65o 
September 3, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
He cuts the hay, feeds it to stock and hauls the manure 
back to mulch the trees. A fruit farmer usually has 
little use for a big barn, but this man has found it nec¬ 
essary to build one in order to store the Alfalfa hay. 
These Alfalfa farmers are giving a great object lesson, 
and their farms are more interesting than any exhibit at 
the State Fair. h. w. c. 
$200 FROM A HALF ACRE. 
Strawberry Growing in Michigan. 
SOIL AND CROPS.—Lansing is our market, and we 
take a load of some kind every other day. Our half 
acre of strawberries harvested this year was from a tri¬ 
angular piece of land on the banks of a county ditch. 
The soil is a mixture of muck and clay, with the dirt 
from the ditch spread over it. In 1901, the piece was 
planted to potatoes, to parsnips in 1902. In the Spring of 
1903 we fitted the ground as for a crop of corn, making 
it one way three feet nine inches. Two rows of radishes 
were sown between the marks, and strawberry plants 
set on the marks 18 inches apart. All was worked by 
hand and wheel hoe until the radishes were harvested; 
then with a horse hoe, going the same direction each 
time to throw the runners around in the row and not 
break them. The rows were from 18 inches to two feet 
wide when cold weather came. Deep snow came early 
in the Winter, so we did not mulch them until Spring. 
In February we had a thaw; the ditch became clogged 
with ice and snow, and the water spread out and covered 
the whole strawberry patch from eight inches to a foot 
deeo. The weather turned cold, and our strawberry 
patch was as nice a skating pond as one could wish for. 
The ice was frozen solid to the ground. The ice laid 
on for several weeks, and we thought our strawberry 
plants would be all killed. A thaw came the last oi 
March, and the plants did look sick. We mulched them 
as soon as we could get on the ground with straw, and 
I think that saved them from being killed by the suit 
after such a soaking. 
THE STRAWBERRY CROP.—Nothing more was 
done to them until picking time, which commenced with 
us June 16. One row of Excelsior and a few scattering 
Warfields gave us 34 quarts. We picked every other 
day from then on to July 19, picking 114 quarts on that 
date, and what remained were left for the birds. Our 
varieties are old standard sorts, and we could hardly 
say which is the best all-round berry. One row of 
Glen Mary, 18 rods long, gave us 34, 39 and 30 quarts 
at three pickings. Brandywine did almost as well, and 
Warfield redeemed itself with us, as we were about to 
drop it from our list, but this year we had the biggest 
Warfields and lots of them. Clyde set full, and seemed 
to stand still during the dry spell that came in the midst 
of our picking season. After a good rain it gave us the 
largest, most and latest salable berries of the season. 
The total yield was 2,300 quarts, not counting many 
small lots used, sold and given away. The first few 
pickings brought $1.60 per 16^quart crate; three crates 
of over-ripe and small ones sold for $1, the lowest price 
of the season. Last seven crates brought $1.60. The 
average was about $1.40 per 16-quart crate. We sold to 
retail grocers in Lansing and at the farm. Our price 
for nice fresh berries at the farm was 10 cents per quart 
the whole season. We set two acres last Spring five feet 
by 21 inches, and planted a row of beans or early pota¬ 
toes between each row. We cultivated them both ways 
until they commenced to run, then only one way. The 
beans and potatoes are ripe now (August 15), and we 
will remove them at once and give the strawberries all 
the room from now on. The rows are 20 rods long, 
and the Brandywine and Clyde plants look like small 
pumpkin vines. There is just as much difference in 
strawberries as in Chester White and Poland China 
pigs, and a man to make a success with them must find 
it out soon. I would like to say to beginners, if you 
wish to succeed in the garden business, work and use 
your brains; love your work and then work and use 
your brains some more. wm. A. olds. 
Ingham Co., MicF_ 
EXPERIENCE WITH WIRE FENCING. 
I have never used any of the heavy woven wire fences, 
as we use plain wire for all our wire fencing here. 1 
have, however, had some experience with one of the 
largely advertised brands of poultry fencing. The old- 
fasnioned diamond mesh poultry netting was the only 
kind of fence for poultry yards which I ever used until 
four years ago, when I purchased 50 rods of a patent 
fencing for poultry. It was certainly the best thing as far 
as looks and ease of erection went, and I was much 
pleased with it; but after only four years of use I find 
it is just about all rusted out, and will have to be re¬ 
placed by another season. Thus five years seems to be 
as long as that brand of fencing will last, and it cost 
50 cents a rod for a six-foot fence. I have some of the 
old-fashioned poultry netting that has been used twice 
,as long, and it seems as good as ever. Both kinds ot 
fencing were made of the same sized'wire, so the fault 
must lie in the galvanizing oi the fence. I am sure our 
climate here is not hard on a wire fence, for the air is, 
for a laige part of the year, fairly dry. Probably no 
wire fence would last as long in a moist location as it 
would where the air was more free from moisture. 
Greenville, N. Y. h. r. i. 
I was looking in 1899 and 1900 for fencing, and on ex¬ 
amining the several wire fences, I bought and had set up 
in 1901 and 1902 about 200 rods of fencing, a large part 
of it the very best they make as far as I could find out. 
It was 60 inches high, and, of course, would turn any¬ 
thing. Now, at three years, it is rusting badly. I also 
have some bought and erected in 1902 that seems to 
be rusting worse than that which was erected first, or 
in 1901. Instead of being galvanized, it appears to look 
something like galvanizing, but it turns black in a few 
months and then begins to rust. I put up at the same 
time poultry netting, the ordinary kind, which remains 
bright, when the first mentioned is black and rusty. 1 
doubt now if it will last as long as the common poultry 
netting; the only advantage is it is stronger, and will 
turn all kinds of stock, but at a tremendous expense. 
My place is about 25 miles from the seashore, so it is 
not likely that the sea air has anything to do with the 
rusting here. d. A. M. 
Jamesburg, N. J. 
You ask for farmers to give their experience in regard 
to wire fence since it has been manufactured by the 
trust. The first barbed wire I used was bought over 20 
years ago. I paid 11 cents per pound; it is now in as 
good condition as when bought; apparently good for¬ 
ever, while that I bought 10 years ago is rusted and 
worthless; in some places breaks with its own weight. 
I have on my farm over 600 rods of four-wire fence; the 
TREE TRUNK WITH VIRGINIA CREEPER. Pig. 289. 
inside fences are all wire. I saw a few days ago some 
of a woven fence; the stays are broken in many places 
and it looks as though the entire fence would be worth¬ 
less in a few years. One farm within six miles of where 
I live had a carload of wire fence; it has been taken 
down in some places and replaced by boards. 
Port Chester, N. Y. j. l. 
Here in the Ohio Valley, where this steel and wire is 
made, it is an open secret that it is a worthless product, 
both before and after galvanizing. In the good old 
days of puddled iron most of the impurities were worked 
out of the iron, leaving a tough fine-grained product. 
With the present wholesale rapid process the steel, as 
they call it, goes from the ore bin to the finished prod¬ 
uct with fewer heats and vastly less workings, and 
some of the steel workers here claim you can almost 
see the raw ore, coke and limestone in the finished steel. 
The manager of a large mill near here in contracting 
for a house for his own use forbid the use of steel nails, 
and required the old iron nails to be used. The best 
wire we can buy begins rusting the first year, and is 
practically worthless at from six to ten years. I can 
break a No. 8 wire by hand by drawing a tight loop in 
it and then straighten it out. T consider the base 
quality of the wire the root of the evil, as it is too hard 
and smooth to hold the galvin. I have some old iron 
wire 20 years old, not galvanized, in good order yet. 
Steubenville, O. j. H. H. 
ORCHARDS ON A HILLSIDE. 
C. A., Virginia, has a hillside too steep for profitable 
cultivation, and proposes to set it out with fruit trees. 
If there is a market for fruit without having to ship it 
too far his plan is a good one. Steep hillsides should 
never have been cleared, but kept to raise timber. They 
are difficult to cultivate, are apt to wash badly when 
cultivated, and the sooner they can be set to fruit or 
forest trees the better. In the region where I live, just 
as good trees, and as fair fruit can be raised on a hill¬ 
side as on level land. My grandfather planted out two 
orchards at about the same time, the one on the flats, 
or bottom land, and the other on a hillside.- Both were 
in full bearing as long ago as..I can. remember; .both 
were good bearing orchards; both contained the same 
varieties of fruit. The orchard on' the flats was fre¬ 
quently manured, plowed and cropped with g-ain or 
potatoes ; the one on the hillside (owing to its steepness) 
was seldom plowed, and seldom received any manure. 
That manure is a benefit to orchards we all know, and 
it nas generally been thought that cultivation was a 
benefit to fruit trees, unless the plowing was so deep 
that the roots were broken, but so far as indicated by 
appearance, the orchard on the hillside produced as 
many apples per tree and of as good quality as the 
orchard on the flats. 
The only disadvantage of a hillside orchard is the 
difficulty of placing the ladder for picking the apples, and 
the necessity of standing up boards on the edge held by 
stakes, to prevent the apples from rolling down the 
hill when the trees are shaken. But the disadvantages 
of plowing, harrowing anu getting crops drawn from 
a hillside are still greater, and as the plowing has to 
be done with a side-hill plow the tendency is to get all 
the best soil to the lower side of the field. If I were 
to set out an orchard on a hillside I would seed it to 
grass, mow the grass early, and leave it as a mulch. 
This would keep the ground moist and mellow, and pre¬ 
vent the growth of weeds. When fertilizer was needed 
the land could be top-dressed with coarse manure. 
j. w. INGHAM. 
A TALK ABOUT HAY BALING. 
I expect to bale about 50 tons of hay this Fall and to 
increase the amount to be baled from year to year. Will 
you give me your opinion as to which is the best horse¬ 
power press that can be bought for from 8125 to $300? 
Florence, Ala. j. j. m. 
I know of no power press that is worth anything that 
can be bought as low as $125; $150 is the minimum. 
Just how much more will depend on the make, capacity 
and how close one can buy of the manufacturers. It 
is poor economy for $25 or $50 on the purchase price 
to buy too small and weak a press for one’s own use, 
50 to 100 tons annually. If well housed it should last 
at least 20 years. There are two general types. The 
“perpetual” is where the hay is forced into the press by 
a plunger. The bales are very solid, weigh from 150 to 
ISO pounds each. Ten or 15 tons will easily go into an 
ordinary box car. In spite of the fact that they are 
small, easily handled and require very little room for 
storage, such bales usually bring $1 per ton less than 
larger ones, because the hay is more broken up and it is 
not easy to tell the quality from the exterior of the 
bale. Their capacity is greater than the upright press, 
and they are somewhat more complicated, but they do 
not require so much “knack” or effort on the part of 
the operator to do neat and rapid work. They are, how¬ 
ever, more costly. They can be operated by an engine 
and belt, according to the particular make, or by a pair 
of horses on a sweep. In most the horses have to 
swing back instead of going round and round. The 
latter is more desirable. There are several reliable 
makes, each of which has its peculiar points of excel¬ 
lence.. J he other style is the “upright,” less expensive 
and simpler. It makes a bale weighing from 200 to 250 
pounds. 1 he modern patterns also make a solid bale. 
Ten tons can be got in an ordinary 35-foot box car. 
The hay is stamped into the box by a man. From 5 to 12 
tons is. a day’s work. This wide variation will depend 
almost wholly on the skill of the operator. The writer 
had two men not over 21 put out over six tons of rye 
straw recently from 7 to 11.30 o’clock. As intimated 
above, the hay brings in most markets $1 more per 
ton more so pressed. The writer prefers and uses the 
upright press. _ E . v . a. 
BAD TASTE IN CISTERN WATER. 
r What will make cistern water taste “all right” now? 
'Phe cistern was washed clean in September. The water 
goes from one-half of cistern through two bricks (in the 
dividing wall) to the other one-half from which we drink. 
The water goes through a filter before entering the first 
half. Cedar shingles were put on the roof last Fall after 
the cistern was washed. Not quite as much water was ttsed 
out as usual until early this Spring (when it was not red). 
The eave spouts are of the best material. It is just be¬ 
ginning to smell and taste wrong. <-. 
Girard, I’a. 
It appears likely that notwithstanding the recent clean¬ 
ing, a sufficient, amount of organic matter has, in some 
manner, accumulated in the cistern to permit fermen¬ 
tation to become sufficiently rapid to develop the odors 
observed. The dust, always gathered by the raindrops 
from the atmosphere, is composed partly of organic 
matter which, added to that which the winds lodge upon 
the roof and the fibers ot shingle that weather loose 
and are necessarily carried into the cistern, accumulates 
more rapidly than one is at first led to expect. Such 
organic matter collects on the face of the filtering wall, 
against which the water first comes, and in time becomes 
sufficiently concentrated to permit fermentation to be¬ 
come so rapid and of such a character as to charge the 
water filtering through the fermenting layer with the 
gases of unpleasant odor, which are intensified, ot 
course, by the poor ventilation common to most cisterns. 
Nature’s filter, the soil and subsoil, supplemented by 
the deeper porous gravel, sand and rock layers, not only 
arrests the solid organic matter near the surface, where, 
under a far more abundant supply of air, oxidation is 
more nearly complete and the products of fermentation 
more nearly all of the odorless type; but the germs 
themselves, which cause the fermentation, are filtered 
out so that the soluble organic matter, carried in most 
clear spring and well water, cannot be fermented until 
the water becomes again seeded, as it may when drawn 
and left exposed for a time to the dust-laden air. The 
case is quite different with the cistern and its brick 
partition filter; here the germs have an opportunity to 
grow entirely through the filter, so that if the soluble 
organic content of the water on the filtered side of the 
cistern ever becomes concentrated enough to permit fer¬ 
mentation to take place in it the unpleasant odors may 
develop in the filtered water itself, and thus augment 
the products taken up by the water on the other side of 
the filter. The receiving side of the cistern should be 
cleaned often, thoroughly scrubbing the walls, espe¬ 
cially the filter surface, with a stiff brush to remove 
adhering matter. Watchfulness, is needed to take advan¬ 
tage of .times of low -water. The suction .cleaner is 
helpful, in removing .sediment from the bottom’, in cases 
of necessity, when the water is high, but this can never 
be thorough. F. H. king. 
