682 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 17, 
than that, and his work was thrown in. 1 mention this 
to illustrate how little common sense some farmers use 
in their work. Had this man weighed his feed and milk, 
then increased or diminished the amount of ground feed 
to a point where the cows paid for it, he would not now 
he wondering if there is as much money in dairying»as 
some people claim. I venture to say when Spring comes 
and so many dollars' worth of hay, grain and pasture 
have been consumed, and only so many dollars’ worth 
of milk and calves have been sold, that we shall be in¬ 
formed that there is no money in cows. Another has 
read that to be profitable a hog must be kept humping 
from birth till sold. Consequently he commences to 
“stuff” his pigs as soon as they can be induced t-o eat, 
and keeps them fat enough for market till sold. 1 have 
seen his hogs sitting on their haunches eating grass 
months before sold, too fat and lazy to walk. He re¬ 
marked to me that a neighbor told him he was putting 
more into his hogs than he would ever get out. He 
asked my opinion. He may have been making money on 
those hogs. I am not going to say that under his cir¬ 
cumstances there was no money in it. He was having 
the feed ground. Did that pay? He had heard it did, 
but didn’t know. He kept weighing them to see how 
rapidly they were gaining. Had he weighed their feed 
he could easily have decided whether his hogs were pay¬ 
ing for their feed and for the grinding of it. “Going 
it blind again.” 
IMAGINATION AND KNOWLEDGE.—I forgot to 
state that the “dairyman mentioned above plants his 
potatoes in the “old moon of June,” and has never been 
bothered with Potato bugs, and, judging from my first 
year’s observation of his early crop, he will not be both¬ 
ered greatly with potatoes. Does anyone suppose that 
the steel trust waits for any particular sign of the moon 
to submit its bid for furnishing armor plate to the Gov¬ 
ernment, or that the Standard Oil Co. waits for any 
particular “sign of the moon” to “shoot” a well ? What 
would farmers think of the shoemaker who should at¬ 
tempt to pilot an ocean liner across the Atlantic? Call 
him a fool or crazy. But the shoemaker would say, “All 
I have to do is to steer tms way or that so as to avoid 
rocks and shoals.” But where are the rocks and shoals ? 
He has never studied the charts to find out. So with 
the majority of farmers. They have never made an 
intelligent study of their business, and the instant they 
bear anyone say anything about “reading up” on such 
matters they begin to howl “book farmin’ won’t work,” 
“edicated fools,” “them pesky college perfessors,” etc. 
I, perhaps, have spent a great deal of time trying to 
make this one point, viz., that many failures among 
farmers are due to a lack of knowledge of the funda¬ 
mental principles of farming, and as soon as the farmer 
realizes that farming is a science needing his careful 
study, and then makes it a study and possesses the ability 
to put his knowledge into practice, he will come to look 
upon his vocation in a different light from many points 
of view. J. D. PRICKETT. 
Michigan. 
MANURE FROM PLANER SHAVINGS. 
If you have had any experience in using sawdust or planer 
shavings for bedding, will you tell us what effect they have 
on the manure? Complaints are sometimes made that the 
shavings injure the manure; that it is not so valuable as 
where stiav; is used for bedding. 
We have hardly used enough to form an opinion 
worth anything. What little shaving manure we have 
had we plowed into heavy clay soil, and feel that it 
helped break up the clay and hold it up looser than it 
was with other manure that rots quicker. Further than 
this we have nothing to say. timothy herrick. 
New York. 
I was connected with one farm for seven years. We 
used about one carload of planer shavings per week for 
bedding. I do not think there is much virtue in the 
shavings as a fertilizer, especially on a light sandy soil. 
We put the manure on heavy clay ground. I think on 
such a soil the shavings are beneficial, for they have a 
tendency to soften the ground. Where shavings are 
used for bedding I do not think the same value could be 
put on the manure. Where straw is used for bedding I 
believe it would be no more than fair to deduct the 
value of the rotten straw. j. v. beach. 
New York. 
Owing to the high price of wheat straw in our mar¬ 
ket (over $6 per ton) I am compelled to use some other 
form of bedding. I tried shavings, but did not like them 
in my box stalls, as they are not a good absorbent. Now 
I am getting fine dry pine sawdust from Michigan. Be¬ 
lieving it is not the best form of manure for my land, 
we pile it up for one year longer than we would if it 
were straw, and it is then better rotted than if fresher. 
In pile it does not leach as much nor burn as would 
straw manure. For horse stalls we consider it much 
better than peat moss at about one-half the cost. Of 
course we would much prefer straw, but it is simply 
“out of sight” at the price, although we can get hundreds 
of tons of fine straw at a cost of $2.50 per ton on cars 
at a distance, but the excessive freight rate puts the cost 
tOO high. R. F. SHANNON. 
Pittsburg, Pa. 
We are obliged to use a number of carloads of shav¬ 
ings for bedding every year. While all other things 
being equal, we should prefer straw, it is very difficult to 
get straw in sufficient quantities at a reasonable price, 
when carrying a large herd. Shavings are easily 
handled, keep the cattle fully as clean, and the manure 
is more readily spread on the farm. We doubt very 
much whether shavings are as good an absorbent as 
straw, and there is possibly a larger waste of the nitro¬ 
gen, but it is a hard question to determine the relative 
benefit to the land obtained from straw and shavings,- 
and perhaps only a chemist can satisfactorily decide it. 
I find that the large farms in our vicinity buy more and 
more shavings, from which it would appear that it was 
a question of necessity if not of choice. 
Mentor, O. H. b. vAn. cleve. 
Shavings for Bedding. 
I have never used shavings for bedding, but have from 
time to time used sawdust. I cannot see that either saw¬ 
dust or shavings can have any injurious effect on ma¬ 
nure. Certainly there can be no chemical action, and 
it would seem as if the worst fault would be that the 
shavings have so little absorbing quality. I would sug¬ 
gest that where sawdust or shavings are used for bed¬ 
ding, or in fact under any circumstances, a certain 
amount of land plaster be also used. My reasons for 
this are contained in an article I wrote about 10 years 
ago, which follows: 
GYPSUM AS A NITROGEN PRESERVER.- 
Every one is familiar with the smell of ammonia which 
is always found in stables. Ammonia is fourteen- 
seventeenths, or nearly all nitrogen, and nitrogen is by 
far the most expensive part of all commercial fertilizers, 
and is one of the most valuable of plant foods. If, 
then, the escape of nitrogen can be prevented a large 
leak on the farm will be stopped. The chemical composi¬ 
tion of the voidings of animals is dependent largely 
upon the chemical constituents of the foods fed. If, 
then, highly nitrogenous foods are used, large quanti¬ 
ties of nitrogen will be voided. This nitrogen when it 
leaves the cow is almost entirely in the form of ammon¬ 
ium carbonate, and in this combination is very vola¬ 
tile. Heat also increases the volatility, and as the fermen¬ 
tation which goes on in a manure heap generates a large 
amount of heat it follows that a large proportion of our 
nitrogen is driven off, and, in fact, if it were not for the 
oxidation of the carbonate, which takes place to some 
extent, forming nitrates and nitrites of ammonia, all of 
our nitrogen in many cases would be lost. The least 
expensive method of preserving our ammonia is by the 
use of common land plaster, also known as gypsum. 
This chemically is calcium sulphate, and converts the 
carbonate of ammonia into a sulphate, in which form 
it is non-volatile, but just as readily soluble as the car¬ 
bonate. Besides this it is a far better compound for 
use as a fertilizer. If manure fresh from the stable 
is spread upon land it is often noticed that the plants 
become somewhat burned. This is because the ammonia 
in the form of a carbonate is too strong, but in the 
form of a sulphate it has no such evil effects. Gypsum 
in most places costs about $5 per ton, and the simplest 
and by all odds the best way to apply it is by spread¬ 
ing it in the drops and along the floor back of the cattle. 
Occasionally one sees stables where lime is used on the 
floor instead of gypsum, and without going into the 
chemical action which occurs suffice it is to say that this 
is the worst compound which can be used, because the 
action which then takes place drives off the ammonia 
most rapidly. Try the use of gypsum in your cattle 
barns for a year and I think you will continue to use 
it. If you wish to experiment use it in one-half of the 
barn only, and use the manure from both halves on the 
same field and on the same crop, and 1 am sure you will 
then conclude to use it in your entire barn after you 
have seen the different results. g. Howard davison. 
Millbrook, N. Y._ 
HOW THEY HANDLE THE POTATO CROP. 
Will you tell us what your farmers have found to be the 
best way of digging and handling potatoes. If a digger Is 
used, how many can you dig in a fair day’s work? What is 
a good day’s work at picking up? Do you handle in bags 
or crates? Anything you can tell us about the most eco 
nomical way of harvesting the potato crop will be appre¬ 
ciated. 
About two-thirds of our farmers dig their potatoes 
with a potato digger, using three well known machines 
As the potatoes are dug they are picked up into crates 
holding one bushel each. The average amount dug per 
day is two to three acres, and four or five pickers will 
pick up the potatoes grown on that acreage unless it is an 
unusually heavy crop, when of course more help is re¬ 
quired. We find that on the average it costs about a 
cent per crate to pick them up. In addition it needs a 
good man with a team on the digger, and two men with 
teams to haul them edward f. dibble. 
Genesee Co., N. Y. 
As our soil here is loose, mellow and entirely fret 
from stones, we generally have an easier time digging 
potatoes than most farmers. We use a Dowden digger 
with four good horses and can throw out the potatoes 
as fast as 12 men can pick them up. If potatoes are 
very heavy it will take more more men than this. The 
digger can do six acres a day or better, but if the pota¬ 
toes are heavy we have never yet succeeded in getting 
anywhere near that many picked in a day. About 1,000 
bushels is the best we have ever been able to do in a 
day and that only means about three acres of good pota 
toes. If ground is free from weeds and the potatoes 
are plenty, we figure about 100 bushels as a good day’s 
work for a good picker. Of course many of them will 
fall below this. We use wire baskets holding a half 
bushel each, and dump into sacks. Put a bushel in a 
sack and do not tie. These are loaded on to a low flat¬ 
bed wagon, about 50 bushels to a load, and hauled to the 
house or car. The sacks are easy to handle, and one 
man can dump them as fast as another can hand them 
out of the wagon, so that very little time is lost. The 
empty sacks are much easier handled than empty crates, 
and the full ones are easier to load, as they can be thrown 
on almost any way. Generally the teams on the digger 
have time to do all the hauling, while waiting for the 
pickers to catch up with the digger. With good pota¬ 
toes and a short haul, we can generally count on putting 
them in the cellar or car at a cost of three cents per 
bushel. In weedy ground it often costs up to five cents 
per bushel. henry field. 
Page Co., Iowa. 
The method in general use hereabouts is for the farm¬ 
er and his man to dig a load and while the farmer is 
selling them, which usually takes the greater part of a 
day, depending on the distance from market, the hired 
man does the chores and digs another load. Bushel 
crates are quite generally used. Circumstances have 
compelled us to to adopt quite a different plan. Our 
farm is located 20 miles away. We plant with a Rob¬ 
bins planter, dig with a Hoover digger. The tenant 
on the farm is hired by the month the year round and 
his children pick the potatoes at two cents per bushel, 
putting them in crates. The father digs as many as he 
needs for that day, from 150 to 200 bushels, then puts 
his team to a wagon, and he and his oldest son drive 
along emptying a crate into a sack, afterwards drawing 
them to the car. Our crop is yielding from 300 to 400 
bushels per acre and it will not be hard work to lay 
out 2,000 bushels in a day. One of our men timed him¬ 
self picking potatoes behind the digger a few days since, 
while spending time at the farm; he said he “could pick 
up 100 bushels a day easy enough, and have lots of 
time to chin with the girls on the next rows.” Potatoes 
are selling very low here at present, 45 cents at whole¬ 
sale. Some crops are more than half rotten, and farm¬ 
ers having comparative leisure are rushing them into 
market before they all rot. I find the larger proportioi. 
of rotten ones where stable manure has been used. I 
attribute our freedom from rot to a well-drained soil, 
clover sod and fertilizer, together with a thorough bath 
in a formalin solution before planting. 
Luzerne Co., Pa. m. garrahan. 
HOMEMADE PLANK DRAG.—I have a homemade 
plank leveller and clod crusher which I think an improve¬ 
ment upon those made by overlapping planks. It does 
exceedingly good work, levelling so a field may be made 
as even as a floor. Mine is about eight feet wide and 
six feet long. I have tried to show how it is made in 
Fig. 303. Two planks are set on edge, and a series of 
planks notched into their lower edges, sloping backwards 
at an angle of about 45 degrees. I have tried to present 
a view of one plank on edge, showing how the cross 
planks are inserted. I make , the forward cross planks 
shorter than those in rear, as it leaves smoother work 
made thus. Board may be nailed on top to stand upon 
when it is desired to do extra heavy scraping. 
Massachusetts. m. morse. 
