THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MAY U 
336 
the Alfalfa to spread,and I know it will keep 
down weeds and give the plot a better show. 
Native prairie grass is our main depen¬ 
dence. All have it in great abun¬ 
dance. I prefer early cutting; that is, 
in July when the grass has just got 
its growth. The Buckeye and Champion are 
the leading mowers in our neighbor 
hood, although we have mowers of all 
kinds Sulky rakes are indispensable, 
stackers and hay presses of different kinds 
are being introduced. Millet will yield from 
one to four tons per acre; it is not a success 
every year. Prairie grass in an ordinary sea¬ 
son, will yield from one to two tons per acre 
according as it is cut on upland or bottom. 
Our dependence heretofore has been ou 
raising cattle; but depending on cattle 
alone to bring in money while paying out 
at all times for almost everything else, will 
sooner or later bring to grief. I. for one, am 
going to raise any crop that will pay me fair 
returns for the time and labor spent on it. 
Oowala. j. s. F. 
FROM ILLINOIS. 
The first settlers on the prairies used the 
native wild grasses for hay and pasture. The 
prairie grass is easily killed when the land is 
once brought into cultivation, and it never re¬ 
appears. I do not know of any effort to re¬ 
seed it. Timothy, clover, Red-top and millet, 
are mostly used for hay now. Blue grass, 0 f 
which there are several varieties, makes the 
best permanent pasture. I have never made 
a careful test as to the proper time for cut¬ 
ting. I have a notion that early-cut hay 
would be less woody and more palatable to 
stock; but I think it more liable to be dusty 
in the mow. During the Civil War when 
help was scarce, I seeded my farm largely to 
Timothy, and cut the seed with a header, tak¬ 
ing off from six to 10 inches of the top, leav¬ 
ing most of the straw and blades which I cut 
with a mower, the grass having to stand un¬ 
til the seed was ripe. The hay was stacked 
as soon as possible after it was cut. The heads 
were drawn to the stack-yard when cut and 
stacked in as narrow piles as possible on each 
side of a ventilator, and covered with slough 
grass. I fed hay put up in that way for 10 
years, stock eating it with a relish and thriv¬ 
ing on it. I sometimes think that the early- 
cut theory is only a notion. There are a 
great many different makes of mowers, rakes, 
forks, derricks for stacking, and carriers for 
barns, and occasionally a loader is in use. 
Portable presses are mostly used for baling 
for shipment. 
I have not adopted any system of rotation. 
I often keep a field in grass eight or 10 years, 
by top-dressing it with stable manure and 
harrowing with a sharp-toothed harrow. The 
crop will be nearly doubled by such treatment 
and the effect will be noticeable for a number 
of years. 
The best time to seed down is very early in 
the spring on fall wheat or rye. The best 
spring crop to seed with is flax. Oats are the 
only small grain crop generally raised here, 
and most farmers seed with them; but oats 
are rank in growth, and take up the moisture 
so fast that young Timothy will perish if the 
weather is dry in May or June. Timothy 
sometimes makes a good stand sowed on oat 
stubble in the fall. j. r. b. 
Chatsworth. 
In this part of Illinois Timothy and Red-top 
are grown for hay, and are almost invariably 
mixed with Red clover. The mixture of 
Timothy and clover is preferred for meadows. 
Clover itself, though very nutritious, is very 
hard to cure when grown alone. Where there 
is a mixture of the grasses with clover a larger 
crop is grown; it forms a more palatable and 
nutritious feed ; it grows up quickly in dry 
weather after cutting, and protects, in a 
measure, the grass from the hot sun, besides 
forming a mulch and preventing a very rapid 
evaporation of the moisture of the soil. More¬ 
over, it improves the mechanical texture of 
the soil as well as increases its fertility. The 
thick growth helps to prevent the growth of 
noxious weeds that rob the soil, shade the 
grass and injure the quality of the hay. It 
also causes toe farmer to cut his grass earlier, 
thus securing a great gain in its feeding value. 
If the grass be cut moderately early, though 
there may be a slight loss in weight, this is 
much more than counterbalanced by the gain 
in the digestibility and palatability of the 
feed, and the waste from shattering, that usu¬ 
ally attends late cutting, is avoided. The 
whole object of the plant growth is to produce 
the seed, and if this is allowed to ripen, most 
of the nutrition of the stalk is transferred 
from the stalk to the seed, while a part of the 
stalk that would have been digestible if cut 
early, is converted into indigestible woody 
fiber. Should the seed not shatter off before 
it reaches the nuimal, a great share of it re¬ 
mains undigested, and the loss as feed is just 
8§ |W9 fc . I« t' hi 5 yiciflity fh« grass if puf 
early usually gets the benefit of one or two 
showers before dry weather. 
We seed down after the land has been culti. 
vated three or four years, and usually after 
cutting a few crops convert it into pasture 
for a year or two before breaking it up. We 
usually sow Timothy and clover at the same 
time—early in the spring—and have no 
trouble in securing a stand unless the seed is 
sown with oats. Then if the spring be dry the 
Timothy suffers. Bowing with a rye or wheat 
crop is preferred. 
To increase the productiveness of our 
meadows we should feed what hay we make 
and return the crop to the land as manure; 
raise a larger percentage of clover; keep down 
all foreign growth; sow more varieties; avoid 
close cuttiog, or pasturing too closely during 
the dry season, and not use the fields for 
meadows until the White clover and Blue 
grass form a stiff, close sod. L. M. W. 
Shelby County. 
FROM MICHIGAN. 
1. Timothy, Mammoth and Medium clovers 
are sown for hay here. I prefer early cut¬ 
ting for these reasons: The hoy is not so dusty 
when taken out in winter, it cures softer, not 
being so dry and hard; if clover, a nice lot of 
green blossoms and leaves are saved, whereas 
if the crop is allow-ed to get ripe, one has a lot 
of black, dry stalks by the time he gets it to 
the barn. 
2. The Champion mower I think the best 
for stumpy laud. Several kinds of riding hay 
rakes are used. 
3. I let the seeding stand three to four years 
and then plow the grass under and plant the 
land to corn aud potatoes,and then so w to vt heat 
or oats, and seed down again. We often seed 
with huckwheat, in fact, grains of all kinds— 
generally in spring; sometimes early in fall, 
from middle of August to middle of September. 
4. The average yield hereabouts is about 
ton per acre. I have never used any ma¬ 
nure on grass, except land plaster. 
5. I have never used any new grasses. 
(5. In regard to increasing the yield of grass, 
my plan is to plow' under a good crop of 
clover, or an old pasture, plant the land to po¬ 
tatoes or corn, then to some other grain crop 
and seed to grass of some kind. Use all the 
barn yard manure you have on the grain 
crop after a potato or corn crop. It this 
method of farming is followed up. you will 
likely raise good crops of grass. s. M. R. 
East Jordan. 
ALFALFA. 
As regards the growing of Alfalfa for pas¬ 
ture or hay, I think it is an unsettled question 
whether it is a profitable crop for the Michi¬ 
gan farmer or not. That it will grow in 
most parts of the State there is little doubt; 
but whether it is more hardy than our com¬ 
mon clover has not been fully determined. 
Some farmers in this vicinity are sowing 
Alfalfa with very good results so far as mak¬ 
ing it grow is concerned. It has not been 
grown long enough to permit any test of its 
merits for hay. One farmer succeeded in 
getting a good start by sowing about 15 
(Continued on Page 341.) 
tVunum’s Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
Domestic Finance. 
PIN-MONEY AND HOUSEHOLD 
ALLOWANCES, 
WHAT THE WOMEN SAY—WITH 
A FEW QUOTATIONS 
FROM THE MEN. 
“ Let a man give his wife equal partnership, 
and initiate her in the secrets of the busi¬ 
ness, and she will be ever ready to be a 
help-mate in preference to a nonentity.'" 
^ 6 TTTH AT’S mine’s mine” is the rule in a 
it good many matrimonial part¬ 
nerships—not the begf, jqile ji) the world for & 
harmonious union. One of our friends has, 
epgraved within her wedding ring, this posy, 
“ Each for the other, and either for both—” 
which certainly applies to money-getting aud 
money-spending, as to everything else in 
domestic life. There is no hard-and-fast rule 
for the household purse, which applies to every 
family—differing circumstances cause differ¬ 
ent arrangements; but no wife should be 
obliged to ask—perhaps to beg—for money 
with which to meet legitimate expenses. 
* * * 
“ In the ideal home no system of book¬ 
keeping is necessary, except to ascertain the 
amount of the necessary family expenses. 
In such a home the mother and daughters 
are full partners with the husband and sons. 
It is not a question of individual income or 
expenditures, but of united income and gen¬ 
eral expenses .” 
That is a man’s opinion, and a very fair and 
honest one, we think. What seems to us nec¬ 
essary is complete confidence—let the husband 
make a clear statement of his income, for one 
thing; for many wives are unintentionally ex¬ 
travagant simply Decause they do not suffic¬ 
iently understand their husbands’ circum¬ 
stances. Another thing which too often 
promotes extravagance is the credit system. 
When a woman is allowed to run up an ac¬ 
count wherever she deals she is very apt to be 
far more extravagant than she would be un¬ 
der a system of cash payments. It is so easy 
to buy unnecessary things when all one has to 
do is to have them charged to the husband’s or 
father’s account, only, unfortunately, a day 
of reckoning must come. Keep house on a 
cash basis—that is a brief, but most excellent 
rule for the domestic finances. 
* * * 
“As a general rule, it seems only just and 
fair for the husband to take care of the 
money." 
That seems perfectly right; the husband 
certainly is the head of the household, yet 
many women are far more careful and frugal 
than their husbands. It could hardly be a 
very agreeable feeling for a man to be de¬ 
pendent on his wife. But it is no less galling 
for the wife to be so dependent that she has 
not a penny of her own,and it is quite as hard 
for the w ife to beg for money as it is for the 
husband. The right way—the only way—for 
perfect harmony is to carry out the principles 
of the ideal home, such as one of our corres¬ 
pondents suggests. 
WHAT THE SCHOOL-MA’AM THINKS 
ABOUT THE FAMILY POCKET- 
BOOK. 
B Y the family pocket-book we may under¬ 
stand two different things. It may be 
taken literally to mean the purse in which 
the household money is kept; or it may mean 
the part of the income that is to be spent for 
domestic purposes. 
As to the first meaning: In a good many 
houses it is customary to have a purse kept in 
a convenient drawer or closet, in which the 
amount to be used for household purposes is 
put at stated times; and any member of the 
family is at liberty to go to this purse when¬ 
ever he or she wants to buy anything for use 
in the house. This plan has its advantages in 
some ways; as, for instance, in saving the 
time and trouble of goiDg to find mother 
when you want to go to “ the store ” in a 
hurry. But I think there are objections to 
this plan, which must be obvious to the sys¬ 
tematic aud careful housewife, and I still 
cling to the old notion of going to ask the 
mother for money when needed for the house. 
Treating the subject from the other point 
of view really embraces the whole of domes¬ 
tic finance; and of this vast subject I shall 
treat only of the principal points. A subject 
that has received a good deal of attention 
with some people is: “Who is to keep the 
money—the husband or the wife ?” Of course, 
no set rule will answer for all people, and 
every tamily must be judge of its own case; 
but, as a general rule, it seems only just and 
fair for the husband to take care of the 
money. When a woman marries, it is sup¬ 
posed that she has confidence in her husband 
in all ways, (if she h asu’t she had better not 
marry), aud it does not show much confidence 
if she is afraid to let him keep the money. 
Just think of the case of the man who gives 
over (because he has to) all his earnings to his 
wife, and has to ask her for every cent he 
spends 1 I have known such a case. Imagine 
him going meekly to his wife aud saying: 
“Mary, my dear, can you spare me two 
dollars? 1 would like to take you to a con¬ 
cert to-pight,” J.tJiink Mpry would not be 
taken to concerts very often. The wife should 
have a certain share of each month’s wages— 
as much as is needed to cover all her expenses 
nicely (and as much more as her husband’s in¬ 
come and generosity will allow), and all the 
rest should be left in the man's care. It is 
often a good plan for the two to run a friend¬ 
ly race, to see which is able to save most in 
proportion, out of their week’s or month’s ac¬ 
count. 
If you are not able to save something—if it 
is only a dollar a week—to put aside, ready 
for the hard times that are almost snre to 
come at some time in your life, you are work¬ 
ing backwards, no matter bow large an in¬ 
come jou receive. Bear in mind, my friends, 
that an article is not always cheap because it 
costs little. It is more economical to pay two 
dollars for something that will wear two 
years than to pay one dollar for an article 
that will not wear a year. True economy is 
not always shown by spending the least 
amount of money. Lastly, no one person 
can do all the saving for the family. Each 
one must do his and her share if success is to 
be attainod. pandanus. 
WHAT A MAN THINKS ABOUT 
DOMESTIC FINANCES. 
J. H. G. 
I N a family where the true “Spirit of 
the Home” has been materialized, where 
the spirit of Christ predominates, there is no 
trouble about finances; that is, in so far as the 
different members of the family are related 
to each other in money matters is concerned. 
It is only in families where the Spirit of Evil 
—the essence of selfishness—prevails, that 
money matters become a cause of quarrels 
and consequent unhappiness. In the ideal 
home no system of book-keeping is necessary, 
except to ascertain the amount of the neces¬ 
sary family expenses. In such a home the 
mother and daughters are full partners with 
the husband aud sons. It is not a question of 
individual income or expenditures, but of 
united income and general expenses. When 
the daughter goes to town to do the shopping, 
her chief trouble is, not what she shall get for 
herself, but what she shall get for “ mother ” 
or sister or her little brother. It is a source 
of annoyance that “ mother’s ” wants are so 
few and simple. It she has any needs she will 
not tell of them until all the other members 
of the family are provided for. While it is 
true that Christ appeared in the form of a 
man, his closest imitators have always been 
women—mothers. 
In the ideal home the question of finaces is 
one that settles itself; it just drops into a 
groove and runs without a jar or fric¬ 
tion. It is simply a question of who best 
can work and best serve. Such things as a 
regular “ allowance,” individual cash books 
or any other method of calculating individual 
expenses is entirely unnecessary. In fact I 
think the keeping of individual accounts is con¬ 
ducive to parsimony, selfishness and jealousy. 
It is said that the best way to make children 
deserving of suspicion is to suspect them; 
certainly the best way to make children mis¬ 
erly or extravagant is to keep the subject of 
money constantly before them. Fortunately 
the happiness of the family does not depend 
altogether upon money—the higher form of 
happiness depends upon love, sacrifice and un¬ 
selfishness: in by far too many cases the love 
of money crushes out all these higher 
emotions. 
It has been my good fortune to be inti¬ 
mately related only to those in whom I have 
had unbounded confidence. It is very seldom 
my children ask me for money, and as a rule 
they refuse it when offered to them. In the 
family we are all anxious to increase the 
family income and limit the expenses. The 
eggs from the little Bantam hen are a part of 
the income of the family as well as my own 
salary; the stick of candy is a part of the 
family expenses as well as the coal bill or the 
taxes. Only those things which are deemed 
necessary are purchased and no record is kept 
either of income or expenses. Happy is the 
individual—and thrice happy are the members 
of the family—who can truly and devoutly 
say from the bottom of his heart—in money 
matters as in other things—“ The Lord gave; 
iftiiaUattiott* gidvjprtisfittfl. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castorta, 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorla, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castorla, 
When she had Children, glia gave them CastorWi 
