604 
©CT S© 
THE BUBAL. filW-YOBKEB. 
in the line of economical management would 
be in an earlier planting of many crops; still 
it was very evident that with over a 
hundred and fifty acres of vegetable stock 
and seed to get into the ground, even with 
my force of over forty hands and a dozen 
double teams, it would be impossible to get in 
all the crops, even within a fortnight as early 
as the season would admit of. Now the 
question to be answered is, can I 
shorten the fortnight? Yes, by taking 
either of four different courses: First, by 
doing some of the work in the fall that I now 
do in the spring. About all my land is 
usually fall-plowed, but I can do more than 
this; can apply the stable manure and the 
potash and phosphate class of fertilizer in the 
fall, either on the surface or plowed under, 
with a decided gain in the fertilizing value of 
the first, no loss on any fair tillage land from 
the third, and a decided gain from the more 
soluble condition of the second, be it applied 
either in the form of muriate or unleacbed 
wood ashes. The crops of grain and my 14 
acres of onions will need no re-plowing in the 
spring, the application and harrowing in of 
nitrogen in some form being all that will be 
needed by the latter. 
A second way to gain a fortnight in the 
time of maturing of the crops would be by 
manuring with a more liberal hand. A large 
farmer who visited me over two weeks before 
my onions were ripe enough to pull, told me 
that his 40 acres had all died down and were 
pulled. He told me, further, that he used 
three thousand cords of manure annually 
on his farm, feeding his onion ground 
so liberally, that the manure could 
not be all plowed in, but two men 
followed the plow raking it into the 
furrows. His application averaged 
twenty-four cords to the acre, of 
stable manure—as such heavy man¬ 
uring insures him on an average 700 
to 800 bushels to the acre, or between 
two or three hundred bushels more 
than an average crop where ten cords 
are applied, and as it costs him but 
a low figure per cord, it no doubt 
pays in his case, located very near 
to a great city market, as he is; but 
with me farther away it would not 
pay directly. Perhaps if I should 
lay down my onion ground every 
few years, and take out the immense 
accumulation of potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid in enormous crops of hay 
I might find a profit in this intense 
style of farming in addition to gain¬ 
ing that very desirable fortnight. 
A third course for me to pursue 
would be to reduce either the varie¬ 
ties I cultivate or to restrict the area 
devoted to more or less of these va¬ 
rieties. If there are any kinds to 
be struck out it will be those where 
the margin between profit and loss 
is the narrowest. My fourth and 
last method would be to increase my 
working force and the various im¬ 
plements used by them. Either of 
these four routes are open to me in 
the race after that lost fortnight. 
Which shall I take? The long even¬ 
ings of winter are before me—I will 
consider. 
Marblehead, Mass. 
THE WEEPING HEMLOCK. 
Some 12 years ago the Weeping Hemlock 
shown at Fig. 353 was purchased from the old 
farm of R. B. Parsons & Co., of Flushing 
Long Island. It was then two feet high or a 
little more. It was planted near the house in 
high, dry soil in n south-eastern exposure. 
It could not stand the heat and dryness as 
shown by the injury to the leaves both during 
winter and summer. It was removed to its 
present position two or three years after which 
it is in lower and moister ground. It has 
since grown luxuriantly and has never sustain¬ 
ed the slightest injury from any cause. It 
measures four feet in hight and nearly nine 
in diameter, being nearly as large above as at 
the base, while the top is so wavy and broad 
that one might seemingly lie upon it as upon 
a mat tress. 
There is much of elegance in this beautiful, 
graceful specimen oi Weeping Hemlock. In 
fact there is no other evergi’een tree at the 
Rural Grounds so much admired' The illus¬ 
tration is a pen and ink drawing from nature 
made last April before the past season’s 
growth ,had begun. 
farm 0cxm©nuj. 
A VALUABLE AGRICULTURAL IM¬ 
PLEMENT. 
It occurred to me last spring that a steel 
rail would be an efficient implement to spread 
manure, and I borrowed one from the Canada 
Atlantic R.R. Co. with which to make the 
experiment. The manure, a large proportion 
of it night soil, had been deposited on a four- 
acre field. I hitched two heavy teams to the 
rail, about four feet from each end, and 
started them, taking a sweep of 30 feet each 
time. It worked admirably. The field was 
level, and after going over it four times with 
the rail, which was done more quickly than 
once with the harrow, 1 had the satisfaction 
of seeing the manure not only evenly spread 
but well incorporated with the surface soil. 
In half a day, with two men and two teams, I 
had spread as much manure as 20 men could 
have done in the same time with forks and 
shovels. 
Filling in a Drain.— In the adjoining 
field I had dug a drain several hundred yards 
long and filled it 20 inches deep with stone. 
After having covered the stone with coarse 
litter, it occurred to me that I could make the 
horses fill in the earth with the steel rail. I 
placed a team on each side of the ditch, and 
had the rail drawn on an angle. The clay 
was thrown in by the rail as fast as the horses 
could walk, and in an hour I had covered as 
much drain as would have taken my whole 
force a full day to do with shovels. 
The Rail in a Corn Field.— After har¬ 
vesting my corn this fall fit had been culti¬ 
vated on the ridge system) I decided that I 
would try to level the ridges and root out the 
corn stubble before plowing. The corn had 
grown so strong that the stalks had to be cut 
with a brush scythe, and the stubble was as 
thick as stakes. A three-horse team on each 
end of the steel rail leveled the ridges nicely 
and uprooted and scattered the corn stubble 
so thoroughly that the soil (a stiff black clay 
loam) ploughed as easily as a summer fallow. 
The Rail as a Leveler.— I tried the rail 
as a leveler on a rough field plowed out of 
grass. I found it too heavy a job for four 
horses, and worked it with two three-horse 
teams, drawing the rail lengthwise with the 
furrows. I hardly expected it to work well, 
but I was surprised at the result. After going 
over tne ground twice with the furrow, and 
twice on an angle with the furrow, the rail 
left the field as level as a billiard table, and 
had packed the sod so firmly that it is now 
(three weeks after) well rotted and will cross¬ 
plow as easily as stubble. 
Gathering Stones.— I have a field that 
throws up a heavy crop of cobble stones from 
four to six inches in diameter every time it is 
plowed. I propose, next time I plow it, 
to collect the stones into winrows with the 
steel rail so that they can be easily loaded into 
carts, I am not so sanguine of success in this 
experiment as I have been with the others, 
but I am so convinced of the value of a steel 
rail as an agricultural implement that I do 
not propose to be without one on my farm. 
The rail I use is 30 feet long and I find that 
it is too heavy for two ordinary farm teams; 
but a three-horse team on each end can walk 
with it all day. The tongue and front gear 
of two wagons make an admirable sulky 
attachment. Where the ground is knolly I 
would prefer to use a 20-feet rail. 
The Rail on a Summer Fallow.—I kept 
a summer fallow free from weeds, destroying 
a heavy crop of thistles and Couch grass this 
season with one plowing in June and one in 
September. Before I could turn the plows 
into it in the spring the weeds and grass had 
formed a heavy crop #,t least 15 inches high. 
They were turned under by fastening a chain 
to the plow beam. I harrowed the field 
with an Acme harrow and then allowed it to 
stand until the second crop of weeds began to 
show up. It was then worked with the steel 
rail two or three times during the summer, 
and the young weeds, torn up by the roots, 
fell back over the rail and withered in a short 
time in the hot sun. The result is a thor¬ 
oughly clean field this fall with the least pos¬ 
sible outlay of time and labor. I have had 
very little experience in agricultural opera¬ 
tions, and my experiments with a steel rail 
may contain nothing novel or instructive to 
the readers of the Rural New-Yorker. But 
as far as I can ascertain I am the first in this 
district at least to utilize railway iron for 
cultivating the soil, and my new way of 
From Nature. Fig. 353. 
working my fields has excited some comment 
among older farmers, sometimes not quite 
complimentary to myself. a. h. 
Ottawa, Ont. 
Oiimj ^nsbimtDnj. 
SWEET OR SOUR? 
T. D. CURTIS. 
It is rather astonishing to me that so wide¬ 
awake and intelligent a paper as the Manches¬ 
ter (N. H.) Mirror should attempt editorially 
to ridicule the idea that sweet milk is better 
for calves ahd pigs than sour milk. In a re¬ 
cent issue, it says: 
“Several writers are amusing themselves 
this season by announcing that sour milk and 
sour swill are unfit food for swine. Of course 
they make out a good argument from their 
premises, but there has been nothing yet pre¬ 
sented that will outweigh the fact that pigs, 
calves and chickens have for years and per¬ 
haps for ages been fed with sour and curdled 
milk nearly as soon as they would eat it, and 
have reached full maturity in good health * 
* * It cannot be that the acid in sour milk is 
so very injurious, for currants, cranberries, 
rhubarb and pickles are eaten with a relish 
and without injury. It cannot be the chemi¬ 
cal change, for that is no more than takes 
place in many things while being prepared for 
use. There may be men who will be induced 
to start on a run for the pig pen as soon as 
they mix the meal in a pail of hot swill, so as 
to get there before it sours, but the majority 
know better and will not be alarmed by any 
such teaching.” 
My observation is that “the majority who 
know better” know little of anything else. 
They are certainly ignorant of the changes 
that take place in food by souring, which in 
this case is incipient decomposition. But 
such stuff may pass for argument with some, 
and seem very conclusive. It is quite sug¬ 
gestive, and deserves a little notice. 
The fact that pigs and calves have been 
raised in the past on sour milk and many con¬ 
tinue to keep these young animals on that 
diet, seems to be very decisive in the estima¬ 
tion of our contemporary. They have main¬ 
tained comparatively good health. But 
would they not have thrived better and re¬ 
quired less food per pound of growth if they 
had been fed on sweet milk? And would they 
not have relished it better? This economical 
and humane view of the case does not seem to 
have suggested itself. Work can be done 
with very poor tools, and men and auimals 
may be reared on very poor food and with 
very unpleasant surroundings. Does it follow 
that good food and favorable surroundings 
would not be better, and that the man is very 
shallow who thinks they would? It is not so 
much as to what can be done as to which is 
the better. Pigs and calves can be raised on 
sweet milk or sour milk. The question is, 
which is the better for them? On which will 
they thrive the better? 
Wbatis the effect of souring milk? It turns 
the milk-sugar into lactic acid. The one is 
food; the other is not. If the writer of the 
paragraph from which we quote were perish¬ 
ing from hunger and thirst, which does he 
suppose would afford him the most 
nourishment, a bowl of sweetened 
water or a bowl of vinegar, into 
which the sweetened water is capa¬ 
ble of being turned by souring ? 
There is food of respiration in the 
sugar that would keep the fires of 
life going and warm up the system. 
There is no food in the acid and its 
effect would be to cool the system. 
It would have almost the opposite 
effect of the sugar. 
The change which takes place iu 
the ripening of fruit and vegetables 
is a part of the process of bringing 
them to maturity and perfection. 
It is therefore not parallel to the 
change that takes place in the sour¬ 
ing of milk, which is the beginning 
of decomposition. The milk is never 
again as perfect and wholesome as 
when first drawn from the cow. It 
is then exactly in that condition as 
food which nature designed. All 
subsequent changes are deteriora¬ 
tions. By souring, the sugar is lost, 
and so much of its food value is gone. 
In place of the food in the sugar, we 
have an acid,which may or may 
not be wholesome according to con¬ 
ditions, and how it is used, but it 
contains no nourishment. If used 
in excess, as it certainly is when 
the animal is constantly fed sour 
milk, it is injurious, to a greater or 
less degree. The animal may sur¬ 
vive and grow in spite of it, but it 
would have better heelth and grow 
faster without this drawback. A 
little acid may be good, but a great 
deal of it is bad. It may do as medicine, but 
it has no value as food. 
Lots of toolish and even wicked things have 
been done in the past, and are done now for 
no other good reason than that they were 
done in the past. Feeding pigs and calves 
acid food is one of these wrong things. The 
hungry animals have to eat it or starve, and 
they get so hungry that they eat it with a 
relish. They are starved and forced to it. 
But nature sanctions no such thing. She 
furnishes them a very different food, of which 
man selfishly robs them, and doses their 
tender stomachs with sour stuffs in place of 
the sweet and delicious article which nature 
designed for them. 
The fact that certain acid fruits are eaten 
with relish and benefit does not furnish a 
parallel to a wholly acid diet, and that of an 
animal and nitrogenous character, instead of 
a vegetable and carbonaceous one. There are 
several kinds of acids, most of which in the 
fruits differ from lactic acid, and they are in 
such small proportion and so blended with 
other substances that they are wholesome 
when taken in moderate quantity. A little 
vinegar on beans or cabbage, and the like, is 
palatable and wholesome, if not partaken of 
too largely. But suppose acid were taken by 
the quart or even pint at every meal, does 
our contemporary think it would prove whole¬ 
some and fattening, producing growth in the 
young, and vigor in the old? 
“ But,” says our contemporary, “ many hu¬ 
man beings prefer sour milk.” It should have 
said some prefer it. But what does this 
show ? Only that they are exceptions to the 
