322 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
April 16 
still higher, with a cleat on each edge of the board. 
When the bunch is removed from the tub it is placed 
on the board to drain and another bunch goes in the 
tub. In this way the shingles are saturated with the 
petroleum at a cost of less than 15 cents per 1,000. 
After they have been laid 10 or 12 years I would 
recommend the application of petroleum in the form 
of a spray, and repeat the operation every 10 or 12 
years. I have good reason for believing that cheap 
pine shingles so treated will last for 50 years at least. 
Crude petroleum should be found on every farm, and 
would be if the owners knew of its good qualities. I 
use it for spraying hen roosts, oiling harness (old 
and stiff leather can be made nice and pliable by it), 
boot and shoe dressing, rubbing on all tool handles 
and all such woodwork that is unpainted and exposed 
to the weather. It is a fine thing to use for cleaning 
the hands of grime, and rendering the skin soft. A 
friend had a corn between the toes that was very 
painful, and the nightly application for a week of a 
bit of cotton wool saturated with crude petroleum 
cured it entirely. But I will tell no more about its 
usefulness for fear of being accused of drawing on my 
imagination. w. o. breed. 
Cumberland Co., Me. 
TERMS FOR DAIRY TENANTS. 
As help is so hard to obtain, and those who could be 
employed prefer to be their own boss, we are (some of 
us at least) letting our places to renters and finding 
everything, giving them one-third and they doing the 
work. In such cases the team is to be kept from undi¬ 
vided products, and the cows; they were to manufacture 
the milk for the same. If the owner takes his share 
(two-thirds) before being manufactured, and he works 
it up, whose is the milk that has been skimmed? To 
restate, the owner furnishes teams, seeds, tools; in fact, 
everything; keeps teams shod and stands all breakages, 
paying for thrashing, furnishing house, garden and fire¬ 
wood; keeping one cow and allowing one-third of the 
increase on cattle and sheep. Ought the owner to do 
more? m. h. a. 
Moreland, N. Y. 
I have been interested in renting farms upon shares, 
working them with a foreman and hired labor, and 
taking the active lead in doing farm work myself 
for over 25 years. The last-mentioned, of course, is 
the most satisfactory, and it is most regrettable that 
American farmers are disposed to work upon the 
farm, doing two days’ work in one, until the finances 
are satisfactory and then bolt the job, go to town and 
have trouble with the farm from that time on. Farms 
with us are usually rented about after this fashion, 
and these are dairy farms: The owner furnishes the 
cows and keeps the dairy in repair, furnishes one-half 
of all material in any way purchased for stock except 
so-called coarse fodders, which the farm must furnish. 
The labor of the tenant is supposed to raise and har¬ 
vest hay, silage and straw sufficient for the stock; if 
it does not the owner must supply. The owner also 
furnishes one-half of all seeds except grass and 
clovers, of which he buys all. The tenant brings to 
this farm horses and farm equipment, furnishes one- 
half of grain purchased, owns one-half of hogs, and 
has one-half of all stuff—milk, hogs, potatoes anJ 
grain. Each pay one-half the taxes, the tenant doing 
all of the work. On this last statement “hangs a 
tale.” No amount of legal literature can be promul¬ 
gated that will describe just what all of the work 
means. No more flexible rule or law was ever at¬ 
tempted. I have two farms rented in this way. The 
cows are in the finest condition, clean and free from 
manure and dirt. Six of them have just been sold 
for beef, having ceased to milk profitably. Barns are 
swept daily, in fact I do not see how owners could 
do more. Now another picture. I have been in a half 
dozen stables this Spring, tenant farms, and this is 
the way things looked. No bedding, cows dirty, long 
shaggy coats, gaunt, thin in flesh, and thin udders. 
Here were two extremes under the same rule, and 
both, legally speaking, probably living up to the con¬ 
tract. These two men mentioned are not only getting 
returns for their labor direct, but I am also helping 
them in this way or that to bridge over the hard 
rough places that always come. In other words, 
there is the fullest confidence between the interested 
parties, and the law between them is sufficiently flex¬ 
ible so that good work can always be done. I have 
written at length before coming to the question to 
show that strictly arbitrary rules over minor matters 
are impossible for best results. 
I should say in your case that the division of skim- 
milk would be in the same proportion as the full 
milk, one-third and two-thirds, but the owner would 
be entitled to a credit from the tenant for the expense 
of manufacturing the milk. Judging from my point 
of view the owner would not need to do more, and 
yet if one knew the circumstances, the tenant being 
an industrious interested man, working for the good 
of the concern, I might think it a good investment to 
assist him at times. I should much prefer to receive 
$100 and the tenant get $200 rather than to get the 
same amount and the tenant get nothing. I know of 
many men who rent farms who will not adjust the 
business in a way that the tenant can secure more 
than a bare living, because they cannot get more. 
This liberal policy that I am advising will not work 
with every tenant, but when it will not work I will 
guarantee that no legal form will be strong enough to 
satisfy all. Remember a great underlying, unwrit¬ 
ten, organic, economic law, that the man who bears 
responsibility and looks after details, and does the 
hard work is the fellow who must have the cream of 
the profits, whether in office or field, and a thought¬ 
less disregard of this principle^Jireeds poverty upon 
many a tenant farm for both tenant and owner. 
H. E. COOK. 
GRAPEVINES ON AN OLD HOUSE. 
Figs. 135 and 136 show a very old farmhouse that 
we rented and lived in for four happy years. When 
A START WITH GRAPEVINES. Fro. 135. 
we moved in it was a most desolate and dilapidated 
looking place, and the owner when I asked him if I 
might plant grapevines around the house, said he 
was willing (there was not a grapevine or other small 
fruit plant on the place), so Fig. 135 shows how the 
house looked when we had lived in it just 15 months, 
and Fig. 136 shows it two years later. The vine- 
covered arbor was 40 feet long by eight feet wide 
(house facing east), and also extending across the 
south end the same way. This old yard had never 
known what a lawn mower was, but soon there was a 
TWO YEARS AFTER. NEAR THE FINISH. Fig. 136. 
most beautiful lawn all around the old house, about 
one-eighth of an acre of it all. We now have a home 
of our own in another county, and have peach trees, 
grapevines and many things growing. But our house 
is new, and not so romantic looking yet as that old 
house was when we left it. wu. g. drew. 
Morrow Co., Ohio. 
NEW YORK GLACIERS.—I went into the country 
March 14 and in some places for miles the ice was a 
foot or more thick in the road. A couple of weeks ago 
it rained enough to fill the snow with water and then 
turned suddenly cold, and the whole thing turned to 
solid ice, a perfect glacier. Yesterday we had another 
fcnowstorm, about six Inches fell, and it looks like more 
to-day, but I guess July will make it sweat. J. s. w. 
Niagara Co., N. Y. 
A FRUIT GROWER WANTS TO KNOW. 
I think every orchardist who reads the discussion 
in The R. N.-Y. as to the better way to propagate 
trees—from bearing trees or the nursery row—will be 
interested, as he is the one most affected by the re¬ 
sult. Every fruit grower knows one tree may bear 
more abundantly and better fruit than others of the 
same variety near it. Would anyone hesitate which 
tree to propagate from if he were .growing the trees 
for his own orchard? To be sure the buds from the 
nursery row may be but one generation from the 
bearing tree, but might not they be affected by dis¬ 
ease of the stock upon which they were grown, or 
from other causes that did not affect the bearing tree 
from which they were originally taken? Has not the 
stock upon which the buds or scions are placed as 
much (or at least some) effect upon the bearing quali¬ 
ties of the tree as the buds and scions, or is it the 
buds and scions that have the entire effect on the 
fruiting? In purchasing pits for the nursery row we 
cannot be absolutely sure they are from healthy trees. 
In case they were from unhealthy trees would not 
stock grown from such pits (even if budded or graft¬ 
ed with perfectly healthy buds and scions) affect the 
fruit or the fruiting quality of the trees, and would 
the tree be healthy and as long-lived? It is well 
known that many of the ailments of the human race 
are hereditary; do not the same laws govern the fruit 
world? If so, may not disease be conveyed to the tree 
as readily through the pit as through the bud? Will 
pits from unhealthy trees produce as good trees (even 
though budded with healthy buds) as if those pits 
were grown on healthy trees? Turn on the search¬ 
light and let us know why our trees do not always 
do well after we have given them good treatment. 
The orchardists want to know if it is our fault after 
we get the trees or the fault of some one else before 
we get them. w. h. s. 
Rocky Hill, N. J. 
INDIANA’S FRUIT INDUSTRY. 
Here and there all over the United States are found 
large sections of country that are specially adapted 
to the production of various kinds of fruits, and where 
farmers have learned to take advantage of these nat¬ 
ural advantages they are prospering in a most satis¬ 
factory manner. It requires some time and experi¬ 
mentation to demonstrate what lines of farming are 
likely to be most profitable in any section of the coun¬ 
try that is being developed. While some portions of 
our State have been settled and farmed after a fash¬ 
ion for 100 years it has only been a few years since 
special lines of farming have developed in certain 
parts and proven to be very remunerative. This is 
especially true of our fruit industry. The southern 
part of the State, including about one-third of its 
area, is rough or rolling land. The streams that 
drain nearly all of the central and northern portions 
of the State find an outlet down through the hill and 
knob country that reaches back from the Ohio River, 
so that in addition to the rough lands we find here 
some of the very richest and most productive alluvial 
soils to be found anywhere. But we must get back 
among the hills to find fruit land. Both the small 
and tree fruit industries are being developed rapidly. 
The small, fruit business has sprung up in various 
localities in the past 10 or 15 years. On knob lands 
round about New Albany, where 15 or 20 years ago 
farming had been given up on account of its being 
impossible to make a living thereon, we find to-day 
some of the most productive acres in the Ohio Valley 
—lands which sold 20 years ago for from $3 to $5 per 
acre, are now exchanging hands at $100 or more, ac¬ 
cording to location. They are selling at these figures 
because of the fact that they are bringing to their 
owners a net profit of from $200 to $500 per acre, 
cultivated to small fruits. Certain other localities 
have proven to be specially adapted to tree fruit cul¬ 
ture and rapid developments are being made along 
this line. The fruit that promises most to the pro¬ 
ducer here is the apple. 
Desirable unimproved lands for apple growing can 
be bought for $5 to $20 per acre, improved lands 
from $10 to $30. Much good fruit land is to be found 
on the hills that have been abandoned for grain grow¬ 
ing. While the far-western tide of emigration has 
been checked, because most all desirable lands had 
been taken up, it would be well to look back eastward 
a little, and give some attention to lands that have 
been passed by for the reason that they were thought 
to be undesirable, but which are proving as profitable 
under the right sort of manipulation as are the most 
fertile regions devoted to grain growing. Markets 
are always an important consideration in fruit grow¬ 
ing, but having such cities as Cincinnati, Chicago, 
Detroit, St. Louis and Louisville round about us there 
is a demand right at home for all the surplus fruit 
that will be produced for many years to come. When 
conditions are favorable for fruit culture of any kind 
and the culturist possesses knowledge and experi¬ 
ence sufficient to insure success there is no branch of 
farming that promises better rewards. 
Indiana. w. ir. stevens. 
