i3o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 20 
it must be used to keep off a fungus attack, for pro¬ 
tection, but after a field has become infested with a 
fungus—Potato blight for instance—spraying will not 
help a great deal. Another thing to note is that the 
foliage should be well covered with the spray mixture. 
If it is only half covered it is only half protected. 
Connecticut Exp. Station. e. h. .jenkins. 
THE “GOVERNMENT LIQUOR LICENSE ” 
AGAIN. 
I. S. A., page 70, admits that my position that the 
so-called “Government license” does not license the 
holder to override local law is “theoretically correct,” 
but denies Ihat. it applies in practice, and suggests an 
imaginary case in which he is uncertain as to results. 
The best way to find out is to try it and see. In the 
town where I live we have done something in that 
line. Two years ago there were 12 licensed “inns and 
taverns,” so-called, and five wholesale dealers, three 
of whom were also bottlers. When they came before 
the excise board two years ago for renewal of their 
licenses remonstrances were presented against most 
of them, protesting that the licenses could not be 
legally granted for reasons assigned. Result, four of 
the “inns and taverns” were refused licenses, and 
two of the wholesale dealers withdrew their applica¬ 
tions. Later, applications were made for the same 
places, and were refused. To this day three of these 
places remain closed, and the others have either been 
turned into dwellings or devoted to other business. 
Yet everyone of these had his “Government license,” 
but not one of them has attempted to use it in dis¬ 
regard of local or State law; in fact, the so-called 
license itself tells him that it cannot be so used. I 
repeat that the best way to ascertain the working of 
any law is to try it. It costs trouble and money, and 
rarely brings complete relief from the evils com¬ 
plained of, but if men are not faithful and diligent in 
the use of what they possess, how can they consist¬ 
ently ask for more, or be able to demonstrate the in¬ 
sufficiency of what they have? p. b. p. 
Bordentown, N. J. 
A BRIEF FERTILIZER TALKS. 
fctjieCas/i Value of Various Fertilizers. 
meal for $2! per acid phos- 
per cent, $13; kainit, $13.50; wood ashes, ash, 
hickory and pine, $3 to $5 per ton. How do they com¬ 
pare in price with kainit? Can T get nitrogen in any 
other commercial fertilizer cheaper than in the cotton¬ 
seed meal? b. d. u 
Mercer, Ga. 
Does it pay better to buy horse manure at $1.50 per ton 
for ordinary farm land than to buy commercial fertil¬ 
izers at present prices? a. i. 
Plainfield, N. J. 
We answer these questions together since the 
method of figuring is much the same. Here is the 
table: 
Pounds In One Ton. 
Nit- 
Phos. 
Pot- 
rogen. 
acid. 
ash. 
Price. 
Stable manure .... 
. 10 
6 
13 
$1.50 
Cotton-seed meal . 
.140 
60 
30 
23.00 
Acid phosphate ... 
.. 
280 
13.00 
Kainit . 
250 
13.50 
Wood ashes . 
36 
100 
4.00 
Nitrate of soda... 
.320 
48.00 
First as to the 
cotton-seed 
meal. 
When 
we buy 
kainit at $13.50 we pay 5.4 cents a pound for potash. 
In acid phosphate at $13, a pound of phosphoric acid 
costs a little over four cents. That gives us a chance 
to find what a pound of nitrogen in cotton-seed meal 
costs. At 5.4 cents a pound the potash in a ton of the 
meal is worth $1.62. At four cents the phosphoric 
acid is worth $2.40. Thus we pay $18.98 for the 140 
pounds of nitrogen in the meal since we could buy 
the potash and phosphoric acid for $4.02 in the kainit 
and phosphate. This means a little over 1314 cents a 
pound for nitrogen. You probably could not buy ni¬ 
trate of soda at $48. You should get figures on blood 
and tankage, figure the phosphoric acid they contain 
at four cents and then see how the price" of nitrogen 
compares. As to the ashes, if they are pure and un¬ 
leached it is safe to call the phosphoric acid worth $1. 
That would mean potash at an average price of three 
cents a pound with the lime thrown in. 
As to the manure. With nitrate of soda at $48 ni¬ 
trogen costs 15 cents a pound. With the prices men¬ 
tioned above for potash and phosphoric acid the plant 
food in a ton of manure would cost $2.34. A 
farmer in New Jersey ought to buy potash in the form 
of muriate at about 4% cents a pound, while he might 
have to pay a little more than four cents for the phos¬ 
phoric acid. Thus $1.50 a ton for good horse manure 
is a low price for plant food to say nothing of the 
humus it contains. The cost of hauling and handling 
it should be considered and added to- the price. On 
our own farm, with steep hills and muddy roads, we 
do not haul manure, but consider fertilizers cheaper. 
You will understand, of course, that the nitrogen in 
stablq manure is not worth as much as that in nitrate. 
Prof. Voorhees of New Jersey, after careful tests, con¬ 
cluded that where nitrogen in nitrate was worth 15 
cents a pound that in good manure—solid and liquid 
mixed—was worth from seven to 12 cents. The pot¬ 
ash and phosphoric acid in the manure are not as 
available as that in the phosphate or potash salt. 
Bones “Cut” With Potash. 
Will bone cut with potash be as good as with sul¬ 
phuric acid that is available? How much should b>' 
applied per acre for potatoes? reader. 
No, we do not understand so. There is without 
doubt some chemical change when the bones are 
mixed with damp wood ashes or boiled with lye, but 
we do not know just what this change is. The or¬ 
ganic matter in the bone is dissolved. This makes 
the nitrogen more available, and the phosphates are 
also made more available. We do not understand 
that these phosphates are made soluble in water as 
would be the case when sulphuric acid is used, but 
this softened bone is evidently more soluble than bone 
that is simply ground fine. We would use 600 pounds 
or more of such bone per acre. 
What Does This Soil Need? 
1 am a shoe cutter by trade, but have my garden and 
raise what potatoes and green stuff we eat, but do not 
get returns such as I think I ought from the ground. 
I have perhaps 4,000 feet all told. I use some manure, 
rr.cstly horse, together with what I get from 20 or 30 
hens. Will you tell me what kind of commercial fer¬ 
tilizer is best for potatoes and general garden stuff, and 
also how much to the hill or square rod or in some such 
small scale? Soil is rather heavy, with clay subsoil; 
land has been tilled about six years. G. w. d. 
Massachusetts. 
"We can only guess at a case of this sort. Heavy 
clays are usually quite deficient in phosphoric acid. 
While they contain an abundance of potash this ele¬ 
ment is often locked up so that crops cannot touch it. 
You have used manure entirely. As we all know, ma¬ 
nure is rich in nitrogen, but low in phosphoric acid 
BRICK BUILDING LIFTED 160 FEET. Fig. 58. 
and potash, while garden crops are greatly in need of 
these minerals. We should therefore use on that 
sized garden 35 pounds muriate of potash and 65 
pounds of acid phosphate. We would scatter these 
chemicals evenly over the garden after plowing or 
spading and rake them well in. Use the manure as 
before. In case you cannot buy the chemicals get a 
fertilizer containing two per cent nitrogen, nine of 
phosphoric acid and seven of potash and use at least 
250 pounds in addition to the manure. Perhaps the 
land is sour. You may test it with the litmus paper 
so often described in The R. N.-Y. if it proves sour, 
you should use lime or wood ashes. 
Leached Ashes and Clover Sod. 
Sixty years ago my father spread the barrel of leach¬ 
ed ashes after soap making in the Spring on an old Tim 
othy meadow, where there was no clover, nor had there 
been for several years. The next year the hay was half 
clover. For eight or 10 years the barrel of leached ashes 
so spread brought in the clover, why I do not know. Tf I 
was the farmer witli old meadow (page 49) I would try 
leached ashes. If I had no ashes I would sow a small 
strip with slaked lime, another with potash, another with 
phosphoric acid, and then with lime and potash and lime 
and acid, and lastly with all three combined. I think one 
of these strips will bring in the clover and show what to 
put on all his meadow. E. w. b. 
Elmira, N. Y. 
A ton of leached ashes will contain about 30 pounds 
of phosphoric acid, 12 of potash and nearly 600 of 
lime. The lime is probably responsible for the clover. 
Seeds will often lie for years in the soil without 
sprouting. This often occurs in sour soils. When 
lime is used the soil is sweetened, and it often hap¬ 
pens that clover seeds that have been dormant for 
years sprout and grow. A thorough working of the 
soil will sometimes start the clover seed, and we have 
had reports of such results when coal ashes were 
used. In such cases it could not have been lime that 
started the seed, as there is little or no lime in coal 
ashes. Probably such ashes opened the soil and thus 
improved its condition. 
RAISING A BRICK BUILDING. 
The picture shown at Fig. 58 is taken from the 
Engineering Record. This brick building was raised 
straight in the air 160 feet and then moved 300 feet 
along the top of the bluff without breaking windows 
or cracking the walls. The picture shows the build¬ 
ing at the top of its lift. 
The main sills were jacked up to lift the building clear 
of the foundations, which were then removed and the 
ground was leveled to receive lines of cribbing under 
each of the main sills. Each line of cribbing was located 
on the center of the sill and consisted of a continuous 
row of cribs made of 6x8-inch timbers about 314 feet long. 
The bases of the separate groups were made horizontal, 
but at irregular heights, offset to correspond with the 
surface of the ground, and were leveled up so that the 
upper courses were in exactly the same planes. There 
were in all eight lines of cribbing perpendicular to the 
face of the cliff, one under each main sill. Two lines of 
cribs supported each end wall of the main part of the 
house. Two more lines were spaced at equal distances 
between them and two carried the end and center of the 
wing. About 300 five-ton jacks were set under the sills 
bearing on the second course from the top of the crib¬ 
bing. These were divided into 30 groups of from eight 
lo 12 each, from three to five groups being located under 
each sill. At a signal given by blowing a whistle, one 
man started at the end of each group and gave each jack 
in succession one-half turn. After all the groups had 
been turned, another signal was given and the men re¬ 
turned to the starting points, screwing each jack an¬ 
other half turn and so on back and forth, simultaneous¬ 
ly screwing the jacks so as to raise the building uniform¬ 
ly about one-half inch at each round trip. 
The building was thus raised about 14 inches in less 
than two hours. A new course of cribbing timber was 
then laid in the space between the last course and the 
sills, and the jacks were simultaneously slacked off suf¬ 
ficiently to lower the sills to bearing on it. The jacks 
•were then screwed down, set one course higher, the 
building raised another 14 inches, and so on. As the 
building was raised, the lines of cribbing were extended 
so as always to reach beyond it to the gradually reced¬ 
ing face of the cliff where new cribs were started on suc¬ 
cessive footings leveled to receive them. In every eighth 
or tenth course longitudinal timbers 20 or 30 feet long 
were used to bind the cribs of each line together, and 
the next course above them usually contained several 
long transverse timbers reaching through, and built in¬ 
to, the next line of cribs to bind the two together and 
insure their lateral stability. 
CURING A JUMPING COW.—Here is a sure cure 
for the jumping cow. Take a pole eight or 10 feet 
long; tie rope around it nearly in the middle, big 
end at the back; have the rope fast to a halter on the 
cow. Fasten the rope to the pole so when the cow 
lifts up her head and walks along the back end of 
pole will drag on ground and the forward end will 
lift up. When she comes to the fence the end of pole 
wdll run under fence and hold her head down; she 
cannot jump. a. d. 
Elmira, N. Y. 
A NEW PEACH. “ROCKEY.”—The peach shown at 
Fig. 59 was sent us by J. W. Rockey, Miamisburg, O., 
who speaks of it as follows: “The tree is seven years 
old, and has fruited four successive seasons; fruit 
medium to large, specimens measuring eight to It) 
inches in circumference. Large, roundish fruit, yellow 
with blush; yellow flesh, perfectly free; excellent 
keeper, and good shipper. Ripens with us (southern 
Ohio) October 18 to 28. The fruit last season was not 
colored as usual, on account of the dense foliage, hav¬ 
ing been cut back last Spring for budding stock. It 
ripens about two weeks later than Salway. We do 
not recommend it for territory north of central Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, etc., on account of lateness in ripen¬ 
ing.” The peach is well described by Mr. Rockey. It 
seems to us the sweetest tasting peach we have ever 
seen. 
AN IOWA FARM GARDEN.—The picture shown in 
Fig. 60 shows what a flower lover may accomplish in 
beautifying his surroundings without elaborate pro- 
tensions to landscape art. The owner of this garden. 
J. F. Wagner, of Cedar Co.. Iowa, find^ much pleasure 
and recreation among the flowers, and they repay him 
freely for his care. He had a very fine show of Gladio¬ 
lus last Summer, and of the various annuals raised 
from seed. The oleanders, which adorn the yard in 
Summer, are stored out of reach of frost during Win¬ 
ter, with very little care. A farm where only the 
faithful “women folks” interest themselves in the gar¬ 
den is always a sad sight to us; we think such places 
grow fewer year by year. 
