yard in the spring and let the 
growing crops ‘have the benefit of the decom¬ 
posing process, rather than the barnyard where 
it is not needed, and the atmosphere which will 
carry Its good effects to the neighbors’ crops as 
well 8B to our own. 
If any manure is left in tho yard after Bpring, 
it should be heaped up and a sprinkle of plaster— 
gypsum—applied about once in a week to pre¬ 
vent the escape of the mauurial gases. The plas¬ 
ter fixes or holds the ammonia so that it is not 
lost. The pileshouldbe forked over occasionally, 
and wetted to prevent burning. When a manure 
heap is left to decompose and ferment without 
stirring or forking over, it is certain to burn and 
be materially damaged. It is well to mix plaster 
all through the heap. A ton of plaster used up 
in this manner will make a oompost, or a ma¬ 
nure heap the enhanced value of which will bo 
worth far more than the oost of the plaster. 
Dirt, weeds, and almost any sort of refuse, may 
be added to the manure heap, and the heat of it 
will kill the seeds of weeds or cause them to 
grow so that by the time it may be wanted for 
use on the wheat ground, they will he harmless. 
Manure left scattered over the barn-yard during 
the summer is almost worthless, as it is leaohed 
of much of its value, and deprived of a good 
deal more by the constant evaporation going on 
all through the hot weather. Dry earth will an¬ 
swer very well in place of plaster to arrest evap¬ 
oration, and by autumn it will have become, by 
being mixed with tho manure, as valuable as It. 
Muck will not take the place of plaster or of dry 
earth for this purpose, but it is good—most ex¬ 
cellent to absorb the juices contained in the ma¬ 
nure or flowing from tho stables. The muck, if 
made perfectly dry, would absorb ammonia, but 
not equal to plaster or dry earth. Sand is not 
good ; it should be loam. Sandy loam would do 
very well, but clear loam is the best. The soil 
of road-sides may furnish a supply. 
Jfatm ®ojjus, 
JOTTINGS AT KIRBY HOMESTEAD. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
We have tried tho “ Cresylic sheep dip ” (at 
our request.— Ed.), manufactured by Kidder, 
Laird & Co., New York, and found it to be 
effectual in killing the ticks on the sheep. As 
the sheep were in full fleeco we made it strong, 
at the rate of one pound to five gallons of water. 
This solution gives no pain to the animal and is 
not at all dangerous to handle. After shearing, 
the tickB which are left on the bodies of tho 
sheep, leave them and go on the lambs. If the 
lambs are dipped twice they will be rid of the 
ticks, as the second dipping will kill those not 
hatched at the first. There should be a week’s 
difference between the dippings. We never had 
so many ticks on our sheep as tbiH year, and it 
is not because they are so poor, hut because the 
season haB been so very favorable for the 
growth of the ticks. A fat sheep may be full 
of ticks, but they do not show so much as a 
sheep in good condition generally has a thicker 
fleeco and more surface of body for them to be 
distributed over. 
We had a small sheep which had twins, and 
as tho lambs would make a heavy draught upon 
her, wo commenced to feed her liberally with 
oats to make plenty of milk. Result, fever, and 
now her fleeco is all dropping off and in a few 
days Bhe will he completely denuded. Grain- 
feeding to sheep mist be gradual, beginning 
with a mere handful, or even less. 
The buckwheat straw we spread on the rye last 
fall did not smother out the grain, but served as 
a protection. Where it was packed down iu 
bunches, it haB been shaken up and spread 
around. This is a good way to get rid of buck¬ 
wheat straw, to draw it directly into the field 
and scatter it on the rye j stirring it up in the 
spring is but litttle work. 
Esquire Davidson had sixty-three chickens 
hatch last year and raised sixty-two. He at¬ 
tributes his great success to the introduction of 
new blood; or, in other words, using roosters 
not related to tho other fowls. The chickens 
were strong and vigorous, and gave him no 
trouble, while the year before he had nearly a 
hundred hatch and lost almost the whole of 
them, as they were puny and weak. 
Our little pigs are doing nicely. One of the 
pens is fixed so they can go in and eat all the 
oats they want. They Boom to enjoy this side- 
feeding, aud at all times of the day some of them 
may be found there. Before they were three 
weeks old they would eat some, and this extra 
feed keeps them from lugging the sows so much. 
Little pigs are very fond of oats, aud they will 
not eat enough to hurt themselves. 
We thought this morning that a worm was 
destroying the rhubarb, but as we could not find 
any on tho leaves which wore full of holes and 
ragged, we finally concluded it was the turkeys 
which were treating themselves. Our rhubarb 
is very fine this Bpring. It was nearly run out 
in the old bed, and last year it was taken np and 
changed and llio roots divided. This seemed to 
give it new life. In ft few years it will be best 
to move it again. The asparagus is coming up 
through the manure, and we have already had 
one mess. There are no weeds visible, aud the 
prospect for lots of asparaguB and few weeds is 
exceedingly flattering. 
Peaches two yoars in succession are something 
now in this cold latitude, but Buoh is the case. 
There used to be peaches every year, before we 
were born, bat since then we do not remember 
peaches after peaches. Ours are nearly all self- 
planted and of course not very choice kinds, hut 
they are good for canning, and some of them 
eat very well “out of band." It is so little 
trouble to raise peaches that we now wonder 
why there are not more of them grown. The 
boys ought to plant pita this year and in three 
or four years they can have peaches. 
A hen has been sot to-day on Aylesbury ducks’ 
eggs, and we must not forget to wet them two or 
three times with warm water before they hatch. 
This is necessary with the eggs of all aquatic 
fowls. The hen does not get her breast wet so as 
to fnrniBb the necessary moisture, which is the 
case with water fowls, and there is danger that 
the skin which lines the inside of the egg will 
become so dry and tough that the little duckling 
oanuofc break through it. A few years ago two 
whole clutches of ducks died iu the shell after 
they were pipped, because the eggs had not been 
wetted. We forgot it, being away from home, 
and some of the neighbors said it waB thunder 
which killed thorn. This used to be an old 
notion. 
Mr. Prince evidently appreciates the difference' 
between a scrub pig and a well-bred one. Mr. 
Smith says he is right and so does Mr. Butler,, 
who says he fatted a Victoria pig last year on 
bushels of corn and it dressed, when eight 
months and nine days old, 171 pounds. This 
pig had the milk of a three-year-old Jersey heifer 
besides the corn. He says he fed a scrub pig, a 
few years ago, plenty of milk and 28K bushels 
of corn, and it weighed when dressed, at nine 
mouths of age, 125 pounds. The scrub had 
more milk than tho other and ato more than 
three times as much corn. 
Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
Jloriritltaral. 
HANDSOME FLOWERING SHRUBS. 
WILLIAM FALCONER. 
No garden of any pretensions should lack a 
few shrubs, and as there is such a great va¬ 
riety to choose from, it is natural that we should 
want the prettiest and the hardiest, and a 
selection such as will afford us flowers through¬ 
out the whole summer. Of course, we cannot 
define the exact flowering period of any shrub, 
as that depends on the earlinoBS or lateness of 
the season, the situation and other conditions 
of growth, and the part of the country wherein, 
it is growing. In the following I have given 
the times of blooming from observations noted 
here during the past two years. 
Among our earliest shrubs to blossom are 
Daphne Mozereunl, a little European whose 
branchos in March and April are clothed with 
purple blossoms to be succeeded, by midsum¬ 
mer, with brilliant berries. Then come the 
Cornelian Cherry—Cornua Mas—western Buffalo 
Berry, Leather-wood, and Spice-bush, in the 
order named; and all have small yellowish 
flowers that appear before the loaves. Though 
their blossoms are not very ornamental, they 
are interesting on account of their earliness. 
Contemporaneous with the above are the little 
Bhrubby Yellow Root of tho Alleghanies, with 
its compound panicles of blackish-purple flowers; 
and the showy Forsythias, of which F. suspensa 
is the earliest, palest-flowered, and most useful 
for covering trellises or porches, or other vine- 
applicable purposes, and F. viridiesiroa for hedges 
or single bushes. About a week later, Magnolia 
purpurea displays its many large, whitish- 
purple flowers before a leaf-bud bursts. Rhodo¬ 
dendron Ddburimuu, with rose-purple blossoms 
expands in early April to May, and is accom¬ 
panied by Andromeda lloribunda. an Alleghany 
evergreen shrub that sets a profusion of flower- 
buds in fall and opens them in spring, and Cas¬ 
sandra calyculata, the Leather-leaf of our North¬ 
ern States. Spirtea Thnnoergii does its snowy 
cloak as April makes its exit, aud at the same 
time the gaudy Japanese Quince, Oydonia 
Japonioa, displays its wealth of soarlet-red. 
Towards the end of April the yellow-flower¬ 
ing Currant has revealed its little clusters, aud— 
where hardy—the crimson flowered one, quite 
an ornamental species—is of equal season. 
About the close of April and in early May the 
naked branchlets of tho American Rad-bud are 
covered with little peach-colored blossoms, as 
aro likeiviso those of tho more showy European 
species. Theu appear the Lilacs, white and pur¬ 
ple, Persian and common, and whioli are as much 
at home in the city as in the country gardens; 
and surely it is a very poor garden indeed that 
cannot boast of a Lilac bush. Then oomes the 
grand rush; our gardens arc a-blaze; the 
air ib perfumed, aud Flora's opulence is prodigal: 
Amelanchiers are profuse in blossoms ; Double- 
floweriug Almonds have their twiggy branches 
thickly studded with “daisies; ” Exochorda 
grandlflora, one of the handsomest of the Bpiraia 
family, is clothed in white; early flowering species 
varieties, and hybrids of the deoiduous Azaleas 
are iu blossom. English Hawthorns, Biugle and 
double, white aud red, diffuse their welcome 
fragauoe ; the Chinese Wistarias drapo our walls, 
arbors, or old tree stumps with drooping dusters 
of blue or white; and Diervillas unburden their 
