49o 
T1IE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 25 
very much attention. Last Fall, at the suggestion of Prof. 
L. A. Clinton, of the Connecticut Agricultural College, 
I sowed a peck with 1J4 bushel of rye upon an acre of 
corn stubble. During the Fall and Winter the vetch 
made but little show in the rye, but in May the growth 
began, and May 28, when the crop was cut to preserve 
the palatability of the rye, the vetch was doing finely, but 
needed one or two weeks’ more growth. Apparently its 
maturity is nearer that of wheat. If so a wheat and 
vetch mixture would be a good thing, although contrary 
to Scripture. Indications prophesy that vetch is an im¬ 
portant coming forage crop for New England, because 
it is a Winter legume. The high price of the seed is a 
drawback to its introduction, but this may be remedied, 
as the price is said to be high from lack of demand 
rather than from intrinsic expense of raising. 
Since going out to St. Louis I have been carefully 
through the State exhibits, and interviewed such men as 
1 could find connected with them upon the subject of 
vetches with the following results: I have put down 
section and exhibit number so that if anyone going there 
later wished to pursue the investigation he could do so. 
In the Canada exhibit. Section 111, vetch seed .was 
shown, No. 2789. It is not sown there with Winter 
grains, but as a Summer crop either alone or with oats 
or oats and peas. It matures two or three weeks ahead 
of oats and peas. In the Virginia exhibit, Section 120, 
exhibit No. 777, Sand or Hairy vetch seed is shown. 
In the Louisiana exhibit, Section 102, exhibit No. 14G, 
vetch seed is shown. Oregon has a small exhibit ol 
vetch seed. Colorado has no exhibit of vetch seed, as it 
grows wild there and is not cultivated. It i§ highly 
esteemed, however, as a valuable forage crop, self-sow j 
ing on fallow ground. A sample of wild vetch forage 
was shown in their forage exhibit. Texas had a small 
exhibit of vetch seed. Georgia showed a bale of dried 
vetch fodder. South Dakota had both plants and seeds 
on exhibition. Inquiring of the man in charge of the 
exhibit of the relative cost of producing clover and vetch 
seed, he told me that vetch seed could be produced much 
cheaper than clover, the principal disadvantage in its 
production being that vetch seed does not all mature at 
once, so that considerable of the seed crop will be 
wasted. He had found vetch to be a perennial plant. 
Wisconsin also showed vetch seed, and showed a com¬ 
mercial sense of its economic importance. We see from 
this that while the vetch crop is not understood very 
well in the East, it has a foothold from Canada to Vir¬ 
ginia and Louisiana to Oregon. e. c. birge. 
Connecticut. 
HOUSE FOR VEGETABLE PLANTS . 
What is the ideal house tn which to grow a full line of 
early vegetable plants? (Jive dimensions of houses and the 
best heating and piping, and best kind of benches. I would 
want to grow at least a million early cabbages and cauli¬ 
flower, and two million celery, besides peppers and egg 
plants, and tomatoes in proportion. I suppose the houses 
could be utilized in the Fall and early Winter for radishes 
and lettuce. What would be the most profitable to grow in 
die Summer? I am located 85 miles south of Chicago, in 
the best farming country In Illinois. reader. 
Illinois. 
Provided the space is economically divided, the dimen¬ 
sions of a house for starting vegetable plants will make 
little difference; feet is a good width for the benches 
along the walls and seven feet for the middle benches. 
A house 18 feet in width will provide for one center 
bench and two walks, each two feet wide, while 27 feet 
will give room for two wide benches. Walls five feet 
high will permit the use of two feet of glass in the sides 
of the house, but if glass is not to be put in, walls four 
feet high will answer. An even-span house should have 
the ridge six feet above the level of the plates if the 
house is 18 feet wide, and eight feet if it is 27 feet in 
width. If the houses are to be used for forcing vegeta¬ 
bles during the Winter, it is a good plan to make the 
plate six feet high, and by building three houses ridge- 
and-fuTrow the gutters can be supported by gas-pipe 
posts, and there will be no occasion for a wall between 
the houses. It will be well to make the outside beds at 
a height of 2J4 feet, but the others may be solid beds 
raised a few inches above the walks. At least three 
houses IS by 100 feet, or two houses 27 by 100 feet, will be 
required for a business of the magnitude described, and in 
addition a range of hotbeds and cold frames about 1,000 
feet in length will be required. Although steam may be 
used, hot water will probably prove more satisfactory 
unless it is proposed considerably to enlarge the plant 
within a year or two. Almost any of the cast-iron 
hot-water heaters will give good results, and a tubular 
steam boiler with large outlets and inlets may also be 
used for hot water heating. To warm a house 18 by 100 
feet to 50 degrees, two two-inch flows and eight two- 
inch returns will be desirable for economical heating. 
For a house 27 feet in width the number of flows and 
returns should be increased one-half. 
After taking off one crop of lettuce or radishes in the 
early Winter, the seeds for a portion of the extra early 
cabbages and cauliflower should be sown, and the 
others should be planted at intervals of a week or two 
up to the first of March. Those which were sown by 
the middle of January will be ready to prick out in 
flats in about three weeks, and in two or three weeks 
more they will have grown sufficiently so that they may 
be transferred to hotbeds and give room for the second 
sowing. For some years the cucumber crop has been 
very profitable in forcing houses during the Spring and 
early Summer. The plants should be started by the 
first of January and will begin to run by the middle of 
March, when the caooage plants can be so arranged in 
the houses as to permit the planting of the cucumbers 
in the beds. As the cabbage plants will require a lower 
temperature than will be needed by the cucumbers they 
should be transferred to the hotbeds as soon as possible 
and the houses filled with tomatoes, peppers, egg plants 
and others which require about the same temperature as 
cucumbers. , l. r. taft. 
Agricultural College, Michigan. 
There is not much satisfaction in giving directions 
how to build greenhouses. I have learned my lesson 
by experience at a great expense. I have thrown out 
the hot-water heating and put in steam, and made many 
improvements. Do not use benches at all, but beds on 
the solid ground. I think a house 40 feet wide, 300 feet 
long, about the right thing, with 16-foot rafters on back 
and 30 on front; six feet high in back, four feet in front. 
I do not think discussion would amount to much in 
this matter, because there are many who would discuss 
it who know very little about it, but a man who has 
A SAMPLE OF BRIDGE-GRAFTING. Fig. 211. 
30 to 40 houses could tell more than 20 who only had a 
few. The inquirer would require a number of houses, 
20 at least. w. w. rawson. 
Boston, Mass. 
Regarding the capacity of a house of certain dimen¬ 
sions I do not care to speak; the ability of the manager 
will be the measure of the capacity. The proprietor of 
the business ought to understand every detail, so that 
he could, if necessary, build the house, pipe it, fire it, 
and take any man’s place on the job—that is, for the 
best results. Some men will get as much again out of a 
house as another. If I were building a house for 
vegetables, I would excavate a trench for the walls 2]/ 2 
feet deep, fill to near the surface with broken stone, 
grouted thoroughly; on this foundation the side walls 
would be started of concrete. At 18 or 24 inches 
above the surface an offset of say, three inches would 
be left for the back of a cold frame—in fact, the front 
of frame would also be of concrete, as well as the ends. 
My posts would also be of concrete, with angle iron 
2 x 2>4 for plates; fasten plates to posts with nails 
while still plastic, to bolt the sash bars at the distance 
in which holes have been bored. Corresponding to 
the width of glass used, under the plates there would 
be about two feet of side lights; the glass would be 
“A” quality double thick, put in with liquid putty. I 
prefer about 27 feet in width, taking a 16-foot sash 
bar, best quality Gulf cypress, grooved for water drip. 
One row of 214-inch pipes for center posts under the 
ridge. One inch under the purlines midway of the 
sash bars, an excavation would be made for the foot 
of those posts, a flange screwed on them, and set on 
a concrete foundation a foot below the surface, then 
filled to the top of the ground with more concrete. As 
for the beds, there wouldn’t be any; my arrangements 
would be made to drive a horse and cart right through 
from end to end, and the beds would be on the ground. 
If I had to have beds, I should make them of concrete 
also. It is very easy, and you don’t have to infringe on 
anybody’s patent, either. 
How will it be heated? As for myself, I should com¬ 
mence in time to look around for a pretty good second¬ 
hand locomotive boiler, or that type, preferably with 
return flues. I should set it on the level and put a con¬ 
crete tank down in the hole where they used to place 
the boiler, and the return would empty in the tank; 
from there it would be pumped to the boiler. I find 
the cinder from the boiler is just as good as anything 
for concrete work. There are lots of firms who will 
furnish a lot more information than I can; in fact, fur¬ 
nish the plan and build the house. m. garraiian. 
Pennsylvania. _ 
CERTIFIED MILK. 
It is the general opinion among farmers that “certified 
milk” can only be produced by wealthy men who carry 
on their farms as a sort of fad, but the facts show this 
idea to be entirely erroneous. Any dairy farmer can 
produce “certified milk” who is willing to produce 
clean milk and pay proper attention to some of the 
important details. The average price paid for certified 
milk is about five cents per quart; the writer has been 
connected with a business that paid six cents per quart, 
but he also knows of farmers who are getting about 4 
to 4'/2 cents per quart. Prices paid to the farmer for 
certified milk depend upon the arrangements made with 
the dealer; there are certain extra expenses, such as 
extra help to groom the cows, putting the barn in shape 
for proper sanitary and regular cleansing, the charges 
for the Milk Commission incurred by the expenses ol 
the inspector whom they employ, and some other items; 
these are sometimes paid by the dealer, and then the 
farmer gets perhaps one-half cent above the market 
price for his work and care in handling the milk. 
The writer believes it is to the interest of the far¬ 
mer, and a better business arrangement for the farmer, 
to do all the fixing up and pay the necessary expenses, 
and to arrange a price of five cents per quart for the 
milk delivered to the creamery or railroad, but this price 
not to include the paying of the Milk Commission 
charges, which range from $8 to $15 per month, and also 
not to include the payment of the metal caps which 
are required. The bottles, cases and such matter should 
of course be furnished by the dealer; as the common- 
sense bottles are used, it is a question who shall pay 
for the wood pulp caps. This should be determined 
by what printing goes upon it; if the dealer wishes his 
name upon it, then he should pay for it, and it is to 
his interest to have it this way, but it is also to the 
interest of the producer to have his name or the name 
of his farm upon the cap. If the dealer is willing, it 
seems to the writer that it is greatly to the advantage 
of the producer to have his own advertising matter with 
his address upon it; as the customer who gets this milk 
and uses it daily will come to know the name, and the 
producer will thus eventually be in a better position to 
arrange the price most satisfactorily with the dealer. 
The Milk Commission has passed a rule that the name 
of the farm or producer’s name be placed upon the cap, 
so that it may be distinguished from the other farms 
which produce certified milk, but some of the dealers 
who wish only to advertise their own name and not that 
of the producer have arranged to put their own name 
in various distinguishable forms upon the caps; these 
caps only cost from 16 to 25 cents per 1,000 when 
bought in quantities, including the printing. A rule 
has also been passed recently by the Milk Commission 
that the caps shall all bear the date of milking upon 
them, and this is done to protect both the consumer 
and the producer, as it has occurred that dealers have 
put out milk from the day before, which they had left 
over, and this is not always to the advantage of either 
the producer or the consumer. The usual method ot 
dating the milk is to have a changeable rubber stamp, 
in which the months, days and years can be changed, 
such a stamp can be had for from 15 to 25 cents and 
an ink pad for about the same. Some dealers furnish a 
printed slip for the various days of the month, marked 
milk of the first or second or third day of this month ; 
thus the same kind of slips can be used for the first, 
second, third, etc., day of any month, and none is 
wasted. 
The various requirements of the Milk Commission 
will be treated individually in separate articles which 
will appear in I he R. N.-Y., with the best methods ot 
fulfilling these conditions. It is the purpose of this 
article to awaken the interest of the dairy farmers who 
are interested in the improvement of their dairies and 
those who deserve to get better prices for their products. 
I hat there is plenty of room on top there is no doubt. 
A few years ago there were but about 3,000 quarts of 
milk selling in New York at a price over eight cents 
per quart. Now there are at least 12,000 quarts selling 
at 10 cents or over, some selling at 18 cents per quart, 
and the writer believes there is a market for everyone 
who is ready and willing to move forward and improve 
his dairy. Details of the various farms producing certi¬ 
fied milk, (he co-operation which tlie State Agricul¬ 
tural Department should give the dairy farmers, and 
similar articles relating to the certified milk question 
will also be given in future issues. e. n. e. 
