1899 
- * 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Short Stories. 
THE MAN WITH THE HOBBY. 
He Goes to the Fair. 
The farmer goes to the fair with a story 
to tell. During the year he has been turn¬ 
ing many things over in his mind. He 
may have talked and discussed his hob¬ 
by until the home folks are tired of it. 
At the fair he meets new men, who are 
willing to listen because they have 
stories of their own to tell. After all, 
the man with the hobby is more useful 
and interesting than the man with the 
hoe. Here are some of the things he 
talked about at some of the recent fairs: 
No Fences. —“When Father died,” said 
one man, “the farm was all covered with 
fences. I never did like a fence, and so 
I ripped them up. We keep but little 
stock, but I use chemicals—mix them 
myself. I see in a recent R. N.-Y. that 
Mr. Chapman tells of 35 bushels of 
wheat per acre as his best yield. In 
1897, we thrashed 42 bushels per acre on 
12 acres, in ’98, 43*4 bushels per acre on 
10 acres, and in ’99, 44 bushels on 12% 
acres.” 
Tough Cows. —The same farmer keeps 
two grade Jerseys. They run in a shed 
with the door always open, and in the 
coldest weather, they run in and out at 
will. It is a fact that they often prefer 
the -side of the straw stack to a warm 
stall. A cow knows when she is com¬ 
fortable better than her owner does. 
Other farmers gave much the same tes¬ 
timony. Frank D. Ward spoke of the 
great superiority of ewes for breeding 
that had received plenty of exercise and 
fresh air. The practice of seeding rape 
in the corn fields gives the sheep a late 
pasture, which does them good. 
Fruit Experiences. —Mr. J. S. Wood¬ 
ward told of his first experience with 
the Kieffer pear. He got the variety 
early, and found the fruit very hand¬ 
some. In making a shipment of apples, 
he sent about 25 kegs of Kieffer at a 
venture. They returned great prices, 
and he was sorry he had not grafted 
more trees. The next year, when the 
pears were ripe, he undertook to send 
some to the same place, but not one who 
bought them before would touch them 
the second time. It took people a good 
while to place this pear where it be¬ 
longs—in the preserving jar. Mr. Wood¬ 
ward finds the Ogon plum a profitable 
sort. It has a genuine banana flavor, 
which sells it. Abundance also sells 
well with him. 
Tribute to West. —One well-informed 
man estimates that New York State, 
outside of the City, buys each year near¬ 
ly $20,000,000 worth of western dressed 
beef. The amount of western corn and 
California fruit consumed in the State is 
immense. A good many cattle are 
picked up and sent to Buffalo, there 
slaughtered and sent back as “western 
beef.” There is hardly a slaughterhouse 
to be found now in the larger towns and 
cities. Several farmers spoke of the 
quality of the dressed beef. The local 
butchers seem to agree that the beef is 
dipped in or injected with some form of 
chemical preservative before they get 
it. This idea is getting to be general 
among consumers. 
Homebred Horses. —Thousands of big 
western horses are working on New 
York State farms, yet here and there, 
you meet a man with a homebred team. 
These men usually have a good team of 
working mares, and breed them to some 
active, fair-sized stallion. The colts are 
not large, but nervy and full of life. 
They do not cost much in actual cash 
outlay. It is not like spenaing $150 in 
a lump for a horse. The faimer knows 
his team from A to Z, and they know 
him. That is worth a good deal, for the 
three are farm comrades. 
Crimson Clover. —The majority of 
northern farmers seemed to report fail¬ 
ures with this crop. That is, they say 
the clover does not live to be of much 
size when plowed under. In some cases, 
it gets through the Winter, but dies out 
in March. In other cases, little is seen 
of it when the snow melts. This is not 
a complete failure after all. If the seed 
is sown at the last working of the corn, 
and makes a fair growth before snow, it 
has paid a good profit on the cost of 
seed, labor and time. Even if it never 
shows up in the Spring, it has added as 
much actual fertility to the soil as a 
crop of rye that is plowed under in May. 
That is why we would keep working 
away at Crimson clover. 
Cow Peas. —There is much talk about 
this crop, but few seem to have tried it. 
Most farmers have an idea that it is a 
southern crop about as unsuitable for 
the north as cotton. Mr. F. E. Dawley 
thinks our common white field bean 
would do as well, or even better in west¬ 
ern New York. I find that most of these 
farmers do not like to give a whole crop 
to the soil. They want to get the feed¬ 
ing value out of it first. The cow pea is 
a manurial plant first of all. It will do 
well in dry seasons, for it loves sun¬ 
shine, and ought to go on the poorest 
field in the rotation. The clover is 
badly killed out in New York State, and 
• the wheat will suffer unless something 
is quickly done to the soil. Cow peas or 
beans would give a short cut in the rota¬ 
tion. 
Poor Fodder. —For the first time at 
the New York State hair, I saw a pile 
of green Alfalfa which some one had 
brought to feed the cattle. This Alfalfa 
is supposed to be a sun plant, but many 
fields are sunstruck this year, and will 
die. Some farmers said they plowed up 
their meadows right after haying, and 
sowed fodder corn. Even this uas failed 
to grow—standing still about lo inches 
high, and yellow as gold. We nave had 
much the same experience, but have 
found nitrate of soda a great help to 
such corn. Tnis soluble form of nitro¬ 
gen gives the corn color and vigor, even 
in a drought. I find that farmers are 
buying nitrogen mostly in some organic 
form. I think they would do better to 
use some nitrate. 
The Apple Business. —In some sections 
of western New York, the apples are al¬ 
ready sold. Buyers have gone through 
the country offering prices that were too 
good to refuse. There will be few ap¬ 
ples put into cold storage on the farms. 
Baldwins are a light crop. Greenings 
are better. It was pretty well agreed 
that the cultivated orchards have stood 
the strain of this dry season better than 
the sod orchards. Most farmers pick 
out Greenings for their own use. They 
ought to know what is good, but buyers 
want a red color. 
Wire Fences. —There is always a 
good display of wire fencing at the fair. 
There is usually an outcry against 
barbed wire. Mr. F. G. Butler, of Hart¬ 
ford, Conn., puts it about this way: 
In driving over a Connecticut town re¬ 
cently, I saw a great deal of wire fence 
along the roadsides. A law in Connecticut 
absolutely forbids the erection of barbed 
wire fence along any public highway 
within 100 feet of any public build¬ 
ing, or on the line next your neighbor if 
he objects, a law good enough to be en¬ 
acted in every State, and enforced, too. 
But I saw plenty of it along the highway 
in open violation of the law, some of ap¬ 
parently recent erection. But I saw very 
much of a three-strand braided wire, elas¬ 
tic enough to hold its tension, and bulky 
enough to hold a coat of white paint. It 
strikes me that, with the addition of ver¬ 
tical wire stays every two feet to keep 
mulley cows from crawling through, this 
would be the ideal wire fence. Who 
make this three-strand wire braid? Why 
don’t they advertise in The R. N.-Y.? 
Saving Steps. —One farmer had a 
hobby for saving steps wherever possi¬ 
ble, and he dui not look like a lazy man 
either. He told of a farmer he knew in 
the State of Maine, who had only one 
door to his house, which led through the 
kitchen down into the cellar. There 
was no such thing as a cellar door. 
That man raised 1,300 bushels of pota¬ 
toes. They were carried in bags, one 
bushel at a time, through the kitchen 
down into the cellar, and all carried 
back again when they were sold in the 
Spring. Nobody seems to have put on 
record the words or thoughts of that 
farmer’s wife at tnis invasion of her 
kitchen. One explanation was that the 
farmer was a good way from town, and 
had little else to do but carry those po¬ 
tatoes back and forth. The man who 
told the story said that part of that 
time might well be spent in reading The 
R. N.-i. 
Apple Talks. —Speaking of varieties 
of apples, Mr. J. S. Woodward says he 
has grown Maiden Blush on all kinds 
of soil. It was poor on gravel, but very 
fine on a heavy soil, in the same way, 
Twenty-Ounce requires the heavy soils 
to do its best. Mr. Woodward makes a 
business each year of selling wood for 
grafting. He has made a specialty of 
Sutton Beauty, and says this variety is 
giving very general satisfaction. He 
says that a fair crop will be produced 
the third year after grafting. Rome 
Beauty will give a very heavy yield at 
this age, probably heavier than any 
other variety similarly grafted. Mr. 
Woodward’s hobby is the use cf scions 
from bearing trees of tested excellence. 
Such wood will prove worthy chips 
from the old block! 
Strawberry Talk. —F. G. Tice, the 
Marshall strawberry man, reported a 
good business in berries this year. The 
Marshall did well on his heavy, well- 
cultivated soil, and maintained its repu¬ 
tation as a good shipper. One thing 
about the -Marshalls is that they must 
be picked every day, and taken from the 
vines when just exactly ripe. Mr. Tice 
has four acres of Atlantics. Like the 
Marshall, this variety seems to do pecu¬ 
liarly well in certain localities. We 
tried it several years ago in New Jersey, 
and were greatly disappointed in it. In 
Oswego County, N. Y., it is becoming 
very popular. It makes a good shape, 
large size, fine color, and an excellent 
shipper. In flavor it is very sour when 
eaten out of the hand, almost like the 
Mary strawberry, which would make 
good pickles. When eaten with plenty 
of sugar, however, the Atlantics are 
very fine, and the best trade crave this 
variety. Mr. Tice experiments a good 
deal with fertilizer. He thinks that sul¬ 
phate of potash is superior to muriate 
in producing fruit of high quality. His 
experience with nitrate of soda is that 
it gives a rank, heavy growth, but re¬ 
tards the ripening of the fruit. 
Whiter Holsteins. —“Have you no¬ 
ticed that Holstein cattle placed upon 
exhibition, as a rule, are lighter-colored 
than was the case several years ago?” 
A breeder asked this question, and 
pointed out that a large number of the 
exhibited cattle were nearly white. 
Black really seems to be disappearing. 
This breeder explained that the white 
cattle are as a rule, better “handlers.” 
The skin and hair are softer, with bet¬ 
ter quality. This was proved by rubbing 
the hand along the hide, and, it is a 
fact, in almost every case one could tell 
by the feel of the skin when the hand 
left the white color and passed to the 
black. In many cases, this was very evi¬ 
dent, for the black hair certainly has a 
harsher and harder feel. h. w. c. 
The Wicked Wireworm. —Your brief 
reference to the wireworm, on page 612, 
reminds us that, during the present sea¬ 
son, this insect pest has, probably, done 
more damage to our crops than all other 
insect enemies combined. Beginning 
with early beets, of which it destroyed a 
good proportion, it has, in turn, attacked 
sweet corn, radishes, potatoes, Lima 
beans and melons, in fact, in certain 
locations, entire crops were destroyed. 
It is a most troublesome pest, because 
673 
working entirely under ground, it is 
difficult to destroy by the ordinary in¬ 
secticides. H. M. E. 
R- N.-Y.—Prof. Slingerland has de¬ 
tailed experiments in combating wire- 
worms, in Bulletin 107, issued by the 
Cornell Experiment Station. After three 
years’ work, the experimenters failed to 
discover a single means of protecting 
seed, or of destroying immature wire- 
worms in the soil. It was found, how¬ 
ever, that Fall cultivation will destroy 
wireworms ready to pupate, the pupae, 
and the beetles. Thorough Fall cultiva¬ 
tion is the best method yet suggested 
for fighting these pests. Wads of poi¬ 
soned green clover scattered over the 
field will aid in destroying the beetles. 
Test the Clover Seed.— It would 
well repay farmers and fruit growers to 
have their Crimson clover seed tested 
for purity and germination before ac¬ 
tually purchasing. I have just had tests 
of this description made of two samples 
of seed, obtained from an eastern and a 
western seedsman, respectively. In one 
sample an admixture of nearly 7% per 
cent of foreign seed was found, while the 
other showed a germinative power of 
only 60 per cent, thus plainly indicating 
that it was old seed. Samples of seed 
sent to the Seed Laboratory, Di¬ 
vision of Botany, Department of 
Agriculture, will receive prompt at¬ 
tention, and all communications a 
courteous reply. It ought to be more 
generally known that the Government’s 
facilities are at the service of every per¬ 
son who is anxious to secure fresh and 
pure seed. w. d. 
Madisonville, Ohio. 
Fall Grains 
need a good start to stand 
the winter ; therfore feed 
them well in the beginning. 
This will produce hardy 
plants with plump grain. A 
good fertilizer should contain 
plenty of 
Potash 
Potash increases stiffness of 
stalk and plumpness of grain. 
Our books tell the rest — sent /ret. 
GERMAN KALI WORKS, 
93 Nassau Street, New York. 
Profits of Farming 
QARDENINQ AND FRUIT CULTURE. 
depend npon Good Crops and they In 
turn npon Good Fertilizers. The 
uniformly best fertilizer for all Crops 
and all soils is made by 
The Cleveland Dryer Co., Cleveland, O. 
Materials Supplied for “ Home Mixing." 
For the land’s 
Fertilizer.— Adv, 
sake—use Bowker’s 
Moo Fibre and Jadoo Liquid 
Will give you Early Crops and Large Crops 
of Vegetables or Fruit. Send for Catalogues 
and be convinced of the merits of these 
new Fertilizers. 
THE AMERICAN JADOO CO., 
815 Falrmount Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Cyanide 
Guaranteed 98 to 99 per cent., for generating 
Hydrocyanic Acid Qas 
the most effective fumigating material, to 
destroy scale insects on fruit trees and 
plants. The only positive eradicator of 
the dreaded San Jose Scale. Endorsed by 
all Agricultural Experiment Stations. “A 
perfect practical remedy,” says Prof. W. G. 
Johnson, State Etymologist of Maryland. 
MANUFACTURED BY 
The Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Co., 
No. 100 William Street, New York. 
