1904 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
35 
HALE TALKS BACK TO STRING FELLOW. 
“Why dig holes for planting?’’ asks Mr. String- 
fellow on page 851 of The R. N.-Y., last volume, and 
then takes me to task for dynamiting the holes for 
trees in my rocky fields, where it was a mighty tough 
proposition to get a tree into the ground in any other 
way. Then he goes on to quote from some of my ex¬ 
periences in orchard planting in the South, where sur¬ 
face conditions are so entirely different. While the 
first 100,000 trees were planted in an unbroken cotton 
field, very closely root-pruned and thrust into the 
ground at the back side of a spade, he fails to tell the 
further fact that as soon as trees were all planted 
they were liberally fertilized, and plowing begun by 
turning a furrow to the trees and following with a 
heavy subsoil plow to break up the hardpan 10 or 12 
inches farther down, and so furrow after furrow un¬ 
til the entire field was broken up. So that excepting 
the one little ridge of perhaps a foot wide along the 
line of the tree row, the whole was subsoiled, and the 
orchard has had the most thorough culture every year 
since, and the success has been such as to encourage 
the belief that the plan was not far out of the way. 
Thirty-five thousand trees put out a year ago went 
on subsoiled land, and when I left Georgia two weeks 
ago we were just completing the subsoiling of 150 
acres more, and until the no-culture cranks can show 
me better and more profitable results I shall keep on 
subsoiling, as deeply as possible, and then continue to 
cultivate the surface at proper season so long as there 
is a mule on earth with a leg to stand on, or till some 
other and better motive power is made applicable to 
farm work, so that I can have more and better cul¬ 
ture rather than less. 
Mr. Stringfellow asks what my trees on the old 
tough land here “are going to do when they have 
spread out through the small area of land loosened 
by the dynamite.” 1 con¬ 
fess I don’t know. But I 
have a notion that they 
will have got such good 
headway that they will be 
better able to punch their 
way into the harder soil 
beyond than they would if 
they had been obliged to 
buck against the harder 
conditions at first. That 
“Mr. Editor” has really 
“demonstrated that big 
holes, loose ground, and 
continued cultivation are 
simply relics of so-called 
wisdom” I very much 
doubt, even though Mr. 
Stringfellow may honestly 
think you have. Not hav¬ 
ing had many advantages 
in early life I have had to 
blunder along and get my 
horticultural education as 
best I could, largely through the hard school of ex¬ 
perience. I have tried to be progressive and keep up 
to date in all methods and practices, and now to be 
told that what I had thought were the better ways 
are really the “good old ways” that “should be laid 
away to rest in the museum of antiquated and mis¬ 
taken ideas,” breaks me all up. Where am I at any¬ 
way if the great crops of fine fruit I have been having 
these years past have come through “antiquated” 
and no-account methods? What might have been the 
results if I could only have had a Stringfellow to boss 
the job and explain to me just how the thing ought 
to have been done, with a crowbar to plant with and 
faith in place of culture? It so happened that it was 
while I was out at Columbia, Mo., recently, meeting 
with the State Horticultural Society and assisting in 
the dedication of a grand new horticultural building 
in the State university, that I picked up The R. N.-Y. 
and read Mr. Stringfellow’s blast at my “good old 
ways.” Just at the very moment in the hall adjoining 
several hundred bright Missouri orchardists, with a 
sprinkling from Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, 
Kansas and Arkansas, led by Mr. Goodman, were dis¬ 
cussing this very question of orchard planting arid 
culture, and while there were differences of opinion 
as to cultural methods after the first six or eight 
years, all insisted on good soil preparation and lib¬ 
eral cultivation at the start. I listened for a while 
and then read Stringfellow’s article over again and 
thought, “poor fellows, all crazy,” and then went into 
the hall to join forces with “the incurables,” who 
have successful and profitable orchards, j. ir. hale. 
R. N.-Y.—If Mr. Hale did but know it, in preparing 
that land he did just what Mr. Stringfellow advises in 
his book, “The New Horticulture,” viz., root-prune, 
plant in small holes and give good culture until the 
trees come in bearing. After the trees begin to bear 
Mr. Stringfellow would stop cultivation and cut the 
grass, leaving it as a mulch, while Hale would keep 
on cultivating. As for planting apple trees in small 
holes with mulching in place of cultivation, Mr. 
Hale admits that he has not only had no personal ex¬ 
perience with this method, nor has he ever seen or¬ 
chards like those of Mr. Hitchings or Mr. Vergon, 
where the plan is an evident success. The writer will 
before planting time give his experience with this 
method. The trees are still too young to prove the 
method, but we hope to live long enough to show that 
Hale’s plan of expensive preparation and culture on 
steep rocky hillsides is “a back number.” 
EGGS IN FARM ECONOMY. 
Poultry-keeping is a branch of farm work that will 
interest all members of the family, since all may find 
occupation connected with it. Fig. 17 shows the wo¬ 
man’s part in marking and packing the day’s output 
of eggs. At the time of writing the price of eggs is 
causing city and suburban housewives to think deeply 
when planning the daily bill of fare. Fresh eggs at 
four or five cents apiece are a luxury, and eggless 
desserts become a necessity. Eggs have the advan¬ 
tage of being highly nutritious and digestible when 
fresh, but they should always be recognized as a con¬ 
centrated form of food. We have often heard severe 
criticism of the farm housewife for selling all the eggs 
during the season when prices are high. In reality 
she shows a proper conception of economics in doing 
so, for no person of moderate means can properly af¬ 
ford to make eggs a regular article of food when the 
price is high. To get an idea of the food value of eggs 
Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel compares them with medium 
fat beef as follows: 
Water. Proteids. 
Medium fat beef.72.5 21. 
Eggs .74.5 12.5 
Thus, while the water content is quite nearly alike, 
Fat. 
5.5 
12 . 
PACKING ONE DAY’S OUTPUT. Fie. 17. 
the meat contains a higher proportion of muscle- 
makers (proteids) and the eggs the advantage in fat. 
The farmer’s wife who cheerfully sells the Winter 
eggs, nourishing her family with home-grown meats, 
whose fat is supplemented by homemade butter, is a 
practical example of applied science. When the mar¬ 
ket price of any farm product is in excess of its nutri¬ 
tive value, a business farmer can hardly afford to con¬ 
sume it at home. This does not mean that he is to 
subsist on unmarketable culls, but that he is to make 
up his balanced ration on the same plan as the city 
mechanic or artisan who must buy his supplies in the 
open market. In the meantime, sell high-priced eggs. 
HOT-WATER HEATING ON THE FARM. 
The inquiry of R. A. L., page 884, last volume, rela¬ 
tive to the merits of hot water or steam for heating 
purposes elicits the following. The use of hot water 
instead of steam is a comparatively new element in 
this locality at least. It is now nearly a year since a 
hot-water plant was i'nstalled in my farm dwelling. 
Of course the furnace or boiler was placed at a con¬ 
venient point in the cellar from whence hot water 
pipes lead to the radiators placed most conveniently 
in the rooms on the first and second floors (eight of 
them), where another system of pipes conveys the 
partially cooled water back to the boiler to be again 
heated. As no perceptible evaporation is sustained in 
this operation from day to day, very little water is 
required to run the system after boiler pipes and 
radiators are once filled. A feed or exhaust pipe is 
required to run from the boiler to a reservoir located 
at a point somewhat higher than that of any of the 
pipes or radiators. The slight evaporation has re¬ 
quired no more than two or three pails of water addi¬ 
tional since the plant has been in use. Thus far we 
have experienced no trouble, and can pronounce it a 
gratifying success. A pleasurable and even warmth 
pervades all portions of the house desired, even in 
the coldest weather. No ashes, no smoke, no dust or 
litter; these are some of the discomforts of the model 
housewife that are entirely done away with. 
A seeming advantage in the use of this system over 
that of steam consists in the well-known fact that 
while no perceptible heat is felt from the latter sys¬ 
tem until sufficient steam is generated to heat the 
generators, in the hot-water system the water as 
warmed at once commences to circulate thus gradually 
warming the radiators and the immediate air in con¬ 
tact until the boiling point is reached. This favor¬ 
able feature has been noticed and commented on by 
those of our guests who have had practical experi¬ 
ence with steam-heating appliances. This in connec¬ 
tion with the advantages of the rural mail service, 
and more especially the telephone, enabling one to 
transact business matters of interest hundred of miles 
away if need be, and the many other advantages that 
dwellers in the city are in a great measure deprived 
of should make life on the farm more and more to 
be desired. irving d. cook. 
Genesee Co., N. Y. 
WHAT ABOUT SWEET CLOVER? 
I am coming to the opinion that this is a curious 
contradictory sort of a plant. One sees it flourishing 
in vacant lots, on garbage dumps, along canal banks, 
upon veritable gravel beds, and yet when we gave it 
an opportunity to “spread itself” alongside other 
cover-crop plants in our dwarf pear orchard, it either 
refused to grow or was so slow in making an appear¬ 
ance that, as a cover plant, it was simply “not in it” 
with the others. Undoubtedly one of the immediate 
difficulties is the seed question. We have purchased 
seed from standard commercial sources for the past 
three years, and each lot has shown defective germi¬ 
nating ability. Last Au¬ 
tumn we made an attempt 
to collect seed in the im¬ 
mediate vicinity. Director 
Dawley, of the Bureau of 
Farmers’ Institutes, tells 
me that he has grown it as 
a cover crop from home- 
collected seed in his own 
orchard for two or three 
years past. One of our co¬ 
operating experimenters in 
St. Lawrence County 
writes me that it had 
done nearly as well as 
vetch on his ground last 
year, and much better than 
Alfalfa. He sowed it July 
18 in a young orchard 
which was planted with 
corn. 
Last year in the Prov¬ 
ince of Quebec near Mon¬ 
treal I chanced upon a 
French-Canadian farmer who had a two-acre 
field (poor sandy loam), from which he had 
just harvested about three tons of savory smelling 
hay. He cut it reasonably early—before the stalks be¬ 
came objectionably fibrous. He informed me that it 
was his practice either to make a second cut or pas¬ 
ture the field. It was'a case of natural seeding. The 
Sweet clover had gradually edged in and driven out 
the other plants—a survival of the fittest. Summing 
up the situation, then it seems fair to say that it is a 
sort of special-purpose plant having peculiar aur.pta- 
bilities. One of our present difficulties is a supply of 
sound, viable seed. If it can be obtained in reasonable 
quantity locally, it may be well worth trying in high 
and dry situations. Meantime, I think more of Hairy 
vetch. JOHN CRAIG. 
Cornell University. 
SKIDDING CLOVER IN SPRING.—On the farm whore 
L worked when a boy, and also on neighboring farms, 
the custom of seeding down wifh rye was quite common. 
We would sow the Timothy In the Fall if not too late, 
otherwise wait till Spring; then some day when there 
was a gentle rain take the clover seed, if the Timothy 
had been previously sown, if not the two together, and. 
sow the lot. If not too pressed with work we would 
go over the ground with a good heavy bush, but often 
the work was left for the rain when fairly good stands 
of grass would be made. In this section It was useless 
sowing the clover in the Fall, as* it invariably winter- 
killed, but sown as above compared well with seeding 
with other crops. I have found that treating a worn- 
out sod to a good harrowing when the soil is moist, then 
resowing with grass seed, brought fair results where 
one lacked time to give it a thorough tilling, or where 
the mowing could be ill spared, or where the ground 
was too moist for tilled crops. We have a meadow of 
the latter order that has been down to grass for 35 vears 
to my knowledge, kept up by the latter method, com¬ 
bined with top-dressing that the past season could have 
competed with any Clark method grass we ever saw. 
Litchfield Co., Conn. g. l. g. 
Newspaper despatches report smallpox epidemics in a 
variety of rural localities, as well as in the great cities. 
In the present state of medical knowledge vaccination 
seems the only safeguard against this disease, and it 
should not be omitted. Any eruptive disease that mav 
appear should be carefully quarantined until its real 
nature is ascertained. 
