1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
4i5 
HORSE SHOE FARM NOTES. 
Having Too Much to Do. 
MISDIRECTED EFFORTS.—Our people have com¬ 
menced growing sugar beets in this section, and I 
drove around with the State Instructor for several 
days. It would be amusing, if it were not so pathetic, 
to observe the misdirected efforts made to make a 
living. One man had an acre of land, a village lot, 
which was admirably fitted for growing sugar beets, 
but he was “so busy” he really “hadn’t, time to grow 
them.” 
“What are you doing?” I asked. 
“I have taken a piece of ground to sow to oats!” 
“Where?” 
“Up above here about 2V 2 miles.” 
Oats, if they do well, may yield 40 bushels per 
acre, and sell for 35 cents per bushel. This is above 
the average in both yield and price. His share would 
be half. So this man will, therefore, get half the 
straw and $7 worth of grain per acre for his labor. 
After paying for thrashing bill, fertilizers and seed 
he will not have over $5 per acre, and drives five 
miles per day to get to his work. His own acre, de¬ 
voted to beets, would give 18 tons of beets worth $90. 
and would not have cost over $5 for seed and fer¬ 
tilizer. He will have to put in 17 acres of oats and 75 
miles of travel to get as much for his labor as he 
would from the beets, but he had no time. We must 
stop growing crops which bring such meager returns, 
and grow crops which require skill. 
BOY WORK.—I sent two boys out to the 
blackberry patch to set in plants, where 
there were missing hills. It was hot, and 
the soil was hard. I presume the boys did 
their best, but most of the plants died. I 
knew I ought to go out and show them 
how, but I nad to nail up a turkey yard, 
and did not; in consequence, I lost the time 
of two hired helpers, my plants, and had 
to set the whole thing over again. The 
plants were set shallow, the earth was not 
trodden hard, the dirt was shaken off the 
roots, and the plants allowed to lie in the 
sun, and when water was poured on, no 
fresh dirt was put on top to prevent bak¬ 
ing. I said to the older one: 
“Why don’t you learn how to do some¬ 
thing well, and be capable of earning good 
wages?” 
“I cannot afford the time to go to 
school,” was the reply. “I wanted to learn 
to run a typewriter or bookkeeping, but did 
not have money or time.” 
“Get out with your bookkeeping or wo¬ 
man’s work (typewriting). Learn to set 
plants properly—learn to care for a fruit 
farm. You need not spend a cent or lose 
a moment of time; just keep your eyes 
open and think while you work, and I will 
give you three times what you now earn. 
The State has advertised for a sugar-beet 
instructor, at $2 per day and all expenses. 
I know a man who wants a young man to 
run incubators and care for poultry. There 
is something wrong about a young man 
who works for $15 a month, and is dear at 
that.” I felt relieved and virtuous after 
that speech. 
He said: “I think you are right, and if I did not 
have so much riding on my wheel I would try to study 
some.” 
I was just going to “let out on him” when I remem¬ 
bered that the Vacant spots were where I had dug out 
diseased plants, and so many of them were there sim¬ 
ply because I thought I had so much to do the year 
before, I neglected to pull and burn the few affected 
ones. 
TURKEY TALK.—I have not told you how I came 
to be so busy that I could not see to the boys. In 
the morning Mrs. Chapman announced that the tur¬ 
keys were hatching, and she wanted the yard made 
tight; 16 out of 18 eggs made a fine sight, pure 
bronze. “Big when they are first hatched,” said a 
neighbor’s boy, admiringly. “Just put her in; she 
will stay all right till noon,” I urged, “I am so busy; 
we want to finish planting potatoes this forenoon. 
“You know the crows will pick up every one the 
first day while they are weak, and the old turkey 
will hide in the swamp if she gets out. Better not 
risk it,” said the wise wife. But I said “Pshaw!” and 
hurried on. At noon, as I came out from dinner, I 
saw a crow in a tree, a hen turkey on the fence, and 
several heifers trying to hit her, but nothing else. I 
hurried, and cleaned out the animals, but not a young 
turkey could I find. As I sat on the fence, viewing 
the lonely mother turkey, and dreading to break the 
news to my wife, I had a bad time of it. I am afraid, 
'if there had been a ghost of a chance, I would have 
laid the blame on her, but there wasn’t. I lost a 
good share of the afternoon, just because I had so 
many more things that I ought to do, or else because 
of the mean, shiftless habit of putting off doing little 
short jobs till some more convenient time. 
After the turkeys were gone, I thought I would 
try to do better in future, a sort of death-bed repent¬ 
ance, so I went at the fence an'd neglected the boys. 
The old turkey ate dandelion blossoms and dusted de¬ 
murely, without showing a bit of feeling for me or 
the loss of her brood, while I mourned. After an 
hour she seemed quite contented, and began moving 
off, so I went down again, and found 12 of the little 
ones with her, much to my surprise. Surely virtue 
was rewarded, even before the fence was finished. I 
put her in the yard. Toward night the boys went 
down and heard a peeping. By careful creeping they 
caught the other four skulkers, and the family was 
again united, but the scare took the flesh off me. I 
won’t put off things like that again, if I have to 
neglect all the crops. c. e. chapman. 
is obviated. The check, when properly filled out, is 
only payable to the person or firm intended, and 
therefore does not offer any inducement for robbing 
the mails. When cashed by the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment, the checks are to be turned over to the Treas¬ 
ury and a new one of the same denomination issued, 
thus providing a constant issue of a fresh, clean, cur¬ 
rency. The provision of $50,000,000 in fractions of a 
dollar will be a certain stimulus to small transac¬ 
tions, both through the mails and in ordinary trade. 
The plan seems to us a thoroughly good one, and we 
hope it will soon become a law. Fig. 133 shows the 
proposed check for 50 cents, as issued, while Fig. 134 
shows how it will look when transferred. 
THE PROPOSED NEW POST CHECKS. 
Bills for the establishment of a post-check system, 
wlierdby sums from five cents to $5 may be conveni¬ 
ently and safely sent through the mails, at a cost of 
one cent for fractional parts of $L and two cents 
each for $1, $2 and $5 notes, have been introduced 
into the United States Senate and House of Repre¬ 
sentatives. The idea is to retire all legal-tender notes 
a aare iwwiBB BKgi 
POST CHECK AS CURRENCY. Fig. 1.13. 
_ CIIECK 
PAY TO 
C/ V. 
PECO Paym c nt. 
PAYABLE TO 
THE PAYEE^l 
NAMED 
HEREON, ' I 
PAYABLE TO 
BEARER IF 
THE SPACES ARE 
K «IOI 
FILLED J 
POST CHECK FILLED OUT. Fig. 134. 
up to the $5 denomination, and replace them with 
new post Checks of similar appearance and denomina¬ 
tions, and to retire $50,000,000 of larger denomina¬ 
tions than $1.0 and issue in their place post-check 
fractional currency of five, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents re¬ 
spectively, to the same amount. These checks will 
be issued by the National Treasury in the same man¬ 
ner as other legal-tender notes, and will pass from 
hand to hand in ordinary business, just the same as 
all our currency. When the holder of a post-check 
wishes to remit it through the mails for a sub¬ 
scription to his favorite paper or any of the thousand 
purposes for which money is forwarded to distant 
points, he writes the name and address of the person 
or business firm he wishes it paid to on blank spaces 
provided for the purpose, affixes a one-cent stamp for 
denominations less than $1, or a two-cent stamp for 
each one of the larger checks, cancels the stamp by 
writing his initials and the date over it, and mails it 
In an envelope exactly as a money order or bank 
check is now mailed. This post-check, which former¬ 
ly circulated as currency, now becomes a personal 
check of the sender on the United States Treasury, 
payable to the person or firm designated on it in writ¬ 
ing, at any post office or sub-Treasury in the United 
States at which proper identification can be made. 
The advantages of this system would be to provide 
a convenient and perfectly safe method of sending 
money through the mails, entirely accessible to mil¬ 
lions who have no bank account. The visit to the 
post office for the purpose of buying a money order 
MORE ABOUT THE GRASS CROP. 
On page 369 we gave a conversation with Mr. Geo. 
M. Olark, of Connecticut, with reference to his grass 
crop. On May 14 Mr. Clark said that his grass was 
about three inches high, and he then put on 500 
pounds of fertilizer per acre. On June 1 he cut two 
•samples of the grass to send us for examination. On 
the field which was seeded September 22, 1899, a fair 
'sample was cut. The tallest grass was 18 inches high, 
with an average of about 12 inches. One square foot 
of land gave 535 spears of grass which weighed nine 
ounces when cut. On this basis there would be 24,502 
pounds of grass to the acre. In order to compare this 
with the later seeding, Mr. Clark cut the grass on a 
square foot from a field now seeded four 
years. The grass on this foot weighed 12 
ounces, and contained 406 spears. It is 
somewhat remarkable that the old grass 
has held so many original plants. We find 
many seedings where there are less than 
250 spears of grass to the foot. Mr. Clark 
says that the season has been very dry, 
with 'but one light rain since the grass 
started. The old fields nearby would 
hardly be worth cutting unless rain falls 
soon. Fields which were well cared for, 
that is, thoroughly cultivated before seed¬ 
ing, properly seeded and well fed, always 
have an advantage, especially in a drought. 
The grass reached us in good condition, 
and has a fine green color. When grass 
has been overfed with nitrate of soda, it 
takes on a bluish tinge; in fact, Where ni¬ 
trate has been unevenly spread through 
the field, one can tell its track through the 
field at a distance by the unnatural color 
of the grass. The advantage of using the 
well-bailanced fertilizers containing an 
abundance of potash and phosphoric acid 
is evident when cutting or feeding a crop 
The nitrate rushes and starts the crop, but 
there must be plenty of the other element 
present to make good grass and sweet hay. 
Mr. Clark says he does not pretend to 
know all about grass, but he thinks he 
does know how to take poor, rocky and 
swampy New England land and work it 
into a meadow that will average four and 
five tons of hay per acre. One who looks 
at his field and sees the crop taken from it 
will make up his mind that he has learned 
the secret of doling this. We are often 
asked whether the average farmer can af¬ 
ford to carry out Mr. Clark’s plans exactly. The 
plan is based on three things—careful tillage, heavy 
seeding and yearly fertilizing. It will sometimes hap¬ 
pen on the average farm that other crops demand 
the services of team and tool's just when this grass 
work should be done, so that the full scheme cannot 
be carried out. By taking a small area at one time, 
good grass can lie obtained. At any rate, it will pay 
most of us to dodble our usual work of preparing 
grass land. 
Forage Crops.— I have one-half acre Dwarf Essex rape 
sown in drills 20 inches apart on good land, after Mr. 
Woodward’s directions. It is looking line; sown April 25, 
and nearly covers the ground. It will soon be ready for 
the pigs, and I am expecting much from it. In the same 
field is one-half acre good common clover nearly read, 
to bloom and side by side of the rape, so I will have a 
good chance to compare the two. People here are.watch¬ 
ing that rape patch closely, as it is something new to 
them as well as me. c. p. b. 
Summit Co., Akron, O. 
When to Fertilize.— Our farmers make two applica¬ 
tions of fertilizer, one with the planter in the drill and 
another broadcast as soon as possible after planting, 
generally about April 20 to 25. I don’t know of anyone 
who applies fertilizer in June or July, and I do not be¬ 
lieve it would be either practicable or profitable. A 
potato wants plenty to feed on while young, and if it will 
not grow then it never will. If you apply a ton or more of 
a good well-made fertilizer as the farmers do in this 
vicinity about the only thing that would stop the growth 
at that time of year would be a drought, over which wo 
have no control. c l. y. 
Orient, N. Y. 
