1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKERi 
3i9 
grow in a sour or acid soil, yet this is given as a 
remedy. Where large quantities of manure are used, 
scab is more prevalent, and the supply of humus 
greater, yet we are told that “scab will be disastrous 
where humus is deficient.” This seems to he a con¬ 
tradiction. My experience is that the more manure, 
black-soil humus, wood ashes, and excess of fertility, 
organic in form, the greater the amount of scab, 
while the poor, yellow, hemlock soils on our storm- 
washed side hills, which contain but small amounts 
oi humus, give clean tubers. The addition of com¬ 
mercial fertilizers does no harm. A short rotation, 
which included potatoes, would tend to fill the soil 
with scab germs faster than a long one, but a long 
rotation will not starve out the scao germs. 
The chief value of soaking the seed is not in the in¬ 
creased value of the one potato crop, but in keeping 
down the scab crop so ft is possible to grow potatoes 
at all. All seed should be soaked—as one cannot 
pick out seed which is clean by sight. Clean crates 
should be used. Our method is to buy a sugar barrel 
for 10 cents. Put in two ounces of corrosive sub¬ 
limate to each 15 gallons of water, put potatoes in 
sacks, and immerse them for an hour. When done, 
•the sack is lifted partially out and drained, to save 
the mixture. They are poured on the ground to dry, 
and are cut while the next lot is soaking. The mix¬ 
ture is poured out on the ground, and the barrel 
burned up when the job is finished. It is neither 
costly, slow or a hard job, if managed right. I find, 
by inquiry and practice, that the corrosive sublimate 
gives best uniform results for killing the germs on 
the tubers. c. e. chapman. 
R. N.-Y.—Stable manure is alkaline, while a green 
crop, especially in hot weather, is sour. The .germs 
do not move in the soil, and sulphur put in the hill or 
drill will protect the 'tubers fairly well. Even the 
soaking with corrosive sublimate will not kill every 
germ. With us the Orphan was one of the worst to 
show scab. The microscope proved that the scab on 
the beets was the true potato disease. 
PICTURES FOR THE PEOPLE. 
The three pictures shown this week are taken from 
The New York Commercial, and are well worth 
studying. Most people are familiar with the telephone 
situation. The Bell Telephone Company, by virtue of 
a patent about which there has been a good deal of 
contest, retains a monopoly and is, to say the least, 
“not very accommodating” to outside companies. 
Many short lines in the country are operated at a 
low figure, until they try to make connection with 
long distance lines. Then they run against the Bell 
Company, and find that they might just as well try 
to squeeze blood out of a turnip as to obtain fair 
rates from a monopoly. The other companies, how¬ 
ever, are now bombarding the Supreme Court, 
hoping to break down this outrageous condition of 
affairs. No wonder the Bell Company president is 
annoyed at the ringing up these companies are giving 
him, in Fig. 96, and we hope they will keep at him 
until they secure fairer treatment. 
Most people in town and city are familiar with 'the 
contest now going on between the Arbuckles and the 
Havemeyers over sugar and coffee. The Havemeyers 
had practically a monopoly in sugar; the Arbuckles 
dealt largely in coffee. The latter made a move 
against Havemeyer by putting sugar in their coffee 
cup, and to retaliate, Havemeyer goes into the coffee 
business. The Commercial pictures them, in Fig. 97, 
as two loungers in the country store, playing check¬ 
ers on a couple of barrels. It is Arbuckle’s move, but 
Havemeyer seems to have him penned. It would be 
hard to say which has the advantage, and an old 
checker player would hesitate before he made choice 
of either position. The public, in the meantime, 
hopes this checker game will be kept up, as a battle 
between these large companies usually means compe¬ 
tition prices. 
The third picture deals with a subject that is just 
now in everybody’s mouth; more so, perhaps, than 
the sugar and coffee of Havemeyer and Arbuckle. 
The Carnegie Company has been having trouble, ap¬ 
parently, over the division of profits. It seems to be 
admitted that last year this company made a profit of 
about $40,000,000. In the meantime everybody was 
forced to pay advanced prices for iron and steel 
goods. The picture, Fig. 98, shows a side of the ques¬ 
tion that is well worth looking at. The State of New 
Jersey has earned the hatred of millions of Amer¬ 
icans, because of its effort to attract those who wish 
to organize large corporations. By pouring water 
against this big profit, the accounts seem to balance. 
A favorite way of these big concerns is to capitalize at 
a figure far above the actual value of their holdings. 
The actual property may be worth $100,000, but they 
will secure a charter for $1,000,000, th° $900,000 being 
known as “water.” A six per cent profit on this 
$1,000,000 does not appear excessive; yet, it really 
means 60 per cent on the actual capitalization. The 
American people have stood this sort ot irrigation 
altogether too long, and the time has come to shut 
off the stream, or apply it somewhere where the public 
will secure greater benefit. 
CORN CULTURE. 
The Dry Side of the Corn-Fodder Question. 
It is well said that among all other crops corn is 
king, and stands foremost in the eyes of every good 
dairy farmer. The silo men tell us there is but one 
SAY? CAN’T YOU STOP THESE BELLS? Fig. 96. 
profitable way of handling the corn crop, not stop 
ping to consider the fact that with many farmers a 
silo is not practical or possible. I do not wish to 
open a discussion that shall prove injurious to the 
silo doctrine. Farmers are making a success of the 
NOW, JOHN, IT’S YOUR NEXT MOVE. Fig. 97. 
silo, and there is also a way to make a success of the 
dry product. Thus far I am not a silo man, and can 
cite many silage failures. A thoroughly practical and 
careful man is needed to take charge of a silo, and 
those same qualifications go just as far in the success¬ 
ful handling of dry corn fodder. I purpose, in a short 
series of articles, to describe the handling of the corn 
crop as practiced here on our farm, and give in 
detail a method that I am not afraid to place in com¬ 
petition with the old manner of handling corn fodder, 
and after careful comparison, I think 'that I am not 
running far behind the silos in this vicinity. “What 
is one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” and in 
the promiscuous advice given us by those who claim 
to know, we must remember to sort out that which is 
adapted 'to our soil, conditions and locality. I shall 
describe our way of raising corn as a grain and fod¬ 
der crop, believing that some of the careful and pains¬ 
taking customs of our grandfathers on their virgin 
soil, will do very well sandwiched in with the modern 
ideas of our advanced agriculture. My grandfather 
had land once marketable at $200 per acre, and he al¬ 
ways hoed his corn twice; that is one of the old ruts 
from which I do not care to get more than half-way 
out. 
Corn is a rank feeder; it takes hold of the tough 
old sod or the smart young clover, and nowhere will 
the results of manure be more marked than on the 
corn crop. There has been a great improvement in 
manner of manuring, and not many farmers nowadays 
draw out the manure and haul it off the wagon or 
sleigh in little heaps all over the field, to leach in 
those particular places. We draw the manure direct¬ 
ly 'to the field from t'he shed, and spread it, beginning 
in the early Fall and continuing as late in Spring as 
the supply holds out. We plow the ground neither 
deep nor shallow, and roll before harrowing; when 
we think we have harrowed enough, we often go 
over it once more, for when the ground is well fitted 
the crop is half hoed. My ideal for a cornfield as a 
grain crop is to have just four plants in each hill, and 
Stand one to three inches apart in the hill, not all in 
a bunch, as when planted with a hand planter; hills 
three feet four or six inches each way, cultivated 
when the row can be seen, and hoed clean by hand 
when six inches high. The cultivator is kept going 
just as often as possible until corn is tasseled, culti 
vator to run 'two inches deep, and at no time to come 
closer than eight to 10 inches from me hill after hoe¬ 
ing. 
The weeder does not work successfully in our corn¬ 
fields, and I speak advisedly, for we owned one of the 
two weeders that first came to this neighborhood 
I have tried the weeder on corn rowed both ways, be¬ 
fore and after cultivating, across the cultivator 
marks, and the same way cultivated, when the corn 
was small and larger, and on our land it will not 
work; it will ruin just about one-third of the corn. 
On potatoes it is a very different thing, and we use it 
with good success. These ideas may be considered 
foolish and old-fashioned, bu't on rich weedy land 
especially, I can do work around a hill of corn with 
a hoe, that cannot be done with any other implement 
manufactured to-day. In a favorable season good 
corn can be raised without hoeing, provided the land 
is not full of weeds; when a corn hill contains from 
three to a dozen good-sized ragweeds ready to re¬ 
spond fourfold to an unexpected cultivation, the corn 
stands a mighty slim chance. It’s hard work to hoe, 
biu in a dry season like last year, there is consider¬ 
able balm in the full cribs, and repeated applications 
for corn from “less fortunate” neighbors. The two- 
horse cultivator is all right, but 'the man who rides 
one and calmly tells you that corn doesn’t need any 
hoeing, has failed to notice the first mile post, where¬ 
on are printed the instructions for travelers on the 
successful dry (fodder) road. h. s. WRianT. 
Onondaga Co.. N. Y. 
CULTIVATION ALONE FOR APPLES. 
“Yes, pigs are good; but sheep are a hundred times 
better,” says J. S. Woodward, page 270. Let me add a 
little codicil to that. Sheep are good; but cultivation 
is a hundred times better. For a score or more of 
years we have adopted the sheep, grass and company 
method of apple culture, and results have been far 
from satisfactory. Last season we turned out the 
sheep and turned over the grass, giving weekly culti¬ 
vation until the drooping trees forbade it. What a 
story those drooping 'trees revealed when picking 
time arrived! Hundreds of bushels of apples hung 
there within easy reach of the sheep, and which would 
have been gobbled up long before had they had the 
chance, and none would have been the wiser because, 
of course, with no load of apples the limbs wouldn’t 
droop. Notwithstanding the fact that we had to 
cut off many of the lower limbs in order to plow the 
orchard, the branches hung to the ground with their 
weight of fruit. How many barrels of $2 apples has 
Mrs. Hampshire been saving us the trouble of pick¬ 
ing for these 20 years? Our eyes are just getting open 
to the fact that apples make pretty dear sheep feed. 
Yes, turn the rascals (the hogs and the sheep) out, 
and turn in the plow and cultivator. w. a. b. 
Farmer, N. Y. 
DOUBLE BOILER FOR CANNING. 
I wish to do some cooking for canning vegetables, and 
for other purposes in a double vessel, and desire to put 
a substance in the larger one that will increase the heat 
sufficiently to cause the water in the inner vessel to boil. 
What shall I use, and what should the boiler be made of, 
so as to be uninjured by the material used? h. s. 
Marlboro, O. 
In order to make the water boil in the inner vessel, 
ft is necessary to use in the ou'ter vessel some liquid 
which will not boil until heated to a higher tempera¬ 
ture than the boiling point of water, i. e., 212 degrees. 
Any one of the heavy oils, like linseed oil, has a 
higher boiling point than water, and would serve the 
purpose, so far as providing the heat is concerned, 
* but whether it would behave well when heated to 
boiling point, I am unable to say. It might bubble 
and sputter about in a disagreeable way. It has been 
suggested also that a strong brine might furnish the 
necessary heat, since its boiling point is higher than 
that of water, but the salt would corrode any iron 
vessel in a short time. If porcelain-lined, there would 
be no corrosion so long as the lining remained perfect. 
The oils would not corrode any kind of vessel. 
L. a. 
