83o 
THE RURAL 
NEW-YORKER. 
December 2 
write ’em on the soil!” We wonder what they would 
think could they see what rape and clover are ac¬ 
tually doing for some farmers. 
Cheap Steer Feeding in Arkansas. 
We have been talking more or less during the past 
two years about the great value of the cow pea. We 
think well of it as a farm laborer in New Jersey, 
but it appears that the work it does in the South is 
far ahead of anything it can do for us. We know 
from our own experience that the farther south we 
go the less we feel like working. The cow pea, how¬ 
ever, acts differently, for it delights in the sun, and 
stretches out and runs with great pleasure in a hot 
climate. The account given in Bulletin 58 of the 
Arkansas Station (Fayetteville), gives an idea of 
what the southern farmer can do with the cow pea. 
In the Spring of 1898, five acres of sandy soil were 
planted with corn. Of course, in that State, the plant¬ 
ing is much earlier than with us. On June 10, Black 
cow peas were dropped 18 inches apart in the corn. 
The vines made rather more than the average growth, 
but heavy rains in September and October kept back 
the crop of peas. The corn yielded only 25V& bushels 
of grain per acre. As soon as the ears were dried, 
they were picked off, leaving the husks on the stalk. 
On October 6, before the frost had killed the peas, 
five average steers in good condition were turned 
into one-third of the field, and left to graze. After 
they had eaten down the vines, the stalks and the 
fodder, another third of the field was opened to them, 
and after that was finished, they went into the last 
third. While they were grazing in the field, a supply 
of cotton seed was constantly kept before them, and 
the steers ate all they desired of 'it. While in the 
first third of the field, when the pea vines were green, 
the steers ate very little of the cotton seed. 
The object in dividing the field into thirds was to 
make the steers eat down a part of the field clean be¬ 
fore trampling over the whole of it. Five steers fin¬ 
ished the five acres in 64 days. When they went into 
the field they weighed, all told, 3,858 pounds; at the 
end, their weight was 4,502, which means a gain of 
644 pounds; an average gain of two pounds per day, 
or 128 4-5 pounds per steer. They consumed, all fold, 
1,251 pounds of cotton seed, or nearly four pounds pet- 
day. The cost of feeding one steer in this way is esti¬ 
mated by the Station as follows: 
250 pounds of cotton seed.$ .75 
Cost of cow-pea seed.75 
Cost of dropping seed in corn, per acre.20 
Cost of labor in feeding cotton seed.30 
Total cost of feeding one steer 64 days.$2.00 
Cost of gain per pound.1.6 cents. 
This is pretty cheap feeding for beef, and it is evi¬ 
dent that the soil is left in far better condition for a 
subsequent crop than it would have been had the 
peas not been planted. The steers were turned into 
the field a little too late for best results, for the frost 
killed the pea vines before they could all be eaten. 
With early-planted corn, grazing could begin in Ar¬ 
kansas about September 15, or three weeks earlier 
than in this trial. We have often seen, in parts of the 
West, cornfields that were “hogged down”; that is, 
that the hogs were turned in to eat the stalks after 
most of the eax-s had been pulled off. We have been 
surprised to see how quickly the hogs clear up these 
cornfields, breaking down or smashing up the great 
majority of the stalks. Probably it would not be 
economy east of the Alleghenies to attempt to feed 
stock in this way; yet there can be no doubt but that 
the practice of seeding some crop in the corn, that 
will follow that crop and provide pasture during the 
Fall and early Winter, is first-rate practice; in fact, 
this is often followed by sheepmen, who use rape or 
Crimson clover very successfully. 
WELL-HEELED POTATO.—A few weeks ago we 
had a photograph of a potato with a ring in its nose. 
This gave a curious illustration of the way the 
tubers sometimes form in the soil, for this potato 
had evidently grown into a wire ring, and then 
spread out so that the wires passed nearly through 
it. Some curious forms of plant development are 
observed underground. For example, a reader now 
sends us the potato which is pictured at Fig. 304. 
In this case the tuber has grown into that boot heel, 
one end having grown through the hole in the heel, 
and spread some little space over it. This tuber may 
be said to be well-heeled, although this kind of cul¬ 
ture would not be likely to produce that condition 
in the pocketbook of its owner. This steel boot heel 
was evidently thrown away, and was turned under 
by the plow, so that it lay directly in the way of 
the potato. Rather than grow around it, the potato 
grew through the hole, and then continued its 
growth over the face of the heel. Surely the plant 
world is full of curious things, and some of the 
most remarkable of them are found below the 
ground, among the roots and tubers. 
A MULCH FOR FLORIDA SOILS. 
Where Humus Is Detrimental. 
The great need in our Florida soil is humus. With a 
horse rake one can get immense quantities of pine straw, 
Wire-grass and oak leaves. Is the pine straw of any use 
to haul on to the land to rot and form humus? How 
would it do thickly to mulch a peach orchard the year 
around? We usually have a long drought at the time 
our early fruits and vegetables need moisture the most. 
F. H. 
During the dry season referred to. a peach orchard 
should be kept entirely free from all growing vegeta¬ 
tion, except the fruit trees, and the ground covered 
with a layer of mulching. This may be obtained in 
two ways; first by using pine straw, Wire-grass, oak 
leaves, etc., as suggested by your correspondent, or 
in the second place by running the cultivator over the 
ground, and thus forming a layer of mulching with 
the upper stratum of the soil. Cultivating to secure a 
mulch should be as shallow as practicable. Each of 
these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. 
An orchard thoroughly mulched with vegetable mat¬ 
ter is in imminent danger of destruction by fire. It 
has the advantage, however, of keeping the soil cool, 
moist and at the same time yielding a slight amount 
of humus from time to time. In the case of mulching 
with a thin stratum of surface soil, much heat is ab¬ 
sorbed, and this in turn heats the subsoil in which 
the roots are located, raising the temperature of the 
soil higher than should be for roots of trees. This 
can be largely overcome by heading the trees low and 
making them branch out wider; also by planting the 
rows of peach trees, say 20 feet apart and eight or 
10 feet apart in the row, thus giving the trees a chance 
to shade nearly all of the ground. The advantages 
from cultivating this soil and using the surface soil 
for a mulch are that there is no danger from fires, and 
weeds and grass are destroyed in cultivating, thus not 
requiring the extra labor for this particular purpose. 
HUMUS DETRIMENTAL.—I think that your cor¬ 
respondent may be in error in regard to the supposi- 
A WELL-HEELED POTATO. Fig. 304. 
tion that humus is the one thing needed in the Florida 
soil. Our experience, both scientific and practical, 
forces the conclusion upon us that Florida soil is very 
different from any other in the eastern United States. 
The amount of moisture actually needed in the soil 
to produce a good crop of fruit is less than one-fifth 
of that required in New York, and the amount neces¬ 
sary to soak it is also very much less. During ex¬ 
tremely dry weather the soil rarely becomes so de¬ 
pleted of moisture that one will not find moist sand 
in the field by digging down from three to six inches. 
When humus is added to the soil it acts like a sponge, 
taking the water up, and causes the soil to appear 
actually dry when really it contains the same amount 
of moisture that it did before the humus was added. 
Humus acts further as a porous medium, separating 
the particles of sand and increasing the evaporation 
of moisture. Besides this, land rich in humus requires 
twice or three times as great a per cent of moisture 
as soil rather deficient in humus. Thus, during the 
dry season, humus in the soil would cause it to be¬ 
come thirsty, and increase the radiation. During the 
rainy season the humus becomes filled with moisture, 
but fails to let it filter through as the sand does, thus 
tending to cut off the supply of air and to drown the 
plants. It has been definitely ascertained by reliable 
methods that the percentage of water present in sandy 
soil during the rainy season is only slightly above the 
per cent during the dry season, but in the soils rich 
in humus we find them to be what is locally known as 
“water-sobbed” during the rainy season, and during 
the dry season they are excessively dry. Peach or¬ 
chards in Florida planted on muck lands or on clay 
lands do fairly well for a short time, but are liable to 
be short-lived and a very irregular stand. 
Both experience and scientific teaching leads us to 
believe that pine straw, Crab-grass, oak leaves and 
other vegetable matter should not be plowed under, 
as is frequently done in the stiff clay lands of the 
North. If these substances are used, they should 
never be used in any other way than mulching, or 
applied after having been composted. The question 
as to whether the using of this organic matter as a 
mulching is profitable will have to be decided by the 
individual case. Like the hauling of muck on to 
fruit and vegetable lands, which at one time was quite 
popular in Florida, t.he hauling of organic matter on 
to orchards and groves must be classed as a “harm¬ 
less amusement.” That there is not some advantage 
from both of these pleasures cannot be denied, but 
the whole matter of fruit growing is not one of senti¬ 
ment, but whether it will bring the returns in dollars 
and cents. Putting it on this basis, we must put it in 
the doubtful class, to be decided by the individual 
location and condition. From what has been said 
above it should not be inferred that the pure, white 
soils of the sand dunes are the ideal ones for peach 
growing, but rather that those that have been suffi¬ 
ciently subdued by vegetation to grow a first-class 
crop of Long-leaf pine, and at the same time well 
drained, are in about the right condition for men to 
transform into a peach orchard. r. h. holes. 
Florida Agricultural College. 
THE VISCOSITY OF WIND AND WATER. 
Are They Sticky ? 
Viscous. —Adhesive or sticky, and having a ropy or glutinous 
consistency; viscid, glutinous, clammy, tenacious. 
DOES WATER STICK?—A pool was formed at the 
corner of the barnyard by the last rain. The shallow- 
basin could be drained to advantage upon a clover 
patch hard by, so spade in hand I essayed the task. 
The new trench presently ran brimming with the 
brown water, then the stream stayed. “Why this?” 
I asked—and climbed the fence to brush a few straws 
from the stream. Again the channel ran full, but 
some chaff came down and the waters hesitated. The 
lowering of the pool disclosed a quantity of straw', 
which had fallen there from the neighboring stack; 
when this was raked to either side the water flowed 
rapidly. When a few straws were allowed to cross 
the current it became seriously 'impeded to an extent, 
it seemed to me, quite disproportionate to the mass 
of the hindering straws. Since the straw-s were wet 
I could not explain the facts by referring to surface 
tension of the liquid. Could it be that water is 
sticky, I asked. If it be found sticky, then the value 
of the leafy forest floor, and of top-dressing fields, 
and of using catch crops is in part explained. These 
hold water back so that it may soak into the earth. 
A sticky fluid would clutch the straws by a film, 
which in turn would hang on to the film next to it— 
the whole mass thus becoming impeded. 
I wrote to Prof. L. G. Carpenter, of Colorado, to 
learn more about this. Prof. Carpenter has spent 
much time in studying the behavior of irrigation 
waters. This is what he says: 
You have put the properties of the water in a little dif¬ 
ferent way from the way we ordinarily think of them, but 
as fully borne out by the facts. Water is sticky, in one 
sense; or, more particularly speaking, it is viscous, and 
that viscosity changes quite decidedly with the tempera¬ 
ture. With a large stream of water we do not notice its 
effect, but when the stream is small, and especially as it 
approaches the size that may be called capillary, the vis¬ 
cosity has a very great influence; so much so that, at a 
temperature of 35 degrees, the water would run only 
about half as fast as at a temperature of 80 degrees. 
Your drawing your conclusion with reference to the effect 
of catch crops and the forest cover, is a new idea to me, 
thought the general foundation for it has been familiar. 
I do not see but that it is justified. 
HOW AIR STICKS.—During the last severe wind 
an observation was made that shows air to be vis¬ 
cous. The sou’wester came tearing over the newly- 
sown wlieatfield, sang through a wire fence, brushed 
roughly at the nodd'ing plumes of a hedge of feather 
grass that snuggled alongside, and bending the As¬ 
ters by the road hasted away in a cloud of dust. It 
interested me to note that the three-foot grass hedge 
didn’t bend; it bounded something as a captive 
balloon would do if tapped, and very likely from the 
same reason. It was full of air relatively quiet, and 
fairly well fenced off from the flood of the sou’wester 
by the mass of bristles, leaves and spikelets which 
the grass plants presented. The whole mass would 
tremble at the gusts, but held fast; the wind did not 
go through. Evidently when nature makes hairs, 
she designs them to be good air tanglers. We know 
what we are about when we put the Galloway robe 
in the sleigh. The air held in the wool of the robe 
keeps us warm. It is interesting to note that the 
bristles of the plants lose their starch quickly when 
the rain comes. He is welcome, but the water-loving 
wind must be kept away at the point of the bayonet. 
Small deer, like rabbits, understand how the grass 
hedges furnish warmth as well as hiding. The chick¬ 
ens enjoy the brush piles, and crawl right into them. 
In blustering weather the cattle seek brushy spots or 
the lee side of the stack. A Kansas friend tells me 
that the great mortality in cattle suffered by the 
ranchmen last Winter would have been wiped out by 
the planting of Wind-breaks alone, but that the bliz¬ 
zard in the open drove its steel to the heart of the 
herds. Will its lesson be heeded? 
HOWARD B. CANNON. 
