866 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 16 
tematic. milk-fat tests are made, although the milk is 
occasionally tested by the Babcock test, which is kept 
on the place. Milking is begun at 5.40 a. m. and 
4 p. m., and as fast as an animal is milked she is 
driven out. Grain is given the cows as soon as they 
enter the stall, and by the time milking is done all 
grain is eaten. Each udder is wiped by the milker 
with a dry cloth, and the milkers wash their hands 
from time to time as circumstances necessitate. The 
milkers also wear special suits of clothes, and shoes, 
for the milking work, using them at no other time. 
The milk is weighed as soon as drawn, a record 
made on a sheet by the scale, and then the pail is 
emptied into a larger one near by. This a man takes 
to the dairy, which is situated on one end of the milk¬ 
ing room. The dairy consists of a series of small 
rooms, covered with galvanized sheet iron and painted 
with white enamel paint. 
The milk is poured into a reservoir over a turbine 
separator, through which it passes, to remove any dirt 
that may have got into it. The cream and skim-milk, 
however, fall on to the same milk gutter, which con¬ 
veys the mixture to a Star milk cooler, where it is 
cooled to about 58 degrees, and falls into a reservoir 
which is connected with a Child’s bottling apparatus. 
This is constructed so as automatically to shut off the 
milk supply as soon as the bottle is full. A revolving 
table placed under the bottling apparatus holds eight 
bottles, four on a side. Four bottles are first filled, 
when the table is revolved, and the other four are 
filling while the operator (inserts the paraffin card¬ 
board covers in the tops of the first four bottles filled. 
The empty bottles are kept in a storage chamber, in 
a frame truck which will hold 162. This truck is on 
large casters, and the woman operating the bottling 
machine hauls it from the chamber when ready to 
more healthful surroundings would appear practic¬ 
able. The Secretary of the State Board of Health and 
the members of the Marion County Medical Society 
have personally inspected the plant, and the sugges¬ 
tions from them in the way of improving the existing 
conditions have been courted. Any person interested 
in improved dairying would do well to visit this estab¬ 
lishment, as it is certainly one of the most interesting 
milk dairies in this country, a place where one may 
obtain many valuable suggestions as related to hand¬ 
ling dairy cows and milk. c. s. plumb. 
Indiana Exp. Station. 
BUILDING UP SOIL AT HIGH PRESSURE . 
PAVING A PROFIT FROM THE START. 
Rich Feeding for Poor Land. 
Part I. 
FERTILIZERS NEEDED.—For the past 10 years I 
have been peculiarly interested in the problem of 
bringing worn-out or naturally poor land into profit¬ 
able culture. It seems to me a settled fact that east 
of the Allegheny Mountains some sort of chemical 
fertilizers Should be used in order to make such soils 
respond promptly. Even when clover and other green 
manures are to have most credit for the work, it has 
been found very profitable to use chemicals with the 
clover. The reason for this is that the chemicals 
produce a stronger and surer manunial crop, and the 
influence of the chemicals is always felt by subse¬ 
quent crops through several years. In fact, the idea 
of restoring very poor land with green manures only 
has been generally abandoned by practical men as 
being too slow and uncertain. We are often told that 
live-stock husbandry is a sure method of restoring 
worn-out land. The poorest of soils, however, will 
returns. If early varieties of potatoes are planted, 
Crimson clover may follow them. If late varieties, 
rye may be sown; tin either case the cover crop is to 
be plowed under in the Spring, and corn or potatoes 
planted, more fertilizer being used. This short rota¬ 
tion may be kept up year after year, using a cover 
crop each Winter and heavy dressings of high-grade 
fertilizer every Spring. It will be seen that this last 
plan requires more capital to start properly, but gives 
sure returns at once. The first plan is best adapted to 
a large farm, where one has an abundance of land 
and a long haul to market. The other plan is more 
generally followed on smaller and high-priced farms, 
near good markets, where it is not economy to leave 
the land idle or in crops that give small returns. One 
may be called low-pressure, the other high-pressure 
soil restoration. 
HIGH PRESSURE.—The most interesting example 
of this high-pressure soil restoration that I have seen 
is a seven-acre field on the farm of Mr. Newton Os¬ 
born, of Newington, Conn. I visited the farm late in 
November, in order to see this field. Mr. Osborn tells 
me that the field has never had a bit of manure ap¬ 
plied to it, except a small quantity of hen manure 
used in the hills of corn. It was so poor under the 
old system of farming, that it was not worth culti¬ 
vating, and Pigeon grass and dewberry vines were 
the only crops that would grow there. Land so close 
to the Hartford market is too valuable to produce 
nothing but briers, when it can be made to grow po¬ 
tatoes, so Mr. Osborn went at it, and made it pay 
from the start. He tells the story of the way he 
started, about as follows: 
“It was 20 years ago that I first tested complete fer- 
tilizers. I had been using ashes quite extensively, 
and also some ground bone, but like many others, I 
POOL WHERE THE COWS WASH THEIR FEET. Fig. 318. 
STERILIZER FOR MILK UTENSILS. Fig. 319. 
fill, and has it by her side convenient for use in filling. 
CARE OF BOTTLES.—Galvanized iron holders are 
used for holding the bottles while in the wagon, each 
holder containing 12 quart or 20 pint bottles. With 
the bottling apparatus in front of her, and the bottle 
truck at her left hand containing the empties, the 
operator has on her right hand a small descending 
track, which passes through the side of the room to 
the edge of a platform, up to which the milk wagon 
is backed. The bottle-holder is filled with full milk 
bottles, is placed on a small truck with little rubber 
wheels, and is then sent down grade to the man out¬ 
side in charge of the milk wagon. This is a large two- 
horse affair, with three or four tiers of shelves, as 
necessity requires, on which 160 gallons of milk may 
be stored. All the milk bottles, on being returned 
to the dairy, are first rinsed in hot washwater, in 
which a washing powder is used. They are next 
washed by hand' on the outside in similar water, after 
which they go to a bGttle-washer, who scrubs the 
inside with a rubber brush revolving 1,800 to 2,000 
times per minute, washing powder being used in this 
water. The bottles are then rinsed in clear water, 
after which tney are steamed in a large sterilizer hold¬ 
ing many dozen bottles. Mr. Polk maintains a dairy 
depot in Indianapolis, where milk, cream, ice cream 
and butter are sold, the latter incidental to the others. 
The milk sells at eight cents and the cream at 25 
cents a quart. The large two-horse wagon hauls the 
milk out once a day, where four delivery wagons dis¬ 
tribute it over four routes in the city. 
No pains have been spared to make this dairy of 
the most commendable character. The herd has been 
thoroughly tested for tuberculosis by the tuberculin 
test, and all suspicious cases removed. The cows are 
kept as clean as any herd possibly can be, and no 
not support live stock at first, and it is folly to at¬ 
tempt to buy all the forage and feed needed to make 
manure. Often by the judicious use of fertilizers, such 
farms can be quickly made to produce abundant for¬ 
age crops, after which the live stock and purchased 
grain will permanently and slowly improve them. 
The conviction is growing, and I think justly, that the 
judicious use of fertilizers is the basis of soil restora¬ 
tion, in the majority of cases. Our western readers 
may ask—Why touch these poor soils—why not come 
West after stronger land? These worn-out lands are 
usually low in price, for the value of a farm is largely 
decided by its natural producing capacity. Poor soil 
near a good market beats good soil near a poor mar¬ 
ket, for it costs less to improve the soil. 
TWO METHODS.—There are two opposite methods 
of treating poor and neglected soils. One class of 
farmers assume that the land 'is sour and lacking in 
humus. They plow and cultivate it well, and first use 
a heavy dressing of lime. Then they will sow cow 
peas, rye or clover. Some will be content with this, 
while others will use potash and phosphoric acid in 
the cheapest form. The next year this green crop is 
plowed under, and corn usually planted with or with¬ 
out more fertilizer. Crimson clover is seeded in the 
corn, and this plowed under the following year for 
potatoes. It is true that under this system fair crops 
are produced at a low cost, and the soil slowly im¬ 
proves if given good culture, and if the fertilizers are 
constantly used. The other method is exactly the 
reverse of this. No matter how thin and poor the 
soil, it is plowed and planted at once in potatoes or 
corn. If potatoes are planted, 1,500 pounds or more 
per acre of a high-grade potato fertilizer will be used. 
The point of this system is to start at once on a 
profitable basis, and not to wait at least one year for 
believed that there was nothing equal to stable ma¬ 
nure. One day I had the man at work mixing a com¬ 
post. We had scraped out the henhouse, and odd 
corners here and there, and mixed some ashes and 
bone with it. Mr. Stafford, of the Mapes Company, 
came along and had dinner with us. After we had 
drilled in a good balanced ration at the table, we 
began to talk about plant food. He argued that two 
bags of his potato manure would produce more pota 
toes than the whole of that compost, and there were 
six or seven loads of it. I finally agreed to make the 
trial, though I wiill admit that I did it chiefly to get 
rid of him. Having started on the test, I determined 
to make it as complete as possible. I planted one 
acre with the compost, and one acre with the fer¬ 
tilizer, with the result that the fertilizer acre beat the 
other by 10 bushels. I could not have bought the 
compost for the price of the fertilizer, and the cosl 
of applying it was four times as great.” 
The Indiana Farmer says that Dr. Tanner, who several 
years ago, fasted 40 days, is now 77 years old and in good 
health. He is a strict vegetarian, and thinks that a man 
can live comfortably on 12% cents a day. 
Wire fence seems very expensive, but I have some of 
the linked barb wire I have used to patch up old fences 
which is now 12 years old, and after being moved many 
times is seemingly good for 12 more. Divide the cost by 
24 and it’s dirt cheap. f 
The Farmers’ Review states that a Michigan man has 
just purchased the whole of Morgan County, Ontario, 3!)% 
square miles, for the White pine timber on it. He could 
cut nearly 100,000,000 feet at present, but intends to hold 
most of it for a time. 
Glad to see the banner of “Free rural mail delivery” go 
up. If Government would divert some of or all the money 
used to build handsome post office buildings in towns 
which do not need them to increase of free delivery, we 
should not have to wait so long as I now fear some of 
us will be obliged to wait. I believe that necessities 
should be furnished first, the ornamental after, l. w. ic. 
