526 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 22 
of acres of steep, rough land in our Appalachian coun¬ 
try, where cattle could not be grazed with profit. 
It does not pay to grade up the flock for the pro¬ 
duction of lambs in a mountainous country. A few 
figures will give the reason. A lamb is worth $4.25. 
A ewe can be bought for $2.50, and besides this the 
strong mountain ewe is much more certain to br&ed 
and to raise ordinary lambs than the half-breed. She 
is also tougher and a better milker. If you have a 
purebred sire there is no gain in using a purebred 
ewe. As sires of a high class are used in southwest¬ 
ern Virginia, the ewes are already of as high a grade 
as is consistent with their fertility and capacity for 
enduring hardship. 
FERTILITY ON WESTERN FARMS. 
Richer than the Virgin Soil. 
LACKS ATTENTION.—The question of fertilizers 
in the southwest Iowa fruit district has not the at¬ 
tention it should have. The rule is that humus is in 
abundance, and the top, stem, and leaf growth is in 
excessive proportion to roots. Fruit bud formation is 
slow and sparse, and trees come late into bearing. 
The per cent of cloudy days and rainy weather is 
small, and most of the time skies are cloudless and 
sunlight and winds abundant. This has a tendency to 
produce stocky, shrubby growth, and with abundant 
humus, large leaf areas are the rule, so that plants 
and trees instinctively droop over the stems and 
trunks for protection against the semi-tropical sun 
that develops our great corn crops in this section. 
The production of corn and its culture on a large scale 
affect our ideas along all lines. This is so because 
about all soil culture is studied with reference to de¬ 
veloping our corn crops. The county in which I re¬ 
side produces and cribs 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 bushels 
per year, and adjoining it is Pottawatamie County, 
that annually yields the largest crop of any one 
county in the United States, which is sometimes up 
to 7,000,000 bushels per year. This cropping has been 
continuous with rotation with Medium clover for 18 
to 25 years. Previous to that, this section was wild 
and unbroken, being mostly prairies and sky. The 
general idea that a clover rotation and barnyard 
manure are the chief and best fertilizers, is widely 
prevalent and almost exclusively practiced. The soil 
is peculiar, and is called loess, being said to resemble 
the deposits along the River Nile. The rains are fitful 
and excessive. The ground is very absorbent, and but 
little runs off the surface, and the ground is of such 
a character as to be exceedingly porous, having the 
quality of yielding and drawing up moisture and fur¬ 
nishing it to roots during the long drought and dur¬ 
ing the very great heat or hot periods that mature 
vegetation in the Fall and late Summer. 
The rule is that this is a dry country, and rains 
when they come are excessive and a downpour. It is 
all water or all drought, and we have to gauge our 
calculation that way, and be prepared with our meth¬ 
ods of culture to absorb all moisture and hold it when 
it does come. The soil is virgin in character yet, and 
the general practice of clovering heavily all lapds, 
the absence of the continuous wet weather and wash¬ 
ing rains that are constantly leaching fertility out of 
soils east and south, is the great advantage here. 
Drought years that result in lowering crop averages 
only hold back fertility till moist years come, when 
all land seems to have new life and possibility. The 
rule is that, with dry Fall weather, trees ripen up 
finely, the bark and appearance are of most excellent 
health, clean, bright, in young trees have the appear¬ 
ance of being varnished. They are heavily filled with 
starch and starch deposits, and have all kinds of ex¬ 
tremes to withstand in Winters that are as fitful as 
they can be. A principal disadvantage they have is 
not having sufficient water in the ground to supply 
them and keep them healthy and supplied during the 
low temperatures that are accompanied with bright 
Winter sunlight and high sweeping, evaporating 
winds. 
FERTILIZERS USED.—I know of a few who used 
wood ashes on strawberries, and with excellent results. 
Others have used slaughterhouse fertilizers in vine¬ 
yards in the large vine districts around Council Bluffs, 
with better results, one application having effect for 
four to six years. The rule is to grow young orchards 
in corn five to seven years; for three to five after they 
come into bearing, we seed to clover, and when crop¬ 
ping continues a few years, if seasons are moist, it is 
continued. If dry, the ground is disked heavily and 
frequently, and the orchard trees are manured with 
barnyard manure. This manure is peculiar to this 
section, very rich, in that it is from feed-lots in which 
cattle and hogs are fed in western style, a style that 
is ordinarily a surprise to any one not living in this 
section. The climate is such that immense quantities 
of hogs and poultry and cattle are reared with little 
loss, directly out of doors and with little shelter as 
compared with farther east. But more shelter is 
added year after year. It is often the case that herds 
are bred and grown of from 150 to 300 hogs on a 
single farm, 100 being often the rule. Of poultry, 300 
to 500 are often bred and raised under ordinary farm 
conditions, 150 to 200 being the rule. The cheapest 
boxes and temporary sheds annually renewed only are 
used, and cattle are gathered up by farmers or raised 
by themselves and often got in car-lots and fed on 
farms. The entire corn crops of the farm go into the 
cattle, that consume all hay and cornstalks; hogs fol¬ 
low cattle on high feed, and the hogs live on the drop¬ 
pings and fatten. By feeding oats with such feed, to 
hogs, they develop very rapidly, and the manure taken 
out of feed lots, and that is dropped on pastures is, as 
a rule, very rich. This is a high feed for bearing fruit 
trees, and apples and plums (pears not being grown 
here) produce wonderfully with such treatment. The 
clear sunlight and peculiar soil give high color and 
delicate rind and skin to fruit, and develop high 
flavor. 
RESULTS LARGE.—Results, as a rule, come easily 
in the western style of farming, and prices, as a rule, 
are satisfactory; but methods are seemingly wasteful, 
labor high and not efficient. It is not uncommon to 
find farms that are but the scene of what is termed 
“feeding” operations with steers and hogs. Often as 
high as 6,000 to 10,000 bushels of corn are bought and 
fed to hogs and steers on a single farm of 80 to 160 
acres. “Feeding on grass” is often practiced where 
the steers and hogs have the same pasture largely of 
clover, the corn is soaked in tanks, and the hogs finish 
up what goes through the steers, following them 
while grazing, picking up the corn in the droppings. 
Lands so pastured and fed upon become richer than 
they were in their virgin state before we broke prairie 
20 years ago. Such land, well farmed to corn, yields 
60 to 75 bushels per acre, and with skill and a good 
season, will yield 75 to 100 bushels. . 115 bushels and 
more have been so grown. When one takes into ac¬ 
count that the soil is of such a nature, and tools so 
perfect that a team and hand can easily raise 40 to 50 
acres, an idea is formed of what is possible. Most of 
POINT OF SUBSOIL PLOW. Fig. 205. 
the parents of western farmers coming from the East, 
and eastern conditions, have in time started us on the 
right track of maintaining the fertility of our western 
farms. w. m. bombergek. 
Sec’y Southwestern Iowa Hort. Society. 
A HOMEMADE SUBSOIL PLOW. 
How Made; the Work It Does. 
Prior to the Spring of 1897, as a grower of small 
fruits, I had been very desirous of securing a subsoil 
plow, believing that such a tool would prove valua¬ 
ble in our tough, hard, tenacious clay subsoil. Like 
many other young men of limited means, however, I 
hesitated to invest $8 or $10 in an implement just for 
the purpose of experimenting. After giving the mat¬ 
ter some thought, never having seen a subsoiler, 1 
entered my workshop one rainy day, and solved the 
problem so satisfactorily that I now, after two seasons 
thorough trial, present to The R. N.-Y. readers, at 
Fig. 204, a plan for making an excellent little single¬ 
horse subsoiler that works to perfection, and need not 
cost more than $2.50. 
I first made a model, this being cut from thin wood, 
and as good fortune favored me, I secured just the 
right shape the first trial. The beam and standard 
are formed of one bar of wrought iron 6 feet long and 
% x 2% inches in size, which is quite strong enough 
for a heavy draught horse. The share, or point, is of 
a peculiar shape, and is made of a new, large, steel 
“bull-tongue” cultivator “shovel”, 3 inches wide. The 
“bull-tongue” is cut as shown in Fig. 205, leaving a 
long, piercing, wedge-like point. The %-inch incis¬ 
ions at a a, allow the upper half of the blade to be 
bent or rolled backward, forming a long, deep groove 
that clamps very securely around the standard of the 
plow, where it is firmly bolted. The long, tapering 
point, when the wheel is adjusted for subsoiling to 
the desired depth, lies perfectly flat in its course 
through the soil—the curvature of the upper half of 
the blade being quite sufficient to lift, “ground-mole 
fashion,” the entire bottom of the furrow—while the 
passage of the standard, through the midst of this 
upheaval, breaks and pulverizes the hitherto hard, 
compact subsoil, in a very thorough and satisfactory 
manner. The handles are those of an ordinary cul¬ 
tivator, and the wheel, 7 inches in diameter, was 
purchased from a scrap-iron man for 15 cents. There 
being some quite heavy forging upon the beam in 
bending it to the desired shape, and in cutting the 
share down to the proper form, it will be necessary 
to call upon the blacksmith for that part of the opera¬ 
tion. 
To those unfamiliar with the practice of subsoiling, 
it may be well to say that this implement is planned 
to follow the breaking-plow, tearing up and mellow¬ 
ing the bottom of the furrow to the depth of about 
8 inches. Thus it will be plain that, if the breaking 
plow be turning to the depth of 8 inches, the sub¬ 
soiler stirs up another 8 inches deeper, leaving the 
plant or seed-bed pulverized to the depth of 16 inches. 
I am satisfied that subsoiling is a great advantage 
where the subsoil is of a clayey, tenacious nature, as 
we at once obtain a form of under-drainage, a more 
extended root pasturage, and liberate quite an amount 
of plant food. f. h. balt.oti. 
Ohio. 
SEED SWEET POTATOES FROM SLIPS. 
Their Superiority to those Commonly Used. 
It is not understood by many who are growing 
sweet potatoes quite largely, that the best ones for 
seed should be grown from slips as a late crop. Liv¬ 
ing as I do in one of the best regions of our country 
for sweet potato culture, and where millions of 
bushels of the best quality are grown for market, I 
have observed the above fact. Every one here re¬ 
fuses to save the smaller roots from the main crop, 
and use them for seed, as is the common practice, 
taking the country over; but they grow what they 
call “slip seed.” It is claimed by these sweet potato 
specialists that seed from the market crop is likely 
to bring sprouts that have the “black shank,” and 
such as are lacking in vigor, compared with those 
grown from slips. 
The method of growing them is very simple. When 
the vines are two to four feet long, which is about the 
first week in July in me central States, some of them 
are taken off and cut into pieces about a foot long. 
All the leaves are removed except one or two at the 
top end of each cutting or slip. These are planted 
just as sprouts would be set in the regular season for 
planting them. The ground should be in as fine 
and loose a condition as is possible, with plenty of 
humus in it. The slips will soon take root, and with 
good culture, will make medium-sized potatoes before 
digging time. Such seed is far better than such as is 
commonly used, judging by my own experience and 
that of every one whom I have known to try it. 
ii. e. v. n. 
The school authorities of Brooklyn, N. Yhave been 
•investigating a falling-off in the attendance of girls at 
the public schools, and recommended as a remedy that 
a school be established which shall offer girls instruction 
in housekeeping and business generally. This plan pro¬ 
poses the location of the school where ample grounds 
may be provided for the study of horticulture and animal 
life. This is to include the raising of chickens, the care 
of cows, etc. Just why a city girl should be induced to 
attend school by the opportunity to learn milking is not 
explained. There seems, however, a growing tendency 
to include agricultural and horticultural instruction in 
the public schools. 
The Kissing Bug.— The daily papers have, of late, had 
much to say about an insect known popularly as the 
“kissing bug.” It has been said that the bite or sting 
of this insect causes a peculiar swelling. In one case, 
a death is reported. Prof. L. O. Howard, of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, writes us: 
“As a matter of fact, over 20 persons have presented 
themselves at the Emergency Hospital for treatment for 
swollen faces, in none of which the physician in charge 
has been able to find a puncture. It so happens that 
Melanolestes picipes is rather more common than usual 
this Spring, (it is ordinarily quite rare), and Mr. Schwarz 
has twice been bitten by it in his own room. I have, 
therefore, stated that, if these cases are really bites, the 
probable culprit is this species, and I have little doubt that 
he has really caused some of the trouble, l. o. Howard. 
Entomologist. 
