718 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 22 
venge and to watcb for and grasp a favorable oppor¬ 
tunity to pay off some old score. h. c. ussher. 
Hay Springs, Neb. 
I do not remember of one single instance where one 
injured animal has maintained a grudge towards an¬ 
other ; but there is always a boss where two or more 
animals are together, and this matter is usually dis¬ 
posed of quite early in the acquaintance. There are 
quite frequently battles for the championship among 
all kinds of animals where they are allowed to run 
together, but the motives, I think, are prompted by 
pure selfishness, and not by spite or envy. 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. w. L. de clow. 
We have never noticed anything approaching vin¬ 
dictiveness of this sort. On the contrary, we can cite 
several instances where the injured horse showed fear 
of his antagonist for some time after the injury. But 
we do not call to mind a single instance where one in¬ 
jured by another horse has shown a spirit of revenge. 
Columbus, Ohio. mclaughlin Bros. 
I think that many animals cherish a spirit of re¬ 
venge, but through fear, do not carry out their de¬ 
signs. I have heard it stated that a noted horse— 
Almont, I think—was once unmercifully beaten by 
his groom. The groom was afterward discharged and 
did not see the horse for two or three years, when he 
went into the horse’s box with others, and the horse 
“made for him” and would, probably, have killed 
him but for the help of his companions. 
Corning, Iowa. ciias. c. Norton. 
HOG FEEDING ON A LARGE SCALE. 
The Utah Experiment Station, at Logan, has issued 
Bulletin 57, which is an excellent account of experi¬ 
ments in feeding the by-products of the dairy. Skim- 
milk and whey, fed to hogs and calves, gave excellent 
results and proved very satisfactory. These experi¬ 
ments seem to prove that calves may be raised on 
skim-milk when it is properly fed Whole milk is, of 
course, the best feed for calves, but it costs too much 
to feed it. On the whole, calves gave as good returns 
for the skim-milk as did hogs, and it was demonstrated 
that it pays well to feed a certain amount of grain 
with the skim-milk, when pork is sold at four cents a 
pound live weight. The skim-milk and grain were 
fed to the best advantage in the proportion of three 
pounds of skim-milk to one pound of grain. Hogs 
fed on milk alone gained very slowly, and did not 
keep in good health. 
In another issue will be found a description of 
the method employed at this Station in feeding skim- 
milk to calves. Our readers will get an idea of the 
extent of hog-feeding at western creameries, when 
we say that the feeding pens are so arranged that one 
man handles from 400 to 600 hogs. At one creamery, 
one man was able to feed 1,000 hogs, clean all the 
pens each day, and draw the grain feed two miles. 
Hogs at these creameries are purchased when weigh¬ 
ing from 50 to 100 pounds. They are crowded hard 
so that, in 100 days, they gain from 100 to 125 pounds. 
The picture, shown at Fig. 327, gives an idea of the 
interior of one of these creamery piggeries. In the 
center aisle, is a tank into which the skim-milk and 
whey run by gravity from the factory. Grain is mixed 
in this tank with the milk and whey. Directly under¬ 
neath it, is a large trough running the whole length 
of the building. In feeding the hogs, plugs which 
are shown in the engraving, are pulled up, leaving 
openings through which the milk and grain run into 
the trough where the hogs may eat it. A stream of 
water runs close to and on both sides of this trough, 
and by means of a rubber mop, the manure in the 
pens is scraped to this water, which thus carries it 
away. During the growing season, this water is used 
to irrigate the land on which a crop of hog feed is 
grown. This seems to us like a remarkable saving of 
labor, and gives us an idea of some of the large oper¬ 
ations carried on in the West. 
GROWTH OF R00 TS IN ARID SOIL. 
Fig. 326 is taken from Bulletin 121, of the Experi¬ 
ment Station of California (Berkeley). Prof. Hilgard 
prints this picture to show how it is that many Cali¬ 
fornia trees are able, without irrigation, to stand a 
drought of five or six months. In this case, a prune 
was grafted on peach roots. As will be seen, the 
roots have gone deep into the ground. At the 
East and in most humid countries, the roots make 
most of their growth in the upper surface soil, spread¬ 
ing out close under the surface. Such a growth as is 
seen in the picture would not occur on eastern soils, 
because a hard subsoil prevents the downward growth 
of the roots. In the arid region, subsoils, as we under¬ 
stand them in this part of the country, do not exist, 
and the soil mass is practically the same for several 
feet, so the roots of trees are able to penetrate to 
great depths. This, Prof. Hilgard says, is due to the 
slight formation of clay, and the rarity of heavy rains 
in the arid region. 
Another thing observed about these soils is the fact 
that, as they are open and free, they are well aired so 
that, down below the surface, the farmer is in no 
danger of turning up raw soil which must be acted 
upon by sun and air before plants will grow in it. 
This picture is an interesting one as showing how the 
California climate has given our California friends 
some advantages which our eastern farmers do not 
possess. The bulletin goes on to point out the great 
advantage of so cultivating land as to conserve moist¬ 
ure and prevent evaporation. In one case where Cali¬ 
fornia soils were well cultivated, it was found that 
the cultivated soils contained, in July, to a depth of 
GROWTH OF PEACH ROOTS IN CALIFORNIA. Flo. 326. 
six feet, 756 tons of water per acre. Where the soil 
had not been cultivated, there were but 512 tons per 
acre, when estimated to the same depth. Prof. Hil¬ 
gard also makes the apt illustration of the singular 
fact that a dry brick will suck a wet sponge dry, 
while a dry sponge is unable to take moisture from a 
wet brick. This shows that, when a surface soil is 
covered with a thin layer of open cultivated earth, it 
is less likely to take water from the subsoil and pass 
it out into the air. 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Another Victory for the Wheel. —Again has the 
bicycle outclassed the horse. A Pennsylvania young 
man overtook, after a chase of several miles, on a 
bicycle, a thief who had stolen his father’s team. 
Riding ahead, he seized one of the horses by the bit, 
and stopped the team. Naturally, the thief objected, 
and finding remonstrance useless, knocked the young 
A UTAH HOG HOUSE. Fig. 327. 
man down a couple of times. But the latter secured 
a stone, and with it dealt the thief such a blow that 
he took to his heels, and the plucky young man re¬ 
turned in triumph with the team. 
Some Skim-Milk Jerseys. —Some time ago, a cor¬ 
respondent in your paper thought that separator 
milk is not good for calves. As the proof of the pud¬ 
ding is the eating, I send a photograph of a small 
herd of Jerseys that were raised entirely on milk run 
through our United States separator (See Fig. 325, 
first page). We use our cream to make butter. The 
heifers are bunched too much to show well, and 
the young St. Lambert bull is almost 'hidden from 
sight; but separator milk will raise young stock for 
me every time. J. L. van doren. 
Ohio. 
Photographic Swindlers. — In the editorial on 
swindlers, you speak of the “ photograph swindle.” 
A number of us “up-to-date farmers” (?) in this sec¬ 
tion are wiser for reading your article, but unfor¬ 
tunately The R. N.-Y. came two days later than the 
“silver-tongued orator.” In the meantime, we are 
holding on to our coupons, hoping that, perhaps, 
after all, this is only a false alarm. w. B. 
A Hornet Trap. —In the fruit-evaporating districts 
of California, yellow-jackets and hornets are very 
troublesome. We are much interested in the remedies 
proposed for these insects in some of the California 
papers. A writer in the California Fruit Grower sug¬ 
gested a cask well covered with tar on the inside, 
with holes bored into it. Another remedy is a small 
piece of meat, of which it is said that “it is not neces¬ 
sary to have porterhouse steak or attach a govern¬ 
ment tag or health officer’s certificate”. Any meat 
will answer, for the insects are fond of it. When the 
meat is put inside of a well-tarred nail keg, they will 
be quite sure to stick on the inside. 
The Farm Paper. —It is often interesting to read 
the comments of farmers on farm papers. This is 
what a Massachusetts man writes about a paper which 
expends much breath in blowing its own horn : 
People are finding fault with it, saying that too much space is 
being filled with nothing—I mean nothing that is of use to a 
hustling farmer. Almost any one can make a sawhorse and 
stone boats, while old-fashioned A harrows and the like, are 
past arts. What the farmers want is something new, up-to-date, 
which will enable them to keep up and get a living. 
Our idea is that the hustling farmer does not want to 
be told what grandfather did, but what grandfather 
would do if he had to face the present situation. 
Kerosene Spray for Flies. —Mr. C. E. Chapman, in 
a recent number of The R. N.-Y., advocated the use of 
kerosene oil as a fly repeller on cattle. He claimed 
that the flies left the cows after being treated, and 
did not come back. His method of applying was by 
means of the potato atomizer on a hand sprayer. I 
have tried this scheme according to directions, and in 
every instance, the flies left for about 10 seconds, only 
to return as bad as ever. Where have I failed ? It is 
my impression that the spray is no good. e. j. r. 
Kent County, Mich. 
R. N.-Y.—We would like to hear from all who have 
tried this kerosene spray. Do the flies keep away, or 
are these Michigan flies too tough for kerosene ? 
Crimson Clover Chaff. —One of our readers in Ohio 
has been growing Crimson clover on a small scale for 
several years. This year he saved some of his seed by 
flailing it out with a fork, as has been advised in The 
R. N.-Y. Some of this seed was sown in the chaff 
about August 1, and it has made a good stand. Seed 
that was well cleaned by a huller was sown by the 
side of this chaff, and was a failure. He is inclined to 
think that the hulls and the chaff held the moisture 
until the seed germinated. That is just our own idea 
regarding this matter. We have never failed to secure 
a good stand when sown in the chaff, while frequently, 
in a dry time, the clean seed fails to sprout and to grow. 
“ Stripped Timber Land.” —Your statement on page 
675, “Pine lands, when stripped of their timber, are 
said to make excellent sugar-beet soil ”, is very mis¬ 
leading ! Bay, Saginaw and Tuscola Counties, Mich., 
all tributary to the Bay City sugar factory, have some 
of the best soil in Michigan, but that best soil is not 
stripped timber land. The State of Michigan has be¬ 
tween 2,000,000 and 3.000,000 acres of stripped timber 
land (which reverted to the State for taxes), for sale 
at 10 cents per acre —but don’t advise any one to take 
up that land ; it w’ill not grow weeds. It will cost 
millions of dollars to reclaim this abandoned stripped 
timber land, and a forest commission has now been 
appointed to look into the matter. Wisconsin and 
Minnesota are, also, considering this very important 
question of reclaiming such land. e. c. post. 
Monroe County,-Mich. 
“Wait Till It Sours.” —Mr. J. H. Durkee, the 
president of the Association of Agricultural Societies 
of New York State, deserves great credit for the way 
in which he has hung on to Gov. Black, in an effort to 
make him bring Hamilton Busbey to time. The his¬ 
tory of this case has been given so often that it is not 
necessary to repeat it here. After repeated rebuffs, 
Mr. Durkee finally secured a hearing, and proved his 
case to the satisfaction of any unprejudiced man. 
After being put off time after time, Mr. Durkee told 
the authorities that he was like the boy that went 
after the sour milk. This boy went to the neighbors 
with his pail, and said that his mother sent him for 
the sour milk. “We haven't any”, said the house¬ 
wife. “ All right”, said the boy, “ I will sit here till 
it sours.” And Mr. Durkee is prepared to hang on 
until things sweeten up, for they are certainly sour 
