74 
THE 
RURAL «EW-Y©RSC1R 
FEB. 4 
are $30 per month, “and found.” Backsetting 
or Fall or stubble plowing, costs as a depart¬ 
ment of work $1.50 per acre, to hire it done ; 
but owning the teams and machinery, and 
operating as extensively as Mr. Dalrymple is 
doing, reduces this cost from 20 per cent to 
25 par ceur. 
Our next; sketch—number four of the series— 
will treat of Seed and Seeding, with an illus¬ 
tration. Any of our subscribers, desiring in¬ 
formation ui on the subject of any article in 
this series, not herein clearly stated, will 
receive a courteous response by addressing 
questions, tersely stated, to the Rural New- 
Yorker. 
EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 
GEORGE T. POWELL. 
Twenty-five loads of clover were put in 
one of my silos, which was 20x1(1x10 feet in 
size. Most of it was quite green—some not 
wilted at alt. The last four loads were cured 
and quite dry. No plank covering was put 
on. Two thousand sheaves of rye were put 
on for weight—1 should judge about 14 tons. 
The silo steamed somewhat for a week; the 
butts of the rye sheaves were blackened a 
little next the wails, but neither straw uor 
grain was injured for sale. The clover comes 
out very nice; brown in color, but sweet, and 
stock relish it. It comes out drier than I 
expected. A very little mold next the walls 
was apparent, but stock eat all of it. 
The corn silo, 30 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 
10 feet high, filled with Blount's Prolific and 
Chester County Mammoth, was opened No¬ 
vember 22, m perfect condition. Screw' 
pressure w as used on this. A (bin layer of 
ensilage next the plank and a few inches 
down at the ends of the plank, were moldy; 
beyond that, all was excellent. Stock all ate 
it readily with two or three exceptions 
among the cattle for only two days, aud in 
their first feeds there was more or less of the 
spoiled ensilage mixed in. I think that the 
ouly reason why stock refuse to eat it at 
first is because more or liss of the b id ensil¬ 
age is offered to them on the first opening of 
silos. .Sheep ate it greedily from the first. I 
am feeding 335 sheep and 30 cattle, horses, 
and hogs. 
Tne millet silo opened unexpectedly well. 
The millet was put in without cutting, and 
layers of coi’n were cut and thrown upon it 
thro;) times in filling. The long stalks not 
compacting so closely as the finely cut corn, 
there was more mold for about 15 inches under 
the plank, and some next the walls, and while 
a little was thrown into the yard us not con¬ 
sidered good enough to feed, the cattle when 
turned out would eat the most of it. The rest 
was very good—leaves and stalks juicy, brown 
in color and sweet, no acid condition about the 
millet and very little in the corn. I feed corn 
in the morning, a little ciover hay at noon, 
and millet at night, aud for all fattening 
stock nearly the same grain rations as when 
they have been fed upon good hay, though 
I am satisfied had not my stock come up in 
unusually thin coudition I could have fat¬ 
tened them with less grain than is usually fed 
with hay. "* 
The pressure needed will depend upon the 
construction of t he siio. If built low, heav¬ 
ier pressure is needed; if built high, much 
less. A siio 23 or 25 feet high needs but little 
pressure in my judgment, as the mass com¬ 
presses itself nearl enough for good preserva¬ 
tion. At 10 feet high my four screws— 
inch—with a power of eight tons each, I find 
sufficient. No dampness on sides or bottom. 
If ensilage is pressed so hard as to have liquid 
on bottom, 1 think more harm than good is 
done. 
When the materials are at hand, concrete I 
think the cheapest and best for silos. Silos 
made of it are durable, needing no repair, aud 
proof against air and water. My walls are 
10 to 20 inches in thickness, and cost—when 
clear cement was used—10 cents per cubic 
foot, aud where lime and cement were used, 
eight cents per cubic foot. 
•Proportions: A mortar made of one barrel 
of quick lime aud 13 barrels of gravel. When 
ready for use add oue barrel of Rosendale 
Cement, and work into the wall all kinds of 
stone, and cover them well with the mortar. 
My stock barn (including three silos) 05 feet 
by 75 feet, was entirely constructed of this 
material aud it is very satisfactory. 
From my observation thus far I think 
silos in the hands of intelligent, pains-taking, 
and careful farmers will have a great value 
jn the management of stock, but there will be 
many failures with them. 
Columbia Co., N. Y. 
CHEAP BARBED WIRE FENCING. 
Some time after the St. Louis Fair in 
October 1331, I stated in the Rural that I 
had seen there a cheap barbed wire fence 
which the owners informed me sold in con¬ 
siderable quantities at 50 cents a rod, or $160 
a mile, and that the whole being of iron, had 
so small bulk and weighed so little, a mile 
could be carried in a common two-horse 
wagon. My recollection of the fence now is, 
that it consisted of two twisted barbed wires, 
painted black, but not galvanized, an inch 
gas pipe post for every' lh)r. feet, and a three 
winged, cast-iron flange to slip over the post 
and enter the ground to keep it in place. 
This announcement drew out a great many 
enquiries from subscribers and reader's of ilie 
Rural, some of which were referred to me. 
But unfortunately I had lost or mislaid the ad¬ 
dress of the inventors and could give no 
satisfactory account of where this wonderfully 
cheap fence was to be seen or had. Besides, on 
making inquiry of the cost of material, I was 
unable to see how the fence could be afforded 
for the small sum named; since the posts, if 
they were no more than five feet long, would 
cost, according to market quotations, fully 50 
cents each and the two barbed wires not much 
less than 20 cents mure—to say nothing of the 
cast-iron flange, which ought to weigh fully 
three pounds. Possibly, however, my recollec¬ 
tion of the distance apart of the post was wrong 
—it might huve been 20 feet instead of 10)4 
—but even with such a lessening of materials, 
it was difficult to understand how the fence 
could be sold nt 50 cents a rod. 
But within a few days 1 have run across an 
advertisement of the inventors who promise 
an “iron fence, bull-proof, fur 5U cents a rod 
and $100 a mile.” Aud now suffer me to ex¬ 
press no little satisfaction that 1 was not mis¬ 
taken and did not mislead the readers of the 
Rural. B. F. Johnson. 
[Our esteemed contributor sends with the 
above explanation an advertisement clipped 
from an agricultural paper published in St. 
Louis, Mo. From this it seems that ilulbert 
& Gould, 1201 to 1211 Cass Avenue, St. Louis, 
Mo., offer the above fence at the price 
stated. Descriptive catalogues free. Here 
is the information sought by a large number 
of subscribers through our Querist Depart¬ 
ment. We know nothing about them.— Eds.] 
S. RUFUS MASON. 
In these days of a scant supply of labor 
aud high prices for it, economy w Inch does 
not approach meanness, is one of the fine arts. 
For instance, it is economy tu hire only good, 
well trained farmhands, but it is not economy 
to set them down to a meanly furnished table. 
It is economy to feed your people well, but 
it is far from economical to have to purchase 
all they eat. A farmer is expected to have 
something besides salt pork and potatoes on 
his table, aud a variety is more economical 
than mere meat, wheat hour, canned goods 
and store truck generally. 
Vegetables ure so healthful, so economical 
and so indispensable that it is a sign of a poor 
farmer if his table lacks them at any season 
of the year. There is no land on the most 
productive farm in the country which pays 
one-third as well as a well laid out vegetable 
garden, properly planted and cultivated. 
As hand labor is costly, it is both wise and 
economical to dispense with it whenever pos¬ 
sible. My experience in market gardening 
has proved, that all kinds of garden truck can 
be grownand cultivated by amanor boy, with 
a one-horse single shov«-l cultivator far more 
successfully aud at far less expense of time and 
wages than by the employment of any three 
good men with hoes. A garden for vegetables 
should have no bushes, trees or perennial plants 
in it, but should be convenient for the plow 
and team at all times. It should be long, to 
save time in turning, and wide enough to sup¬ 
ply the family demand. It should be coven d 
w ith good, old well rotted manure six inches 
deep | lowed under 12 inches, then it should 
be covered again with niuuiire three inches 
deep, and this last coat should be just buried 
out of sight. The ground should then be har¬ 
rowed and cross-narrowed till fine, marked in 
rows 28 inches apart, and left to stand three 
days before planting. I never plant for a 
succession ; but plant early sorts for early 
use, medium sorts for later use, and late sorts 
for Fall use and for storing away for Winter. 
This gives a variety for use through the sea¬ 
son, and we do not have the monotony of the 
same flavor throughout the season. 1 plant 
as early as the soil will permit—hardy sorts in 
March or April : tender ones in May ; but I 
get everything as early as possible. I am 
particular in having pure, true, fresh seeds ; 
this is an absolute necessity, and if a farmer 
is not a judge, he must avoid “ box seeds” and 
buy direct from some house of established 
character, if it costs five time as much. Never 
let a poor crop be laid to bad seed, because 
that is a certain sign of a bad gardener. 
The time to plant seeds is, as a rule, when 
apple tree leaves are as big as a mouse’s ear; 
The depth to plant is, as a rule, about three 
times as deep as the size of the seed. As soon 
as they are planted, walk along the rows flat- 
footed, treading in the seed quite hard, then 
draw the Takeover the row to break up what 
would become a hard crust after a few heavy 
dews or a light shower. Cabbages and to¬ 
matoes are, in the hands of most farmers, best 
planted at once in the ground where they are 
to grow, as house growu plauts are usually 
so badly grown, so long-legged, as to be un¬ 
able to stand the change to hot days and 
cool nights, so that they do not recover till the 
season is half over, and never are so fruitful. 
Having got thus far, and the plants all show¬ 
ing above ground, pay no more attention to 
them for the season, but attack the weeds 
with all possible vigor; don’t allow one to 
grow a quarter of aniuclibigh, aud if the seed 
w as put in properly the crops will not even 
need thinning. But every plant must have 
room to grow, both roots and tops. One 
horse to a cultivator may be run between the 
rows as often us every four to six days to ad¬ 
vantage, aud in gathering the vegetables al¬ 
ways pick the finest; this will allow th e 
smallest to grow. It will surprise novices to 
find how this simple mode of managing a 
vegetable garden will produce the finest, 
earliest and most succulent products. The 
faster the growth is made, the better they 
are. Never let the ground bake, and if heavy 
rains beat the soil down hard, run the culti¬ 
vator through as soon as the storm is over, 
to let the roots have air, or the plants will 
stand still as to growth. 
Dodge Co., Neb. 
-- 
Asparagus. 
G. W. Thompson asks, p. 860, for informa¬ 
tion respecting the seed liearing of asparagus. 
It is exhausting to the plant that produces the 
seei, of course; but that does not matter so 
much because almost all asparagus beds con¬ 
tain too many plants. The worst, objection to 
the seed is that when littered over the ground 
it conies up in the Spring and is then a weed 
as troublesome to get rid of as any other weed. 
A very good way to prevent this is to pull out 
all the female plants as soon as the blossoms 
show the distinction of sex. The sprouts on 
the male plants left will be all the stouter and 
more succulent, and the small merely stami- 
nate and fruitless blos s oms which they pro¬ 
duce will be no appreciable drain upon the 
vigor of the roots, w. 
[We beg to say in connection with the 
above, as a result of careful observation 
on the Rural’s part, that there is a distinct¬ 
ly male asparagus plant; but no distinctly fe¬ 
male plant. If all the males were dug out of 
an asparagus bed, the supposed females would 
fruit all the same. They are really perfect 
flowers and the pollenation and fertilization 
occur before the little flowers open. It is a 
small thing to take credit for, our readers 
may think, but we do credit ourselves with 
fir.-t furnishing this bit of information wh.cli 
was obtained at a considerable cost of time 
aud patience. An inference from the above 
is that the male asparagus plant is of no sex 
ual service whatever.— Eds.1 
Leon alludes to the retinospora as a fine 
plant for a dwarf hedge, and I agree with 
him. I have not used the plain form in this 
way, but I have the golden (aurea), and I have 
never seen anything more beautiful for a 
dwarf hedge. The plauts, when put out, 
should not much exceed a foot in hight, if you 
want a good hedge with the least trouble aud 
expense. I Lave tried plauts three feet high, 
but I do not propose to do so again. The re¬ 
tinospora is used as a hedge plant in Japan, 
and Mr. Thomas Hogg some time since io_ 
formed me that he thought it the most beauti¬ 
ful hedge he had seen in auy part of the world. 
The peculiar smell of box is very offensive to 
some people, who will not tolerate it in the 
garden. To such, and to all who want a 
dwarf evergreen hedge, the retinospora will 
lie an acceptable substitute for the box. It is 
much less trouble to take care of and keep in 
form if properly started. 
Among the more recently introduced labor- 
saving farm implements, the manure spreader 
desei ves to be noticed. It works on the prin¬ 
ciple of the endless chain. The manure is 
passed through strong teeth set spirally in a 
cylinder, is broken up fine, aud spread as 
evenly as it could be done by the most careful 
workman. The machine will cover a strip six 
to eight feet wide as fast as a horse can be 
made to walk, and will spread artificial fertil¬ 
izers, lime, etc., as well as barnyard manure, 
whether long or short. I saw Kemp’s Spread¬ 
er at work recently, and was much pleased 
with its performance; but I think it might 
and should be made of better materials, at 
least tbe wooden parts. It undoubtedly saves 
much labor, and does its work well. On large 
farms there can be no question as to the econ¬ 
omy of using such labor-saving implements, 
but in the interest of small farmers, fruit 
growers, and, iu fact, of all who use manures, 
it would be interesting to know' at what di¬ 
minishing point a manure spreader would 
cease to be economical; and so of other la¬ 
bor-saving machines. Who will furnish the 
figures ? 
Mr. Brown, page 881, alluding to the Far¬ 
mers’ Colleges, says Dr. Nichols’s “head is 
level.” I think the Doctor, with a strict re¬ 
gard to the proprieties, can return the com¬ 
pliment. Mr. Brown’s views arc eminently 
practical and to tbe purpose. There is much 
that young men might learn during the Win¬ 
ter about tbe principles of agriculture and 
horticulture, vegetable physiology, chemistry, 
botany, etc., besides acquiring the habit of 
study, investigation and reading, the latter of 
itself being an unspeakable blessing. As Mr. 
Browm says, let us hear more on the subject. 
The sycamores (Plane Tree, Buttonwood, 
Platanus occidentalis) are singularly pictur¬ 
esque and beautiful this Winter. Ido not re¬ 
member ever to have seen them so much so 
before. This I attribute to last Bummer’s 
severe drought, causing the old bark to be 
shed early and abundantly, leaving almost 
the entire trunk and principal branches as 
smooth and white as polished marble. A 
large tree standing out alone is now a. very 
striking and beautiful object in the landscape. 
There is not a little controversy just now 
about the value of muck as manure. Is muck 
a manure, or is it not? Has muck any'value 
at all to tho farmer or the gardener ? If 
those engaged in this controversy, especially 
scientific men, would simply' define the words 
“muck” and “manure” as they understand 
them, many words would be saved aud much 
valuable information conveyed to the reader. 
I know'that these words do not have the same 
meaning to all men alike. 1 have evidence of 
this almost every day of my life. It is quite 
possible, I think, to given comprehensive yet 
simple definition of the word manure, that shall 
be acceptable alike to men of science and till¬ 
ers of the soil. Bo in regard to muck. Many 
make no distinction betw'een leaf mold and 
muck, while many more do. Yet there is a 
difference between them, as there is also a 
difference in different kinds of muck; and 
he who attempts to define them will often 
find himself puzzled to determine where leaf 
mold ends and muck begins. As for myself, 
I have an abiding faith in the value of both 
leaf mold and muck, especially the former. 
From tho manner in which “polled” or 
hornless cattle are now' spoken of, an im¬ 
pression is pioducod on some minds that they 
ai’e a new breed here. More than thirty years 
ago, however, their points and value were 
discus-od very much as they are now, and 
everything was done tlmt could lie done at 
that time to make them popular; but the 
Durham “boom” was too much for them. 
Some of the descendants of those introduced 
at that time (and before) may still be occa¬ 
sionally' seen about the country. When the 
Farmers’ Club used to meet in tbe old 
Museum building in the Purk, regularly once 
a week Lawyer Nash might be seen going 
across the Park, with his head aud his pockets 
full of “ polled ” cattle. He was their cham¬ 
pion, but Lewis G. Morris and other Durham 
men were too much for him, though he was 
always sure to have the last wan'd. The Al¬ 
derney boom followed (it seems to be still 
rolling on), and all seemed to forget the “ pol- 
lies” and united in praising these beautiful 
little milking “ deers ” (or dears, as some may 
think who pay' the prices.) The “pollies” 
w'ould now seem to have an open field and a 
chance to show' what they are w'orth, and I 
think that will be in the direction of beef. 
There is no more beautiful berry plant for 
the sitting-room in Winter than Ardisia 
erenulata. Its dark, glossy, evergreen leaves 
make a brilliant contrast with its bright-red 
berries, which are borne profusely all over 
and through the plant. They are very per¬ 
sistent, too, remaining on the plant a long 
time, it being no uncommon sight, in well- 
grown plants, to see «t the same time flowers 
and also berries in dift'erentst ges of ripeness. 
There is a variety occasionally seen that 
bears white berries. It makes a pretty con¬ 
trast with the red, but is kiss showy. The 
Ardisia may begrow'n from cuttings or seed, 
the latter being tue better way, but requires 
patience, as the seeds are a long time in start¬ 
ing. The plant itself, iti fact, is a slow 
grower. The while kind is propagated by 
grafting on tho red. The plant thrives well 
in sandy loam. It is subject to scale, which, 
however, are easily removed. Horticola. 
