4i6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 3 
THIS GREA T COUNTR Y. 
Ann SORTS OF OPINIONS. 
AnFAnFA in Louisiana. —Five years 
ago, I induced some planters here to sow 
a little Alfalfa, so as to learn whether 
we could not raise our own bay, and 
better hay than we were getting from 
the prairies of Arkansas and Texas, of 
which this town alone handled about 
2,000 cars per year, at an average price 
of about 880 to 890 per car. The success 
we had with this is easily explained, as 
there is hardly a Red River farmer to-day 
who has not from 5 to 300 acres of Al¬ 
falfa, from which are cut the first year 
from four to six tons, and the second 
year from 8 to 12 tons of hay, which is 
better hay than the finest Timothy. This 
year we shall have hay to sell from this 
section instead of buying. Besides, it 
makes one of the best pastures for cattle 
and fattening hogs. And that is not all 
—by plowing it under about every four 
or five years, the land will produce al¬ 
most twice as much corn and cotton as 
it did before the Alfalfa was on it. It is 
a far better fertilizer than most of the 
commercial articles we get in this mar¬ 
ket. As the root of the Alfalfa pene¬ 
trates the ground to a depth of six to 
eight feet, it will do well in a dry season, 
as well as a wet one, and is sure to make 
a good crop any year. H R 
Shreveport, La. 
A Cloverless Country —In one sense, 
there is no clover grown in this part of 
Iowa. The great products are cattle, 
hogs and horses, and something to feed 
them is the chief problem A few people 
raise potatoes. To feed the stock, they 
must havecorn. Much Timothy is grown, 
and sometimes clover, but it is all for 
feed. I know of no one who knows of 
clover as a soil renovator. There is a 
little clover here and there, and it is 
badly winterk lied, but in all cases,-it is 
plowed up for corn. Corn is the great 
crop, and all rotations, as sowing of oats 
or wheat, are to prepare the ground for 
Fall plowing and corn. When a Timothy 
m< adow becomes poor, it is plowed for 
corn. Corn follows wheat or oats, or 
Timothy, and generally yields 40 to 50 
bushels per acre. No one raises corn to 
sell; it is all fed to cattle, hogs and 
horses. This is the land of the Percber- 
on and the Clydesdale horse, and the 
Poland-China hog. A. D. f. 
Indianola, la. 
Western Clover Seeding —Two weeks 
ago, we spoke of the practice of the 
North Dakota Experiment Station of 
using barrel salt in seeding Timothy 
and clover. Prof. J. H. Sheppard tells 
us that they began to use the salt mixed 
with the clover seed so as to give bulk 
enough to feed slowly from the ordinary 
grain drill. They used road dust aod 
3 ho'ts, as well as the salt, but these ma¬ 
terials did not answer. They could not 
get a uniform seeding, and the dust and 
shorts blew away from the seed. Silt 
was damp enough and heavy enough to 
prevent this. When a cloth windbreak 
8 or 10 inches high was set up behind the 
drill, ground barley answered fairly 
well. No injurious effect was noticed 
from the salt. The grass seed was drilled 
across the drills of grain, and Prof. Shep¬ 
pard says that this answers very well. 
Seeding across leaves it free from the 
wheat about five inches between the 
grain drills, thus giving the clover more 
moisture, sunshine and plant food. On 
the whole, this drilling across the grain 
has given better results in North Dakota 
than broadcasting and harrowing in. 
Illinois Stock Growing. —I have never 
used any crop for soiling. Help is too 
dear, aod our Blue grass is too good a 
feed to make such experimen s worth 
while in the part of Illinois w here I live. 
AVe have Blue-grass pastures, and can 
raise plenty of oats and corn, and Tim¬ 
othy and clover hay. My stock, about 
150 cattle and horses, run on pastures 
about seven months of the year. The 
rest of the time, they are fed on shocked 
corn wi'.b oats and some hay for the 
young ones. They do their own grind¬ 
ing and shredding, which I find cheaper 
and more satisfactory—after trying both 
ways—than hiring men to do it for them. 
M’nbatlan, Ill. johnc biker 
Hogs and Peaches —So much is said 
about peach culture in various parts of 
the country, that I want to tell how it 
is done in sections where Jack Frost can¬ 
not claim a share. I am in partnership 
with a hog Ten years ago, we tboaght 
we would have to surrender to the cur- 
culio and borer, as they overran our or¬ 
chard. So many peaches were wormy 
and unsalable that I thought I would 
make pork out of them, anyway. So we 
surrounded the orchards with hog-proof 
fence, consisting of five barbed wires. 
We have kept enough hogs and shotes 
in this inclosure to eat up all fruit that 
falls from the trees. Whenever we find 
a defective fruit, we always drop it on 
the ground for the hog*; as a result, 
the curculios have almost entirely dis¬ 
appeared, and strange to say, the borer 
has also gone. In former years, it would 
take weeks to dig out the borers. 
Now, it scarcely requires a day in the 
season. Perhaps the hogs did not eat 
the borers, but the fact remains that 
they have gone. 
The best hogs we have found for a 
peach orchard are the Essex, either pure, 
or crossed with Poland-China or Berk¬ 
shire. They are quiet, and keep fat. 
After leaving the orchard about Novem¬ 
ber 1, they get ready for market with 
litt’e grain. Our people say of the 
Yankee s, that they can 1 ‘ turn a nuisance 
into a profit.” Our hogs do the same 
thing All through the South, millions 
of do'lars’ worth of pork and ham are 
bought from the northern States. The 
Geo' gia peach growers need not despair. 
They can grow cow peas, peanuts, and 
sweet potatoes on which to fatten hogs 
whtn they come from the peach or¬ 
chards. What difference does it make 
whether the dollar comes from the fruit 
that is shipped, or from that consumed 
by my partner, the hog ? A. G. s 
Mexia, Texas. 
Dark for Sugar Beets —I can't see 
any money in raising beets on our 
land; the soil is too dry and hard; 
it is naturally a grain soil, mo.tly a 
clay loam There is very little root 
soil ; potatoes seldom do well with us, 
and are scabby. I sowed two acres of 
beets last year, but they didn’t come up 
very well, so I plowed up one acre and 
set to tobacco. I had about 1.500 pounds 
of tobacco, which sold for 8% cents The 
beets turned out nine tons at 85 per ton, 
and I pay the shipping to Binghamton, 
N. Y. I think it cost more to take care 
of the beets than it did the tobacco, be¬ 
sides the beet-raising being harder work. 
Warners, N. Y. e, a. b. 
The Whipping Post. —Judge C. B. 
Lore, of Delaware, recently explained 
why his State has retained the whipping 
post as a punishment for various crimes. 
The highest number of lashes now given 
is 40. Delaware stands on the highway 
between the great cities North and 
South, and thousands of tramps paEs 
through the State. These tramps are 
cowed by the lash, and rapidly get out 
of the State when threatened by it The 
Judge says : 
The peculiar location of the State, therefore, 
makes the whipping post something of a neces¬ 
sity in her criminal law. The second, and per¬ 
haps controlling reason grows out of the test of 
experience, that the whipping post is the most 
efficient deterrent of crime known to our laws. 
It is the most dreaded of all punishments, and 
in applications for mitigation of sentence, the 
prayer almost invariably is for the remission of 
the whipping. It appeals to brutalized nature 
as no other punishment does, and has made and 
kept in the past the criminal classes of Dela¬ 
ware relatively small in number. 
For a crime like wife-beating, we be¬ 
lieve the whipping post is the most just 
and sensible form of punishment. Some 
men fit themselves for a lashing because 
they missed the warming influence of a 
shiDgle 20 years before. 
Ian Maclaren 
The first of four stories picturing new 
and peculiarly interesting phases of Scottish 
life with all the sweet patho^and humor of 
“Beside the Bonnie Brier-Bush.” 
Josiah Quincy 
MAYOR OF BOSTON 
Gives an interesting account of “The 
Work of a Modern City.” 
K i 
litSfelfl Ifefi 
I 
Julian Ralph 
Contributes a strong Russian story- 
“ In the Grip 
of the Tsar.” 
dSMkf. 
C/ 
— on their way home front school ^ -- 
they loitered to study him, 
standing in the gateway of his 
stables, straddling his legs 
HARLOW N. HIGINB0THAM. 
The Making of a Merchant 
The first of three practical papers by Harlow 
N. Higinbotham, of Marshall Field & Co., full 
of sound common sense for young business men. 
ROBERT BARR 
Tells of his troubles as a prisoner of the Sultan. 
The Woman Who Disliked Snobs 
By G. S. STREET 
A finely satirical sketch in the “People I Admire in Society” series. 
ALL IN THIS 
WEEK’S NUMBER 
Date of June 3. 
To be had of All Newsmen at 
5 Cents the Copy 
THE SATURDAY 
EVENING POST 
Founded A°D! ty 2 8 by Benj.Franklin 
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA 
